by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 8, 2020 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Guest Blogger
I have seen quite a bit blogging-wise over the past 12 years.
Although I did not create my current blog until 2014, I began blogging in 2008. After ups, downs, and in-betweens I spotted a few rock-solid fundamentals all pros seem to follow.
Imagine your blog as a spectacular, 30 room mansion. Mansions need granite-like foundations to hold the weight of the massive dwelling. Otherwise, a collapse is imminent.
Bloggers need to build their blogs on rock-solid fundamentals to lay the foundation for a professional blogging career. Unfortunately, most bloggers ignore these fundamentals, watching their blogs collapse sooner than later.
Blogging does not need to be hard, painful, or outright difficult. Expect to face fears along the way. All growth occurs outside of your comfort zone. But also prepare to have fun, to free yourself, and to enjoy helping people as you follow these simple blogging fundamentals.
Blogging becomes easier if you follow basic steps for a long time.
Take these 5 steps to lay a rock-solid foundation for your professional blogging career.
1: Blog Mainly for Fun and Freedom
The great Steve Jobs explained how passionate entrepreneurs get ahead while everyone else quits. People who use logic alone observe poor results and quit because it makes sense to quit if you make no money.
Passionate, fun-loving, freedom-seeking visionaries see the journey through to become wildly successful. I never once considered quitting during my 15,000 blogging hours online because fun and freedom fueled me. What happened when three visitors a day visited my blog in 2008? I kept blogging because fun – not blog visitors – drove me to blog. What happened when I made peanuts through my blog for a long time? I kept blogging because freedom – not money – drove me to blog.
Skills, exposure, and credibility earn you money. Skills, exposure, and credibility eat up 1000s of blogging hours of creating and connecting. Blogging mainly for fun keeps you blogging when the money does not arrive. Make the work, the reward. Blog for fun and freedom primarily to get through the early blogging struggles we all face.
2: Invest Money in Resources from Pro Bloggers
Professional bloggers possess:
- 5000 to 10000 hours of experience
- Observational abilities far beyond amateur bloggers
- A vast storehouse of knowledge
Pro bloggers pack these absolute golden nuggets into their:
I wrote and self-published 120 plus eBooks to give bloggers resources for getting through all the obstacles I faced on this long, fun, freeing and sometimes challenging journey. Investing money in pro bloggers resources lets you leapfrog the most painful blogging struggles because pros tell you NOT to do that stuff. Even better? Pros tell you what to do from day 1 as a blogger to position yourself to succeed.
Feel free to follow pro blogs but know this; pros publish their best work for pay because….that is why they are pros!
3: Create Helpful Content
Write and publish helpful content. Gain reader trust. Earn credibility. Help people for free to help people for pay, later.
Content serves as a qualifier. Imagine being a life coach. Readers who find your blog consider hiring you but need to see through your blog content that you are:
- Credible
- Trustworthy
- Experienced
- Skilled
….before investing money in your coaching services. Some life coaches only publish generic quotes on Instagram as the sole source of their digital footprint. Would I invest $3500 on someone who knows how to copy, paste, and gussy up an IG formatted photo?
Blogging generously builds your skills, exposure, and credibility. Skilled, credible bloggers with massive exposure become highly successful in their niche. Word counts and blog post frequencies vary; aim to publish one, 600-word post weekly at a minimum.
Solve common reader problems. Resonate with your audience.
4: Befriend Top Bloggers in Your Niche
Imagine yourself alone sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
Imagine 15 blogging buddies sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Their blogs
Blogging buddies sometimes email your posts to their email lists, too. Imagine blogging buddies inviting you to guest post on their blogs. Picture blogging buddies submitting valuable guest posts for your blog.
Connected bloggers succeed. Everybody else largely fails because lone wolf bloggers seem to be on the outside, looking in.
Comment genuinely on top blogs from your niche. Promote top bloggers from your niche on social media and through your blog. Ask for nothing in return. Earn their trust. Gain their respect. Build a large blogger buddy network. Amplify your reach by allowing your blogging buddies to grow your traffic and profits passively.
5: Open Multiple Income Streams
Income streams serve as profitable containers holding your:
- Skills
- Experience
- Know-how
- Problem-solving abilities
In essence, income streams are receiving vehicles. Readers trust you based on your content. Readers hire you and buy your stuff to access your premium products and services. You receive money in the exchange.
Income stream ideas include:
- Writing and self-publishing eBooks
- Offer coaching services
- Offer consulting services
- Offer freelancing services
- Create audiobooks
- Write and self-publish paperbacks
- Create courses
- Sell sponsored posts
- Sell advertising space
Note; money only flows through step #5 if you spend 1000s of hours following steps 1-4. Skipping even a single step adversely affects your income potential.
Conclusion
Blogging is a fun, freeing journey for bloggers who follow the fundamentals I noted above. Be ready to venture well outside of your comfort zone to go pro. Be generous, patient, persistent and trusting. Be hyper-aware of any stingy, impatient, non-persistent, doubting traits you picked up as an employee, or from the general public.
Blogging gives you what you give blogging.
About the Author
Ryan Biddulph can help you become a successful blogger at Blogging From Paradise.
Connect with Ryan
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Instagram
LinkedIN
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 6, 2016 | Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Marketing, Small Business
Email marketing is a basic, yet elemental solution to reach out to millions of people in a matter of seconds. Your personalized message is a cost-effective business tool to touch a larger target market at a much lower cost than hard-copy mass mailings or print ads.
Email Marketing Will:
- Help you build lists
- Increase website traffic
- Generate sales
- Stay in touch with clients
- Share data about your company
- Create an instant call to action
- Enhance your brand or corporate image
As a form of direct marketing in the digital world, your communication is sent directly into the hands of your consumers, delivering impact and content. This isn’t simply a mass broadcast, but a carefully crafted bulls-eye message to your interested audience. Your email marketing campaigns are delivered via different types of email or messaging platforms. Tip: don’t spam your readers and ALWAYS ask permission before you send a newsletter, a text message, or add them to a list. OPT-IN!
- Transactional – triggered by consumer action. When a customer buys a product, pays via credit/debit card, or even makes an online reservation, emails or text messages are generated based upon this activity. This type of communication provides the marketer with an immediate opportunity for another touchpoint with the consumer to deepen the relationship and buyer satisfaction.
The Transactional emails have 8x more opens and clicks than any other type of email, and can generate 6x more revenue. Experian
- Email Newsletters – regular emails delivered to opt-in subscribers containing relevant industry content, solutions to pain points, and company news in addition to some promotional news/e-commerce products. These help to keep your audience connected and informed during the purchase or marketing cycle.
- Mobile Messages – text messages for appointment reminders, sales, special mobile opportunities as well as typical campaigns read via a device. Mobile messaging continues to grow at exponential rates – be mobile-ready, mobile-friendly, and responsive.
A fundamental purpose of your email marketing is to make it simple and easy for the consumer to act. You want them to opt-in, click, engage, share, purchase, and be your brand evangelist.
Guide Your Audience
- Add a signup box in your email signature, website, social platforms, and other marketing collateral
- Make your content rich and relevant
- Solve pain points and address gnawing issues (How can you improve their lives?)
- Add share buttons
- Embed links to your blog, products, and services
- Always use a CTA (call to action) in your emails
Engage Your Readers
- Readers want to know, ‘What’s it in for me?’ Make sure your email delivers
- Your email needs to capture their attention immediately. Use a clear and captivating subject title
- Content should be relevant and engaging. It’s too easy for your reader to click the delete button. If either of these two expectations is not met, your reader may delete or unsubscribe
- Encourage your readers to share your e-newsletter by offering incentives
- Keep it short and sweet
- Add links to drive traffic to your site or to reference other attention-grabbing articles
- Develop a reputation as value-added – a resource in your industry
There are many email marketing platforms to choose from so it is important to review the features, benefits and cost structure of each of them, learning which one best suits your company and your needs. Consider your present situation as well as future expansion. What might work now, may not work in a few years. As with any marketing or social media communications, consistency is key, as is your content marketing. You are writing for your reader, not for yourself. Understand their wants and needs. Hold off on sounding spammy and merely pushing products and services – it becomes overkill and annoying. Your marketing efforts should be to not only educate and inform but more importantly, build the relationships with your audience. This is the heart of your business! Thanks for reading. I hope you found this post useful and informative. What successes have you experienced with email marketing? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 30, 2015 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Delegation
What is the simplest tool to help you grow your business?
Besides a Virtual Assistant of course?
It’s your blog.
As a direct communication outlet, your blog helps you to reach your target audience and engage on their level, on their terms. It is THE most valuable piece of company real estate you own so you need to make the most of every post beyond a simple one click, social share.
Leveraging the power of social media platforms is the shortest route to your prospects. It’s not enough just to write rich and relevant content that solves pain points and answers the most sought after questions. You must take the extra steps to reach your target audience by promoting and sharing your blog on a variety of social platforms.
Social media continues to play a very active role in most brand’s marketing strategy due to the expansive reach and opportunities for engagement. This being the case, your content marketing is paramount to driving your online success and revenue. In fact, it generates 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing at cost of 62% less. Blogging retains its space as a key component in your marketing blueprint as the centralized community to keep your audience informed, educated and wanting more. Your content and blogs help to showcase how your products and services solve challenges, answer questions and make life a little less complicated.
- Blogs give websites on average 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. (Inbound Write)
- Brands that create 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month. (HubSpot).
- B2B companies that blog only 1-2x/month generate 70% more leads than those who don’t blog. (HubSpot)
Smart Insights found that 33% of marketers gave social media a medium to high rating as being a cost effective marketing channel, versus 19% for display advertising.
Social media is still by far the most universal approach to connect and distribute information. [Tweet “93% of bloggers share their content on social networks. Orbit Media”]
We’re living in a saturated marketplace of digital overload with millions of data bytes flowing down stream so if you want a little playtime on the raft, let me toss you a lifeline, direct from Mike Allton at The Social Media Hat.
Strategic content distribution is the spider web to disseminate information and capture attention and further drive higher conversion rates. There’s no roll of the dice, passing Go or collecting $200.00 without some time, effort and creative work.
Mike’s post “Blog Promotionology, The Art & Science of Blog Promotion” is a comprehensive checklist of the best (IMHO) blog promotion tools and tactics. Yes, as Mike states, it is a science but the return on investment pays off with:
- Increased traffic
- Readers
- Wider exposure
- List building
- Online authority
- Relationship building
- Credibility
- Connections
- Lead generation
- Revenue
Make it easy for your target audience to search and find you online. Remember, at this very instant, people are searching Google for answers and you may be the solution BUT if you aren’t effectively promoting your content, you won’t be able to connect and serve.
Mike’s secret sauce of Blog Promotionology ensures greater success in reaching your target audience not simply because you are adding your post to networks but with each link, you are impacting your SEO to bring your site higher in search rankings and algorithms. Something we all strive for.
Don’t be your own best audience any longer. Grab the wheel and take the necessary steps to drive your posts into the hands OR tech devices of your intended market. They want to hear from you.
Download Mike’s Blog Promotion Checklist and once you’ve digested the essentials and scratched your head about where to start or how much time it make take away from your business, get in touch with your Ace and let us help take your blog promotion to the next level.
Don’t leave it to Chance.
What you do after you create your content is what truly counts. Gary Vaynerchuk
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Oct 8, 2014 | Content Marketing, Customer Service, Social Media
Online success isn’t just about generating rich, relevant content and being on social platforms. While all that creates the basic foundation for success, you need to build your relationships and nurture your network.
[Tweet “Your community is your greatest asset; your megaphone of social proof.”]
Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. This effect is prominent in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior, and is driven by the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation. Wikipedia
The Internet is a social environment; a tremendous force for buying decisions. The information gathering process is performed online, everyday. 80-95% of purchases are made because of online reviews. You, as well as your customer base, are influenced by your peers and community. We listen for the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s the social way of doing business.
BrightLocal’s 2013 Local Consumer Review Survey found that:
These statistics alone are good enough reason to enhance and promote your own social proof in your digital environment. Build your digital reputation with authentic engagement, outstanding customer service and selfless connections. While there may be a method to your madness, ulterior motives are pretty transparent so don’t waste your time with disingenuous actions.
Be real.
Be the person you’d like to do business with.
Your service, not services is one of the key factors that can be your unique selling proposition. Your competitor may sell the same widgets, but it’s YOU who has the opportunity to rise above and offer something superb and personal.
Relationships are like muscle tissue… the more they are engaged, the stronger and more valuable they become. Ted Rubin
Truly connect and go the extra mile. 100 miles even. Don’t stop there. If you want something bad enough and believe you’ve got the best there is, then give it. You can’t go wrong.
What can Social Proof do for you?
- Build credibility
- Foster trust
- Grow loyalty
- Increase brand exposure
- Substantiate your products and services
- Empower your prospects
- Cultivate a community of influencers
Typical forms of Social Proof
- Social mentions, shares and likes
- Case studies
- Testimonials
- Online reviews
- User generated content
The Crazy Egg: social proof in the marketing community simply refers to using these crowds and their input to create positive connections with a brand or business.
How can YOU use social proof in your marketing?
- Share client case studies
- Embed tweets and mentions in your posts and social channels
- Add customer testimonials to your website and newsletter
- Show social endorsements from industry influencers
- Engage with interested online influencers who may help to promote you
- Add the Facebook “like” box to your blog
- Incorporate “As Seen In” logo boxes
- Save shout outs in your Twitter Favorites
When someone lands on your landing page, they don’t know whether your offer is any good — which gives you the opportunity to sway them using quotes from customers, embedded tweets, and so on. HubSpot
“The proof is in the pudding.” People can buy followers and likes so don’t depend on numbers to build your credibility or to make your own buying decisions. Unfortunately, just because you saw it on the Internet does not mean it’s real. Large numbers don’t equate to authenticity, dedicated fans or genuine relationships. Stir up real relationships.
Too many websites only talk about their products and services. Blah! Blah! Blah! While it may be important to talk about your company, offerings and services, it isn’t enough to sway your buyers. They showed up on your site for a reason. They have a need. You have a service. Make the decision process a little more comfortable and create the confidence and trust they are seeking.
Social Proof is your key to more magnetic marketing [KISSmetrics]
Showcase your undeniable true network of connections and clients with valid social proof that you produced with honest hard work.
You earned it.
Demonstrate it.
If you want to elevate your sway, develop strategies to put social proof to work in your online communications. Barry Feldman
What are your tips to foster and share your social proof?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 24, 2014 | Content Marketing, Organization, Productivity, Small Business, Time Management
Bleary eyed and reaching for your coffee, you boot up your computer and start your daily diet of content consumption. It is a filling nourishment of words, intel, fired up neurons and brain overload. Or at least it can be. Personally, I can spend hours reading all of the articles on social platforms, news aggregators, daily digests, emails and newsletters. Sometimes I think my head will explode.
Research demonstrates that we take in five times as much information as we did 30 years ago, raising huge challenges to organize it all.
We are drowning in data.
In a 2010 LexisNexis study, 62% of workers felt as though their quality of work suffered at times because they couldn’t sort through the information they needed fast enough.
There is so much to digest and learn. I could be bookmarking and saving content all day long. There are hundreds of talented bloggers and business owners sharing their incredible knowledge of tools, tips, recommendations and experiences. It can be overwhelming. Think of how many times you get sucked in to the black hole searching, clicking, and redirecting. It’s a vortex.
