Fering Communications Blog: blogging

Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Monday, 25 February 2013

What a Stale Blog Says About Your Company

I was reading a blog post recently—a guest post by the client of a web design company who was describing the business that he was losing because his website was outdated. Naturally, he was thrilled by his new website and had received all sorts of kudos because of the update. I wholeheartedly agree with him on the importance of a good looking and professional website—it’s what gives prospects their first impression of your company and you absolutely want that to be a positive and lasting impression.

But I’m not a web guy; I’m (among other things) a blog guy. So I’m going to continue the theme of the importance of having a good blog that is continually updated with fresh content. Company blogs are the centerpiece of successful inbound marketing campaigns as they can be stuffed full of SEO friendly keywords and keyphrases that help search engine rankings and they help engage prospects and build credibility.

We’ve come up with a few key pointers to keep in mind starting or managing your company blog.

Keep It Fresh

You have to keep fresh content flowing. When you pick up the newspaper in the morning do you want to know what happened in the world a month ago or yesterday? When you flip to your local TV news station do you want to know what’s going on right now in the world or this time yesterday? If a prospect visits your blog and your last post is from three months ago will they get the impression that your company is hurting and doesn’t have the resources to keep the blog current? Will they think that your company starts things but doesn’t follow through? I’m sure these aren’t the first impressions you want to make.

So what are you going to blog about? You definitely want to exhibit industry expertise and thought leadership. Take inspiration from the world around you: things that happen during your day both at home and at the office, current events and hot discussion topics, things that you’ve done right and wrong. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes as long as you highlight the lesson learned: people love reading and learning about how not to do things.

Before you start a company blog make sure you understand the time it will take to maintain it. Some people don’t appreciate what’s involved and they end up with a stale company blog that sends all the wrong messages.

Make It Look Good

Your business blog has to look good because while it might be crammed full of knowledge, insight, expertise—and even if it had the winning lottery numbers—few are going to click through if it isn’t visually appetizing. Visitors are shallow like that so you’ve got nothing more than a few seconds to catch and keep their attention before they’re reaching for the ‘Back’ button.

Keep Changing It Up

Vary the lengths of your posts. Shorter posts (400 – 600 words) are more likely to get comments from your readers, while longer articles (800+ words) are more likely to be shared on social networking channels. Don’t force your posts to be any longer than they naturally are to meet some magical word count criteria—keep them crisp, concise and to the point. Even if you can only bang out four sentences before hitting the publish button you’ll still outperform at least one professional journalist on a nationwide sports website (don’t get me started on the ever diminishing standards of sports journalism!).

Conclusion

A business blog is a great tool for improving search engine ranking and engaging readers. To help your blog be everything it can be make sure it looks good and is updated frequently with fresh and relevant content. Some companies get overwhelmed when they try and set up a blog or find they can’t keep pace once they do have a blog up and running – if you find yourself in either of these situations then give us a call or shoot us a quick email, we’d love to see if we can help!

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Monday, 11 February 2013

How To Write a Blog Post That Doesn't Suck

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last ten years, you’ve probably heard about blogging and how it can be a great way to help your search engine rankings, build a connection with prospects and turn those prospects into leads. You probably also know that there’s lots of competition out there for readership. So what do you do? How do you build an audience and engage readers when there is so much background noise drowning out your message? This post describes simple steps that you can follow to write a post that will put you above the rest.

A Catchy Title

A strong title is the most important part of a good post. It’s like an invitation to a party—if the party sounds boring then no-one will want to come. Your title has to have a bit of sizzle to it – it’s what a reader will quickly eye and decide whether to click to see the rest of your post or not.

Good titles include “How To” guides, “Top X Reasons to …”, or something that’s a bit cheeky (double score on the title of this post!).

An Engaging First Paragraph

After your title has caught the reader’s eye, the first paragraph needs to continue the momentum.

