Entries Tagged 'writing style' ↓
November 21st, 2008 — audience, bloggers, public relations, reputation, writing style
The first two part of this series discussed a semi-recent post made by Matt Cutts, that covered a few things that corporate bloggers need to know. The last point that we’ll cover in this series is what Matt had to say about blogging angry. There is some very powerful information and insight in his post, and we felt it deserved to be expanded upon in greater detail.
Business owners and corporate bloggers are human, and as such, we are subject to emotions. It is easy to get angry and fire off a few heated blog posts. What is not easy is to undo the damage that has been done. While you may be able to delete a bad post off of your blog, you’ll never be able to delete it from your reader’s minds. Posting angry is something that many of us have been guilty of in the past, but few stop to think about how this can affect them in the future.
The urge to vent to your audience and receive a few pats on the back can be very strong, especially when you’ve had a bad day. Whether you feel you have been treated unfairly, or a competitor is giving you a hard time, it is all too easy to lash out on your blog. This rarely works out the way that you plan however, and unless you want your blog to be associated with your rants, there are a few things that you need to do first.
1. Think before hitting the publish button.
As Matt suggests, never fire off a post and hit publish right away. You need to walk away from the situation for a few minutes to get a better perspective. In fact, after you cool down, you may wonder why you got so upset in the first place. If you haven’t hit post, no one will be the wiser to your problem or your outburst.
2. Think about how your readers will react to your post now - and how future readers will react to it.
You’d be surprised at what gets indexed by search engines. Let’s say that you fire off an angry post, and then forget about it. Six months from now, someone searching for information about your company stumbles across this post in a search. The first thing they see about your company is an ugly rant - what impression do you think that will give? You’ve got to look at the big picture, which isn’t easy when you are upset. That’s where the first point comes in.
3. Will the post tarnish your image, or the image of your company.
It’s one thing if readers think you are a blowhard, but how will that trickle down to your company? You are representing the face of your company through your corporate blog. Do you really want the public to see that face when it’s angry? Think about the consequences before you post, and remember that you are responsible for how others view you in many cases.
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November 18th, 2008 — Buildify, audience, blog design, content, engaging ideas, post design, research, sales, writing style
Do you want to utilize social media to the best of its capabilities with your corporate blog? Here are ten secrets that the best social media users are utilizing in order to boost the capabilities of their blogs and other websites.
1 - Do your research!
Why? Because every single successful marketing strategy is based on solid research. You cannot go blindly onto a social media site and expect to get immediate success by submitting your content. Find social media sites that work well in conjunction with your niche.
2 - Interact with the community as much as possible.
Do not completely ignore the community as many social media marketers do , but instead get involved because this is what social media is really all about. Take advantage of the social nature of the platform and interact for better success in your corporate blogging and social media endeavors.
3 - Write FOR your audience.
If you want your content to be hot, and even viral, then you need to write for your audience on these social media sites. Interact with the community and get to know its members, learning about their likes and dislikes for example. Learn what gets the most attention and cater to it the best you can.
4 - Shoot for relevancy at all times.
Relevance is the true key to effective social media marketing. Look at Digg, StumbleUpon and other social networking and social media sites for proof of this fact.
5 - Keep your writing short.
Internet users do not tend to enjoy reading long text passages, preferring instead to scan anything that they are interested in. Be accommodating by keeping your content short.
6 - Good design.
When users come to your page, are they greeted with a design that is clean and welcoming in nature? If not, they may leave! To combat this, simply focus on presenting a good design and you will go far.
7 - Stop trying to make sales.
Another rookie mistake that is commonly made in social media marketing is to try ands ell your products. Promoting your brand is a good thing, but if all you are doing is pimping your products then you are never going to get any respect in the social networking world.
8 - Create Outstanding Headlines.
Your story may be excellent, but your headline is what sells. If you want attention when it comes to social media, you need to have an absolutely killer headline otherwise users will not notice what you are posting.
9 - Help Others Out.
If you want to become a top user or a popular user, you have to help others out rather than simply submitting and promoting the content that you write.
10 - Convert the hottest content.
Capitalize on hot content as often as you can. Make the attention that you garner last for as long as you possibly can by creating more posts to follow the hot ones so visits can read not only your popular post, but also your newer content as well.
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November 16th, 2008 — content, google page rank, networking, seo, social bookmarking sites, tools, writing style
Good morning and welcome to another Sunday edition of Buildify’s weekly roundup. From general blogging tips to articles on very specific topics there’s a lot going on. We hope they help you with your blog.
Corporate
General Tips
Google Page Rank
SEO | Traffic
Microblogging
Social Bookmarking/Networking
Writing Tools and Tips
Buildify hosts a weekly carnival. Blog owners with professional blogging posts should consider sending a submission into the Carnival of Corporate Blogging.
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November 14th, 2008 — audience, comments, content, web traffic, writing style
Time and time again, if you are a corporate blogger, you’ve probably heard about the importance of compelling content. What you may not know however is what constitutes this type of content. If you’re not taking the time to craft posts that your readers will find compelling, you may be missing out on a great opportunity. Let’s take a look at a few ways that you can start utilizing these techniques to help increase readership and retain your audience.
