What Do I Write About in My Blog?

My products & services, RIGHT?  Better not.

Your company blog content is a great way to communicate with your potential and current customers.  It’s a way to give them the news they are interested in.  Reading about the best features of products A, B, and C can easily be done via your website and for a blog post, can be really boring if done too often.  The common question I hear from my clients is, “So what DO I write about?”

I recently came across a blog by Urban Outfitters – a retail clothing store.  They are making the UO Blog thee Go-To Place for current fashion trends.  They are writing about fashion from all over the world – not just their own store.  Their focus seems to be: what else do our customers want to know?  They are writing about things that their clientele care about, in this case, looking cool and wearing the latest trends.

UO’s blog content considers the consumer instead of focusing on specific products.  Their content is updated often, which makes people want to come back for more.  Don’t be taken aback by UO’s choices of clothing in the photos, videos, and set up.  It is uniquely designed to target a specific audience.  Great work UO.  They seem to know their customers well.

But you’re a small business that can’t spend the time or money investigating and traveling and researching.  What is your blog about, then?  If you go back to Urban Outfitters’ focus, it’s simple: what else do our customers want to know?  Do you get phone calls from customers asking questions about how to fix something, how to determine the correct size, what are the best ways to use a product?  Take the answers you provide over the phone and write about them.  Do a little research on Google to enhance your content, and wallah!  You have a great post with little effort.  Write about the latest updates in your industry, the trends; the big news.  Write about what is going on within your business location – remodeling? A party? A promotion? A new hire? The owner’s hobby?  The list goes on and on.

You are an expert already, just write it down.
Where do you get the inspiration for your blog? Write back we would love know.

There’s nothing better than a fired-up client … a client eager to spend resources and energy on doing smart things in a smart way … a client ready for results and willing to do what it takes to get them.

And there’s nothing worse than having to tell that client to holster it back up because they aren’t ready to pull the trigger.

That is sometimes the situation we find ourselves in when our small business clients are interested in implementing social media strategies before they have made sure that the location they are driving traffic to – usually their Web site – is prepared to handle the traffic.

When it comes to marketing their own brand, many small- and mid-sized businesses are working with limited resources.  So a decision to increase focus in one area often inadvertently becomes a decision to decrease attention in another.

Embarking on a social media strategy is a major undertaking for any company, an effort that often manages to soak up a lot of internal resources.  This can mean that the more mundane efforts it takes to update the company Web site can often go ignored, leaving the place you are trying to drive more traffic to looking something less than its best. Why is this a problem?  Because social media efforts are just a means to an end, with your final goal being to convert traffic into sales.

It’s important that the first step of your social media strategy be taking a look at your Web site and making sure it is an effective end-destination for every tweet, blog post and shared video.

• Are there clear “calls to action” throughout your Web site?
• Are your products and service pages current, accurate and complete?
• If you are targeting a specific audience with specific services/products needs in your social media efforts, are those services/products easily found?
• Are your contact pages updated and complete?  Is it easy for customers to continue the dialog that you started with a social media vehicle?
• Is your Web site content of interest to your social media audiences?

Pages that need simple corrections should be taken care of right away.  Any section that needs more extensive effort should be avoided as landing pages for social media traffic.  Once you are comfortable that your Web site is ready and able to do handle the new traffic, your company can feel comfortable in taking its first shot at social media success.

(Today’s post is contributed by Jim Pearson, a senior, doing his undergraduate work in Information Technology at the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Jim is presently working as a coop at Cazbah in the IT department.)

When I was growing up, my Dad instilled in me early on a love for technology and all things computer related. He has always had a passion for it himself and thankfully, he passed that torch on to me.

Over the course of my years, I have seen technology change and develop at an exponential rate. This of course has impacted the way the normal person does business in a vast amount of ways. When we got our first family computer, it was (by standards then) a moderate machine. If memory serves it was a Pentium 166 with 32 Megabytes of ram.

Now though, you could buy that computer for around the cost of a dinner at any restaurant. Its mind boggling to think just how far we have come in the past 20 years with computers. Just the other day, I was in the kitchen talking to my parents and my phone rang. I checked it and casually replied “Oh, I have an email”. My Mom looked at me like I had grown a third arm. She couldn’t believe I could get email on my phone. I told her all the other things it could do (email, texting, Internet browsing) and her only reply was “It still makes calls, right?”. We laughed but shes right, my phone now is more of a computer than our family PC was for 10 years.

