This weeks roundup is full of content marketing and blogging advice. There’s a couple of tutorials for you to follow, a look at the trend towards collaboration via digital media and an article on the benefits of Twitter chats.
A guide to getting everlasting traffic with keyword research
I’ve been dabbling with keyword research for my blog this year. I’ve only got as far as using Google keyword planner but am already finding it useful for both inspiration and for finding the right terms I should be optimising for.
After reading this detailed article from The Next Web It seems I’m just scratching the surface. It includes a thought process and a really good method for keyword research. It’s one I’m going to have to try out.
6 Questions to Find and Claim Your Brand Voice
The second link I am sharing ties in quite nicely to the first. If we are going to be more targeted with our keywords, ensuring that we speak the language our customers recognise, we need to think more clearly about our brand voice. We need to make sure that whoever is updating our accounts has a very specific idea of how they should speak and what they should talk about.
For a small or one person business this can be as important as with a large brand. Setting yourself guidelines will help you stay consistent and avoid any chance of you posting something inappropriate or totally off topic.
Following the steps in this guide from Social Media Today will set you on the right track for thinking about your brand voice.
7 Creative Proofreading Tips To Transform Your Jaggedy Draft into a Polished Post
We talked about proofreading on the recent #talkingsoc Twitter chat. We discovered that most of us proof read our blogs by speaking them aloud. I find I’m putting more time into editing and proofreading my blogs recently. Because of that I’m always looking for tips on how to make the process easier and this article has given me a few new things to focus on. It’s a must read for any blogger.
The Collaborative Economy Is Coming for Your Business. Are You Ready?
There is a new digital trend and it’s one I’d be terrified of if I was a hotel, taxi company or car hire or sales company. It’s the trend towards services like Hailo, Airbnb and Uber. All three of these offer either a better experience for customers or the opportunity to save money by sharing. Hailo is an app that will hire you a cab cutting out the need for the minicab office. Airbnb lets you rent out your home or a room in your home and Uber does the same for your car.
I fond this article on collaboration a fascinating read, it not only lays out what these tools mean to competing businesses it also looks at how businesses have reacted both by trying to put restrictions on the services and by collaborating with them. Personally I think those who try and collaborate or put their own twist on the collaboration model are far more likely to succeed.
5 Basic Content Types Customers Need
Are you stuck for content? Is the idea that you don’t have anything to blog about holding you back from starting? There are lots of ways to find inspiration but there are some key kinds of content that will always attract and help your customer. Here are 5 that Heidi Cohen sees as essential and I tend to agree. I particularly like the ‘How much does it cost’ segment. It links to a really great example of how to answer this question.
6 Ways Twitter Chats Can Help You Connect With Your Audience
I’m a huge fan of Twitter chats as I find I can learn a lot from them, I get to meet tweeters with common interests and I can get inspiration for blog posts and social media content. Sadly most regular Twitter Chats on Digital Marketing take place in the middle of the night for me as they are hosted in the States.
For that reason we launched a monthly Twitter chat on the topic over at We Teach Social. #TalkingSoc takes place on the last Thursday of the month at 9pm GMT (4pm EST). I’ve been really enjoying it so far.
If you want to get involved in Twitter chats this article from Social Media Examiner will give you some great advice on how to get the most from them and how they can help you connect with your audience.
Why The Blogging Experts Are Wrong About Headlines
I’m seeing a lot of blog posts about blog headlines lately. Creating good headlines can be key in getting people to actually click that link you are posting on social media sites. As the competition to capture your audiences attention grows getting the headlines right is becoming more important.
I enjoyed reading this piece on the Pushing Social blog as it’s challenging some of the advice that we constantly see being regurgitated and gives us some fresh perspectives.
And from Spiderworking This Week
How To Tell Your Twitter Stories With Storify – Cool Tool
Storify helps you bring together content from across the web into a timeline to tell a story. It was a particularly handy way to collate the content from our recent Tweet chat. Read more on the benefits and how to use it here.
How To Add Milestones To Your Facebook Business Timeline [Tutorial]
Facebook milestones can be an excellent story telling device. They can help you tell the story of your business and engage your customers over a period of time. This weeks video cast shows you how to add Milestones to your Facebook business timeline. Watch it here.
4 Ways To Use Visual Storytelling On Facebook
Last year everyone seemed to be talking about social media storytelling so I thought I’d look at the concept in more depth this month. What exactly does the term mean and why does it work? I started with Facebook and discovered four ways that businesses in my newsfeed were using visual storytelling to capture the attention of their audiences. Read more here.
