Do I really need to blog? Someone once asked. Is blogging essential for my career as a marketer?
Let me answer your nagging questions which you use as an excuse for not blogging.
As a marketer your job is to be heard and seen, to draw attention to your product / service, and how will you do that without having a strong platform to stand on and make sure that you have the targeted personas following you.
Got why is blogging important? Now let me tell you how to get started.
1.Determine what you want to say:
Always start by asking yourself the question (WHY?). Why am I blogging from the first place?! What is the topic that I aim to draw attention to?!
Ask yourself those questions and then when you find the core belief that you want to spread get started, but BE CAREFUL, you are not blogging just because you haven’t blogged for a while and you need to write something on your blog, REMEMBER you need to determined what you have to say first.
2. Know your people :
You always need to keep you buyer personas nearby when you start to prepare your contents, as they are your targeted people and knowing them better will always be helpful to get your voice heard and be more appealing to your audience , for example you can’t target a professional photographer with some info about camera types as he already knows that but telling him how to upgrade his skills will be more helpful to such a segment, you also can’t target millennial starting his own business with an info about starting a facebook page as he already knows that (DAH ) but you can tell him more about the unknown features that he needs to know and nobody helped him with.
3.Pick a spicy title:
Now that you prepared why your writing and who you’re writing for, you need to pick a spicy engaging title.
Nowadays, people are hard to impress and even harder to please so in order to encourage them to read your blog, you need to draw their attention with the suitable title for your segment.
For example: for a millennial starting his own business which title will be suitable ( facebook page features ) or ( your guide to upgrade and launch your facebook page ) … pretty easy to choose, right?! It would be the second choice (dah).
Your title also needs to be engaging with the web engines and includes the keywords required to be searched for, it also has to be specific with a short description to allow your to blog be found from your targeted people.
4. Sum up your post :
People don’t need to read your entire post at the begging specially when you’re not what they are looking for, you’ll be wasting their precious time and of course you don’t want to do that.
So in order to avoid such a huge conflict you need to summarize your blog in a short and precise summary at the begging of your post to give your viewers gleams of what you’re offering in your blog.
5. Don’t skip the Outline stage :
Now you think that you’re ready to write! No, wait... Not just yet.
You need to organize your thoughts and the outline that you’re going to write in , you need to pay attention that your blog post is organized and easy to read and surf, How can I do such a thing ?!
Easy, you need to use numbers and bullets to keep it simple, easy and attractive for your audience.
You also need to organize your thoughts and see what comes first and what follows in order to deliver complete information about your specific subject.
6. Now, let’s write! :
After getting all your ideas sorted out, start writing your blog with the values you’re willing to offer and the issues you’re discussing.
Keep your paragraphs short with 3-4 sentences and simple words (nobody wants to read a complicated blog – unless your segments are requiring such a thing – so keep it simple).
You can also try to make it personal, even though it may be hard to do so in business blogging but you can add some personal stories or experiences to add some spirit and trust to your blog.
It’s preferable to add internal and external links to make surfing your blog a pleasant experience, instead of writing tons of paragraphs about some issues you can add links related to what you’re providing.
7. It’s a visual world :
People are interested in what they see nowadays, so in order to get your blog to be the favorite use visuals… A LOT (pictures, GIFs, videos, graphics… etc).
You also need to keep a plenty of white space in your blog so they can surf smoothly without suffering any eye problems.
8. Let it simmer :
Blogging is like food, sometimes it’s better left to simmer before putting in the over or eating, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! If you’re asking this question now, let me answer it for you.
Before publishing you need to let it simmer for a day or two before editing as you need a fresh eyes and a concentrated mind to hunt down your mistakes and add some spices to your post.
9. Let’s go ONLINE, Let’s rock the world :
Now you can publish your post and make it go viral, but don’t forget as you’re letting your creativity shake the world to notice and study your ROIs and whether you’re getting what you want or not, IF NOT : you can simply go to your editing lap and see what went wrong and get it done and then REPEAT.
Here some additional Tips to help you:
· Be original (nobody wants to see a fake pretending to be an original; it’ll just ruin your viewer’s experience. Try your best to use original photos, articles and blog posts).
· You can always end your post with a discussion question to keep your audience thinking and interested in what you’re offering.
· Network with other people, events, websites, contents…etc. and keep in mind that with a large community comes a happier marketer.
· Sometimes you need to follow the trends happening around you.
· It’s ok to write a shitty first draft just to put your ideas into papers in front of you.
· Your blog won’t go viral overnight so be patient and wait for it to get its audience.
· Don’t compare your blog to others, as they might be doing it for years, and remember comparing will only disappoint you and you don’t need that!
· Overtime you’ll get more experience, you won’t run out of ideas and you’ll write so much faster.