by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jun 3, 2014 | Blogging, Content Marketing
That sounds virtually impossible. Insurmountable even. Who the heck can truly write “remarkable” newsworthy content in such a short period of time? I know and read about many who do and on a daily basis. Personally, I labor over many of my posts; no matter how many other ones I read stashed full of tips, tricks and recommendations for curating, newsjacking and writing.
The pressure’s on and you must produce a blog post. “Ugh” you say.
Sometimes you experience writer’s block, the dreaded blahs or why reiterate what’s been said time and time again. You know you’ve got game but it can still be a struggle to create something mammoth, something so rich that your audience will be shouting and sharing your post from the rooftops. Or, at least a few social channels.
[Tweet “Writing with your readers in mind, you must author up some compelling content.”]
One of my core beliefs of effective content marketing is to deliver content people actually want. Publish stories they actually will enjoy – to read and to share. Michael Brenner
Maintain originality, enticing your audience to hang on to every word, be inspired or educated with your twist on your hot topic. Remember, you aren’t writing for yourself, but your readers, those in need; those hungry for your content. When you know where they are, how they prefer to consume content, speak their language and solve their pain points, you will have initiated the first step toward:
- Educating them
- Generating authority
- Instilling trust
- Nurturing relationships
- Developing credibility
- Building your community
It’s just the first few bricks of your foundation.
Whether you are creating content for new prospects, current customers, industry analysts or someone else entirely, the real purpose behind those efforts should be to build a higher level of trust between the consumer of the content and the brand creating it. Dan Newman
Customize your content marketing strategy and tactics to target your unique audience. While there are allegedly many best practices and beliefs as a single monster sized umbrella for CM, you should experiment and create your own plan based upon your buyer personas, their needs, your industry and your budget as well. If you want different results, change the experiment.
Track and measure your efforts to determine what works.
And what works today, may not work tomorrow, but keep at it. It takes time, effort and creativity but with a little ingenuity and a genuine interest for your audience, writing can become second nature. So they say.
Blog Writing Tips
- Set aside some time each week
- Use an editorial calendar
- Be consistent
- Remember: quality over quantity
- Eliminate distractions
- Keep a swipe file of ideas, interesting articles, hashtags, circle of influencers and favorite websites/blogs
- Have a list of curation/news sites
- When you outline your post, know what questions you want to answer
- Organize your content
- Write a captivating intro
- Use headlines and subheads
- Include a CTA!
- Visuals count
- Use anchor text both internal and external
- Remember your tags, descriptions and SEO
- Take breaks to refresh and energize
- Edit
- Proofread
- Proofread
- Proofread
Expand your knowledge and understanding with:
The Research and Science Behind a Perfect Blog Post
Know the Erogenous Zones of Your Blog Post
39 Blogging Tips From the Pros
10 Content Marketing Lessons from Social Media Examiner
What Blogging Tips Are You Missing?
47 Content Marketing Tools To Help You Save Time And Get Better Results
Content Marketing Minds: 1 Genius, 3 Minutes, 9 Vital Concepts [VIDEO]
53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Post
How to Write a Blog Post Outline: A Simple Formula to Follow
Back to you: what tips and tools do you suggest to help others with their blogging efforts and time management?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 6, 2014 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Virtual Assistant
What IF you could free up as much as 20% of your time for responsibilities and core business needs that truly matter? Would you do it? Would you make the investment?
“What tasks do you have to do yourself and what could you have others do? Tasks that have low value for your customers and are time-consuming — such as bookkeeping or administrative tasks — are ideal tasks to outsource.” Jordan Cohen
For some entrepreneurs partnering with a virtual assistant is unfamiliar territory and you may not fully comprehend the wide scope of work that can be efficiently outsourced to help free up your time. You may create mental roadblocks or perceived hurdles to prevent yourself from seeking assistance with your business. These alleged barriers can be easily overcome with a little in depth thought and evaluation to conquer your objections. Delegating is a key management strategy that will benefit you and your company.
1. I need control: It may also difficult to give up control of something you have always done and believe only you can do and do it best. This self-limiting thought process does not allow you the time or full productivity to dedicate to the core of your business. You may be buried and merely just busy doing more menial activities that are NOT the best value of your time. Delegating to a virtual assistant is a learning process for some but I have found that once you begin delegating, it becomes more second nature and such a stress relief to hand off projects. It is certainly more cost efficient as there are no taxes, health benefits, office space, insurances, office supplies or equipment. Your costs are only project based and that is it!! Delegating is a move to expansion, increased productivity, better time management, enhanced work life balance and a little more time in your day to focus on what is important, rather than on what needs to be done.