1. What is the value of your post?
One of the easiest ways to determine whether or not you have a compelling post is by estimating just how valuable your post really is. Has the topic already been covered in thousands of different venues? Does the post contain information that will somehow help the reader accomplish something? Is your post thinly veiled promotion? Once you know the answer to these questions, you’ll be able to start working on developing content that is truly compelling.
2. How do your readers react to your posts?
If the answer is “I have readers???” you may have a problem here. If you are basically shouting in the wind and you’ve never had a single comment on your blog despite your best efforts to market it, chances are the problem may be a lack of compelling content. This is the type of post that gets people talking, sharing and will help you make the most of viral traffic.
3. Does your post somehow make an emotional connection with the reader?
This isn’t an easy task in many cases. Let’s say that the niche for your corporate blog is washing machines. It can be tough to find a way to make an emotional connection over an appliance. However, it can be accomplished. What do people really care about when it comes to washing machines? Overall price, functionality and whether or not it eats clothes are great stepping stones that can be used to emotionally manipulate your readers (in a good way.)
4. Does the post make your readers want to know more about you personally?
When you create compelling content, you create a relationship with your readers. Once they start writing you personally, you can be assured that you are developing a good audience that is engaged by what you talk about. You may not be writing hard promotional copy with your corporate blog, but what you are doing is building that friendship – the easy way.
Compelling content can be subjective, but generally, it involves an emotional response that is evoked in the reader, and that someone can benefit from, even in a small way. Whether it’s through laughter, tears, or a feeling of “I’ve been there too” compelling content is the secret to success with corporate blogging, especially when you are first starting out.
You’ll be building a reputation as a corporate blogger that can be incredibly useful in the future, no matter what industry you may be working or writing in.
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November 9th, 2008 — Buildify, bloggers, blogosphere, google page rank, networking, news, seo, social bookmarking sites, tools, web traffic, writing style
We hope you enjoy this latest edition of the Professional Corporate Blogging Roundup. We endeavor to bring new and helpful links to your attention by highlighting them. Here are some links we thought were worthwhile from the past week:
Corporate
Google Page Rank
SEO | Traffic
Microblogging
Design
Social Bookmarking/Networking
Writing Tools and Tips
Buildify hosts a weekly carnival. Blog owners with professional blogging posts should consider sending a submission into the Carnival of Corporate Blogging.
Related Articles
November 3rd, 2008 — audience, content, search engine, writing style
When you first start your corporate blog, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of coming across a new marketing medium. You suddenly have access to millions of readers that are just dying to know about your products, right? Wrong! Your readers are out there, but they don’t just want to read about what you have to sell. They want to read content that enriches them, makes them laugh, makes them think or simply informs them.
There is a fine line to walk when you are corporate blogging for marketing purposes, and with practice, you can become a pro. There will a few bumps along the road, there always are, but with time, you can develop a solid method of marketing that works on your corporate blog. The key is knowing what to do, and what not to do.
Do: Provide your readers with a resource that will enrich them in some way
Don’t: Post endless commercials about your products that provide no actual value to a reader.
Do: Find ways to integrate your products into posts that readers enjoy.
Don’t: Spam your readers with endless product pitches and hard sells.
Do: Develop a balance of selling products, telling a story, and reporting news
Don’t: Ignore the fact that no one likes a blog that is nothing more than an endless commercial.
There is a trend that is obvious right off the bat with these do’s and don’ts. First, the key is knowing how to market to your audience. Second, you have to find a way to quietly market your products while still providing interesting content. Third, you have to avoid coming off like you are actually marketing your products – even if that is precisely what you are doing.
It can take some time to develop that balance, and there are a few ways to know when you are striking the right chord. Watch your site analytics, pay attention to comments and feedback. If your traffic goes down, or your comments drop off, chances are you are either selling too hard, or not providing your readers with what they want to hear.
Another don’t that bears mentioning is writing your blog solely for the purpose of search engine optimization. Yes, SEO is vital. Yes, SEO will benefit your site, increase traffic and has the potential to increase your sales.
What SEO cannot do is force people to buy your products. Search engines don’t have wallets. Search engines will not buy your products – but people will. You need to write for them – not for the search engines. Find ways to enrich your content with keywords, but keep it readable by human beings. Avoid practices like keyword stuffing, auto generated content, and gibberish. It may take a little longer to get that ranking you want, but along the way you will be appealing to humans, not machines, and it is the humans that you need to reach first and foremost.
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November 2nd, 2008 — Buildify, content, google page rank, marketing, seo, social bookmarking sites, tools, web traffic, writing style
Happy All Saints Day, one day late, from Buildify. We hope your weekend has been productive and if it hasn’t been yet, well we have another list of links for you to read through for some blogging ideas to help you get started.
