The Right and Wrong Way to Use Social Media Marketing for Blog Growth

Earlier this week, I wrote a post that explained the differences between social media marketing and content marketing.  Bloggers can use both methods of marketing their blogs in order to drive traffic to them.  In fact, you’re probably already doing social media marketing and content marketing activities.

But what are the right and wrong ways to market your blog on the social web?

My new book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, will be released any day now (you can check out a free bonus chapter here), and one of the things I talk about in the book is the difference between social media marketing success and failure.  There are three primary “rights and wrongs” that you need to be aware of as you venture into the world of the social web to promote your blog, grow your audience, and reach your goals.

I call these “rights and wrongs” the 3 Cs of Social Media Marketing Success or Failure, and the chart below can help you understand what these 3 Cs are all about.

Bloggers, just like businesses, who allow the online conversation to flow and let their audience take control of that conversation and experience that content in their own ways will achieve social media marketing and content marketing success.  However, those bloggers, just like businesses, who try to control the conversation and limit the flow of content across the social web will fail.  I clarify this concept in my book by explaining,

“There’s a fine line between behaving on the social web in ways that help you build bridges and acting in ways that cause those bridges to collapse (taking your messages along with them).”

Only you can decide whether you want to fully leverage the power, reach, and influence of the social web by giving up control and releasing your content into the virtual world.  You’ve already started by publishing a blog.  The rest is the easy part.

If you remember nothing else from my posts here on Performancing.com, remember this:

There is no bigger opportunity for businesses of any size (including bloggers and online publishers) to level the playing field, build their brands, and reach their goals than the social web.  You’re already there.  Let it work for you.

So what are you waiting for?  Get out there and publish amazing, shareworthy content and let the compounding effect of blogging deliver long-term, organic and sustainable growth for your blog!

Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing Through Blogging

In the worlds of business and marketing, blogs can be an extremely valuable tool for both direct and indirect promotion.  However, it’s not as simple as saying blogs are a form of online marketing, because they can be part of a traditional online marketing plan (including banner ads, video ads, and so on) or part of a social media marketing strategy or content marketing strategy.

But what is the difference between social media marketing and content marketing?  The truth is they overlap a lot, so the concepts can become even more confusing and overwhelming.  In order to understand how these two forms of online marketing compare and contrast, check out the explanations below.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is defined as any form of direct or indirect marketing that promotes a business through the conversations and sharing which occur on the social web.  For example, Twitter updates, Facebook posts, forum posts, and comments published on blogs, videos, images, and so on are all social media marketing tactics.  Even the one-click sharing of links that happens across the social web is a form of social media marketing.

The primary objective of social media marketing is not only to start conversations and encourage sharing right now but also to keep those conversations and sharing related to your business going in order to indirectly promote your business well into the future.

Social media marketing also helps you directly market your business.  For example, you can post a discount code for purchases on your Twitter profile or announce a new product on your Facebook page.  Direct marketing tactics are used to motivate consumers to perform an action in the short-term as opposed to the long-term marketing objectives tied to ongoing conversations and sharing.

Social media marketing helps small business owners build brand awareness, create more entry points to their content and branded destinations across the web thanks to the power of the compounding effect of blogging and social media participation, and develop relationships with potential customers and online influencers around the world.

Content Marketing

Content marketing works both online and offline and includes any form of content created and shared for the purpose of directly or indirectly promoting a business.  The popularity of content marketing has grown significantly thanks to the widespread accessibility of online social media tools that enable anyone to publish amazing, shareworthy content.

For example, blog posts, online videos, press releases, articles, ebooks, and so on are all forms of content marketing that help to establish your expertise and add value to your target audience’s lives.  In fact, content published for the purpose of indirect marketing might not even be related to a business but does help people, which means it can indirectly build a brand simply because that content aids in building consumer trust.  Furthermore, it might get shared and discussed!  That’s where the power of content marketing comes from — adding value through the publishing and sharing of meaningful, useful content.

The best content marketing plans incorporate a variety of online and offline tactics that lead directly to social media marketing through sharing and conversations.  Bottom-line, content marketing allows small businesses to establish credibility, trust and loyalty because it helps people or interests them.

Therefore, content marketing and social media marketing should not operate in separate silos.  To be truly successful in promoting your blog, business, or brand via the social web, you need to integrate your content marketing and social media marketing activities.   Simply publishing a great blog post and forgetting about it won’t help you.  Instead, you need to publish that amazing content and let the world know about it, consume it, and hopefully, talk about it and share it with their own audiences using the tools of social media so you to reach your goals.