That’s not it either, as computers become more advanced so do the things we do with them. I can remember a time…a time before Facebook, before Twitter, and when Myspace was just starting out. If someone said the word “blog” you thought they were speaking some other language. In such a short span of time, the Internet (along with computers) has completely changed. People are able to stay in contact with just about anyone in the world. Companies are able to reach out to customers they were previously denied. Nothing, seemingly, is off limits with access to the Internet.

The biggest obstacle is actually knowing how to use the technology available to you, and using it to your advantage. It can be extremely daunting to someone unfamiliar with it, and that can breed hesitation to try new things. The best advice I can give someone who is in that position is to simply ask. Find someone who knows about it and sit them down. Once you know the pros and cons, then make a decision, don’t let fear of the unknown or untested scare you.

Technology has changed drastically in the past 10 years, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Embrace it. Adapt and grow with it because as it continues to change (and believe me, it will), the structure of the world and business around you will change with it.

Are you up for it?

If you are going to succeed on the web, be it as a manufacturer, retailer, dealer / distributor, consultant, coach or whatever, it is essential that you identify, as specifically as you possibly can, who your prospective customers are. This is the foundation upon which Target Marketing is based.

An easy way to tackle this problem is through the development of a Customer Composite Index (CCI). Your CCI is a detailed list of characteristics that very specifically and succinctly defines your customers. Ask yourself the following questions: who, what, where, when, how and why.

An example of some of these types of questions are; who are our customers, what do they do, where do they live, (in the case of consumer products)? Or, where are they located (in the case of businesses)? Does their location have any significance to the product or service I’m offering? Does how they live have any bearing? What business are they in – product, service, specialty, commodity? What’s their annual income or revenue? How many employees do they have?

Additionally, are there customer personality or lifestyle traits that are important to your business? And, who are their customers? This is especially important, because if you understand their customer’s needs, you truly know what makes them tick! What are their interests and hobbies? I am sure you can come up with many more relevant questions that will help you to define your CCI. The point is, if you know who your customers are, by virtue of your CCI, then you know what you are looking for in a new customer.

If you have trouble with this exercise, visit an existing customer (or five) and ask them these questions. This gives you the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. 1) You will meet with them and get some face time, for a very legitimate reason. Which means you can continue to build your relationship. 2) In your questioning, you will inevitably communicate your concern through your interest in understanding your customer better. You never know, you may just uncover an unmet need or two that you can convert into a sale!

This content continues to get a ton of traffic elsewhere on the web so, I figured I would include it here for your viewing pleasure. This is extremely relevant information related to the development of effective communications with your potential customers.

Everything in this post is as relevant today in the Social Marketing space as it is in the dirt-world. As you will see, it’s all about communication…

Unlike the Broadway musical of the same name, the AIDA that I am referring to is not the story of timeless love between a Nubian princess and an Egyptian prince, but rather the 4 “timeless” fundamental elements of effective marketing communications.

Attention
Your audience is barraged by thousands of different marketing messages and communication inputs every day of their lives. This is only going to get worse now that we have embarked on yet another communications revolution on the web (Social Media). Ensuring that your message is seen and read will mean the difference between success and failure.

Keep in mind that “It’s Not About You!” Get your ego out of it. Your headline, in the case of an ad, or subject line, in the case of an email communication, or blog post, should be a bold and compelling benefit statement that “hits the reader where they live.” It should address some aspect of their need, that you are responding to, or the problem that you are solving. Make it as personal as you possibly can!

A good starting point is to make sure you know who you are communicating with or who you would like to communicate your message to. Remember that Search engines feed on blog posts and all other forms of online communications (web pages, twitter feeds, etc). Make sure that your content will draw the right crowd.

Most email management programs on the market today will allow you to personalize your message with the recipient’s name in the subject line, which has been shown to be highly effective in getting email messages noticed and read. By the way, non-spam email is still the highest rate of conversion on the web today.

Interest
Ask yourself, “what can I say (truthfully) that will grab my audience’s attention, and get them to read my entire communication?” Look around in your own world. What is it about the messages that you look at or read that gets your attention? Follow suite with your communications. An effective way of establishing interest is to ask a question, or several questions, that give your audience a reason to continue reading.

Capturing interest always has to do with the establishment of value in your readers mind. Don’t forget that. Don’t be overly concerned with the length of your content. It’s a known fact that long copy sells. This assumes that the copy is good, of course, and that you continue to focus and to build on the unique value that you are offering to your audience.

