10 Fresh Ways to Get Better Results From Your Blog Posts

 Congratulations! You've published a blog post. After brainstorming a topic, doing a whole lot of research, writing a few drafts, adding a couple sweet images, picking a call-to-action, having a buddy edit it, and tightening up your title ... the hard work is all done, right? Right?

Not so fast, my friend. While we all wish we could just sit back, put on a pot of tea, and watch the traffic to our posts come pouring in, it doesn't quite work that way.

To get more eyeballs on your new blog post, you need to do more than just hit "publish." You need to optimize that content, promote it, share it, and get it in front of the right people. How you do that all depends on the post, but if you're struggling for some ideas, here are 10 things you can do once you've written a new blog post to get the most out of your efforts.

1) Add a teaser to your email signature.

Adding your most recent blog post to your email signature is one clever way it can support your marketing. You can create a dynamic email signature using a freemium tool called WiseStamp, which can show the title of your most recent blog post and updates automatically as you publish new posts.

2) Shorten your post's URL and use it to link to your post on social networks.

Short URLs are way easier to share and remember than their longer counterpart. You can use bit.ly to shorten your URLs, or if you're a HubSpot customer, every blog post's URL is automatically shortened and tracks clicks. (HubSpot customers: Learn more about your automatically shortened URLs here.)

Include your new shortened URL in social media posts promoting your new blog post. When posting, keep these two best practices in mind, too:

1. Use images to promote your post, as this has been proven to significantly increase engagement on both Twitter and Facebook. 
2. Switch up the language you use in your posts, as well, instead of just tweeting the title with a link -- analysis on tweet copy from the @HubSpot account revealed that the difference in number of clicks on a "title tweet" (a tweet that includes the title of a blog post + a link to that post) versus a "copy tweet" (a tweet that presents the blog post as a sentence or question) was not statistically significant. Be sure to include both types of copy in to humanize your updates and give your social media posts a little variety.

3) See if your post can help others on Twitter.

Search for related hashtags or keywords on Twitter and see if your blog post can answer anyone's questions or contribute to a discussion -- and remember to use the shortened URL when responding.

4) Share your blog post with prospects.

Did you just publish a blog post that would be really useful to a particular lead or customer? Send the post their way via a tweet or a quick email. (HubSpot customers: In Social Inbox, notice each tweet is color coded to help you identify customers and leads in your Twitter stream.)

If you're offering them helpful and relevant information, they'll appreciate that you thought of them and might think of you more as a trusted source of information. Click here to learn more about matching content to folks in every lifecycle stage.

5) Share your blog post with colleagues.

Think about the social reach of all of your colleagues combined -- don't let the opportunity to reach those audiences go to waste. The key is making sharing as easy as possible for your colleagues. When your blog post goes live, send an internal email that includes the title of your post, a brief explanation, and a shortened link to the post. Make it even easier by created a few ready-made tweets that include the link and are under 140 characters.

6) Syndicate your post on LinkedIn and other websites.

LinkedIn can be a great place to syndicate your content because anything you publish there is automatically pushed out to everyone in your network and could be featured in one of the many topical LinkedIn channels. Publishing there has been rolling out to all users since February 2014, and if you're linking back to your original post, you shouldn't be too worried about duplicate content.

Other places to try syndicating your blog post include Quora and Medium, where you can take advantage of their additional promotion of popular posts.

7) Give it a boost using paid marketing.

Take advantage of paid content distribution opportunities to amplify your message and supplement your reach on organic search. These opportunities include Twitter Ad campaigns, Facebook campaigns, and LinkedIn's Sponsored Updates feature. Content discovery platforms like Outbrain and Taboola also can well.

Just be sure you spend a lot of time defining your target audience on each platform so you get the most bang for your buck. (You can learn more about paid content distribution here.)

8) Pitch your post to the press.

Authoring a well-written blog post helps position you as a topic expert -- something journalists are always looking for. It's not easy to pitch to the press, but if they do pick up your post, it could mean a big bump in traffic for your website. The potential ROI of writing a simple email is worth it, but you've got to make sure you're writing the right email. 

Journalists can receive hundreds of pitches in a day, so be sure to include concise bullet points describing the main point(s) of your post in your email pitch so they don't have to click through to anything. Finally, don't make any careless grammatical errors or misspell the reporter's name -- it usually means they trash your pitch. (Learn about more silly mistakes to stop making in your pitches here.)

9) Post teasers to discussion boards or other websites.

You want new eyeballs on your blog post, and a great way to entice new readers to come to your website is by posting a compelling thought or question on an external site, such as inbound.org or a LinkedIn Group, along with a shortened link to your new blog post. As long as your content is relevant and adds to the discussion (and you're not the only one posting self-promotional content on the site), it's not spammy.

10) Include the post in a "kit" offer.

In the long term, if you find yourself writing several blog posts that are related to each other under an umbrella category, consider bringing them together into a "kit" offer. Gate this offer behind a landing page form and collect contacts when people download

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blog-post-results 

3 Simple Tips for Social Media Success in E-commerce

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and the list keeps growing. Social media is now the number one activity online, with almost three-quarters of online adults using social networking sites. You can’t ignore social media as a part of your marketing mix.

