How To Be An Effective Content Writer
What makes a storyteller great? It’s the same thing that makes a content writer great – they understand how draw you in and make you believe.
My daughter has been blogging this summer, and she came to me this week with a statement I hear from people all the time. “I have nothing more to write about.” So we started talking.
Her belief stemmed from thinking that because she started a story on another blog post, she couldn’t use the same thoughts again in the current one she was writing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When a person finds your blog post, they are usually coming in on that blog post. Which means they’ve been pointed to your post via Twitter or Facebook, the search engines, or maybe your newsletter. In any case, they don’t live and breathe your business like you do. So they don’t know that three weeks ago you wrote a post on something similar, and essentially started your story. You can tell them:
“Three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about …” and then hyperlink it over to your post so they can read if they choose to do so. But they don’t know the beginning to the story unless you tell them.
Every post is a single thought.
Every post is a single story.
Every post should have a beginning, middle and end.
And if you infer previous knowledge into your post, you’ll likely lose and confuse your reader. Which is the last thing you want to do if you are trying to gain a following, and gain new customers.
Before you start your next blog post, ask yourself a series of questions:
- What do I want to teach in this post?
- What knowledge do people need to understand before reading my post (if any)?
- Can I hyperlink them to other pages on my site, or throughout the web in order to make my point stronger?
- Can I use pictures or graphics to provide a visual to what I’m talking about?
- Does my title sufficiently state what my post will be about?
- Does my post tell a story, and have a beginning, middle and end?
If you think about the best movies, or the best books you’ve read, it’s probably because the picture was painted so completely, you almost felt you were there along side of the characters. The beginning gave you enough knowledge to become intimately involved with the characters. The middle provided some hurdle or some problem they needed to overcome. And the ending gave you the solution – a solution you could buy into and accept.
While a book is going to paint a much deeper picture than a blog post, on a smaller scale it’s a similar process. State the problem, and give a solution. Set the stage in the beginning to make you get involved with finding the solution. And allow people to get involved.
Whether you fill up your blog with content, or wonder how to Tweet or Facebook again and again without getting bored – or boring others – just remember it’s always about the story. Your story may be 140 characters long, or span 30 blog posts. It’s all content. And in order to make people want to read more, they have to come along on the journey with you. No matter how long the story needs to be.
And that’s the only way to become an effective content writer.
Want A New Idea? Ask Your Social Media Lists
Ever want to get inside your clients heads and find out what they really want? Ever wonder what questions your prospects may have regarding your industry? There’s no better time than now to ask them.
Thanks to the Internet, there’s no more drafting a letter, creating a focus group, and waiting weeks or even months for a response. You simply build up your online lists and ask any time you choose.
Today I was reading an article in the NY Times, Apps That Don’t Exist But Should. With one simple question to people that follow him on Twitter, he began receiving a ton of ideas on iPhone app possibilities. Pretty cool if you were trying to think of new apps to create.
What else can you ask your Twitter, Facebook or even your own list built from your website/blog?
- What do you like about (your industry)?
- What is missing from (your industry)?
- What could make your product/service better?
- What name do you prefer for your new product/service?
- What key benefits make you buy a certain product/service?
While you don’t want to make every post you create a question, you can throw them in here and there, and get a ton of responses to help you focus what your are doing. Then take your idea to the next step, and ask another question. You’ll soon have the perfect product/service built and promoted in a way people love.
Location Based Marketing – Is It For You?
Location based marketing is meant to describe any type of marketing that takes place via a mobile device. It allows businesses and organizations to engage with their audience in an interactive manner through any mobile device or network, says the Mobile Marketing Association.
Location based marketing is the definite trend right now, and one that you’re seeing pop up in all kinds of applications: Foursquare, Looptstar and Gowalla. But will it work for your business? Can you have success with it today?
Just like other types of marketing, its harder than it looks. You can’t simply sign up, get thousands of followers overnight, and have your business double and triple with these new services. It takes thought, time and a lot of work to get this to work for you. Because its new and relatively unknown, you’re still stuck with the obligation of educating your customers on how to use the technology, as well as how to use it with you. And that can be difficult at best.
Ask yourself these questions before jumping into a location based marketing plan.
1. Who is my target audience? The younger crowd is easier to reach with the newest technology, and are more willing to play a location based game for prizes.
2. Are others in my community using location based marketing? Now is the time to join your local chamber, or set up a networking event just for local business owners. Is anyone else trying it? Would they be willing to try it together? You may have more success if a number of business owners in the area are promoting it.
3. Do you know your customers and do they check in with you? If you are on a one to one basis with your customers, and have regular repeat customers, they may be willing to check in with their mobile devices.