You don’t want to dive too deep into the content because you’re still coaxing the reader, but at the same time you have to start giving them something to show that they’re not wasting your time. Good things to include in the first paragraph include an anecdote, reference to a current event or a personal story that might resonate with them. Set up a problem or ask a question that the rest of the post promises to answer.

Images

What’s that old saying about what a picture is worth? Well, you can probably get some free images from your friend Google (although be sure not to use any protected images) or if you use a professional image service you can expect to pay as much as $20 for a large high-resolution image. Either way, add one or more relevant images to your blog post whenever you can: images break up the text on the post and make it look more readable.

Headers

Like images, headers are a way to make your posts visually appealing—instead of having a large block of text you have a post that is divided into sections. Another way that headers make your post more readable is by allowing the user to see what the following section is about and allowing them to skip it if it’s not something that interests them.

Killer Content

Finally we get to the meat of your blog post: the content. Your content should inspire, educate, entertain and solve problems. You should have something relevant to say, voice an opinion, frame something like no-one else has or write with a twist of humor or sarcasm – anything that’ll help differentiate your blog from the rest of the blogs out there.

A Strong Finish

Your reader has made it to the end of your post … so now what? Every post should end with a call-to-action (CTA) – tell the reader what you want them to do next. If you don’t they might leave your blog and you lose the opportunity to engage them further.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to get exposure and generate interest for your business or brand and engage your prospects. However, blogging isn’t just a matter of putting words on your website and calling it a day. Follow the pointers outlined above and you’ll be well on your way, or (CTA spoiler alert!) if you find that you don’t have the time or resources to maintain a blog or you can’t manage to make the words on the screen say what you want them to, give us a shout, we’d be glad to help!

Sunday, 6 January 2013

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 2)

As promised, we’re back with reasons 6 – 10 of why your company should have a corporate blog. For those who didn’t see the first part of this post, please take a few minutes to check out the first part of this post to get up to speed.

Without further ado let’s get on with the rest of the reasons why your company should have a blog:

Share Timely Information – Your blog can serve as an announcement board for your company’s current events. If you’re going to be exhibiting at a tradeshow or attending a conference you can create a series of blog posts leading up to the event that discuss relevant topics and highlight your participation. If you’re going to release a new product or a major update on an existing product then your blog can play an important role in getting that message out there. If you’ve signed up a key account or established a strategic partnership, you can get that message out to your audience instantly by posting the information on your blog.
Damage Control – Your blog can be an archive of all things good about your company but can also play a key role in swiftly and deftly dealing with bad things that inevitably happen, helping to protect the reputation of your company, products and services. Say you just released a new version of your software without full testing Windows XP compatibility. Within hours of the release your help lines are overwhelmed by people who are finding out that your new software doesn’t play nice on XP. Within minutes of confirming the issue you could have a new blog entry posted recognizing the issue, accepting accountability for it and committing to a fix as quickly as possible. This might not correct the compatibility problem but will go a long way in assuring your user base that you’re dealing with the problem head on. And, if you use your blog as the foundation for social media channels, you might be able to get the message out to users before they install the new version and mess up their systems.
Humanize your company – As much as it may pain you, your website is probably a fine blend of corporate hyperbole, hand-wavy benefit statements and industry jargon. Your company blog is different: it gives you an opportunity to have a human voice—a chance to wish people the best of the season, to comment on current events, to drop the rhetoric and engage your readers in a human and personal way.
Understand Your Audience – By blogging about different products and services offered by your company and analyzing the number of pageviews, click throughs, shares and comments that each post gets you can understand what resonates with your audience. You could use this to boost products and services that might be underperforming or to eliminate products or services that your audience is showing that it’s not interested in.
Search Engine Optimization – Having a carefully planned, well written and informative blog that is updated regularly gives you a chance to lace your site with words and phrases that are key to your business and will help you rank better with the search engines. The search engine spiders adore fresh content that is rich with relevant material and will keep a close eye on your blog, helping your rankings and thereby increasing the traffic it directs to your website. While this is usually the number one reason on every other list of “top reasons why you should be blogging”, we have found it largely depends on your industry so we’ve put it at the bottom. Check back for a blog post in the near future where we’ll expand on this.