So you make a choice. Do you want to simply exist on social media, or do you want to use it to make a difference – to your customers, to your culture, to your bottom line?

“Social media allows you to find your potential customer in a much easier way,” says Matt Kreikemeier, founder of Leverage New Age Media, a creative and tech agency based out of St. Louis, Missouri. “Not only can you target and search specific demographics and interests across these platforms, but you can go one step further and analyze the interests of current customers and learn where you should next promote your product – fan pages, tech forums, blogs, and other similar outlets.”

According to research by Deloitte, 75 percent of online Americans say product information found on social channels influences their shopping behavior and enhances brand loyalty.

You sell digital products, so 100 percent of your customers are online, and they are most tech-savvy consumers out there. Whether you have a large budget with a team of experts or you are tackling social media with limited resources, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. We’ve put together some simple tips to help you make the most of your social media presence.

1. Have a Strategy

Whether your social media is produced in-house or through an agency, it’s imperative to have a real plan. Social media can be the most visible part of your marketing mix, so you want to make sure it’s well thought out and impactful.

Companies no longer have interns running their social media campaigns. They have skilled experts who not only know social media, but also understand analytics and reporting, as well as the company’s strategy, brand voice and message.

“A true social media strategy makes a world of difference, but can be one of the most difficult aspects of your marketing strategy to maintain because of its ‘always on’ nature,” says Kreikemeier. “Have a strategy and stick to it. Develop a brand voice or content pillars to ensure your message is consistent and on brand. Be responsible and promote brand safety – don’t let just anyone tweet on behalf of your brand.”

A number of variables affect your strategy, like company size, culture, product lines and budget. Dell Software has a very specific social media strategy that includes training and certification to ensure any employees representing Dell on social media know how to appropriately present the company.

“For a company like Dell, it’s important that all employees represent the company fairly and accurately,” says Mark Dykstra, senior manager of Internet marketing at Dell. “Social media certification ensures that Dell employees know the rules around social discussion of their employer and know how to promote our products and services effectively.”

Whether your strategy is extensive or simple, the important thing is to have one.

2. Don’t Use Every Platform

Find out which social media tools your audience uses the most and make sure you are there. Research each social media platform and choose the ones that make the most sense for your goals and target market.

Each social channel is unique and can deliver different types of benefits. For digital products, being active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ will give you a well-rounded social media presence. “Know your audience, and know how to write content specific to each channel,” says Dykstra. “Each channel is a different in terms of demographics, styles, etc.”

Facebook

With more than one billion users around the globe, your customers are looking for you here. Facebook provides the largest opportunity to communicate with your customers. Check out companies you admire and see what they are doing on Facebook to connect with their audience.

Twitter

With 5,700 tweets per second, Twitter requires constant monitoring, and can be overwhelming. But if you take the time to delve in, it can serve you well. “People love Twitter because of its easily digestible content,” says Kreikemeier. “You can leverage the ‘instant gratification’ we all crave, and allow users to take action in the moment – greatly increasing your conversion ratio versus a website sign-up form.”

LinkedIn

As the largest business-focused platform, LinkedIn attracts key decision makers. More C-level executives are on LinkedIn than any other social media platform. Users may not be as “active” on LinkedIn as compared to the other big social media sites. So you may get fewer eyeballs, but make more meaningful connections. LinkedIn could be a great place to schedule regular posts, but you should probably look elsewhere when looking for active participation in a product launch or contest.

Google+

“Google+ has a fairly substantial tech community made up of early adopters and other tech enthusiasts, which makes for a great environment for targeting users who are eager to support new products and ideas,” says Kreikemeier. “However, it can be a slow process to build a community on Google+ so it wouldn’t hurt to mirror your Google+ strategy over to Facebook as well, since they are so similar.”

3. Always Be On

Instant gratification is why people love social media. Your customers expect a quick response. Make sure you give it to them.

“People are going to talk about your product whether you are there or not, so you might as well be there listening, engaging, learning and refining,” Kreikemeier says. “Social media allows you to put a ‘face’ to a company or product, humanizing your brand and building a reputation you control. You are then free to communicate with your customer base in a more natural way.”

Staying on top of your social media accounts can be intimidating and time-consuming. Lucky for you, there are a variety of tools to help you. From scheduling posts to compiling metrics, there are plenty of useful tools to help you master your social media accounts – like HootSuite and TweetDeck – and many are free. So take advantage.

Keystone

You can’t ignore the possibilities for social media success in e-commerce. “Social media drives traffic to our sites, resulting both in increased search engine presence and in direct lead and revenue generation,” says Dykstra. Be willing to put in the work to research your audience and the different social media tools. Then create a strategy and stick to it. Use the tools that benefit your company the most and stay active.

http://blog.cleverbridge.com/2014/05/3-simple-tips-social-media-success-e-commerce/