Corporate
Google Page Rank
Affiliate Marketing
SEO | Traffic
Microblogging
Social Bookmarking/Networking
Writing Tools and Tips
Buildify is also running a weekly carnival. Blog owners with professional blogging posts should consider sending a submission into the Carnival of Corporate Blogging.
Related Articles
October 30th, 2008 — Buildify, content, marketing, networking, social bookmarking sites, web traffic, writing style
In this day and age, if you want to get the most out of your blog, then you need to do more than simply write in it. Many bloggers are finding that they can get a lot more out of their corporate blogs if they choose to combine their blogging efforts with other means of advertisement or marketing. For example, combining social networking with blogging is becoming a popular way to get the word out about a blog. Is your corporate blog getting enough exposure? Are you using social networking enough for your corporate blog? Consider the following:
One of the first things that you will learn when joining the blogging world is that networking is absolutely vital.
Blogs generally cannot be successful without some semblance of a deliberate and well calculated formula to help them connect with customers. If you are maintaining a corporate blog, you probably are also already aware of what social networking websites like YouNoodle, Twitter, StartUpNation and LinkedIn can do for you and your business. Social network is a vital and invaluable tool than can help startups and existing businesses thrive in many ways.
Social networking sites can create a phenomenal amount of return on the investment of your talent, time and creativity, as well as anything else that you regularly pour into your corporate blog. If you want to get something real and tangible out of your hard work and the time you put into your corporate blog, then this is the way to do it.
If you join social networking sites that complement the purpose of your business, you will go far.
Find social networking sites that respond well to the products that you sell, or the information that you share. Target the right traffic and you will surely notice a steep increase in potential customers to your corporate blog and website.
If you want to drive traffic to your blog, you need to visit other blogs within your niche area and you need to participate in them. Read and comment on a daily basis, and you will surely drive new traffic to your blog as well.
Your content should be compelling and crafty.
This includes the content that you write for your website and for your blog. Readers are not just looking for content, but rather they are looking for content that has value to them in some way. Make sure to update your blog as often as possible, with at least three new entries per week.
Social networking is quickly becoming a vital element to corporate blogging. If you want to attract the right audiences in large numbers to your corporate blog, you need to implement techniques for social networking, which includes creating profiles on social networking sites like YouNoodle, Twitter, StartUpNation and LinkedIn. By implementing social networking techniques in your corporate blogging plan, you can attract the right traffic to your blog by networking in the most efficient and effective ways on the internet.
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October 21st, 2008 — audience, keywords, promotion, web traffic, writing style
Growing traffic to your corporate blog is not a difficult process if you know what to do. If you have a corporate blog and you need to grow your traffic base, here are some simple steps that will help you create a more effective overall corporate blog.
1 - Know who you are targeting.
What types of readers or customers are you hoping to attract? Before you can grow traffic to your blog you need to know what kind of traffic you are intending to attract. Come up with a list of the types of readers that you want to gain the attention of, then fine tune your writing accordingly.
2 - Now that you know who you are targeting, the next step is to become savvy when it comes to keywords.
Choose good keywords, not necessarily the most popular, but still keywords that will benefit you. Choose keywords and phrases that are on target, on topic and on subject without them being searched for by absolutely everyone. There are a lot of software solutions out there that will give you a good idea of what keywords to use, such as WordTracker for instances which allows you to test out different words and phrases.
3 - Focus!
Make sure to liberally cover your postings with the words and phrases that you chose. This is not always easy for people who are not trained in SEO, but with some practice you can learn how to implement important keywords into your blog. Search engines like Google are beginning to use advanced algorithm technology that allows them to analyze the nature and subject of your page in order to index it more efficiently, so the more keyword rich your blogs are, the better off you will be.
4 - Make your blog real and personal.
In other to build the most value possible in your corporate blog in order to build traffic, you need to write consistently, regularly and passionately. You have to care about the subject that you are writing about, which is what will allow you to deliver the content that readers are looking for. If you want your prospects, vendors, partners and customers to believe in the content that you are posting, you need to post content with true value and meaning.
5 - Now that you are writing the types of content that your potential target markets are looking for, the final step is to promote yourself!
Use every ounce of marketing know how that you have to help your blog reach out to your target readers. Mention your blog on your website and in your direct mail correspondence. Mention it in your newsletter and utilize RSS feed links. E-mail your contacts with information about what is currently going on in your blog, and implement other advertising campaigns like Google AdWords, Ad Sense and other vital gateways to much larger networks.
“Build it and they will come” is not enough, but once you build your blog, the next step is to spread the word if you want your ideal target market to find you.
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October 19th, 2008 — Buildify, blogosphere, networking, promotion, seo, tools, web traffic, writing style
Welcome to another edition of Buildify’s roundup. We have more for you on best blogging practices, blogging tips, corporate blogging, gaining reader traffic and more. We hope you enjoy this little guide into a corner of the blogosphere. Tell us what you think or would like to see by leaving a comment below. Have a great Sunday!
Corporate
Tips
SEO
Traffic
Writing Tools
Carnivals
Related Articles