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20 Easy Ways to Promote Your Blog Across the Social Web

One of the key points I explain in my book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, is that for a business to succeed in building a brand and growing, it needs to surround consumers with branded online experiences, so those consumers can self-select how they want to engage with the brand.  The same theory holds true for bloggers who want to grow their own blog brands and audiences across the social web.

Following are 20 easy things you can do to promote your blog across the social web.  You’ll notice that many of the suggestions listed below require a one-time set-up and you’re done.  Some of the suggestions don’t even happen online!  Others require you to do a bit more work, but the end result is worth it in terms of directly and indirectly promoting your blog to a wider audience.  Take a look and try to implement as many of the suggestions listed below as possible to jump-start your blog promotion efforts.

1. Feed your blog content to your Twitter profile, Facebook profile and page, LinkedIn profile, and so on.  Use tools like Twitterfeed and the tools incorporated into social networking accounts to do this.
2. Publish eye-catching social media icons in a visible location on your blog’s sidebar, so visitors can easily connect with you on your other social media profiles.
3. Make sure your various social networking and other online profiles include current links to your full spectrum of online profiles, blogs, and so on.
4. Feed your blog content to any LinkedIn groups that you belong to that allow you to do so using the News feature in LinkedIn.
5. Include the URL to your blog, Twitter profile, and so on in your offline correspondence.
6. Include links to your various online profiles and blog in your email signature.
7. Make sure links to your key online profiles and blog are included in the signature line in any forums you participate in.
8. At the very least, the URL for your blog and Twitter profile should be on your business card.
9. Make sure your blog content gets in front of as many people as possible by syndicating your content through services like Demand Media Blog Distribution Network and Newstex.
10. Use widgets and social tools offered by Twitter and Facebook (such as the Facebook Like button) to publish your other social web activities on your blog.
11. Continually publish comments on other blogs and link back to your own using the same keyword phrase in the name box every time.
12. Hold a blog contest and be sure to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on.
13. Make sure you offer sharing links on your blog and other online content using tools like the TweetMeme Retweet button.
14. Write guest blog posts for other blogs in your niche and be sure to include links back to you blog, Twitter profile, and so on.
15. Hold a tweet chat or tweetup with people attending the same events or conferences that you plan to attend.
16. Create an email newsletter to go with your blog and be sure to include links to your Twitter profile and other social networking profiles in it.
17. Be retweetworthy in an effort to get more of your tweets that include links to your content retweeted.
18. Publish press releases about your blog with links to your blog and social media profiles.
19. Brand your Twitter profile background and provide more URLs than the standard profile allows.
20. Keep publishing amazing, shareworthy content and organically interlink your branded online destinations!

BlogBurst Joins Demand Media Blog Distribution Network

BlogBurst was once known as the free and ad-supported blog syndication service that could help bloggers get their content in front of wider audiences.  I’m a proponent of syndication with some caveats that I explain later in this post.  Since Demand Media announced at Blog World last week that BlogBurst was relaunching as part of the Demand Media Blog Distribution Network, I thought revisiting the topic of syndication would be a good idea.

Let’s take a step back and look at who Demand Media is.  If you’re not involved in the world of freelance writing, then you may have never heard of Demand Media before.  It’s actually a company that draws a lot of negative attention from the freelance writing community with many writers viewing Demand Media as nothing more than a dreaded content mill.  I actually disagree with that because in at least some of its published content production process, Demand Media does try to hire people who can actually write coherently.  Furthermore, Demand Media does pay freelance writers more than the typical content mill.

So what does this reputation mean for bloggers who have or are considering syndicating their content through BlogBurst — now Demand Media Blog Distribution Network?

The simple answer is two-fold — quality and association, which are two of the caveats I mentioned about blog syndication earlier.  Let’s take a closer look at each.

When you consider syndicating your blog content through another online publisher, you have to think about the quality of the sites where your content will be published as well as the type of content that will be published around your own blog content on those other sites.  Unlike licensed content syndication, free and ad-supported syndication models, like the syndication opportunities available through BlogBurst (now Demand Media Blog Distribution Network), publish your content on the free-Web.  That means it appears on multiple websites, which might steal a bit of page views from your own blog, but are more likely to drive more traffic to your blog through increased exposure.

However, you need to understand where your content will be viewed as part of the syndication agreement.  For example, Demand Media Blog Distribution Network publishes content on a variety of sites, including its own properties such as eHow.com and LiveStrong.com.  You need to determine if these sites are ones that will help or hurt your reputation and your blog’s reputation.  Also, you need to consider whether syndicating your content and allowing Demand Media Blog Distribution Network to earn money from it is worth it to you or if it would be better for you to take the time to publish your content on some of those other sites (such as eHow.com) without a middle-man.