4. What would I be willing to offer? If you’re already doing a postcard campaign or incentive programs, what can you do in addition that will motivate people to use their mobile devices to check in?
5. How will this help grow your business? Put numbers down, time limits, and ways to grow within your community. If many of your potential customers have never heard of location based marketing, how are you going to reach them?
6. Is my staff willing to work with this as well? You can’t be in the store all the time. Will your staff by in to this type of marketing, and have fun with it as well? You don’t need to add another chore – this should be something they readily want to play with.
7. What will your time limits be? Every campaign has a time limit. Decide up front how you will build and what you will offer. You may even be able to show past events to get people excited about joining. It should always be about change, and getting them excited to visit and buy from you.
There’s A New Search Engine In Town – Open Graph Search Engine by Facebook
What’s the number one site? Google
Number two? Facebook
So what do you do if you’re number two? Fight for the number one position of course. And for Facebook, that means creating their own search engine.
Facebook recently released Open Graph Search Engine. Facebook gives webmasters tools to help index their pages in Facebook, which include a “Like” button to install on your pages, and a set of tags to use that lets Facebook know what your site is all about.
Facebook won’t work like Google, which relies on a series of SEO tactics in order to rank pages. Instead, Facebook will rely on the number of “Likes” each page has. Which means people will control what’s ranked and what’s not. The more you can get people to talk about and “Like” what you do, the more results you are going to see in the online world.
How Hootsuite Can Make You More Efficient
If you use Twitter, you have to use a desktop application. It will speed up your process and your system, and allow you to get more done in a shorter amount of time. For most of the time I’ve used Twitter, I’ve also used the Twhirl and the Tweetdeck applications. And while I loved both of them, I found myself wanting just a little bit more.
Hootsuite was launched in December 2008, and while I’ve seen a lot of people using it, I never jumped at moving platforms, well, because I’d have to learn a new system. If finally decided to give it try this past week when someone referred it again to me as a way of automating what I do. I’ve also read the iPad application is fairly dynamic, so with those two dynamics coming at me, I decided it was time.
If you have ever wondered how you’ll get everything done on top of your normal workload, Hootsuite may be your answer. With just a couple of clicks, you can load in a variety of your social sites, including your Twitter accounts, Facebook profile, Facebook pages, LinkedIn accounts, and Foursquare accounts. They all show up as tabs across your screen, so moving is as easy as clicking on your tab.
Compose a message, shorten your URL, schedule when you’ll release your message, even save your message in draft mode, its all easy to do right from your web browser. Unlike Twhirl and Tweetdeck, there’s nothing to download – access it from any web browser. And you choose where the message will be sent to – one account or all, its up to you.
Social should never monopolize your time. Instead, it should become a routine in your day. Spend 30 minutes in the morning adding posts and generating content. Check back once or twice in the day to engage with your followers. And build as you go along. And Hootsuite will definitely be a part of my new schedule – how about you?
The Future Of Television In A Social World
Right now we are going through a massive change. We’re changing the way we watch television, use technology, and market our businesses. We can only imagine what it will be like 6 years from now, when things happen so fast, even 6 months is a long time on the Internet.
Television is now using interaction between viewers and technology in order to be a part of the production of the show. Shows like Dancing With The Stars allow you to vote off one contestant by voting online or by texting. Shows like Heroes allow you to interact with other fans on their sites, and see more in depth highlights by being a part of their online fan club. And last night, America’s Got Talent wrapped up their final week of looking for talent – but you can still participate by uploading your video to YouTube. Head over to YouTube and you can vote on the top videos, and help choose which one will join the final run in Las Vegas.
Social isn’t just a fad. It’s a way of controlling your business. People will talk about you whether you want them to or not. The eyes and ears are everywhere with cell phone cameras and the power of commenting. You can’t avoid it. But you can control it.
America’s Got Talent has a tremendous marketing budget, and can afford to market in a lot of different ways. Yet one of their strongest methods is a YouTube channel.
As a small business owner, you can have a YouTube channel too – and its free.
So emulate their ideas. Why not start a YouTube channel just for your prospects and clients – the best video showcasing your product gets free products or services?
Start your own YouTube channel and make it into a how-to television show – ever seen one of the shows on HGTV? If you’re a plumber, hvac or painter, you can give tips and strategies, prove your expertise, and create quite a following at the same time.
The tools are there. What are you going to do with them?
The Secret To Small Business Marketing
It really isn’t a secret when you’re business is doing well. Everywhere you go, people can feel your success. Maybe it’s your energy. Maybe it’s the way you present yourself. In any case, when people sense success, they tend to ask how you got there. 
So is there a magic formula to success? Is there some secret that a successful business has that they could simply pass along to everyone else?
