Running a business in the contemporary world is not for the fainthearted. You have to compete on a global platform, which means stiffer competition. With the advent of internet marketing, both big and small brands can compete on a relatively more level ground. While this presents more opportunities, it also means that your business has to rethink its marketing strategy to stay ahead of the competition.
You have probably already invested in professional web design to harness the customer-rich internet market. With over 3.62 billion people already online, there is no ignoring this business platform. However, a recent survey by Google shows that while millions of websites are indexed daily, less than 50% make any revenue. This calls for a more creative approach in order to remain ahead of the competition in your niche.
Blogging to Boost Your Online Business
One way to do this is by adding a blog to your website. According to a study by HubSpot, 79% of online shoppers spend over 50% of their time doing research on products and services they would like to buy. A similar study by West Program shows that 77% of internet users visit and read blogs. It gets even better; according to HubSpot, internet users in the U.S spend 3X more time on blog pages than on emails.
It is no wonder then that a survey among online marketers carried out in 2014 showed that 60% of respondents considered blog content creation top on their inbound marketing priorities. By October 2016, 36% of Fortune 500 companies had a public blog.
In essence, a blog can turn around the fortunes of your struggling website. A 2016 study shows that a website with a blog boast 434% more indexed pages than those without one. In the same breath, B2B marketers who leverage blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
In summary, a website blog is important for your business because it:
- Drives traffic to your website
- Helps convert the traffic into leads
- Establishes your authority in the niche
- Helps your brand develop strong relationships with customers
- Boosts your search engine optimization (SEO)
- Increases brand visibility by enhancing the sharing of your content
Creating a blog is easy and fast but making it work can be a herculean task. For starters, you have to find followers and this is the hardest part. Many websites have blogs but they are not able to establish their relevance.
Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Blogging
One way to make your blog tick is by leveraging the growing numbers of social media users. The numbers clearly make the case for social media in any marketing strategy. Over 75% of all adult internet users use Facebook while 32% of teenagers are on Instagram.
Facebook dominates the social media network landscape with 1.86 billion monthly active users (MAUs). WhatsApp boasts 1 billion users while Twitter has over 320 million monthly active users. Instagram on the other hand has over 500 million monthly active users. There are of course other popular social media networks including SnapChat, Tumblr, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, and Pinterest among others.
As a blogger, you need to harness the power of social media in order to build your following. Only when you have the numbers will your blog make an impact in your marketing campaign. Below are some tips you should use to increase the success of your blog:
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Make Your Social Media Icons Visible
People love connecting on social media but then again, you have to make it very easy. One way to do this is by prominently displaying your social media icons at the top of your blog. By displaying these links to your social media networks, you will start building a loyal following on all platforms.
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Find the Right Audience
One of the greatest mistakes made by social media marketers and bloggers alike is the failure to identify a specific target audience. It is important to carry out extensive research in order to identify the personas of your target audience. This will help you create the right kind of content which can then be shared on relevant social media networks. If you are targeting teenagers for instance, posting your content on Facebook might not get you the desired results. Your research will have shown you that Instagram is a more reliable network to find teenagers.
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Write What You Know and Share It
There is no secret that social media users are always looking for something good to share. For instance, if your blog has a good image, it is more likely to be shared. As such, always makes sure you publish content that you are passionate about and which can easily be shared.
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Always Use a Call-to-action (CTA)
In online marketing, a call-to-action (CTA) can make or break even the highest quality content. If you are not calling for any action from the audience, then your blog content will definitely fail. Social media users are mostly on these platforms for fun and you have to capture their attention by using a creative CTA. Whether you are looking for conversion, email sign up, sharing, brand mentions or you have another marketing objective, make sure you have a call-to-action that inspires the readers to do something.
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Automate Content Sharing
Truth be told, posting your content on social media can hog a lot of your time. You might have to forego your core business in order to manage social media content and this is where automatic sharing tools such as Buffer, WordPress Sharing and Dlvr.it among others come in handy. Once you create several social media profiles, it becomes easier to automatically post your content using these tools.
There are more ideas you should use in order to harness the power of social media and watch your blog grow. You can re-blog your content, leverage the popularity of video, use social media sharing icons on your blog, use popular and relevant hashtags on your blog, promote your blog on Facebook using its own separate page and also join blogger posts on Facebook. Whatever you do, never ignore the power of blogging for your business website. By fusing social media with blogging, you will have a winning online marketing strategy.
The post How to Blend Social Media and Blogging to Boost Your Brand appeared first on VectorCentral News, Stories and Reviews.