Again, I’m an advocate of blog syndication for boosting exposure and growing an audience, but you need to research syndication opportunities and ensure you’re choosing the ones that will truly help you reach your long-term blogging goals rather than working against those goals.  Is syndication through Demand Media Blog Distribution Network right for everyone?  No.  Is it right for some bloggers?  Yes.  It’s up to you to evaluate the pros and cons and determine if this type of syndication will help or hurt you and your blog.

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Has Digg Been Buried?

As Facebook and Twitter continue to grow in popularity, social bookmarking sites like Digg have seen their own traffic and usage wane.  The question of late has been whether or not a site like Digg is still relevant.  It’s not a secret that for years Digg has been the subject of controversy as users complained a small group was controlling submission popularity.  Regardless of how that battle went down, one thing is for certain — Digg is not the powerhouse it once was.

In response to steadily decreasing traffic, Digg launched Digg v4, a newer, sleaker, cooler version of the once groundbreaking social bookmarking site.  A new CEO, Matt Williams, was brought on board, and there was hope for Digg’s future.  Then Digg v4 launched and Digg’s problems exploded.  Suffice it to say, the new version of Digg had performance problems, missing pieces (for example, users’ submission histories disappeared), and a renaming of critical elements (for example, submissions that users could previously ‘bury’ if they didn’t like that content, they could now only ‘hide’).  Confusion and complaints from the Digg user community were loud, and Digg has been trying to pick up the pieces for the past month and a half since Digg v4 debuted.

Yesterday, Digg CEO Matt Williams published his response to the Digg v4 controversy on the Digg blog.  He wrote:

“As many of you know, the launch of Digg v4 didn’t go smoothly, and we’re deeply sorry that we disappointed our Digg community in the process. Thank you for your patience and your extremely candid feedback — we hear you loud and clear. … Digg has always been a place where users help one another find out what’s interesting, fun, and important. Unfortunately, our re-launch managed to get in the way of that happening. I don’t need to tell you that without the Digg community, we’re just another news web site. So we’re working hard to quickly improve the Digg experience. Our top priority is to make Digg as good as it used to be. Then we plan to make it even better, through innovations in both Top News and My News.”

It’s interesting that Williams would refer to Digg as being “just another news site” without the participation of the Digg community.  He’s absolutely right about that.  Many social bookmarking sites have become little more than aggregators.  Now, the question is whether or not Digg truly will come out of this controversy as a better business, brand and site.  In other words, will Digg still be relevant a year from now or has Digg been buried?

What do you think?  Leave a comment and weigh in on the debate.

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How to Get Sales from Your Business Blog

If you’re writing a blog related to your business then you’re already on your way to increasing sales!  The next step is turning the people who read your blog into people who actually make a purchase or contact you for more information about your business, products and services.  It’s easier to do than you might think using a few simple tricks!

First, if you run a retail website, it’s absolutely essential that your blog and the content of your blog posts link to your online catalog or store whenever possible.  At the very least, you should have a highly visible image link to your online store at the top of every page of your blog.  For example, a standard image calling attention to your online store could be placed at the top of your blog’s sidebar, so it’s easy to see and find no matter what page a visitor lands on when they come to your site.  Remember, your blog will generate incoming links from across the web over time.  Therefore, you can’t guarantee that a visitor will land on your business website’s home page.  Make sure it’s very easy for any visitor to find out more about you and find your online store with a simple click of the mouse from any page of your website and blog.

Next, don’t use your business blog as a place to constantly self-promote your business, products and services.  Instead, you should offer meaningful and useful information related to your industry.  Refer to your products (and include links to those products in your online store within your blog post) when it’s appropriate and adds value to the reader’s experience.  Simply overloading your blog posts with information about how great your business is, multiple links to your products which might be completely irrelevant to the blog post in which they appear, and so on creates a negative user experience.  In short, no one will return to your business blog if the only information they find there is self-promotional posts.  Instead, offer information that helps readers, and indirectly market your business within those posts with useful references and links that enhance the post rather than interrupt it and detract from it.

Finally, give your audience something extra or exclusive to reward them for reading your business blog.  For example, offer special discount codes that can be used in your online or offline store.  Provide tips and tutorials that are offered only on your blog.  In other words, people have to have a reason to read your blog rather than other blogs or websites.  Extra and exclusive information not only attracts new visitors but also boost repeat visitors.

Most importantly, be active.  Continually write new posts and content, interact with your readers, and begin building relationships with them that will help increase sales, brand loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing.

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Give Your Blog a Marketing Boost with Press Releases

The press release doesn’t get the credit it deserves in the 21st century.  For longer than most of us have been alive, press releases have been a useful marketing and publicity tool that businesses, non-profit organizations, schools, and more use to tell the world about the great things they’re doing.  While press releases might not be quite as important to an integrated marketing strategy as they once were, they can still benefit businesses.

Guess what?  Press releases can benefit bloggers, too.

Did you know that there are a variety of websites where you can submit your press release for free publication and sometimes limited distribution?  While it can costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars for full press release distribution through a site like PR Newswire, there are other sites that can help you spread the word for a much smaller investment.  Of course, these sites won’t give you the instant reach that full press release distribution through a site like PR Newswire can, but it can create entry points for your blog via incoming links, and it can put your name and messages in front of audiences that may not already be visiting your blog.  In other words, press releases play an important role in a content marketing strategy.

The trick is knowing where to submit press releases and knowing how to write one so it doesn’t simply read like an article or worse — a marketing pitch.  No one is going to read or share your ad disguised as a press release.  Remember, press releases should be written as journalistic pieces that provide newsworthy information to a broad audience.

Here are some tips to write a great press release:

• Write in the third person.
• Include a quote from a key player if possible.
• Include the date of the release and city of origin.
• Write a descriptive title without using sales language.
• Include a boiler plate description of your blog or website at the end of the press release with a link.
• Use search engine optimization techniques to drive traffic to your press release.
• Keep the length to about 4-6 paragraphs (1-page).
• REPORT don’t SELL.

Once you write your press release about the great things happening on your blog (for example, if you bring on a new writer, win an award, launch a new service, and so on), it’s time to spread the word.

Following are several sites that offer free publishing as well as a few sites that offer both free publishing and limited distribution:

• Free-press-release.com
• PR.com
• OpenPR.com
• SmallBizTrends.com – Small Business News Section
• WomenOnBusiness.com – Business Women News Section

Keep in mind, just about anything can be turned into a news item with a bit of thought and planning.  Give yourself some credit for the work you do and spread the word by writing a press release and letting it loose on the Web!  Be sure to include a link in your press release to your blog as well as your contact information!

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Sample Guest Blog Post Submission Guidelines

Last week, I wrote a post here on Performancing about weeding out guest blog post spam and suggested that you write very clear guest post submission guidelines and publish them on your blog.  Doing so might not deflect all guest blog post spam, but it can help to make sure the legitimate guest posts that are submitted to you meet your publishing criteria.

With that in mind, following is a guest blog post submission and publishing guidelines sample that you can tweak to work on your blog.  Feel free to copy and use it as needed.

Sample Guest Blog Post Submission and Publishing Guidelines

If you would like to submit a guest post to this blog, follow the instructions below for consideration.  Only guest posts that meet these criteria will be considered for publishing.

• The post must be useful to the readers of this blog.
• The post must be grammatically correct and well-written.
• The post must not include marketing-related links and must not be entirely self-promotional.
• The post may include links to your website and blog in a brief author’s bio (approximately 3 sentences), which will be published at the end of the guest post.
• Guest posts must be original and may not have been published elsewhere online already.  All submissions will be verified for originality using a tool such as Copyscape.com or Plagium.com.

Guest posts that are approved for publishing will be published without notice.  Please check the blog periodically to see if your post has been published.  Due to the high volume of guest posts this blog receives, messages following up on the status of a guest post submission will not be responded to.

If you have any requirements related to length of guest posts, specific topics, things you won’t publish no matter what, image size or format, and so on, add those to the above list, too.  In other words, the more specific and clear your submission guidelines are, the less time it will take you to review and approve guest post submissions.  You can automate the submission and publishing process using a tool like the Gravity Forms plugin if you use WordPress.org for your blogging application.  Alternately, you can use a service that links blogs up with writers who are interested in providing guest posts such as MyBlogGuest.com.

The point of publishing guest post submission and publishing guidelines is to set expectations and alleviate some of your workload processing submissions.  If your blog gets a lot of blog post submissions, it can take up a lot of your time to review, edit and publish all of them.  Let your guest post submission guidelines take care of some of that work for you.

Weeding out Guest Blog Post Submission Spam

Getting more incoming links to your blog or website from influential and popular sites is a great way to boost your search engine rankings.  That’s one of the reasons that guest blogging is popular.  Not only does it help the guest blogger get in front of a wider audience, but it also gives the guest blogger more incoming links to his own blog (most guest bloggers include a bio with a link to their website or blog).

The Ugly Side of Guest Blogging

However, there is a growing trend online where both legitimate and questionable companies pay people to craft “guest blog posts” which those writers blindly submit to websites and blogs in an effort to build incoming links for a company.  Whether or not the writer knows the actual purpose of the guest post in terms of link-building is less important than realizing a company is paying someone to submit guest posts using specific keyword phrase links within those posts.

Recognizing Guest Blog Post Spam

Sometimes these posts are actually relevant to the blog’s audience to which they are submitted.  Other times they are not relevant at all.  It’s the relevant submissions that can be harder to detect and weed out.  For example, I get guest post submissions on my various blogs frequently and often keyword phrases such as “online colleges” or “payday loans” or “credit card processing” are found in these posts along with no writer bio or a very brief writer bio.  These types of guest post submissions immediately raise a red flag and get sent to the trash.

You’ll also get requests that actually reference your blog saying something like, “I’ve been reading your blog and really like what you have to say.”  They might even be more specific and include a link to a specific post saying how great it was.  In the end though, you’re likely to find one of those two red flags mentioned above (the very specific yet somewhat random keyword phrase links and the nonexistent or extremely brief writer bio).

Tackling Guest Blog Spam

Remember, it’s your blog and if you find a guest post submission questionable, you don’t have to publish it.  Another option is to include the HTML NoFollow tag in any questionable links.  The site could still get traffic from click-throughs, but the incoming link won’t be counted by search engines like Google when they rank search results.  Most importantly, follow the links in guest posts submitted to your blog to ensure they lead your audience to legitimate sites before you publish those posts.  The last thing you want to do is upset your loyal audience and tarnish your brand image by leading your audience to spam sites.

Finally, it’s a good idea to publish some guidelines for guest post submissions and actual post entries.  While most of the spammers won’t even bother to look at these guidelines, it can help to reduce the number of submissions that you would never publish.  It also protects you by warning people who submit guest posts that you reserve the right to approve, decline or edit any and all guest post submissions without notice.

Is there a type of guest blog post submission that you get frequently which is clearly spam or spammish?  Leave a comment and share your experience!

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How Color Meanings Can Affect Your Blog

Last week, I published a post about applying color marketing research to blog design strategy where I provided a number of statistics that demonstrate how color can help your blog’s success.  The next question bloggers are likely to have once they realize the significant impact adding color to a blog can make is what colors they should use on their blogs.

In a recent study published on Colourlovers.com, it was reported that the online world is dominated by the color blue followed closely by red.  Should you also use blue and red in your blog’s design?  Keep reading to learn what color psychology tells us that different colors mean.

Blue
Cool blues create perceptions of trust, dependability, fiscal responsibility and security.  Blue elicits calm and peaceful feelings and is liked by a wide audience.  In fact, it’s arguably one of the most popular colors.  It’s not surprising so many brands use blue in their logos!

Red
Red has been shown to cause a physical response in people, including increases in heart rate.  Therefore, red is perceived as being aggressive, energetic, provocative and attention-grabbing. It’s not surprising that red is used on stop signs.  It is the go-to color when a reaction is desired (which could be positive or negative).

Green
As you might expect from its connection to nature, green creates a perception of health, freshness and serenity. On the flip side, darker greens are often connotations of money and wealth.

Orange
Orange creates perceptions of fun and excitement.

Yellow
It’s fairly universal that yellow is representative of light and the sun. People relate yellow to warmth and positive feelings.  Studies show that people see bright yellow before any other color.  Ever wonder why yellow is used for road signs that warn you about dangerous curves and road conditions?  Yellow stands out!

Purple
Purple is associated with creativity, royalty, sophistication, and spirituality.

Pink
Pink is typically associated with femininity.  Bright pinks create perceptions of energy, fun and youthfulness, while paler pinks are viewed as being more romantic.

Brown
If you want a color that creates perceptions of stability and durability, then brown is your go-to color.  Just make sure the brown you use doesn’t fall into the trap of appearing dirty.

Black
Black elicits perceptions of power.  It’s bold and sophisticated and is often linked to high-end, expensive, classy brands and products.

White
White is the go-to color to elicit thoughts of simplicity, cleanliness and purity.  Studies have shown that people’s eyes are strongly drawn to white.

Keep in mind as you choose colors for your blog’s design that colors can have different meanings in different parts of the world.  For example, black is considered a color of mourning in the United States, but in Japan white is the color of mourning.  In Brazil, the color of mourning is purple.  If your blog is targeted at an audience in different areas of the world, take a few minutes to research color meanings in those countries to ensure your choices are appropriate.

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