Content Marketing | Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Archive for Content Marketing – Page 59

Big Mistakes in Content Marketing…
6 Tips on What to Avoid

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Every month Click Docs asks content marketing experts a key question. I'm always learning something from these experts. Here's the question they ask today: What's the Biggest Mistake to Avoid in B2B Content Marketing?

Be sure to read the post. I'm in good company with Ardath Albee, Brian Carroll, Rebel Brown, Maria Pergolino, and Mac McIntosh.

Here's my tip:

Everyone knows this joke: A celebrity runs into a friend who politely asks, “How are you?” The star takes off on a 5 minute monologue all about his success and his last film. Not completely insensitive, the star stops himself and asks the friend, “Oh, enough about me! How did YOU like my movie?”

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

How to Start a Company Using “How-To” Content

By Patsi Krakoff

Monday, July 13th, 2009

An article in the NY Times tells us How to Start a Company (and Kiss Like Angelina). It's well written by Julie Creswell, but it wasn't what I expected.

It's all about a media company called Howcast.com. They have a library of over 10,000 videos on how to do anything – put on suntan lotion, kiss like Angelina, how to survive a bear attack – you name it, they've video cast it.

Big companies place ads or products into these clips that can be posted on YouTube, or all over the Net. This translates into a good media marketing service on many levels. But there's a big lesson here for everyone who wants to do business online.

Here's the content marketing take-away: the number one reason people use the Internet is to get information. Second reason is to be entertained. If you want to start a company, really, figure out what problems you can solve.

Then go onto the Web and produce content everywhere designed to help people. It doesn't matter how you do it, but do it several ways in several places: blog posts, website pages, articles, e-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, AND video clips.

But the first thing to do is discover the need that you can fulfill for your customers. Next would be to brand it, find a clever name that is clear. Then go online to build massive visibility. Become findable.

The biggest item on my to-do list this week is to do 3 video clips explaining how to write content that markets your services and products on the Web. Not how to write copy that sells. How to write copy that helps readers and viewers solve their customers' problems.

Categories : Content Marketing

What Bugs You About Writing?

By Patsi Krakoff

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Barb Sawyer makes a good point. She says this: "Everyone has become a writer, thanks to computers. Often not by choice. Frequently not by training.

"Many people have never been taught how to write with the skill, speed and grace required for the staggering amount of writing they are expected to do.

"Some agonize over choosing the right words. Others become upset when people don’t get what they mean.

"As readers, we get frustrated too, ploughing through long-winded, nonstop emails or scratching our heads in bewilderment."

Barb's doing some research on what bugs you about writing. Please go contribute to her research so she can create a useful ebook to help us all to improve the quality of our content marketing writing. You can post your challenges on her blog post here.

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better

Finding Creativity Juice: Under a cactus in Mexico?

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Do you love your brain, love searching for a great idea that will grab your readers' attention, and just pull them into reading your blog post or white paper?

Or is the creative writing process like pulling teeth without the novocaine…? For many of the professionals I work with, writing is time consuming, and even painful… like fingernails scratching across a blackboard.

It's hard, slow work giving birth to a piece of content that will solve a problem and entertain at the same time. In a recent Copyblogger piece, The Three Essentials of Breakthrough Content Marketing, Sonia Simone writes:

"High-quality content trains your readers and listeners to keep opening your stuff. It rewards them for doing what you want them to do. That means that every piece of content you write has to either solve a problem your audience cares about or it has to entertain them. Preferably both."

Sheesh. I know what you're thinking. "I'm a consultant, coach, … expert in xyz, not Hemingway!"

I'm not either, but what I've learned about writing on the web and content marketing isn't rocket science.

I struggle with finding things to write about on this blog. I've written a ton of information here about writing great newsletters and blog posts, as well as white papers and articles to increase your visibility. Sometimes it feels like I've already written as much as I have to say. There's nothing new, it's been done before.

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing Great Blog Content

White Papers: A Key Piece of Your Content Marketing,
Especially Offline

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

I'm working on a white paper for one of my long term clients. I had a flash back: it reminded me of my first journalism assignment when I was a cub reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune. That was 50 years ago! I feel like I've come full circle back to my first job and first love: writing about people.

If you don't have a white paper you can use for your marketing, think about doing this. My client has plenty of web pages up and does a superb e-newsletter (I know this because I help him with his!)

But as he says, "My clients are CEOs and high-level directors of companies. They don't spend much time online. I need something tangible, printed, that I can leave behind after a meeting, or send to them before."

