by tradesmeninsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tips
Just like in the real estate market where the mantra is location, location, location, the same holds true for social media. CONTENT IS KING. Not content for content sake, but relevant content for your target market. I try to focus most of my posts and re-posts on subjects that have some sort of relevance to reaching my target audience, the professional tradesmen.
Chris Brogan in a recent post, Make media work for you – elements of a good online content, reminded me that there are some basic principles to follow. Here are 3 good ones:
- Make content relevant. Write to answer the question for the reader of “what’s in it for me?”
- Make it brief. Blogs are not white papers. Make your point, give them other links that may be of interest and move on.
- Make it portable. One of the purposes of a blog is to share it, so make it easy, i.e RSS or e-mail.
Content is important, but don’t have the attitude, “If I build it they will come.” Create something of value and then go find the people you’re trying to reach.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tools
In the world of social media, it’s almost impossible to stay on top of everything and still do your day job. As a blogger, writing is probably the least time-consuming activity on a daily basis. I spend more time reading, researching what’s happening in the industries we serve, and monitoring the social network to see what they’re saying about us. These are all very much of the “blogging process.”
Darren Rowse recently posted Set up alerts to monitor what’s happening in your niche, and offered some tips we could all use to help us manage our time better. These tools help you keep on top of your competition, your company and industries you serve.
Here are 5 reasons why alert tools are so important to keep you ahead of the game:
- Generate ideas for content. We all are looking for ways to keep those blogs coming. By using alerts, you can monitor the industry and events as well as other bloggers you respect that might spur an idea or opinion for a post.
- Breaking news. Alerts let you stay on top of when your competitor launches a new product for the professional tradesman. Or how about a major industry shake up? Wouldn’t you like to be one of the first to know breaking news?
- Becoming an expert. Hopefully one of your objectives is to be known in your market as an expert. Alerts help you stay up on the latest info and you then become a “go to” source for industry info. I can’t think of a better way to build your profile.
- Networking. Alerts allow you see what others are saying and you can make connections and build relationships with other bloggers that share the same common interest.
- Watching your back. Alerts let you find out quickly what they are saying about you, your products, your competition. Blogs help you monitor both the good and bad comments sooner than later.
