Companies, big and small, are calling it, they’re working remote indefinitely. Some don’t expect to ever return to a brick and mortar model, while others are allowing for extended WFH.
None of us know what post-COVID-19 will look like, and employers don’t want to risk the health of their employees or their businesses. But, for many companies who were predominately in offices, the work culture is going to shift. It’s a learning gap, but one that can be easily bridged to promote a positive work environment.
Knowing The Value of Remote Work
We know that when employees are happy and feel safe in their work environment, quality and productivity increases. Feeling valued makes us want to work harder for that consistent praise. Not only that, when an employee feels as though they are appreciated it makes them loyal.
There are downsides to everything, including having remote teams. As long as you are able to find a way to keep constant lines of communication open, and promote positive company culture, then you’ll find having a remote model easy to navigate successfully.
Well Defined Roles
A chain of command is important in any type of work environment. But, it’s even more imperative to have well-defined roles when teams are remote.
Setting expectations, workflows, and having procedures in place early will set every employee up for success.
Constant Communication
Communication is pivotal, which is why we talk about it numerous times throughout this article. From talking about your culture to your open-door policy, communicating your message to your employees will keep everyone aligned and have a consistent goal.
A document where all the pertinent company information is housed, kept in a Wiki if you use Teams, Google documents, or another shareable format, will allow employees to reference it. As a living document, you are able to refine it as your company grows and changes.
Creating a Remote Culture of Value
Bridge the distance: No “us” vs. “them”, everyone is important, and that needs to be felt across all teams.
Work AND play together: Sure, it’s remote. But, there are loads of fun activities that can be done over video conferencing. Check out some ideas here.
Team meetups: At the moment, this may prove impossible. But, when life gets itself together, and we have some semblance of normal, create team events that will bring the team together.
Communication: Stay in contact with your employees. As the boss or manager, let your teams know your virtual door is open, whether they want to talk shop or about a great beer they found and thought you might like.
Start a tradition: Office traditions are a core component of the culture. Maybe it’s a weekly video meet up to play MarioKart, or a regular Cocktail and Schmooze. Birthday and anniversary cards, a monthly employee spotlight can be little ways to start a tradition.
Creating a positive work culture will not only keep your good employees happy, but you’ll be able to actually keep those good employees long term.
Let’s assume you already have your podcast gear such as a name, topic, and microphone ready to go. Your cover art is perfect, and your intro has been professionally done. Your ducks are lined up. That’s a great start.
However, there are two things crucial to the success of your passion project. You will need to pick the best fitting platform, and properly promote your podcast across the internet. Here’s how.
Picking Your Host
A podcast host is where you’ll upload the recorded podcasts, and from there you’ll be able to upload the episodes to places like iTunes, Spotify, and other platforms specific to podcasters. To pick one of the many that are available, look for:
Price: Choose one that fits your budget. They range from about $12 per month and up.
Support: What type of tech support is included with the platform.
Platforms: Will the podcast host get you onto the sites you want to be available on?
Monetize: Are you able to monetize through the host, if that’s what you’re looking to do.
Storage: How much storage space is included in each package.
Analytics: It’s important to know how far of a reach your podcast has, and the only way to know that is through analytics.
Promoting That Podcast of Yours
Once you have your podcast host chosen, and you’ve gone live, you need to reach an audience. Chances are, listeners aren’t going to find your podcast on their own. At least, not at first. You need to actively promote it through social media. Let’s explore your options.
Submit your podcast to Apple, Google, Spotify, and other large podcast platforms.
Communities of podcasters are a great place to become active. You can explore Facebook and Linkedin for active groups, as well as entire websites devoted to growing podcaster communities.
Social media will be helpful when trying to grow your podcast subscribers. Create a Facebook fan page for yours, and post regularly. Boost your posts to get a larger reach.
SEO is going to be your friend, which means you should have a blog to help those who are looking for the topic you provide to find you.
Keywords instead of numbers for the titles of your podcasts will help with organic search. For example: How To Start A Podcast – Episode 6 is a better title than, say, Episode 6.
Headlines should complement the title. Using the above example, How To Start A Podcast, your headline could be Finding the Best Podcast Platform and Promotional Tools to Get Ahead.
Commit to creating podcasts weekly. It can take a few months for it to build momentum, and consistency is a key ingredient when trying to gain that.