2. I can do it faster: This may be initially true, but after clear instructions, detailed outcomes, a few tips, your virtual assistant will become proficient at your task or project. They may even have more efficient tools and systems to manage your request. If this is an ongoing task, think about how much time you will free up by outsourcing it. It is the job of the virtual assistant to be expedient, efficient and provide quality work. We do this every day, for ourselves and our clients.
3. I can only rely on myself for the best results: Unfortunately, this does not represent a growth mentality. Your virtual assistant is an established business owner who understands delegating and accountability. Our goal is 100% satisfaction – our business and reputation depends on it. Every task or project is meticulously managed, double checked and triple checked to ensure you are happy with the output. We encourage your feedback and suggestions for our mutual success. As you know, we are only human and errors to do happen, but they are rectified.
4. I don’t know what to delegate: Examine your core competencies, what are you best at or what represents your fundamental business acumen. These are your high payoff activities that only you can do. Anything that is low value or does not generate revenue can be successfully delegated. A simple exercise would be to track all of your daily tasks and projects for one week. Note the time spent, any interruptions, what was accomplished, which items generated revenue and how many things on your To Do list still remain. Upon review, you will be able to more clearly define what you should do, delegate or dump.
5. Remote business operations can’t possible work: Oh but they do. For many of the day to day business tasks, a virtual assistant is your savvy, technological partner to help drive your organizational success. VAs must be able to utilize a variety of cloud based tools, computer software and applications to communicate and manage each and every task that is delegated. We are constantly reading and educating ourselves on a daily basis. We must remain current and ready to tackle any business objective. If we don’t have the skillset, someone on our team or within our industry is will to help. Virtual Assistants are your vested partner.
“Investments pay off over time – and that is what delegation does.” Kevin Eikenberry
A greater fear to consider is how much are you holding on to that is stopping you from focusing on the core of your business? What isn’t getting done? How many hours do you put in on a weekly basis?
Embrace delegation, don’t run from it. It is a low cost high payoff tool to help you scale your company and focus on the core of your business – what ONLY YOU can do.
In a recent article Harvard Business Review article: “The Skills Most Entrepreneurs Lack” by Bill Bonnstetter, he discussed a study which showed that entrepreneurs are lacking in self-management and planning and organization.
“Entrepreneurial-minded people are not proficient in managing themselves and their time. Often they need assistance managing everyday tasks and should hire or delegate them to someone who has mastered this skill. Similar to self-management, if entrepreneurs spent time planning and organizing every task or meeting, they would never get anything else done. Once again, hiring someone to keep their calendar, organize meetings and events, keep the office de-cluttered, and help keep them on schedule can put them at an advantage.“
Think long and hard about the value of your time and your daily To Do list. What should you begin delegating today?
The best way to figure out how to utilize a VA in your life, however, is to take 3 days of your life and for every task that you do, stop for a moment and ask yourself, “Can someone else do this for me and if so, can it be done online?”. You’ll find there are a tremendous amount of tasks that can be accomplished by a VA in this manner. An extremely valuable added bonus with this exercises is that once you start thinking in this manner, you’ll also gain a stronger appreciation for your time and value it more. This may be the most important lesson that you can learn! Stefan Pylarinos
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 10, 2014 | Communication, Social Media
The digital landscape is abundant with incredible industry thought leaders sharing the knowledge and best practices in social media. The circle of influencers crest the lists of who to follow and how to engage them.
- You admire them.
- You follow them.
- You learn from them.
- You implement their suggestions.
- You share and comment on their posts.
- You believe it is a mutual give and take to build deep relationships and connections.
Social media is BEING social not doing social. Right? It isn’t an automated robotic act of verbal diarrhea to gain and maintain a following. You will surely lose if that is your strategy. You are dealing with real live human beings behind the keystrokes. While we are a push button society, get things done, do it fast; building relationships is a one on one personal endeavor and no amount of sterile replies or automated apps will generate authentic connections.
If your job is content and social media marketing then try to live as a good example of a digital citizen. Christian Vanek
Get real. Be real.
BUT, how does the little guy fair in this vast sea of legendary experts? Is it like swimming with the sharks or do you have the same opportunity to engage in unpretentious dialog?