Desire
This is the set up for the grand finale… It’s very important that you get this part right. If you don’t, all your efforts up to this point will be for naught. Don’t underestimate the power of this element. It has been said that the purpose of advertising is to evoke an emotional response. Similarly, your task is to reach out and generate DESIRE (an emotion) with your audience. Getting a bit more technical, you want to stimulate the amygdalae (brain tonsils), which have been shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing of memory and emotional reactions.

Sound challenging, like brain surgery? It’s not. There are a couple techniques that are surefire ways of establishing desire. The first involves telling your readership, in bold and vivid detail, what they will get when they purchase your product or service, in the case of an advertisement. I.e., what’s in it for them. As I said earlier, don’t be overly concerned about the length of your copy.

The second technique involves the use of a customer testimonial, which is a statement of praise and testimony from an existing customer. This alleviates the “Guinea Pig” factor — the concern that they are the first to buy or use your product or service. Additionally, your future customers would like to know that they are in good company with other folk within their peer group. Testimonials are a great way to achieve this.

Action
In a word, this is where you CLOSE the deal. Be specific and keep it simple. Tell your reader exactly what to do and then make it easy for them to follow your instructions. If you have done everything correctly up to this point, this should be very straightforward.

Something as simple as “Lean More,” “Free Trial Offer,” “Contact Us Now,” or “Order Now,” is generally all that’s required. Make sure that you have a simple to use form or template for your reader to fill out and submit, or the whole thing falls apart!

Your audience wants to know that you’re on-top-of-your-game! After all, they are coming to your website, blog or opting-in to your ezine to find out more about you, your information or your company, with the eventual and very real possibility of spending some of their hard-earned money on your products and/or services!

An easy way of demonstrating to your customers that you are indeed on top of your game is by updating your web content frequently. Having done so, you should send an e-message to your opt-in subscribers that “new” information is available on website. They will do the rest.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited websites only to bailout immediately and go to the next one in line when I read this telltale sign at the bottom of the page: “Last Updated — October 2001.” See Ya! If it took me 8 seconds to get to this point, great, if not I go away with the feeling that I’ve wasted my time.

If you are using such an update notice on any one of the pages in your website, make sure that you keep it current. If you have no intention or plan to keep your web pages current and updated, remove the update notice immediately. This is essentially preventive maintenance, which is better than the damage control of trying to win back lost visitors to your web site.

Another dead give away is a web site visitor counter that hasn’t seen much action in a while! Counters do little to gain visitors confidence and trust-especially when they note that, “YOU are visitor # 246 since Oct 2002.”

Final Notes On Good Content
A couple final notes on good Content: First, it is important to strike a reasonable balance between your own company information, news and events and relevant industry related information. So many ezines and web sites on the Net today are nothing more than glorified sales literature. Don’t get caught in this trap. Give your prospects and customers excellent content, always. If you don’t, be assured that your competitors will.

Second, maintaining good content on your Internet Assets (website, blog, ezine, etc.) doesn’t happen by itself. It requires a concerted effort. As mentioned earlier, you get back what you put out. Fortunately there are numerous resources at your immediate disposal to assist you with this challenge. The rewards for developing and maintaining a good content plan are great and are waiting for you, just around the corner.

Good Content Law #2 – Current

Your information may very well be what your prospects and customers are looking for. However, if it’s outdated it’s as good as yesterday’s news! No one wants to read a newspaper from several days or weeks ago. In their quest for information, your prospects are looking for cutting edge data that will answer their questions and solve their problems. This certainly puts the burden of responsibility squarely on your shoulders.

This point speaks to a basic misconception that exists with many small business people about the Internet. The misconception is that somehow Internet Marketing requires less effort than traditional marketing. To this I respond with what I tell everyone who thinks there is some get-rich-quick formula that they haven’t yet discovered online: “You get back what you put out!” This is a simple truth that applies to everything in life including Internet Marketing. Another way to put this is “You get what you pay for.”

Fear not! Information is what the Internet is all about. There is literally an unlimited supply of information available online that you can provide to your interested eyeballs (prospects and customers). This will probably require you to change your view about using OPI — Other Peoples Information, and generally force you to take a less parochial view of the manner in which you service your customers’ need for information.