Currently, there are over 700K podcasts available. It sounds like a lot, but it’s far less than the number of blogs across the internet. Now is a good time to start one, but you need to have a plan in place in order to compete with the early adopters whose podcasts have become successful.
Search engines, think Google and Bing, love when websites are fast-loading, well-designed, and offer stellar content.
So, when the web crawlers pay a visit to your website and see all the hard work you’ve put into your SEO, they display your content higher up on the SERPs. And then, you end up with a ton of traffic, leads, and sales.
But, what does all that mean?
Sounds sort of intimidating, right?
Read on to understand the connection between SEO and the success of your company. Plus, you may even pick up pointers so you can do it yourself!
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
When it’s done right, SEO brings more organic, or unpaid traffic to your website. And, this is accomplished through your web content.
The pages on your website are what’s going to be indexed, not your actual site. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a list of relevant keywords you want to rank for, and organically (naturally) sprinkle them throughout your different pages.
But, we’ll discuss keyword research later on in this article.
Ahrefs compares search engines to libraries for the digital age, storing web pages instead of books. You type your query into the search bar, and the search engine displays pages upon pages of results. Or it could just be a couple of pages, depending on the search parameters.
The results your search turns up is due to crawlers, which is essentially a bot program; think of it as an explorer. It “crawls” its way across the internet to search for information based on that query.
Bots use links like we use a map, in order to jump from page to page across the sites. These crawlers read your metadata and content; take the information and ship them off to their boss, the algorithm.
From there, your information is organized in a way that will rank well for the user’s original query.
In order to rank high in the search results, your SEO needs to be reachable and readable.
This means your links must work, your keywords need to be in place, and your metadata relevant to the content displayed.
You can block these bots from crawling certain pages of your site by adding a no index metatag. These are good for redundant pages, or pages you’re trying to stop from being indexed.
Keywords And How To Find Them
Keyword research helps you locate the words you’ll want to rank for on search engines. These keywords are what will help direct users to your content.
Once you have determined what these words are, sprinkle them in your title, headers, and body copy. Don’t forget meta descriptions and image alt text, too.
If you’re using a WordPress template, add an SEO plugin. We use Yoast, and really like it. It’s a popular choice for so many reasons, their SEO checklist especially.
Finding the correct keywords can be a confusing process.
You are intimately familiar with your business, so you know some of the most popular words and phrases associated with it.
Start there.
Then do a search for related search terms.
You’re going to want to have a nice mix of head terms (short phrases), and long-tail (3 or more word phrases) scattered in various parts of your content. To find keywords, you can use Google’s AdWords Planner. For long-tail, Answer The Public is a great tool.
How To Make Your Site SEO-Friendly
Having an SEO-friendly site is important if you want organic results, especially in a sea of similar sites.
SEO gives you that competitive edge, allowing you to be more visible in search results.
Some quick tips for an SEO-friendly site are:
Simple URL’s that are unique to every page
No duplicate content. However, if you have some out there, know that Google will only display one of them in the results and there’s no guarantee it will be the one from your site
Have a sitemap somewhere on your website–this helps those crawlers out
Use internal links whenever and wherever possible–But don’t overdo it
Images need to be optimized, too. This means, describing the image so even someone without eyesight understands what is displayed
Keywords, but don’t keyword stuff unless you want to be penalized by Google
Site speed is important, the faster it loads the better
Being active on your social platforms also helps with your SEO!
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what SEO is, and how to begin doing it.
If you need some help, our team at Adapt Studios is just an email away! Happy keyword scattering.
In order for someone to “buy into” your brand, they have to trust what’s being sold to them. What you say matters, but how you say it matters even more. To build this necessary trust, you can’t come off sounding like a robot, humans don’t trust robots. Look what happened with the whole Skynet fiasco! By humanizing your content, you transform from a faceless company to a friend. Read on for pointers on how to make your content have a life of its own.
What Does It Mean?
By humanizing your brand, you give it lifelike qualities that allow your users to connect with it on a human level. This means, your voice needs to be consistent on every platform, from your website to your social channels.
To turn your brand into a familiar face, you need to:
Show personality: Decide if you want to be funny, raw, silly, intelligent. Have a catchphrase.
Write like you speak: Your brand image is highlighted by the uniqueness of your voice. But also, be aware of the language your users use.