Are you able to be noticed or shuffled amongst the minnows until you become one of the bigger swimmers?
You will find that many will respond in kind, a quick thank you but there isn’t always an extensive amount of back and forth. Maybe more courtesy replies if you will.
“I firmly believe that respect is a lot more important, and a lot greater, than popularity.” Julius Erving
Your challenge may be to continue prompting the conversations to further deepen your experience and connection with your esteemed colleagues. Have the empowering discussions, becoming more educated and learning from “the best” in the industry. It helps you and your business.
- Be engaging
- Add value
- Ask questions
- Share other people’s content
- Express gratitude
- Be a giver
- Make introductions
- Connect within your community
- Emulate those who inspire you
- Remember to always respond to others
What happens when there is no reply? (Don’t take it personally!)
The Social Disconnect
Does that influence your impression of the individual or impact your level of engagement?
It seems like it would be a dichotomy.
How do these respected professionals write and talk about the essence of social media and relationship marketing, yet they don’t put forth the same? Shouldn’t their actions back up their words? Like Daniel Newman said: Social Media Pundits (Mostly) Suck At Engagement
The problem is the proclamation of engagement as a key part of success in social media. If you think about it when it comes to this group that talks engagement but doesn’t really do it, it starts to just sound like a bunch of kumbayya stuff and not at all like a real strategy. Almost like a “Wag The Dog” strategy for the small circle of elite that want to keep you looking left while they are building their empires on the right.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 1, 2014 | Content Marketing
Marketing has drastically changed over the past several decades in terms of the delivery methods but no matter how you look it, it is still content driven and always will be. It used to be solely about print media and ad space but now it is more about vying for attention from your online audience. This can be the biggest constraint but with the right content, geared toward the right market, you have an opportunity to be seen and heard.
Organizations are pumping up their online efforts to write compelling content and devour a piece of the market share, the hungry consumer. If you are not part of this bandwidth, churning out and feeding the insatiable, then you are doing a great disservice to your brand and your buyers. Content marketing offers the potential to communicate, engage and acquire new customers as well as to continue deepening relationships by adding value to your customers and prospects lives. For your efforts to be effective, your content must deliver an impact: a result to drive readership, sharing and interest. It isn’t merely finding an article and pushing it out. It should resonate with your company, your mission, your solutions and YOUR followers.
Your customers and prospects are searching for relevant data to help them in their buying decisions. You want to be that driver. You want to stay one step ahead of your competition, even industry colleagues, but to do this, you must be distributing value. Meeting pain points. Making sure your content conveys the information your audience is chasing.
When creating your content, think about some of the common questions you have been asked.
- What problems does your product or service solve?
- How will your product or service help them improve their career, their daily lives?
- What makes it difficult for them to do what they need to do on a daily basis?
- What are their obstacles to success?
Your solution based content can produce reactions and needs to your offerings. Help your readers thrive and flourish.
Content marketing is a strong leader in your social media channels. The Content Marketing Institute said:
“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
Inspire!
Don’t focus on what you have to say; understand what your target market wants to read. Your content marketing strategy should serve and deliver based upon the needs of your target market, offering solutions and viable outcomes for their greatest pain points.
Get inspired with the top 8 daily habits of some of the world’s most effective content marketers.
“Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.” – Doug Kessler
In a recent study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute their results demonstrated that 93% of B2B organizations now use content-based tactics for their marketing promotions and 73% specified they now produce more content than the previous year.
Peg Fitzpatrick’s post: Feed the Content Monster defines the industry social terms and helps you to understand the what, where, why and how of content marketing. It answers all of your questions, providing you guidance and suggestions to jump in the content ring. Get ready. Research. Curate. Write. Share.
What is the content monster? This is the void for content marketers between content creation and content sharing. The content monster needs to be fed consistently. Content marketing is a great way for brands and small businesses to reach their clients and prospective clients. If you are creating your own media or blog content, content creation is a time-consuming and important task. Most blogs and businesses aren’t producing an original video or blog article each day. If you do have the time and talent to produce great quality content, you still need to share more than one thing per day on social media. So, how can you feed the content monster and curate amazing content to share?
Click to read more: pegfitzpatrick.com
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 13, 2014 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Writing great and ‘share worthy’ content takes time.
It takes effort and isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do.
The problem is that simply writing something that is ‘great’ doesn’t mean that it’s going to get any views.
There’s a lot more to it than that.
