Looking towards Module 3 and our blogging; have a read of these great ideas from Heidi Cohen. You can read all 15 ideas on her post here.
1. Audit your existing content for ideas
Ideally, every business should regularly audit their content to ensure that it’s up-to-date and relevant. From a blogging perspective, a content audit provides many blog post opportunities.
Actionable Blogging Tips:
- Fill holes in your content offering with new blog posts.
- Transform product manuals and other customer related information into easy-to-follow blog posts. Simplify the information and sound human to help your audience.
- Update and transform older information into blog posts. Add images and other media to make them more appealing and easy-to-consume.
Download The Ultimate Blogging Checklist
2. Create core resources
Copyblogger’s Brian Clark calls this cornerstone content since it’s fundamental to the overarching content strategy of your blog.
Neil Patel has published a number of Advanced Guides. They’re over 40,000 words in length and provide useful information that keeps generating visits and links.
Lists are another form of core resources. While lists are high on every blogger’s post idea generation catalog because they attract attention, to remain a key resource, you must organize them by topic and continually update them. (This later point is key for any evergreen content.)
Although Cohen’s article is related to blogging, I found her ideas to be applicable to Facebook posts for businesses as well (which, as I understand, are not the same as blogs – more on that in a moment). I couldn't help but have my Facebook assignment page in mind when reading her blog ideas and saw how I can use these for my Facebook page. For example, creating core resources (#2) would be helpful to customers to get basic information about maintaining their vehicles, answering readers’ questions (#4) is a way to engage customers, giving product related information could be useful (#5) (I’m thinking in the context of synthetic vs. Regular oil or premium vs. regular gas – questions I hear come up frequently), tied to this is #8 and reviewing new products, gathering customer stories is synonymous to reviews in the context of my Facebook page (#10) and seasonal posts are very relevant given Canada’s ever changing weather (#11).
ReplyDeleteSince I found so many relevant ideas that could be used for Facebook posts, I spent some time trying to differentiate Facebook posts used by businesses and blogs used by businesses. Evidence suggests that blogs as the more superior social media outlet, echoing Garibian’s (2013) Digital Influence: Blogs Beat Social Networks for Driving Purchases. Ultimately, the key take away for me was that blogs allow businesses to get deeper into content, can be made to be more personal and there’s just generally more control over this medium whereas Facebook is more to promote (high level) content, but your audience needs to like the page to see posts. Miller’s (2014) comment about how Facebook and blogging “should actually complement rather than replace one another” really resonated with me, but I am struck by a significant challenge: How does one have enough time to write up thoughtful posts and maintain a Facebook page?!
I hope thinking blog posts as being similar to Facebook posts isn’t too much of a stretch. I’d love to hear any input from others!
Billbelew.com (2013). Case Study: Marketing –Blogging Vs. Facebook. Retrieved from: http://billbelew.com/blog/case-study-marketing-blogging-vs-facebook/
Garabian, L. (2013). Digital influence: Blogs beat social media networks for driving purchases [Web log post]. Available from http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10336/digital-influence-blogs-beat-social-networks-for-driving-purchases
Miller, A. (2014) Facebook vs. Blogging for your Business. Retrieved from: http://www.sproutcontent.com/blog/facebook-versus-blogging-for-your-business
Redsicker, P. (2102). 10 Reasons Business Blogging is Better than Facebook. Retrieved from: http://wordviewediting.com/10-reasons-business-blogging-is-better-than-facebook-infographic/
There are a number of blogs that I look at on a regular basis. I would love to say that they are educational, business-related blogs, but unfortunately, they’re normally fashion blogs, DIY blogs, or mommy blogs that I find myself coming back to for creative inspiration. As I view various blogs, I often find myself thinking of content that I’d love to see a blog post about, or maybe one day, blog about myself. As content runs dry for bloggers, I believe readers to be a rich, often untapped, resource from which bloggers can draw content. Cohen discusses using your audience questions and comments as a resource (#4), as well as curating other bloggers’ material in order to create variety on one’s blog (#13). Cohen’s concepts of collaboration are key to remaining inspired and fresh within the blogosphere. Moreover, as information technology has suggested for several years, the strength of an open platform is often more than the strength of an individual.
ReplyDeleteAs Sareda has alluded, I would agree that Cohen’s ideas to develop content when blogging are highly relevant to other social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Though each platform portrays content differently, and with varying purpose, many of the principles are the same. However, as Lenna Garibian breaks down in our module 3 readings, “Blogs are more influential than social networks in shaping consumers’ opinions and purchase decisions” (par. 1, 2013). I would agree with Garibian’s observations, as even as I prepare to become a first time mom, I frequently look to blogs for reviews of products. I am more willing to trust a blogger, whom I feel as though I have a personal connection to, than a retail site or a business Facebook page.
That said, the conclusion could accurately be drawn that a blog is only as strong as its social media presence. Many blogs thrive largely because of their Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook followings, and each of these platforms can work in correlation with one another. Garibian describes that Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social platforms for bloggers, relying heavily on blog page views, Facebook “likes”, social follower levels, and user comments to determine success. For these reasons, I would hypothesize that social media presence, along with strong collaborative efforts, are key aspects to blogging success.
Sources:
Cohen, H. (2015, October 7). 15 Blog Content Ideas With Examples And Tips. Retrieved November 12, 2015, from http://heidicohen.com/blog-post-idea-generation/
Garabian, L. (2013). Digital influence: Blogs beat social media networks for driving purchases. Available from http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10336/digital-influence-blogs-beat-social-networks-for-driving-purchases
Hi Kathlyn, I found myself nodding in agreement about the sentiments you have regarding blogs. For me, I don’t read blogs all that often, so my comparison would be Pinterest, where I’ve used it for wedding-related things as well as food and make-up tips only. Prior to this class, I didn’t even know/hadn’t consider Pinterest/blogs could be used for businesses, so it was great to learn what makes a post successful (I’ve also learned how much time and effort it actually takes to manage and upkeep).
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that “a blog is only as strong as its social media presence” and I would agree. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a business that is active one only one social media platform. You mentioned the importance of demonstrating presence and I wanted to add that in linking all of one’s social media platforms, it allows the reader/fan to continue their experience, a concept that Smith (2012) identified. Having said that, since many social media platforms can be connected, where you upload something (e.g., a picture) and it gets posted on all platforms, I think diversifying posts on different platforms is necessary in order to keep readers/fans interested (because then what’s the point of having multiple platforms if it’s all going to have the exact same content?). Given this, I could see how Cohen’s blog content ideas would be incredibly helpful. Since this can be a time consuming process, I also found Patel’s (2013) chapter on How to Plan Your Content For Maximum Productivity of interest which for me, a take-away was to talk to your customers. This has come up in the course before and echoes what IBM’s Ekaterina did for the company’s Facebook page (Stelzner, 2010). Although Patel (2013) focussed on customers who have purchased products, engaging the customer is something that can really be done for anything.
Cohen, H. (2015). 15 Blog Content Ideas With Examples And Tips. Retrieved from http://heidicohen.com/blog-post-idea-generation/
Patel, N. (2013). The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/04/29/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing/
Smith, S. (2013, April 05). Conceptualising and evaluating experiences with brands on Facebook. International Journal of Market Research, 55(3), 357–374.
Stelzner, M. (2010). The inside scoop on how Intel manages its Facebook page. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/intel-case-study/