Show off your team: Nothing makes a brand more human than showing off the humans behind the brand.
Share user-generated content (UGC): It not only makes your claims more believable, but it also creates a community rallying behind your brand.
Tell real stories: The internet is savvier than ever, and people can sniff out the real from the make-believe. Be real. It smells better.
Be Engaged: Whether it’s through social or in the comments of your blog, respond and interact with your users.
Influencer partnerships: With built-in relationships, influencers introduce your brand to their online friends. One good word from a highly respected influencer can turn your product or service into a bestie with all that influencer’s followers.
What About Social Media?
As a brand, going online means you need a social media policy in place. It dictates how your brand is going to respond to a crisis, as well as day-to-day interactions.
Anyone performing social media on behalf of your company should have knowledge of this policy. It needs to be a living, breathing document that is consistently updated.
As for your brand on social media, here are some humanization pointers:
If you have more than one community manager, sign off each post with their name
Talk like a person and be personable
Take a side, and stick to it. But, stay away from things like politics and religion unless those are part of who your brand is
Show emotion. Use emojis, and emotion-based words.
Be active on your social platforms
Share images and videos that dive deeper into the product or services you offer
Think of humanizing your brand in the same way you’ve grown your own personality. As you grow, so does your brand.
I’m sure you’ve done a ton of online research in your lifetime.
Think about that pair of shoes you looked for or searching for the best skincare lines. Your search led you to reviews, whether on a blog or social media. The piece of information either persuaded or prevented you from making a decision.
That, in a nutshell, is influencer marketing.
What you’ve looked at will help form your purchase decision based on the opinions and facts you’ve just seen.
Whether you realize it or not, so many daily decisions and ideas are spawned through another person’s thoughts or ideas.
I know, we don’t like to think of ourselves as being easily influenced, yet it’s perfectly normal.
Influencer marketing is a way for brands to get their products or services in front of decision-makers on all levels, whether it’s a household or a large corporation.
And, influencer marketing is one of the most effective tools a marketer can use.
The Definition of Influencer Marketing
Wikipedia defines influencer marketing as “a form of social media involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people, and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field.”
The content these influencers share can be considered a form of testimonial advertising or social proof. The higher the ‘ranking’ of the influencer, the weightier the words.
There’s nothing more powerful than word of mouth marketing.
Bottom line is, you’re paying an influencer to leverage their community in an effort to spread the word about your product or service.
Also, don’t underestimate the power of the micro and nano influencer. But, more on that later in this article.
Is Influencer Marketing Right For You?
Research has shown that people trust other people over advertisements created by brands. Plus, over 44% of social media users follow influencers, and 34% of those users make purchasing decisions based on those recommendations.
It’s true that not every single product or service is right for influencer marketing. The fact remains that some things are harder to “influence” than others.
But keep in mind, there is an audience out there for every single product or service imaginable.
And, for that audience, there are influencers pitching relatable products the only way they know how to. Through their blogs and various social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Linkedin–you name it.
For your product or service to reach a larger audience, investing in an influencer campaign could increase your reach, as well as sales.
Why Influencer Marketing Is Important To Your Strategy
The internet is a crowded, noisy place. Brands of every shape and size, vying for the attention of their target audience. Internet congestion is worse than rush hour in L.A.
You have a split second to capture the attention of your potential buyer.
If you aren’t giving them what they want, they’ll move onto your competitor.
And, since consumers are equal parts savvy and skeptical, they often don’t buy what brands are self-promoting.
That’s why influencer marketing is a powerful tool in your arsenal.
The word of a trusted influencer can create a viral product or service. Or, worst-case scenario, bring in some website traffic to increase brand awareness.
Does Influencer Marketing Work?
Yes.
It works.
And, influencer marketing is about to grow even more influential. Especially since we are sheltering at home.
We are unable to touch, smell, taste, or whatever sense is needed to make our own decisions. Consumers will now, more than ever, need a trusted person telling them what to buy and what to avoid.
If your influencer campaign runs effectively, you can expect:
Amplified Awareness: Whether you choose one influencer or 100, your brand will be presented to a new audience. With a like, share, and follow from them, suddenly you’ve increased your presence exponentially.
Totally Targeted: By meticulously choosing who your influencers are, you can ensure that your promotion is being targeted to the most relevant audience.