How do you manage all of the content? There are tools to organize your content or to help you search and save but you also need to decide what you are going to do with the information. Daniel Levitan, author of “The Organized Mind,” says “Whenever we feel overwhelmed by everything we need to keep track of in life, we talk about wanting to get organized.”
You’ve chosen your sources, thought leaders and industry favorites to follow and “study” in your own college auditorium of higher learning. That’s what it sometimes feels like for me and without the outrageous tuition costs.
What is the purpose? Business or personal? How does it apply to your business? Customers? Colleagues?
What are your content goals?
- Self-education
- Curation
- Repurposing
- Inspirational
- Research
- Love of reading
If you’re like most of us, you have a business to run and can’t spend every waking moment culling and sifting through information. It’s a full time job. Who has the time to sit and read all day when you are trying to live the entrepreneurial dream?
Use filters and keywords help to refine your searches.
This will help to save time and improve your overall content management. If you have some systems in place, it will be much easier to sort through all of the posts you want to read and combat your information hangover.
Researchers tend to agree that it’s not the volume of information that is the problem; it’s our inability to organize and process it all without experiencing “information overload, or what neuroscientists like to call “cognitive overload. Saga Briggs
| Research |
Organize |
| Social Media |
Evernote |
| BuzzSumo |
Readability |
| Scoop.it |
Spreadsheets |
| Tagboard |
Swipe files |
| RSS feeds |
Bookmarks |
| ContentGems |
Files and folders |
| Hootsuite Content Feature |
One Note |
| Flipboard |
Feedly |
| Alltop |
Google Drive |
| Inbound.org |
Dropbox |
| Biz Sugar |
Pocket |
| Topsy |
Ubernote |
| Feedly |
Powerpoint |
Design a system that works for you to enhance your time management and productivity as well as minimize on the extreme overload of data and what to do with it all. A method to your madness is guaranteed to keep you on track and focused. Systems and processes are the architectural structure of your success and productivity.
Establish some routines; otherwise you hit a wall, letting things go and opportunities are forfeited. The routines could be time limits or specific times you will be searching, saving and filing. Time block when you will surf. If you discover something important during the day, “save” it somewhere to revisit later. Don’t let it be a distraction and take you away from your current task at hand.
Decide what to keep or implement NOW based upon it’s perceived impact on your goals. Prioritize to your needs. Is it something you must have or must know? If so, how soon will you be needing it? Use your organizing tools to keep track of the data, being mindful of how you will use it and when. Some articles may have a more immediate use while others are purely for reference. You decide, but take action.
Declutter: remember to go through your folders or storage options so they haven’t blossomed into an overload of organized data. Purge the old to make room for the new. There’s no sense in just letting everything pile up and multiply as that will defeat the purpose of your systems.
How do you challenge your content zombie? What helpful tools can you suggest?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 10, 2014 | Content Marketing, Organization, Productivity, Social Media
How many times have you started your day feeling a little discombobulated? Out of sorts or otherwise, a hot mess?
Maybe your alarm didn’t go off, you’re missing a sock, can’t find your keys or worse, your coffee pot died! Oh yes it did. It’s not even a Monday! This is a horror and seems to set the tone for the rest of the day.
You throw up your hands and opt for the bedhead look. If you’re like me, you might even have a little crazed Medusa look going on. No, I’m not doing an HOA or SKYPE video call with you.
HOWEVER, you cannot bring this uncoiffed mentality into your social media marketing world. Oh it is so tempting to just jump on board and start posting, commenting and singing your song. Who cares about the different platforms, best times to post, what to share, syndication sites, building relationships and the whole ménage of social etiquette, tips, tools and suggestions? Right?
A little chaos and messy hair feels good.
Close your eyes for me. Just for a second. Now shake your head from side to side. Flip your hair up and down. Run your hands through it. Yeah, you men too. Okay, gradually open your eyes. Doesn’t it just feel a little freeing to let go?
Okay, you’re done. Come back down in your chair and focus!