Actually, the answer is yes.
1. Do a little research. In today’s world, you can’t hide your road to success. So spend a little time looking around, and discover how a successful company is marketing their business. Are they online? How do they advertise (i.e. magazines, newspapers, radio, direct mail)? What message are they sharing?
2. Talk with the company owner. Every industry has its own internal structure. Look for organizations, tradeshows and associations within your industry. Attend the major events and make sure you get the latest publications. Study up on the industry leaders and find out what they are doing.
3. Find mentors and vendors that can help you emulate the success. If you know an industry leader is getting 50 percent of his business through the Internet, find someone to help you create a dynamic web presence. Discover how to use social networking more effectively. And begin studying up on online marketing techniques.
Then don’t stop. The reason why the majority of small business marketing methods fail is because the business owner doesn’t give them enough time to work. Commit to a handful of ideas, and see them through to success.
Why Should You Care About Social Media?
Is social media really here to stay? Is social media the way we’ll be marketing our small businesses now and well into the future?
I’m always watching for new videos on YouTube to bring home the reasons why you should have social media in your marketing plan, and this video says it all. Watch this two minute production, and take note.
I guarantee your competitor is.
Understanding Facebook Demographics
Have you ever purchased a mailing list to send out postcards? A list company will sell you a list based on several demographics:
- Sex
- Age
- Zip code
- Profession
- Interests
A great mailing list can give you a pretty clean list targeted towards your primary audience. So if you want to mail to all high school juniors who are getting ready for their senior year of high school, and you want to cover certain zip codes in your mailing, you can buy that list.
But what if you would like to reach a similar audience online? Not a problem using Facebook. In fact, you can target demographically on a much narrower scale. And gain an even wider audience willing to follow you so you can market to them again and again.
Targeting On Facebook
As you are building your ad on Facebook, you are actually building it on the fly. As you add content and add your demographics, Facebook shows you what your add will look like, and what your target market will ultimately be.
Once you are finished with your ad and like the way it looks, you move to targeting. Choose your country, region or states. Choose your demographics in a similar manner to a mailing list:
- Age
- Sex
- Relationships
- Languages
But with Facebook, you can take it to a whole new level. Because people fill out a lot of information on their profiles, you can drill down and be very selective about who you are targeting.
What are their likes and interests? Maybe you want high school seniors that like a particular type of music. Or high school seniors that are interested in a specific hobby – how about photography? You can even select people who have joined certain pages or certain groups, again because you’ll know what type of person you are advertising to based on their beliefs. If you want high school seniors that join vegetarian or saving animals pages, you can do that.
And with Facebook, you can start a campaign right now, and follow the statistics live to know exactly how the campaign is going – no waiting for days or weeks while you produce a postcard and mail it out, waiting for the phone to ring. If you’re not happy in 12 hours with your results, change the ad or the demographics and try it again.
See the potential?
If I Write Blog Posts, Do I Need To Be A SEO Writer Too?
So you’ve been writing your blog posts faithfully for a few weeks now. You have a lot of content on your blog, but you’re still not getting any traffic, or having any results. Should you just keep writing? Will the traffic eventually come? Is there something else to concentrate on?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving the volume of traffic delivered to your website or blog from the search engines from naturally placed search results.
Based on that, becoming a SEO writer means that you produce quality content in your blog posts that helps you generate that natural placement.
How do you do that?
1. Write what your readers want to hear.
First of all, write what your readers want to hear, and what they are searching for online. If you are a plumber, they probably don’t want to hear a sales pitch on why they should replace their water heaters. Instead, they are searching because they have a problem. A typical search may be:
What does the pinging noise in my water heater mean?
Or
What’s the most efficient water heater for my home?
Your writing isn’t about you. It’s about what your clients want to hear.
2. Create your subjects around what they search for.
Start with the average question someone uses when they call into your office. If you hear the same question again and again, that’s a great topic for a blog post.
Using that as your starting point, create your title around that idea. Then fill your blog post content with information to support your title.
Too often I see titles such as “testimonial” or “My Company gets a new client”. Have you ever had a prospect find you by looking up “testimonial” in the phone book, or typing “testimonial” into Google? It’s just not going to happen. So you need to think like your customer, and create content based on what your customer thinks.
3. Fill in with keyword and key phrase ideas.
I’ve also heard people say, “I just don’t have anything to talk about in my blog.” How many ways could you talk to a potential client?
Start with your FAQ, or frequently asked questions. What do people want to know about your business? Then find dozens of ways to talk about those questions. Because people will have dozens of ways of asking the same question, only in their own language.
People want understanding and solutions. If you provide them with both, and a person can see himself or herself in your blog post, you’re on track to a new customer.
