Last post we discussed images as being an important tool to use in your blog. Today, we’re talking about Social Media and when used correctly, it’s a blogging tool that can help spread your message (and it’s free).
Use Social Media To Promote Your Blog
Use Social Media as a Blogging Tool
A lot of people believe that social media is all you need to do. Not to long ago I gave a presentation to a marketing class at a University and I asked for some written questions ahead of time. Every single student in that class had something about social media in their questions.
I later found out that they thought that Internet marketing was “Social Media”. They thought that’s all you have to do.
I revealed to them that while social media marketing is an important part, it’s a small part of what we do. About 15% of the marketing we do for clients is in social media. The reason is, a lot of our clients aren’t going to get a lot of business out of social media. Look at a few examples (these are not clients of mine, just some examples).
Do you think a large manufacturer for sheet metal is going to get a lot of business off of social media? Me neither. What about a septic tank installer? An environmental engineering company?
Social media works REALLY well when applied to the right kind of industry. Some quick examples of where it works well are: retail businesses that have a lot of promotions / specials (liquor stores, clothing stores, bars and restaurants). Ecommerce sites that have new products to promote or introduce to drive people back to their online store. Any business that is trying to cater to a younger crowd.
Others, it’s more of a legitimacy check. There is a rising number of people who won’t do business with someone unless they have a social media presence. It used to be that they wouldn’t do business with a company unless they had a website. Now it’s a website and a social media account.
Regardless, it works well for certain clients and not so well for others. But what about your blog? Regardless of if you’re going to get business off of social media, we like to use social media for the “Social Signals”.
Search Engines LOVE Social Media
Yep…They love it! They are constantly on there because its full of new information being populated every second of every day. When the search engines are scouring a post, they find links and then they follow to where those links are headed.
Do you think your blog post is going to get found sooner through social media or whenever they decide to crawl your website? Right…social media.
So let’s use that to our advantage. Let’s put a blurb about our blog post on social media and not only get is exposed quicker, but then there is a certain number of people who will eventually find interest in what you have to offer and will follow/like/retweet your information.
I’m not saying that you should hitch your wagon to social media because most industries are not going to get rich off of social media. I’m saying that you should use it for what it is. A quick and cheap way to spread your information out to the masses.
Blogging Tool #3 – Hootsuite
Hootsuite – Blog Tool #3
The problem with social media and business owners is that social media is a TIME SUCK! Most business owners complain that they don’t get anything off of social media and they never have. Then I look at their social media accounts and there are about 5 posts on there (in a year).
The reason? They get sucked in. They go into their accounts to work on their business and they get sucked in to what is going on with everyone else. They need to read the updates on their timeline. What someone else re-tweeted, and who want’s to join their network. They spend so much time seeing what is happening that they forget why they were initially there. That’s why you need to stay out of the accounts. That’s where Hootsuite comes in.
You log into your Hootsuite account and all of your social media profiles are sitting right there. You have previously connected them (which they walk you through very well) and you can enter in a blurb about your blog, a link to it, an image about it (remember what I said about images?) and hit “Send Now”. It’s immediately blasted to all of your social media accounts in the click of a button.
I typically will spend less than 5 minutes crafting my message and that’s it. Can you imagine how much time it would take me to log into 4 social media accounts and post each one? Not to mention that there’s a chance that I will get sucked into what is going on in those accounts and waste even more time. I bet it saves me an hour a day. What would you do with that extra time?
Here are a couple more things about Hootsuite:
- Free 30-day trial of Hootsuite Pro. You can have a FREE account that will allow you up to 3 social media profiles (which is fine for most people) and I would suggest starting there. I personally have the Pro account because I have more than 3 accounts and that runs me $9.99/month
- You can schedule out posts to happen at a later date. It has a very easy scheduling tool that you can post with.
- Add team members to your account. With the Pro version, you can add up to 9 team members to access and post with your account…get someone else to do it for you :).
- You’re able to measure your reach and success with Analytics. Most people have no idea what happens when they make a post. This helps you see just how far of a reach you have. VERY IMPORTANT.
To get started, just sign up for the Free account. It’s easy, quick, and will make your life SO much easier. Of all the blogging tools I tell clients about, this is the one tool that I get the biggest response about. You can check it out here.
Next post we’re going to talk about how to post to social media with (or without) Hootsuite. There are certain ways you should post and certain things you should not forget.