by tradesmeninsights | May 11, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
If you want to be a serious blogger, there are some things you need to follow to be successful. It’s not as easy as it might appear, and here are some tips I’ve learned over the last year in doing my blog.
- Be Committed – Committed to write 2 or 3 posts a week no matter what. You need to read and research and plan you editorial. You need to be persistent in that you won’t become an overnight success. It takes time to build an audience, and once you do, it takes more time to develop a relationship.
- Be Focused – Choose a topic or niche and stick to it. Be consistent in your voice and approach. Also be consistent in the number of times a week you post.
- Be Concise – You’ve got between 2-5 seconds to get their attention, and once you have it, make sure you deliver content that’s on the mark.
- Be Analytical – You need you watch which posts are drawing attention. This will help when developing topics for future posts. Where are your readers coming from – other sites, search engines? What search terms are the engines picking up?
- Never Stop Learning – Stay ahead of the curve in your area of expertise. This is especially true in social media where things seem to change daily. Just think, a few months ago, mobile marketing certainly wouldn’t have been on the top of my radar screen, but today it’s a hot topic.
Those are my suggestions. I’d like to hear from you and have you add to the list.
If you like this post, please pass it on.
Here are some other posts you might find interesting:
5 Quick tips to promote your posts
Posts should be like missles:powerful and to the point
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 18, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I’m an Evangelist when it comes to using LinkedIn as a networking tool in the B-to-B arena, and I try to get all my clients to see the benefit. I think LinkedIn is one of the most under-utilized tools in a B-to-B marketers tool bag, but like anything else, you need to work at it.
One way I use LinkedIn is to promote my blog posts on a weekly basis. I normally do at least 3 posts a week, and on Tuesday, I put it up as a news item on all the groups that I belong to. It’s a great referral resource.
There are many other ways you can use LinkedIn. Here are just a few:
- Reach those prospective contractors and Professional Tradesmen by being active in groups
- Introduce and sell products
- Generate leads for possible demos of your product
- Become a thought leader in your market
- Get press coverage
I recently read a post by Darren Rowse on one of my favorite sites, Problogger, where he was interviewing Lewis Howe , titled Top 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog using LinkedIn. Here is a summary of some of the top ways to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your blog:
- Complete your profile 100% – and add a nice photo.
- Increase your connections – the more the connections, the more people have access to your profile.
- Customize your web link – instead of the links saying my blog, make it relevant to what you do, i.e., blogging for plumbers.
- Join niche groups – it’s your best source for new business leads.
- Post comments on Niche groups – a great way to build your credibility and thought leadership.
- Answer questions – the more questions you answer, the better the chance that person will click over to your blog.
- Update status – it’s the first thing that pops up on the home profile of all your connections.
These are some points we all should consider to get the most out of our efforts.
What are you doing to best utilize LinkedIn? I’d love to hear from you.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 25, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter
Beyond those who have signed up for your blog and those that reach you through organic searches, here are two ways I drive people to my blog.
1. Twitter. One of the applications, Tweetlater, allows you to pre-program when and what you want to tweet. I schedule tweets every hour during the business day and have got tremendous action. Twitter is by far my best source for page views.
2. LinkedIn Groups. One of the great advantages of LinkedIn, in my opinion, is that it’s more of a business site and you can join groups of like-minded folks. For example, I belong to the Industrial Marketing Mavens, E-Marketing Association and Sustainable Construction Groups. Each week I go up and post what I think is a relative subject to that audience under the news section. I get great feedback from them. I also use the group’s discussion option to get feedback on questions or issues.
We even put together a media schedule so we know what’s tweeting when and what posts were put onto LinkedIn. This gives us another way of monitoring what’s bringing in the best results.
These are some ways I try to maximize my posts. I’d like to hear yours.
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by tradesmeninsights | Jun 18, 2009 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Many manufacturers are still leery about social media in a B-to-B arena. Since we deal with the professional trades, we know most of the editors very well and recently asked many of them to participate in a survey on social media. The majority of them are responsible for end user books that serve the likes of plumbers, electricians, HVACR contractors and mechanical contractors.
Here are some highlights:
Editors are using the social tools, and if for no other reason, you should be using them to communicate about your brand.
While some editors are currently writing blogs, more are anticipating doing them in the future.
Editors are looking for success stories involving social media.
Although most editors believe their audience isn’t that social savvy today (35.2%), they think that will improve dramatically in the next year (64.7%).
Here are the results:
1. Are You Using Any of the New Social Media Tools?
LinkedIn – 88.2%
Facebook – 64.7%
Twitter – 35.2%
Blogs – 29.4%
Online Forums – 23.5%
2. Do You or Another Editor on Your Staff Write a Blog for Your Publication?
Yes – 35.2%
No – 64.7%
3. If no to Question #2, are you planning on Doing a Blog for Your Publication?
Yes – 52.9%
No – 41.1%
4. Is Social Media and its Impact on Business on Your Editorial Radar Screen?
Yes – 76.4%
N0 – 23.5%
5. Have you Written Articles on Social Media and its Impact or Future Impact on Your Readers?
Yes – 35.2%
No – 64.7%
6. Do you Think Your Readers are Aware of Social Media as it Relates to the Business Aspects of Their Lives?
Ye s- 35.2%
No – 64.7%
7. Do you Think Your Readers will Become More Involved in Social Media in the next Year?
Yes – 64.7%
No – 41.1%
8. Do You Think Your Readers are Using any of the following Social Media Tools?
LinkedIn – 47.0%
Facebook – 41.1%
Twitter – 11.7%
Blogs – 35.2%
Online Forums – 52.9%
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 15, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter
B-to-B marketers are having a hard time figuring out the best way to use Twitter. If they understand that the people who are following them are obviously interested in them and their products, they’ve already pre-qualified themselves. Twitter has become my number-one source of activity to my blog.
Here are 5 ways I recommend using Twitter in a B-to-B setting:
- Share product and technical information: By putting up new product info, technical and other harder to obtain info on Twitter, you’re allowing tradesmen to keep up to date on information without distractions for search engines or even your web site.
- Drive people to your blog: One main objective is to get them to your blog, and Twitter is an ideal way of doing that. We use TweetLater to send out posts hourly during the business day. Our traffic has increased substantially since we started using this, and our followers have also increased.
- Keep up on competitors as well as what people are saying about you: We use Twitter Search as the tool to keep us informed. It’s fast and easy, much like Google Alerts. Wouldn’t you like to know who’s talking about buying something from your competitor?
- Share solutions for specific applications: Manufacturers can do everything from quick tips for tradesmen in the field, to best practices on how to get the most productivity in certain applications.
- Creating buzz at trade shows: This is relatively new, but is a great way to talk about the latest new widget at XYZ’s booth, and you really should stop by booth #2459. Obviously for this to work, you need to have a number of followers in that industry who are probably at the show. Even if they aren’t, you will have peaked their curiosity enough for them to look on your blog or web for more info on the product.
These are my top 5 ways…what are yours?
Here are a few more posts about Twitter that may be of interest to you:
Using Twitter in Customer Service
Use Twitter to Grow Your Brand
Twitter Search Benefits B-to-B Marketers
