Happy Halloween!

5 Tips to Avoid the Most Common Mistakes Beginner Bloggers Make

Blogging sure looks easy until you have to sit down and write a couple of posts a week. That’s when beginner bloggers see how difficult it really can be. And that’s when it’s so easy to make mistakes.

Here are 5 tips to help you avoid the mistakes that most beginner bloggers make.

You don’t know where to get your ideas

Don’t write in a vacuum.  You may think what you want to write about is a great idea but does your target audience feel the same way?

Time spent learning what issues are important to your target audience is time well spent. Survey your current customers. Ask your sales staff what questions they’ve heard from your customers. This is where you should be getting your topic ideas from.

Once you start writing your blog, pay attention to the questions your readers post. That is another great source of writing ideas.

Be yourself

Writing a blog post can almost take you back to high school and having to write an assignment for a class. You really weren’t allowed to ‘be yourself’ in your writing for a history essay. Blogging is different. You want your readers to get to know you and your small business. This will build trust and eventually will turn into sales.

When you write your post, be conversational in your writing. Your readers will enjoy that style and come back for more of your posts.

Target your topics

When you start blogging, it can be daunting to write about specific topics. But that is what your readers want.

It’s too difficult to do justice to a broad subject, such as ‘How to Do Social Media Marketing for Small Business,’ in a blog. That topic could easily fill a book! Take the broad subject and break it down into small specific topics. From the ‘How to Do Social Media Marketing for Small Business,’ I can have quite a few blog topics to write on such as:

- How easily Facebook advertising can target your customers

- How to create a Facebook business page

- Is Pinterest the right social media channel for your business?

- How can I make Twitter work for my business?

You get the picture! Also, specific topics tend to attract a more targeted audience which is how you can drill through all the social media noise and find the right target audience for your business.

Be original

Don’t plagiarize content from someone else. Your site could be penalized by Google, which naturally wouldn’t be good for business!

If you really like an article or post by someone else, re-post it and give credit to the author. If you want to use a portion of someone’s post, cite them in your blog.

Stick to a schedule

Consistency is the key to attracting and keeping your audience. If your audience knows that you post twice a week, say Tuesday and Thursday mornings, they will tend to come back at those times to read your most recent post.

Make that commitment to blog on a regular schedule. Use an editorial calendar to plan your post topics, dates, and which social media channel you will post which blog to. By planning in advance, you can write your topics ahead of time and schedule them weeks, even months, out.

Are you ready to start your small business blog now?

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. – Aristotle

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. – Mark Twain

7 Tips to Create Content Strategy for Social Media

Today, it is imperative that small businesses have a presence on social media. That sounds great, but how do you make it happen?

Having a presence is more than creating an account on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You have to post content….relevant, interesting and educational content….on these social media platforms. You need to have a planned content strategy to be effective. Here are 7 tips for creating your small business social media content strategy.

Determine Your Goals

What do you want to achieve from your social efforts? Be specific. Keep in mind that each social media platform is different and has its own unique audience, so create separate goals for each individual social network you plan to use.

Create Your Brand’s Identity

Social media is a great place for small businesses to strengthen their branding. Know what your business’ unique story is.

Check Out Your Competitors

See what your competitors are doing on social media. What is working for them? You can be inspired by what they do and take it to the next level.

 

Use an Editorial Calendar

An Editorial Calendar will help you determine when and where to post your content. Decide which social media platforms will get certain posts, videos, and visuals, and when.

Take a look at an entire year so you can plan some posts for holidays and any sales you plan. Then, work on your content one month at a time.

 

Which Platforms Are For You?

Don’t jump into social media and join everyone out there. You’ll be overwhelmed and your social media marketing will fail.

Take a look at where your customers are. If they are on Pinterest, then you need to be there too. Are they on Facebook? Perhaps your company would only benefit from being on LinkedIn.

When thinking about which social media platforms you should be on, don’t forget that you should also be blogging. Blogging will establish you as an expert in your industry.

 

Be Social

Part of being on social media is being social. So monitor your comments and respond when someone comments on your post.

 

Analyze and Optimize For Best Results

Make sure you’re not wasting your time with the wrong posts or even the wrong social media platform. Check out your analytics to see how well your posts are performing. Most social media networks provide analytics for business pages so you should be checking them often to understand which posts were popular and which weren’t.

Happy Boss' Day!

 

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. – Ayn Rand

5 Tips for Having a Killer Website

Your website is the online representation of your business. It’s often the first place potential clients ‘see’ you. It’s impossible to have a successful business in today’s world without a website….a good website!

Here are 5 tips for creating a killer website. Even if you already have a website, these tips might help you improve what you already have.

Have a Vision

Before you start designing a website or working with a web designer, take a look at the websites your competition has. Do you really like something they are doing?

Look at other business websites. You might find a layout or a design that really speaks to you. It’s easy for a web designer to take your inspiration and make it totally yours.

Have the Right Logo

Your logo is your brand’s identity. Your logo should be on everything you use to market your products or services – your website, your business cards, your sales literature and promotional items. 

Your logo ties everything together. Work with an expert graphic designer to come up with a unique logo that best represents your business.

Choose the Right Domain

You want to be found online so choosing the right domain will help. Usually, companies choose a domain that matches their business name.

What do you do if the domain name you want is already taken? This is no reason to be discouraged since there are now many new domain suffixes that are available to use instead of .com. Explore alternative domain names for your website.

Good Content

Your content is the backbone of your website. Since you only have about 8 seconds (yes, that’s right….only 8 seconds!) to grab a viewer’s attention, your content must be clear and concise. Your visitors must be able to quickly see you understand their pain points and how you can help them.

On your website, your content must be short and succinct. Lists and bullet points are a great way to get your information out there without it being overwhelming to the reader.

Use Great Photos

The photos you use on your website are really very important. Great pictures can tell the story of your brand, while poor images can damage your professional image online. Work with a professional photographer to capture great shots of your products or even your team working or having fun.

Are you ready to start working on your business’ website?

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done. – Peter Drucker

Happy Columbus Day!

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. – Roger Staubach

3 New Facebook Features You Need to Try

Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform. But Facebook isn’t resting on its laurels. They are constantly keeping things fresh by adding new features.

If you are looking to promote your website or get more visitors to your Facebook business page, take a look at some of Facebook’s latest updates.

Save items to read later

Sometimes you just don’t have the time to read a post that catches your attention. And then when you get time to read it, you can’t find it! Don’t you hate that?

Well, now you can save and bookmark some of the things you see on Facebook to read later. Click here to see how to save and view a post later.

Instant Article

A recently introduced way to publish articles and blog posts right into the Facebook platform is Instant Articles. Once you’ve published a post, you can direct your readers to the full article within the Facebook platform. And the article loads 10X faster than other mobile web articles. The articles are published using your mobile device and the Facebook app.

Have your shop on Facebook

In beta trials now, Facebook is letting some lucky small business owners have the option of adding a store right on their Facebook page.  The ‘Shop’ section will be added to the top of your Facebook business page. Facebook has partnered with payment processor Stripe to let people buy and sell products from within Facebook pages.

Take a look at these new Facebook features to see if you can incorporate any of them into your small business social media plan.