#MarketingTrends2018 – Sharing Your Content Online

 
 
So you just finished writing a killer blog post. It’s on point, tinged with humor, and loaded with insight. You’re feeling pretty good. All that’s left to do is post it. You push the publish button and bingo! You’re done.
…not so fast! You’re just getting started. Creating great content is hard work. It takes a lot more than time. It takes planning, thought, research, and creativity. And unless you’re a world-famous blogger with millions of followers, your blog post isn’t going anywhere without a little extra work. You might get some likes and shares but are you really going to get the return on your investment that you deserve?
So how do you get the most out of your blog post? Promote your content in other places. To help you get started, we’ll talk about a few of the most effective places you can share your content.
  1. Social Media Platforms: We’re assuming you’ve posted your content to your own blog since that’s the way most people do it. And that way can certainly be effective. You want to be sure you also post it on your social media profiles–Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest…wherever you have a presence, share your content! When posting, be sure to include a featured image since tests have shown that you are much more likely to get engagement when a graphic is included.
  2. Your Website:If your website is not connected to your blog, post your content on your site. One popular way to do this is to have a section for featured articles. Even better, link your blog to your site.
  3. LinkedIn Pulse:LinkedIn is a powerful tool for connecting with others in your industry. You can publish articles, connect via groups, and make contact with key influencers. Depending on the content you share, you may be able to utilize LinkedIn’s article publishing tool that is integrated into your feed. For more specialized content, it may make more sense to post in a group. Either way, LinkedIn is an effective way to share all sorts of content.
  4. Quora: Quora is a Q&A platform where users submit questions and people of the web provide answers. It may take some time to find a question that matches your expertise but once you do it’s a great place to post a link to your content. Check the guidelines for using the site to make sure that you comply with the rules.
  5. SlideShare: SlideShare, owned by LinkedIn, is a hosting platform designed to allow users to upload slideshows so they are available to the world (think YouTube for slideshows). While you may not be able to post your content without repurposing it, SlideShare can enable you to reach a whole new audience.
  6. Email Marketing: Sharing your best content to your subscribers is often considered an excellent way to grab the attention of the followers that matter most. To ensure that you list feels like a VIP club, don’t share everything – just the best of the best!

 

There are many places to share your existing content. The trick is to find the sites that are most appropriate for your industry and the people you are trying to reach. With a little homework and a little extra time, you’ll soon be reaching a much wider audience and getting the attention your content deserves.
 
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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

#MarketingTrends2018 – Coming Up with Blog Content for the Year

 

It’s hard to know just how many blogs there are out there. Some estimates put the number as high as 152 million. That’s a lot of blogs. So if there are that many blogs then it must be easy, right?
No question, it’s easy to start a blog. What’s not so easy is maintaining vibrant and creative content. When it comes down to it, most blogs aren’t all that effective when it comes to maintaining reader interest, attracting new customers, and engaging the community.
The reason that so many blogs miss the mark is that their content is unfocused and fails to support business objectives. Yes, it’s all about the content. But how do you come up with good content week after week? Here are five tips on ways you can spark those creative juices and develop engaging and consistent content.
  1. Create a plan: Your number one weapon in battling with blank pages is to develop a strategy for your content. That means mapping out what you want to talk about for over a period of time rather than coming up with your topics on an ad hoc basis.
  2. Stick with themes: Having a social media strategy that incorporates a series of themes can be a highly effective strategy for deciding on what to include in your blog.
  3. Build on your most effective content: Look back on what content has worked for you in the past and make it better. It’s ok to repurpose an old topic or resurrect something you haven’t talked about in awhile. Of course, you’ll need to take a fresh approach but if something caught your readers attention once before, chances are it will again.
  4. Talk with your community: Asking the people in your community what they want to hear about can be a great way to find your focus. Cast a wide net by including not just your customers, but all those with whom you collaborate.
  5. Tell your story: If you think about it, you’ll find that you don’t have just one story to tell, you have lots of them. From helping your customers get to know the people they interact with to helping people learn the best way to use your products, your back office is loaded with ideas for content.
Don’t look at the process of coming up with ideas for your blog as a task to be avoided. Instead, view it as an opportunity to learn something new, engage with your community, and have some fun. When you embrace the process you’ll be able to say goodbye to sitting in front of the monitor and staring at the dreaded blank page. In fact, you may even find yourself looking forward to it.
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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