The upshot of this part of the discussion is that in gaining access to “good” content online, you will be presented with the opportunity to think more broadly about your business model. Actually, forced to think more broadly accurately describes the situation that you face. Again I say, fear not! This is opportunity knocking! Openly sharing information is one of the foundational principles that Social Media is based on.

I originally published this information over 5 years ago. As with many things online it’s as relevant today as it ever was.

Your content must first and foremost adhere to The 4 Laws of Good Content. For our purposes in this article, your content is defined as the information that you provide to your community members, prospects and customers. In the final analysis it must be:

Law #1 — Relevant
If the information that you are providing to someone who has taken the time to seek you out is not meaningful to them, or more importantly does not address their need(s), they will leave. The oft-quoted figure is 8 seconds. You have 8 seconds to capture someone’s attention and interest or they’re gone, never to return! Pretty harsh for sure, but that’s life on the Internet! Frankly, your lucky if you get 8 seconds. People (your potential customers) recognize full well that there is an endless supply of information out there, waiting for them to find it.

This aspect of good content has most to do with effectively targeting your prospects and customers. It’s very important that when you set out to do business on the Internet, you do so with a very clear picture of who your “ideal” customers are. Miss this point, develop a muddled focus on your website, in your ezine or other e-communications, and your potential for doing business successfully on the Internet is pretty close to “0.”

Worse yet is the situation where web surfers end up at a site that appears to have no bearing whatsoever on what they were searching for originally. This type of online duping goes on all the time and has become a serious annoyance. Don’t even consider doing such a thing in an effort to get more web traffic!

I wrote the following article over 4 years ago and it was published in Business Strategies Magazine. It came up recently in a search result and I re-read it and pondered how, the more things change the more they stay the same. It really speaks to what the “Social Medium” is all about. Read and enjoy!

Like most great principles, integrity gets a lot of lip-service, but it’s seldom a true way of life, especially on the Internet. We have tuned ourselves to distrust what we read and see because frankly, so much of it is spin or an all-out lie. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is… When we hear the word integrity it often congers up an image of a stern and sober school master whose Quaker or Puritan upbringing shows through his innate inability to smile, joke or be happy. But this isn’t what I’m talking about when I say integrity. I am talking about that character quality that doesn’t cut corners or shade the truth, no matter what.

Integrity is the key to success in everything that we do. Integrity is honesty and truth, period. Shakespeare captured the essence of this in Hamlet, when he wrote; “And this above all, to thine own self be true. And it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” If we are honest with ourselves we can’t be dishonest with anyone. If our motto is integrity, we always have what we need. We sleep soundly knowing that we don’t have to worry about what we have said or done.

Translating this principle to your efforts on the Internet is critical as you develop the contents of your website, blog or online communications. Remember that the Internet is the quintessential and ubiquitous communications medium. By design it is everywhere, all the time. The communities that define the Internet, people (all of us) coming together around common interests, have unprecedented access to information, yours and everyone else’s. Therefore, make sure what you publish is honest and true. Simple, right?

The simple truth of the matter is that all of life is governed by the principle of cause and effect. We have all heard this law repeated in various forms from scriptural to cultural; You reap what you sow – For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – What comes around goes around. Failure to obey this law will result in certain disappointment. This is especially true of the information that you publish and communicate, or the business that you do, on the Internet.

There is a term “Internet Time,” that gets bandied about in relation to the speed with which change occurs or things happen online. I have always correlated this term, or concept, to another very familiar concept, dog years, the 7:1 ratio of the age of a dog to a human. In other words, the dog ages 7 times faster than a human. The correlation is a simple one: Change occurs and things happen 7 times faster on the Internet than they do in the dirt-world.

At a purely pragmatic level, honesty is the best policy. Frankly, it is the only policy online. With the law of cause and effect and the concept of Internet Time in mind, imagine if you will the potential impact of putting information out there that isn’t absolutely true, or doing business online that is not honest according to our previous definition. Understand that this dishonest effort will most certainly bring those “chickens home to roost.” When or how big the unfailing blow will be, nobody can tell. However, you can be sure that “the other shoe will drop.”

By comparison lets look at the upside potential of this example. If the information that you publish and the business that you conduct online is honest and true, it stands to reason that the reward that you will receive will come to you 7 times faster, right? Absolutely! Not only that but just as the punishment always seems to be greater than the crime, the rewards for our Integrity will be out of all proportion to our honest efforts. It is our choice.