I feel like we hear a lot of the same blogging tips over and over again. While it is definitely useful to know your blogging basics and how to boost readership, how about we change it up a little and offer some ideas on how to boost your blog in ways that you’ve maybe not thought about before?
Here are a few ways that you can get new (and old) eyes on your blog and keep them engaged. Read More→
I hear it all the time: smart professionals, who are great at what they do, don’t have enough time to blog, or even start a business blog. Recently someone shared with me how they had started blogging with great gusto – they put in a lot of time – but got stuck, and never went back. It reminded me of something I once heard…
About 20 years ago I was recovering from an illness and to avoid being bored, I took up needle work, you know, cross-stitching designs on canvas with yarn. One day as I was completing a big canvas, I was listening to a motivational speaker.
All of a sudden, I heard these words:
“Most people just start doing things without reading the instruction manual.”
Loud and clear. I looked down at my needle work and like a shock, it hit me. I’d been doing them all backwards.
Sure enough, a quick reference back to the user manual clearly showed that I was inserting the needle backwards, not producing the right effect. I put down my work and never went back to that hobby ever again.
My point is that I see many professionals who are pretty smart at what they do, but they start blogging without reading any instructions at all. Later, when they get stuck, they complain about not having “enough time” to blog. Read More→
What are two key elements to creating content that get results? I stumbled across an interesting quote on a site that gets to the heart of content marketing matters:
“Evolution tends to favor action over thinking. That hasn’t changed. Emotion controls the mind as it did when humans first came on the scene.
“People react much more emotionally than companies dare to think. Purchasing decisions are never driven by logic alone. Emotion and narrative are key, they are the very structure of mind and of human nature.
“All successful marketing campaigns – whether using primeval or post-digital technologies — have responded to this phenomenon.” ~ Dr. Bob Deutsch, cognitive anthropologist, BrainSells.com
Emotion and narrative… Remember these two crucial keys to content marketing.
I’m going to take a broader view and relate narrative to branding. Branding tells a story in the blink of an eye.
How can brands, which are designed to make an instant visual and emotional impact, take advantage of emotions and narrative to connect with consumers emotionally?
I am reading Dan Hill’s excellent book Emotionomics. He says this about branding and narrative:
“…brand equity accrues to the extent that a company’s brand story provides the two main components of a successful story. The first is an attractive personality. The second is positive signature associations by which the company becomes familiar and comfortable to members of its target market.”
In other words, a company’s brand works when: Read More→
How has your business been affected by the Web? Have you felt the difference like a Tsunami or a soft summer drizzle? I’m curious.
I know it’s completely changed my life and the way I work. Both the quantity and quality of my business are vastly improved in terms of marketing ease, deliverability and profits.
Yikes, …I feel an urge to create a new poll coming on! But hang on, I need to clarify my ideas first…
I know people who are still doing business without the Web, saying things like,
Others may have put up a crappy 1-4 page website and then wondered why it doesn’t bring in leads. And these people are all smart professionals, they’re not idiots, they’re all busy and profitable. They’re just not web-savvy.
There are those who started a blog because they heard that would bring in business. And they want to know why they aren’t on the first page of searches.
So, no, the Web hasn’t changed the way most people do business. Just some of us. I know there are many who feel it’s just too overwhelming to learn, especially now with all the social media chatter. To them, it’s not a Tsunami but a giant sink hole of wasted time and energy. Read More→
What’s your positioning for your business? How are you unique?
I write articles, newsletters and blogs for executive coaches, leadership recruiting experts, and consultants dealing with CEOs. I don’t write financial or health topics. My business site is at ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com.
I also help coaches, consultants, authors, and other smart professionals with their online marketing. My content marketing consulting blog is here, at WritingontheWeb.com, all about online content marketing.
All sorts of content on the web must be published in order to get found, get known and get clients. Most of it is done on your business blog, which is quite simply, “The Best Darn Marketing Tool on the Planet.”
This blog is currently ranked #5 in the Top42 Content Marketing Blogs. As co-founder of The Blog Squad, I am passionate about helping professionals find and unleash their core message and get it published on blogs, newsletters and social media.
This is what content marketing is all about… what’s your core message and how can you get it out to the people who need your products and services? How can you make your messages memorable? Read More→