#MarketingTrends2018 – Going LIVE with Regular Themes

2017 was the year of live video and there’s every reason to believe that the trend will continue through 2018. While the final statistics for 2017 aren’t yet available, it’s estimated that last year live video accounted for nearly 75% of all online traffic. YouTube surpassed 1 billion viewers, and 500 million people watched video on Facebook every day.
With numbers like those, it’s a given that video should be a key element in your social media content strategy. The problem is, how do you determine the most effective way to incorporate it? The solution – make it part of a weekly or monthly social media content theme strategy.
Let’s talk for a minute about social media content theme strategies. You may not have one. If not, the new year is the perfect time to start one. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, just a roadmap of the type of content you’ll include each month across your social media platforms. By following a weekly or monthly theme for your content, you’ll avoid the trap of taking a scattershot approach and trying to be everything to everybody. Having a sharp focus will make it easier for you develop content and increase the chances that you’ll follow through on your plan.
The exact focus of your theme plan will depend on your goals and your industry but here’s an example. Say you’re an online seller of fitness products. January is easy since it’s time for fresh starts. For February, how about ‘showing a little love to yourself’? You get the picture.
Ideas on how to incorporate video are limited only by your imagination but here are a few ways you can get started:
Go live on Facebook
Whether it’s a product demonstration, a feed from a tradeshow or a behind the scenes look at how you do your work, Facebook is the perfect place to get started. Facebook also now gives you the capability of replacing your static cover photo with a video.
Create a video blog
Video blogs are a great way to establish your authority and engage with your followers. Covering an industry topic or fielding a common question are popular approaches.
Share Snapchat or Instagram Stories
You can use video to showcase a day in the life of your business or of a key team member.
Take Advantage of YouTube
Whether you use YouTube to go live or to act as a repository for your archived videos, this channel is rich with possibilities.

If you’ve never used live video, take some time to learn the basics, practice, and jump in. It’s no longer a matter whether or not you should use it, it’s a question of how. You’ll quickly find out that it’s not just your users that love it, you and your team will too. It gives you the chance to stretch your creative wings, think outside the box, and more fully engage with your community.

 

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

#AwesomeTools – Where to Share Your Blog

Blogging has come a long way in the world over the past ten years.  What started out as a “web log” was really just an online diary for people to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the outside world at large.  But then, something amazing happened. 

People realized that blogs could be used for serious topics, sharing inspirational messages and more – helping businesses spread topics that are related to their work while helping to establish their brand in their corner of the highly competitive business world.  But there is no real point in keeping a blog if no one reads it.  That’s why it is so important to learn how to share your blog properly so that it gets the optimum number of views and brings in your potential customers.
Many don’t realize that if you post the same blog word-for-word on multiple sites, then Google will flag you and your blog.  That means that if someone types your subject into a search engine, then you will be way down the list and probably not be found as a result.  So how do you bypass this? 
One easy way is to use social media accounts as a means of linking back to your original blog post.  A really great way to do this is with Pinterest and LinkedIn Pulse.  Most people think of Pinterest as just a means of sharing craft projects, but it also allows for a variety of different interests to be shared. 
LinkedIn is popular as a means of connecting with people in the business community, but LinkedIn Pulse is a publishing section that allows you to copy your blog in without being penalized by Google.  This is an invaluable tool to reach your desired audience with your blogs.  LinkedIn Groups and Facebook Groups are another way to share your blogs, but be careful that you follow their rules and regulations so you don’t get accused of spamming.
Another tool that really helps you with finding and sharing material is Triberr.  This tool allows you to set up your blog content so that you can find similar blog articles, share these with your followers, and also cross-post your own blogs with those that you find.  The concept behind the website is that you set up as part of a “tribe” so that you can network and expand your brand base.  

Have you heard of Quora?  This site allows people to ask questions and have experts in the field answer the question.  You can set yourself up as one of these experts and reference back to your blog as part of your response.

There are many ways to network your blog to others so that you can get around Google’s penalties for multiple posts.  All that it takes is some savvy planning on your part and you can use your blog to help expand your brand recognition.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.



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