If you’re like most small business owners, you think social media is just something you do versus a marketing tool that you MAKE time for. Remember, the majority of your customers and prospects are online and consuming information every day. If you aren’t online and making time for social media, you can rest assured that your competition is.
I will tell you this: YOU do NEED a social media strategy; a plan of attack. Nothing is accomplished by haphazardly flitting around tapping a few keys here and there. This goes beyond just the SMM goals for your company. You need more than that.
Focus on strategy, not tips and tools. It begins with your audience, their objectives, who are you connecting with and what they need from you. Pam Moore, CEO of Marketing Nutz
You should outline a daily plan for each of your social profiles, including goals for each one.
A daily routine will help to keep you focused and productive, otherwise, you will be spinning the hamster wheel of frustration. It is already so difficult to keep up with everything, figure out social media AND operate your business. Who has time for all of this??
Social media can be a tremendous time suck. Many business owners spend 12-20+ hours a week maintaining their online presence. Do you really have this kind of time? Can you afford to step away from the core of your business to search, write, edit, post, comment, share and otherwise be seen, be heard and engage?
Again, your routine and time management will keep you from wasting needless unplanned hours. Everything has a road map or a blueprint. Create one and stick to it.
Simply posting or tweeting a random thought without a strategy behind it is a recipe for disaster, and a complete waste of time. Rebekah Radice
Let’s assume (and I do hate this word):
- You have defined your SMM goals? Yearly? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?
- The tactics you will use to achieve them
- Understand your audience, their needs and their most used platforms
- You maintain a content or editorial calendar
- You search and curate content to meet the needs and questions of your audience
- You write weekly rich and valuable blog posts
One through six are the bare naked basics, part of your standard workflow.
Your daily schedule can make you or break you. If you find yourself with a knotted nappy head then you should probably revisit what you do every day and how deeply you sometimes get dragged into the abyss. You should be using time tracking tools or those that limit your website use, but that is a whole other post. Simply put, discipline yourself.
Ready. Set. Go.
- Outline your SMM platforms, include the URLs and logins
- Include the dates/times you will post on each.
- Type of post (examples): URL, quote, image, reshare, educational
- Create lists and groups in each channel of thought leaders, colleagues, friends or other important people in your network that you follow, engage with or want to share their content
- Gather a list of the RSS feeds of industry blogs or those VIPs above enabling you to read, share and discuss their content
- Curate information from the above as well as content that mirrors/supports your company products and services, buyer’s needs, drivers and pain points
- Search industry keywords and trending topics on sites like Triberr, scoop.it, buzzsumo, tagboard, Twitter search, topsy, paper.li, or pragmatic.com
- Find and implement time saving tools to curate and schedule content
- Automate: schedule some of your daily content
- Retweet, share and comment on posts
- Create relationships: engage in meaningful conversations (NEVER automate the personal touch. NEVER)
- Create relationships: yes I repeated myself because this is worth repeating. Don’t just shout out some content and run away. That isn’t social. Not by any means. If you want to see and feel a return then be personable not a conveyor belt of URLs.
- Follow your routine. Set aside time each and every day to accomplish these social media tasks, at a minimum. Even jump on at least twice a day to manage your digital space. Schedule this time on your calendar like you would any other appointment
- Most importantly: Shake hands. Smile. BE HUMAN. While cliche, be social, don’t do social if you hope to see any type of payoff.
Remember social media isn’t an overnight million dollar sensation. It’s almost a lifestyle. An investment. It takes time, nurturing, honest engagement, understanding and a hell of a lot of patience.
You’ve got this and with a little help from a few tools and perhaps a virtual assistant (Ace), you can manage a successful social media plan AND operate your business.
If you’re tired of doing it all or not having enough time in the day to do much of anything, let alone pour a fresh cup of coffee, simply click on the Contact Us button and we can talk.
Come on… it’s easy. You deserve a little sanity. A little hair product for a more coiffed look. We’re here to help YOU.