In this post I’m going to share a number of things that I do differently when I write content. Using these tips I have been able to generate thousands of social shares on a relatively new blog.
Identify a problem and solve it
In recent years the bar has been raised thanks to the level of quality content that other writers are producing.
The easiest way to compel your audience to share your content is by identifying what problem they are experiencing and then solve it.
When people have been searching high and low to find the answer to a problem and they finally find it, they can be very appreciative.
Get the timing right
Sometimes timing can be a big factor.
A great example is when Google first announced that Google Reader was closing. The keyword ‘Google reader alternative’ became incredibly popular overnight.
Within a short amount of time there was an incredible number of blogs writing about the topic which meant that the competition went up dramatically.
Although the first few blogs to cover this would have seen significant increases in traffic, mostly from organic search.
Also, one thing that I noticed was that even the blogs that were late to cover the topic generated an above average level of social shares.
This type of thing is often referred to as news jacking because that’s essentially what you’re doing.
If you publish a blog post just before journalists are scrambling for information then you have a great opportunity.
David Meerman Scott also published a great book on the topic, learn more about it here.
Keep it easy to read
Readability is an important factor and it’s important to keep your articles at a level where everyone can understand them.
Breaking your sentences up into smaller chunks, writing clear sub headings and utilising formatting are all a good way to do that.
A very helpful tool that I found recently was the Hemingway App that grades your articles readability and offers ways to improve it.
Add value and come up with a unique angle
Before you start writing anything you need to think about how you can add value to your content.
Check out what other people have wrote about the topic in Google and find out what’s missing:
- Do you have a unique perspective on the subject?
- Can you add more detail and make a more comprehensive resource?
- Is there a content type that isn’t used?
There are plenty of things to think about but what you need to identify in most cases is the content gap.
By finding what’s missing you can make sure that your content fills the gap and becomes what people have been wanting.
Mention influencers and tell them about it
There is a form of marketing that is trending right now.
It’s known as influencer marketing.
The idea is marketing directly to those that influence your target audience rather than directly marketing to your target audience.
I’ve found it to be very effective but another thing it can really help with is content distribution.
By mentioning influencers in your content and letting them know (using Twitter, Google+ or email works fine) you can skyrocket the amount of social shares for your content.
People love it when other people say awesome stuff about them.
Finding influencers
There are a lot of tools on the market that can help you, but as a starting point I’d recommend giving BuzzSumo a try. It’s free to get started while the tool is in beta and it’s very straight forward to use.
Contacting influencers works best from a personal account even if you’re working on behalf of a brand – the personal touch works best. Something Jennifer Hanford covered here.
How to incorporate influencers into your content
Simply linking out to influencers can work great and for a lot of people it does.
There is a way to get more influencers to share your content.
That is to involve them directly in the creation of the content – you may have seen this referred to as group interviews or crowd sourced content.
The end result is the same – a group of influencers contributing content and because of that they are more willing to share the content.
Here are a few examples that have generated an impressive number of social shares:
The reality of influencer marketing
Instead of my websites or my clients starting out and having no audience whatsoever we have used this to put tap into the established audience of market influencers to put their content, their brand and their message directly in front of their target audience.
It’s not an overnight strategy, it does take time and there are more steps involved, but that’s the same in any form of real marketing.
Clicking publish doesn’t mean the job is done
The biggest mistake that I see bloggers and marketers make is spending an incredible amount of time creating a really great piece of content but don’t put the time into promoting it.
The truth is that clicking publish maybe all you’ll need to do if you are Tech Crunch or Mashable but most of us have got a fair distance to go until we reach that point.
I’d recommend checking this post out because it goes into a lot more detail (and it’s a very large topic) but ultimately after every post is published you need to spend as much time promoting it as you have done creating it.
Think about your target audience and where they hang out online. Then put your content directly in front of them.
Don’t do it in a spammy way or just drop the link in online communities but actually engage with your audience and start building a discussion.
Engage with your audience, be present and help them.
Soon enough you will develop your own influence.
Summary
There are plenty of ways to help get your content shared, this isn’t an exhaustive list by any means.
Now I’ll put the question to you – what do you do to help make sure people share your content?
We would love to hear more in the comments below.
Guest Author Blog Post:
Adam Connell is the Marketing Manager for a UK based marketing agency; UK Linkology. In his spare time Adam trains people to get better results out of content and social media.
Connect with Adam:
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Photo Credit: giulia.forsythe via Compfight cc