Intensified Integrity: If your influencer’s audience trusts them, then by default, they will likely trust you. Influencers work hard to grow their community’s trust and establish relationships.
Awed Audience: An active audience is a captive audience. If your chosen influencer shines your product or service in the right light, those fans will be left in awe. Which will put into action them seeking you out. Your fan base grows, waiting for you to build a relationship and awe them.
How To Choose Influencers
Not just any influencer will do for your unique offering. No. You have to find the right person with the right audience.
First, identify the type of influencer most beneficial to your campaign:
Micro/Nano influencers: These influencers have a smaller community, usually from 5K up to 50K. Typically, their fan base is pretty close-knit and highly engaged.
Expert or Macro Influencers: With a larger fan-base, these influencers are considered thought leaders in their respective niche. Their audience turns to them for recommendations based on the types of products they endorse.
Celebrity Influencers: Celebrity influencers grow their communities based on their celebritiness (and yes, we made that word up). They may be more apt to promote products of any kind, but expect to cut them a pretty hefty-sized check.
There are many ways to find the right influencers:
Leverage your personal network
Join a specialized influencer network service
Use search tools like Buzzsumo and take advantage of the free trial
Once you find influencers related to your industry, build a rapport with them. The best influencer campaigns begin from a good working relationship.
Elements For Running An Influencer Marketing Campaign
Next, there is a lot of prepping and planning that goes into an effective influencer marketing campaign.
There is usually a cost when it comes to influencer campaigns, so determine your budget prior to putting together the campaign.
Costs can include your product, along with the payment for the influencer. That number runs the gamut, and you may be able to negotiate directly after you’ve made contact.
How to run an influencer campaign:
Identify who your target audience is.
Determine what outcome you’re wanting. Is it brand awareness, increasing sales, building your own platforms (your social and website)?
Figure out which social platform you want to focus on. Blogs, TikTok, Instagram? All of the above?
Determine the type of campaign you’re planning to run.
Gifting: You provide your product in exchange for page placement, or mentions on the influencer’s social or blog. Keep in mind, many influencers request payment along with the product.
Affiliate: Giving an affiliate code to your influencer will allow them to earn money long after your agreement has ended.
Brand ambassadors: This is more of a partnership. The influencer becomes a recognizable face associated with your brand.
Influencer takeover: Just like it sounds, for a set amount of time, an influencer takes over one or more of your social channels. They bring their fan base along with them.
Sponsored content: Written or visual content you created specifically for influencers to share on their platforms.
Find your influencers and reach out to them with a compelling, friendly email asking for a collaboration. Once you’ve got a list of people you’re working with, another email should be sent detailing expectations for both parties.
You can track your key performance indicators (KPI) by adding an urchin tracking module (UTM). This is a little snippet of code you put on the end of a unique URL. This will help you figure out the success of the campaign effort.
The FTC And Influencer Campaigns
In order to lessen, or even prevent, false claims in advertising, the FTC created governing principles and regulations.
If these are not followed, and yes, the FTC does closely monitor what goes on, then you could be subject to fines or worse.
When running any type of campaign that includes paid influencers, there must be an easily found, easy to understand disclaimer stating that the post is an ad, a sponsored article, or an endorsement of any kind.
Conclusion
Influencer campaigns are one of the most effective ways to gain brand awareness. If you have the budget and product for one, try it on a small scale to measure how it does for your brand.
Cheers to your successful influencer marketing campaign.
Many valuable contacts have been made through networking. They say, things happen through people you know. Which means the more people you know, the better the chance of goals being met.
Sometimes, the right type of networking group isn’t available. They also say, if you want something done, just do it yourself.
Learn how to start your own successful networking events you’d actually want to attend.
What’s So Great About Networking?
Whether you’re job hunting, looking to talk to like-minded individuals, or any other reason, nothing is as powerful as connections.
The benefits that come from networking are:
Strengthening your business connections
Learning new points of view and ideas
Potential job opportunities
Career advice and mentorship
Professional and personal relationship building
Professional resources for future projects
Community support
Gaining self-confidence
Giving and receiving business referrals
The Goals Of A Networking Group
Each individual goes into a networking group with a list of goals.