Conclusion

A company blog is a great way to engage prospects, establish your credibility, and keep your company in the forefront as prospects make their way towards a buying decision. You can use your company blog to share your experiences, keep your audience up-to-date and improve your search engine rankings, thereby increasing traffic to your website. But keep in mind that if you do decide to start a company blog it isn’t a trivial task—you should have a clear set of goals, define a strategy and identify your expectations before even posting your first blog. If the thought of all of this is overwhelming don’t let it stop you, just drop us a line because we’d love to help you navigate the waters of corporate blogging!

Monday, 31 December 2012

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 1)

Fifteen years ago every company had to have a website. There was no two ways about it—if you didn’t you weren’t legit. Without a www.yourcompanyname.com or yourname@yourcompanyname.com on your business card your company couldn’t even pretend to be up with the latest sales and marketing platforms! Many years ago I met a young industry consultant who had a Hotmail email address on his card and I secretly scoffed at his credibility. (And no, there’s no Hollywood ending here where he ended up being my boss and making me regret the day that I didn’t take him and his @hotmail.com address seriously!)

Fast forward to 2012-13 and corporate blogs are the latest craze. Every company worth its salt has one, and if not then they must have missed that whole social media emergence thing. Apparently there are an estimated 31 million bloggers in the United States alone, and approximately 500,000 new blog entries are posted on Wordpress.com every single day.

But how is this relevant to you? Why do you need to add yet another blog to the ever expanding blogosphere? We’re glad you asked because we just happen to have the top ten reasons to start or continue a corporate blog right at our fingertips! In no particular order:

Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader or SME – (Buzzphrase helper: SME is Subject Matter Expert.) You want to be a thought leader or SME in your industry because people feel more comfortable doing business with people who know what they’re talking about. Convince people that you not only understand their problem but have what they need to solve it and you’re well along the path to turning them into a customer. To borrow an old saying: if you build it (a position of thought leadership or SME) they will come (and probably buy your stuff while they’re there).
Micro Content – Does your website contain every possible thing about your company that you could ever possibly want to tell someone? I dearly hope not because if it does it’s probably swollen and disorganized to the point of complete and total uselessness. Chances are your website contains a good balance of high level detail—what your company does, the wonderful benefits of your products and services and how interested parties can get in contact with you. The point of your website is to engage a prospect and hook them into contacting you, at which point your sales team leaps into action and converts them into customers. Your blog can be an amazing compliment to your website by adding much more information about your company without bloating your website. You can use your company blog to talk about successful implementations, showcase how you were able to apply your knowledge and experience in different and unique situations, describe how real-life experiences have made you stronger, smarter and more resilient. All this helps to further convince a reader that you understand their problem and can help them solve it.
Give Them a Reason To Come Back – Once a prospect finds you, you need to give them a reason to keep on coming back for more. If they look around your website, and even if they’re excited by what they see, they might never come back again if you don’t give them a reason to: if your website is static, they won’t be missing anything by not coming back. But if your website has a steady stream of fresh content—like a blog, case studies and whitepapers—they’ll be more likely to come back again and again to see what’s new. And every time they come back they’re moving one step closer to becoming a customer.
Attracting More Than Just Prospects - Most people automatically associate corporate blogging with trying to attract prospective clients. While this should certainly be your main reason for having a company blog, it certainly isn’t the only one: you can also use your company blog to impress potential investors, partners and even potential employees – people who may not make a single purchasing transaction with your company but might be vital to the growth and success of your company in one of countless other ways.
Build a Social Marketing Strategy on Your Blog – A great way to get your story out to prospects is using social media and your blog can serve as the foundation for your social media marketing efforts: each time you post a blog you can post an update to your corporate Facebook page, post a link on the LinkedIn profiles of your management level employees and broadcast a series of tweets about the post.