Categories : Buying Content, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing Great White Papers

How Chip Scholz Gets Content Marketing Right
(even if it hurts…)

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

On a recent post about leveraging what you know to help other people online, one of my favorite clients, Chip Scholz, commented:

Great post, Patsi. Thanks for reminding me of the power of writing, and of delivering great content. I find writing extremely time consuming and almost painful! How can I find ways of making it easier and less time consuming? Do you have any suggestions on resources (other than you of course!)

Time consuming and painful, ah, yes. And the pain is where, exactly? I'm a doctor, but help me out here, Chip. I'm a doctor of psychology, so if the pain is anywhere in your body, you've come to the wrong place.

Chip's off speaking, consulting and coaching somewhere, earning big bucks doing what he does best, so I'll have to work with what's showing on his web pages. I'm going to answer his question based on his content marketing.

What I'm seeing for Chip's online visibility is content marketing on the following pages:

Website: ScholzandAssociates.com
Blog: Leader Snips
Book landing page: Selling for Geniuses
Twitter: ChipScholz

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

Do You Understand the Archimedes Effect?

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I love my job. My boss lets me play tennis everyday, as long as I get my work done. I'm joking, of course, since I'm self-employed. I really do have a dream life. So how can you do the same thing, leverage what you know, teach it to others, and make money working from home doing what you love?

Today I read about the Archimedes Effect from Chris Brogan, who's new book is called Trust Agent:

The Archimedes Effect

Understanding leverage is what separates the hobbyists from the professionals. Do you understand how to take what you’re doing in one instance and extend it out into something bigger or better elsewhere? This is what brought Madonna from just another singer into being a worldwide brand.

Leverage is behind all the most powerful people in the world, but it all starts somewhere. Gary Vaynerchuk leveraged his wine store into his video project and took that into his media project and his book deal. Gary bleeds leverage.

Do you understand the Archimedes Effect?

Categories : Content Marketing

Don’t Forget Facebook: Here’s a Big Source of Readers

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

I'm really upset at the recent article about Facebook over on Copyblogger. Here I've been spending valuable and scarce free time over on Twitter, ignoring Facebook. Now I've just found out I might be missing a crucial traffic builder.

I'm not completely missing the boat, I do have some presence over there at Facebook, just not visiting it daily. My blog posts and twitter updates are automatically fed into my Facebook page. It's a good thing, too. Turns out there's a huge pool of potential readers on Facebook and we need to be nurturing them too.

Go read this article and make up your own mind about where to spend your marketing minutes…

How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO) by Mike Wasylik

(And for those of you who care why I've been so absent on blogs and emails lately, I've been in an intensive Spanish course for the past two weeks. It's beginning to cramp my work and play time, and anyone who knows me will understand that my time on the tennis courts is sacred. You can shorten my work day, but don't you dare try to shorten my tennis time. Something has to go, and it's my time spent blogging, tweeting and surfing other sites … Pero hablo bien Espanol ahora!)

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Best Tip for Using Twitter?

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

What is your one tip on how B2B marketers should leverage social media? This is what I was asked by ClickDocs, a great source of information on content marketing. You can read other insights from other experts here. Here’s my answer:

Small business professionals who want to attract people for their products and services through Twitter often start off on the wrong foot. They look at it and answer the question, “What are you doing?” Who cares?

Start off by doing a search for keywords in your field. Use the search button at the bottom of the page and type in “Need help with …XYZ” and see what comes up.

On any day, people are asking for help with things on Twitter. You can answer their questions, refer them to your blog, and offer to help. Be sure to follow them when you do.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I know a lot of people trying to figure out how to supplement their incomes with an Internet business. Some of them ask me how to go about it. While that's a huge endeavor involving many pieces, the key is writing on the web using content marketing.

What you publish on web pages works to attract a targeted audience of people who are interested in finding solutions to their problems.

Remember, the number one reason people use the Web is to get information.

That's why I recommend starting with a blog. A blog is a communications and publishing tool you can use to attract readers, those people who are your ideal prospects. Of course the next question is "What do I write about?"

That's where you need to learn how to do Content Marketing.

What are the principles of Content Marketing to abide by? Here are some good tips from Velocity UK, a marketing consultancy firm who just published a great B2B Content Marketing Workbook.

Content marketing plays by different rules than traditional, ‘broadcast-style’ marketing, here are some of the key ones:

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

Archive for Content Marketing – Page 59

Big Mistakes in Content Marketing…
6 Tips on What to Avoid

How to Start a Company Using “How-To” Content

What Bugs You About Writing?

Finding Creativity Juice: Under a cactus in Mexico?

White Papers: A Key Piece of Your Content Marketing,
Especially Offline

How Chip Scholz Gets Content Marketing Right
(even if it hurts…)

Do You Understand the Archimedes Effect?

Don’t Forget Facebook: Here’s a Big Source of Readers

Best Tip for Using Twitter?

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing

Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club