They all vary based on individual circumstances. If you don’t have a networking goal, it might be wise to come up with a basic list before you either join a group or start one on your own.
Also, by identifying your why, creating your own networking group will be that much easier, and will attract the right kind of member.
Unlike already established business networking groups, when you start your own, you have the authority to approve the members.
This means you can create a highly curated group of professionals all working toward the same goal.
How To Start A Networking Group
Starting your own networking group sounds like it would be a daunting task. But, it really isn’t. And, it doesn’t have to cost very much, either.
It can be very fulfilling to be the founder of a successful networking group. You can take part in helping other professionals see success while building close relationships.
When you’re first starting your business networking group:
Start small, with only a handful of members you chose personally.
Vary the professional specialties.
Decide on a maximum number of members.
Define the goal of the group
Find a location or digital platform like Meetup
Plan the event
Stay connected through a Facebook or Linkedin group
Types of Roles With A Networking Group
When creating your networking group, you might want to bring on some people to help support you.
Outreach director: Finds people to join, speak, and sponsor the group
Event coordinator: Makes all the arrangements for the event, whether choosing an online platform or a brick and mortar location.
Designer: Creates the marketing graphics for online and in-person
Board of Directors: assign leadership roles such as President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer.
And, then the leadership roles would have to be determined. Titles and who will hold them will be up to your discretion.
If there are membership fees, consider discounting them or making them free for the board of directions.
There’s really no such thing as an overnight success, and that holds true for networking events, too.
Expect a slow build.
With determination, consistency, and perseverance, your networking event can become the one many professionals look forward to.
Emails are a widely used form of communication. Email marketing, landing directly into inboxes of your target audience, is an excellent marketing tool. It can help you build brand awareness, grow customer relationships, and generate more leads and sales. If you do it right. Learn best practices for creating an awesome email marketing campaign by reading on.
The Definition of an Email Campaign
An email campaign is part of your company’s marketing efforts that reaches your email subscribers. You are able to deliver ads, ask for business, request donations, and more. Campaigns are generally designed to reach your subscribers with your valuable content at optimal times. These also allow your brand to nurture relationships and trust.
Most people prefer opt-in based emails, as opposed to cold emails. Here’s what the two mean:
Opt-in: Your receiver willingly gave up their email address in exchange for getting regular emails, offers, free trials, etc. from your brand.
Cold Emails: These users have probably never heard of you. With cold emails, you want to craft an email that will compel the stranger to become a new friend.
How To Create Your Email Campaign
Having a plan based on your campaign goals will help guide you through your campaign creation.
Set goals: What are you hoping to achieve from your email campaign? Grow brand awareness? Direct traffic to podcasts, blogs, or social channels? Advertising new deals?
Choose a platform: There are eleventy-billion out there so it depends on what features you’re looking for. We like MailChimp because it’s very user-friendly.
Grow your targeted email list: You can have an audience made up of subscribers and imported contacts, which are all considered qualified leads.
Segment your list: This allows you to target different types of emails based on the way you’ve segmented your audience. We segment our list based on the welcome campaign. New subscribers go into the email 1 segment, email 2, and so on.
Use an email template: For consistency, a template that has your logo and branded images is best practice.
Good writing is important: From your subject through the body of the email, what you say and how you say it matters. Check spelling, grammar, and flow. The writing doesn’t have to be great, it just has to be good.
Always personalize: To whom it may concern doesn’t fly, and users will send you to the trash. Or worse…spam.
A/B Test your lists: Within your segments, test different subject lines. Or, switch up the body copy. A/B tests allow you to see what type of messaging, time of day, or day of the week perform best.
Why Are Email Campaigns Important
Emails are a point of contact that allows you to build relationships with potential fans in order to create loyal customers. By sending emails, you’re capturing your customer’s attention directly in their inbox.
If your email campaign works the way you’re hoping, it will attract and retain existing customers. Plus, it will attract and retain potential customers that have opted in to receive your emails. It’s all about nurturing these relationships so they can blossom and grow, and email is one of the most effective ways to do that.
A 2014 McKinsey Report showed email marketing was 40x’s more effective at bringing in new customers. Organic content was the only marketing more effective.
What Makes An Email Campaign Effective
To run an effective email campaign, you need certain elements in place.
An attractive, branded email template
A compelling subject line. Test yours on this tool from CoSchedule!
A well-written summary, which is the content the recipient sees before opening the email.
Convincing body text that includes your company logo. You should have no more than around 20 lines of content, and up to three images.
A clear call-to-action (CTA) letting the reader know what you’d like them to do next. Click a link, watch a video, make a purchase, etc. It all depends on what your ask is for that email.
Your email footer should include your contact information, where to find you on social, and an unsubscribe option.
Types of Email Campaigns
There are so many types of email campaigns that could fit your goals. We’ve got a list of the popular ones here.
Welcome emails: Generally sent to new email list subscribers.
Holidays: Offers discounts for, and/or acknowledges holidays.
Birthdays: If you are able to capture birthdates, a little e-card is a nice touch.
Invitations: Promotes such things as online webinars or in-store events.
Cross-selling: If you know a customer bought a product, then these emails are sent to sell related items.
Anniversary: Reward your customers for your company anniversary.
Newsletters: Builds customer relationships with goodwill content providing valuable information.
Announcements: To promote visits, upcoming sales, specials, events, etc.
Nurture campaigns: Keep existing subscribers enthralled by adding value to their inbox.
Measuring Your Email Campaign’s Success
To understand how well your email campaign performed, there are three different metrics to pay attention to.
Delivery rates: From your email list, how many emails delivered right to the inbox and didn’t end up in a spam filter. The more delivered to the inbox, the healthier your subscriber list is.
Open rates: If you sent out 1,000 emails, and only 10 emails were opened, then you know you need to work on a better way to capture your recipient’s attention. This is why your subject line is highly important to the success of your campaign.
Click through rates: Out of all those opened emails, how many recipients performed the call-to-action? Did they click links?
Revenue and conversion rates per email: Revenue is only relevant if you have a product you’re selling. Conversion rates measure how many of those email recipients convert to customers.
In conclusion, email is uber important to your digital marketing campaign. Now that you know the basics, go forth and send emails! If you need help setting up an email campaign, Adapt Studios is here for you.
During relatively normal times, it’s important to have some type of social media strategy in place. Right now, with companies of all shapes and sizes suffering due to shutdowns, it’s imperative to stay in touch with your audience. The best place to do that is to be in the same spaces they are which is on social media. Once you have determined which social platforms to concentrate on, you’ll need to have a strategy in place to make the most of those spaces.
Get engagement
Now is the time to up the ante for user engagement. Your audience is more connected, and online more often. Encourage moving your body, staying healthy, staying positive, and staying sane during this time. Let your audience know that we are all in this together.
Sample social post: The entire month of April is “Move More Month”. Now, more than ever, people are throwing on their walking shoes and hitting the pavement. What are you doing to move more this month?
Get Action
With every post comes an opportunity to connect with your audience. Use a strong call-to-action (CTA) to encourage your users to engage with you. This will increase traffic to your social media page, website, and keep your brand in people’s minds. It’s free advertising! When sharing blog posts in your IG story, add a link and encourage followers to swipe up! Tip: Negative posts can either be deleted or publically addressed before moving to private messaging.
Sample Instagram post: Socially distancing doesn’t mean you can’t go the distance. Show us how you’re staying connected while keeping at least 6 ft of space. Tag us in your photos and we may share them on our page!
Get Trendy
Pay attention to current trends happening across social platforms and jump in on the ones that make sense. Take the I-Spy game spreading all over Facebook.
Sample FB Post: Flattening the Curve might sound daunting, but we can toast to its success once this is over. In the meantime, let’s play a game that’s all over Facebook. “I spy with my little eye”, something blue in your camera photos. (And the blue image for this post might be Lake Michigan or a mash-up of all the Great Lakes)
Get Festive
Give a nod to ‘real’ holidays, but also celebrate the super fun and relevant ones. You can find a list of quirky national holidays here: http://www.holidayinsights.com/
Sample social post: Monday, April 13th is National Scrabble Day and with everyone home, board game usage has seen a huge resurgence. Call to action could be: What’s your favorite board game? Or, what games have you been playing?
Get Pinning
Focus on sharing useful and original content. Pinterest is a very active network that can take products viral. Have boards that are both entertaining and product-based.
Sample Pinterest BoardsSubjects: Make boards about travel, fun destinations, and how those relate to your product. Show users real-life scenarios where your product is the hero.