Folks, I’m really sorry to say this but I’ve just had so much fun with the list so far and had so much that I wanted to say that I’ve raced past my target word count. As much as it pains me to do so I’m going to have to say my goodbyes on this post but solemnly promise to post reasons 6 – 10 in a separate post in the next couple of days. Check back with me in a couple of days - I promise you won’t regret it!

Monday, 17 September 2012

Five Great Sources for Blogging Topics

Coming up with interesting and relevant topics is one of the most challenging aspects about maintaining a blog. If you don’t provide blog posts that resonate with your readers then they’ll stop reading and the number of engaged readers is one of the key metrics in measuring the effectiveness of your blog.

Here are some of the top places that we turn to for inspirations when setting out on a blog post:

Real-Life Stories – Real-life stories are awesome because of their originality. The tricky part to real-life stories is making them relevant. Take for example our last blog post about the bird that hopped onto my hand in a client’s parking lot. Yeah, it’s interesting but my readers don’t really care about just that. I had to put a spin on it that made it relevant so I used it to put a human touch on me and my company. What stories serve as a good basis for blog posts? Anything you’d tell your spouse over dinner or a buddy over a beer.
Life Lessons – Life lessons that you learn from mistakes serve as great blog material because you can show your readership a sense of humility, modesty or vulnerability that they will respect. To err is human and openly discussing your life lessons will add an element of honesty and trustworthiness to you and your company. Also, as well as describing the mistake that you made you can also brag a little bit about how well you rose to the occasion, innovated to correct a mistake or went that extra mile to save the day. Be careful about being too honest, though: you don’t want to give your readers the impression that you’re clumsy, incapable or incompetent.
Current Events – News headlines are a great source of blog inspiration but again only if you can make it relevant to your readership. How many articles did you see this past summer about how we can learn something to do with our businesses from Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt or Ryan Lochte? How many articles did you see about how we can apply strategies from Angry Birds to our everyday jobs? Apparently everyone from instructional designers to environmentalists to enterprise software firms could all learn a thing or two from Angry Birds.
LinkedIn Groups – Two particular LinkedIn features are rich with ideas about things to blog about. First, the “LinkedIn Today” section, which shows near the top of the page when you log in, lists top stories of interest. Our favourite source, though, is LinkedIn’s Groups. Join a handful of groups that are related to your business and keep an eye on what is being discussed and you’ll likely find a bountiful supply of blog topics.
Competitors Blogs – Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? In a pinch, head over to your competitors blogs and see what they are blogging about. A couple of things to keep in mind, though: First, you should only use their topics as inspiration for your own, so don’t steal their content, that’s plagiarism and generally frowned upon. Second, don’t go to this well too often. If you do you risk them – and potentially some of your prospects or clients – finding out. If you are going to do this, make it less obvious by looking at their archives and seeing what they’ve blogged about in the past, it might seem too coincidental if you use their current posts as inspiration.

Conclusion

A well-written blog can be the cornerstone for establishing an online presence that can help your business grow through showcasing your expertise, building credibility with prospects and keeping your clients up-to-date on your latest offerings. However, keeping fresh and relevant content flowing can be tough. There are many sources close at hand that we can draw inspiration from, including real-life stories, life lessons and current events to name but a few. And, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that if you need help starting a new blog or continuing an existing one then we’d love to help. Check out our website and visit our Contact Us page to find out how to get in touch and get started!

Fering Communications Blog

Monday, 25 February 2013

What a Stale Blog Says About Your Company

Keep It Fresh

Make It Look Good

Keep Changing It Up

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 11 February 2013

How To Write a Blog Post That Doesn't Suck

A Catchy Title

An Engaging First Paragraph

Images

Headers

Killer Content

A Strong Finish

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Sunday, 6 January 2013

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 2)

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 31 December 2012

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 1)

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 17 September 2012

Five Great Sources for Blogging Topics

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts