Blogs are blowing up. According to Wordpress, over 409 million people view more than 22.3 billion pages each month. They can be personal, political, informational, anecdotal, or just some guy giving daily updates on his cat (there are actually quite a few of these). They are an opportunity to share something you know with people that want to know it and that has parlayed itself into an awesome tool for brands to develop relationships with customers beyond just buying and selling. But, to do it well and be found, you need help! The Content Marketing Institute gives us 65 Tips, Tricks & Resources.
Blog marketing 101
Develop a basic blog marketing strategy. This can be as simple as determining who your audience will be, defining the goal you want to achieve with your blog (e.g., generating awareness, increasing leads, boosting sales, informing people about industry issues, etc.), deciding how you will distinguish your content from that of your competitors, and determining how you will source your content (e.g., will you use staff-written posts, feature curated content, offer guest posting opportunities?).
Establish an editorial policy. Answer questions like:
- What kind of content should be included?
- Will we discuss relevant news items or just link to others’ coverage of them?
- Should writers be limited to sharing facts, or will you encourage them to tell stories and weigh in with strong opinions?
- Will we talk about our employees?
- Will we share pertinent case studies?
- What do we want to avoid doing on the blog?
- Who signs off on what gets published, and how much latitude should we grant to authors?The bottom line is that your blog marketing content sources should ultimately serve your preferred readers, so keep them in mind as you make your editorial decisions.
Define a niche that you will focus on covering and don’t waver from this. It’s best to write about what you know, and use your blog as a forum for sharing your knowledge in this area.
Define your intended voice and tone. If you’re the author, what’s your writing style? Are you funny, provocative, or straightforward? Even if you have a corporate blog with multiple writers, you can still determine whether all posts should communicate with a particular attitude, or if you are OK with each writer speaking in his or her own style.
Back up the contents of your blog on a regular basis so you don’t lose your archived content in case of server failure or other tech issues.
Foster trust in the authority of your blog content by including an About Us page on your blog site to adequately convey why you’re an expert on the topics you cover or why your company is an industry authority on those issues.
Read the full article here.
If you're ready to start your content marketing effort and introduce blogging to your business, we'd love to help. Contact the Blogging Experts at Front Burner Marketing today!
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