Get Tagged
Set up a relevant branded hashtag. It will also make it easier for you to see who is tagging you on Instagram.
Sample Branded Hashtags: It could be something as simple as #XAtHome, or #StaySafeWithX. X, of course, is your brand or product name.
Get Real
Share employee stories and photos of how they are handling this time. Remote work stations, playing with their kids, anything that connects to the audience. Make your brand more human. Consider doing Facebook live or even pre-recorded videos.
Sample Post: Make an announcement regarding how your company is taking care of its employees during this time. Show your remote workspaces or a pic of your Zoom meeting thumbnails.
Your social media strategy can be as simple or complex as you deem necessary. Whichever you choose, the important goal is to be present so that when this is over and a bad memory, your brand hasn’t been forgotten. Remember to be thoughtful and tasteful in your messaging, everyone is feeling uncertain right now.
Your organic content is going to be a big part of what brings traffic to your website.
It’s the milkshake to your fries, and what brings all the boys to the yard.
Visitors will be directed to you through their search engine results based on the keywords they’ve used. It will benefit you and your business to make sure it’s your content over your competitors that show up at the top of that search engine result page (SERP).
Learn how to write a blog post that will convert your visitors to fans.
Elements Of A Blog Post
A blog post allows you to thoroughly explain a topic. Its main purpose is to increase website traffic, convert sales or obtain leads, and position you for thought leadership.
There are other elements, in addition to structure, that you will need to include.
Target Keywords: Basic SEO is knowing what your target audience is searching for. Using a variation of those words will help your article show up in searches. There are eleventy-billion tools to use. I happen to like Answer The Public, and Keyword Tools.
Image: For every image you use, add the right metadata using one of your keywords.
Call To Action (CTA): Include a clear CTA at the end of your post. This will direct your readers toward the next action you expect from them.
Word Count: Your blog post should have at least 300 words. Anything less than that, your blog will be considered ‘thin content’. In 2020, the sweet spot is 1,800 words. However, you don’t have to obsess over the numbers. End your article once you’ve completed every thought you outlined on the page.
Structuring Your Blog Post
When you write a blog, explain your chosen topic better than anything your competition offers.
Once you’ve compiled your research information, it’s time to start writing.
There is a definite ‘best practice’ to the form and function of a blog post.
Outline: Once I decide what my topic is, I create a skeleton based on the subheaders. For example, in this article here, my outline included headers based on points I plan on covering. Including structure, elements, and types of blog posts.
Title: There is an art to creating engaging blog post titles. It should be no more than 70 characters long and still set your reader’s expectations about what’s ahead. Use a tool like the Coschedule headline analyzer. This will help you create clickable headlines.
Introduction: Your introduction is your bait and hook. Its job is to capture your audience’s attention and entices them to read the entire post.
Subheadings: H2s, aka Headline 2, are usually what is used here. Targeted keywords are super relevant to your subheadings. But, they also will let your reader understand what they’re going to get from each section of the post.
Bullet points: When you offer a lot of information within a paragraph, break those up into bullet points. Bold the first word or sentence to make scanning easy.
Write: As mentioned in this post, it’s not about the quality of your writing, it’s more to do with the information you provide. Your words have to be clear and concise. You need to be the best possible source for any information about your business or product.
Edit: Before you publish, you need to make sure your grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and spelling are on point. Grammarly is a great free editing tool.
Images: Your featured image should be toward the top of your blog post. Longer posts may have images scattered throughout to break up all the text. Free stock photos can be found on sites like Unsplash or Pixabay.
Publish: Once you’re satisfied with how your article looks in drafts, just tap that publish button and put those words out to the online world.
19 Types of Blog Posts
There are many different styles of blog posts you can write.
We’ve compiled a list of ideas you can pull from.
Thought leadership: Your industry-related articles will cement you as an expert in your field.
Listicles: Just like it sounds, a list of “things” within a specific topic, along with an explanation.
Newsjacking: When significant industry news breaks, use your blog to report on it.
How-To’s and Tutorials: This post, How To Create A Blog Post, is an example of a how-to post!
Reviews: Talk about a new product or tool your company uses that you like for starters.
Announcements: Maybe you have a new product or update coming out. Broadcast it on your blog.
Videos with the transcription: If you have created videos, embed them into a blog post, and transcribe the content.
Series: Another one that is exactly like it sounds—a series of articles on a related topic.
Case studies: Talk about your success and how you got there. Include graphs and charts.
Interviews: Interview experts in your field. Or highlight coworkers.
Inspirational stories: People love a feel-good story.
Frequently asked questions and answers: Address those FAQs and give in-depth answers.
Event summaries: Perhaps you spoke at a digital summit. Or you attended one. Write about it!
Commentary on pop culture: Loads of stuff is going on in the world, and sometimes it’s fun to take a break from your related industry and talk about celebrities.
Gratitude Stories: What are you thankful for?
Customer question responses: Being in touch with sales and customer service departments will help to create this type of post.
Your business history: Who are you? How did you get here, and how did you achieve success?
Checklist or cheat sheet: Take a task, bullet point it out, and explain how to do each item on the list.
Industry-related myths versus facts: Do things related to your industry drive you crazy? Talk about what people think, and then show them how it really is.
Getting into the swing of writing blog posts will take practice, time, and determination before it becomes a habit.
You can write a blog post that ends up on page one of Google if you keep at it!
We’re all getting restless. But, as anxious as we are to be able to move around freely, there’s still a sense of hesitation due to the unknown. What is out there waiting for us? In what way is it going to affect us? How can we possibly recover from this? And, all of those questions are just on a personal level. Business owners have a whole slew of concerns piled onto the personal slush pile. I have some words of advice based on over a decade of professional content writing and strategy. I really hope this helps you to navigate your own organic content strategy and writing.
Content Congestion
More than ever, you must up your organic content game. Up until now, the saying was “Content is King”. Truth is, your content and its context is going to be your entire Kingdom. Businesses that put up a basic website, secured their social handles, and then didn’t do much with them? Well, they are either going to have to start pushing a budget into their online marketing efforts or simply fade away. For the foreseeable future, every audience imaginable will be searching for you online. We were headed toward a complete online culture prior to the pandemic, and that seal has been removed. We’re there, all in.
There’s going to be, what I’m calling “Content Congestion”. Meaning, as much content as there has been online up until now…it’s going to get even more congested. More content being published on social channels, as well as websites. And, that will make it even harder to be found.
You must have content. Lots of it. On your website, on your social channels, and on your company or personal blog. If you want to reach the right audience, you must have the right message, at the right time, for your organic content to show up in their search.
Position Competition
Because there’s going to be a massive uptick of online content, that means it’s going to be harder to hit page one. Another little phrase I’m using is “Position Competition”. Every company using your keywords are all vying for the same search engine results. Page one.
Again, this means you must have content. It does NOT have to be the best written. What it does need is the best possible answer to your audience’s question.
You can find what sort of topics people are searching for as it relates to your product or service by using SEO tools. My personal favorite is Answer The Public. Using one or two keywords, this tool pulls up real-time search engine queries related to the topic you’re searching for. Once those are displayed on the screen, you’ll have a whole series of questions you can use as topics to talk about across your platforms. Take some of those questions and use them to create content for your blogs, for social media, for videos, and for subtopics on your blog. Answer the questions to the best of your ability, edit your words using another tool like Grammarly, add an image, and hit publish. Just do it. And find a comfortable cadence for consistency’s sake. The more content you have, the better. If you’re already creating content, it’s time to double down.
Seen and Heard
The ubiquitous ‘they’ claim that everyone has a story. Sometimes, that story is obvious. Other times, it takes some digging. But, your story is there. And, it’s important to start crafting that into words and weaving it across all your platforms. Plant those seeds and grow your garden so the world can enjoy its glorious flowers.
Once you have your flow, and you’re creating consistent content, use what you’ve created as a script, and record a video. Video is the fastest-growing consumable content product. It definitely can be daunting. Personally, I can’t stand how I look and sound in videos. But, I know that it’s a valuable piece of content that will make a business become human. So, it must be done. Because, it’s us humans that run the business, and at the end of the day, it’s our story that needs to be told. Through us. Video and content are where our business and personal brands need to collide.
If you need help with your organic content strategy or ideas, please…don’t hesitate to reach out. We can guide you toward creating content that will make you the envy of every competing business. You can contact me directly at mbrodsky@adaptstudios.co or you can go through our website contact form: Adapt Studios.
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