How Many Articles Can I Peruse in a Workday?

And Can I Finish This Blog Post Before My Fiance Goes to Bed?

It seriously freaks me out when my fiance goes to bed before me. I have no idea why. He's just going to the next room and won't even completely close the day because the cat needs to be able to go in and out. But, I can't stand the notion of him asleep before me, with all of the lights out in the rest of the apartment. It's too much. I don't like it. When he shuts the light off by desk and I hear that 'click,' I start winding down as quickly as possible (not the right way to wind down, I know) so I can go to bed as soon as I can. It just feels late when he goes to bed before me and it feels like a sign I just shouldn't be up too much longer or else bad things will happen.

Anyway... Articles!

So, my first step to hustling is to get a record outside of our app and CMS of every article that we cover. We easily cover 400 stories a day: 20 to 30 stories per vertical plus another 100 or so for top news. No, I'm not going to read all 400 of those articles each day. That's not possible. But, a Google Sheet for each vertical with an easy glance at that day's 20 or 30 stories is much more digestible. With an easy glance of the source link and the description, I can pick out a couple of stories that look extra interesting or that look like they may have excellent facts, quotes or statistics that would make great social media content.

To build social media communities and, ultimately, fuel growth and get installs, our channels needs to present more online than what we're doing now. Our Twitter handles need to offer more than the lede sentence and the link to the update. The main handle needs to do more than tweet a lede and the original source link with the author tagged. All of that content is great, but because it's not much different from what's offered in the apps, there's little value in both downloading the app(s) and in following us on social media. Sure, someone may miss the story on the app and then catch on Twitter, or vice versa, but even that's kind of a poor value proposition. A major factor in making social media work for you is to have content tailored to the platform, where even though we're sharing the same story across Facebook, Twitter on our app, it should not look identical across the three platforms.

Separate Content for Our Newsletter

With the stories in a Google Sheet, I can avoid looking at the updates directly to have a fresh interpretation of the articles. A fresh interpretation is needed for our upcoming newsletter, although I do not know exactly the contents of this newsletter. I sent a survey to our mailing list since we haven't emailed them in over a year (hey, it wasn't my list to begin with, so I didn't have any idea who was on this list or why they were there). This survey asked how often they'd like the newsletter, what they would like it in and why they signed up in the first place. From the responses I've received, it's looking like this will be a weekly email that features summaries of our top stories. To be able to put such a newsletter together, I need to know everything we've covered for the week and then decide our top drones story, our top video games and a couple of our top breaking stories etc.

Getting this done shouldn't be a problem. The next step now is learning first-hand how many articles I can peruse in a given amount of time. Today, I'm going to give myself one hour and see how many articles I can get through. The day afterward, I may do 90 minutes or two hours, depending on my schedule and how well today goes. The goal is to see if this is a viable solution to a) finding great social media content in the stories we already cover and b) useful in finding ideas to cover for the upcoming newsletter.

If it doesn't work, then I'm not sure what I would do. At the moment, I need to be able to do this on my own.

Hustle, Hustle, Hustle

I need to work harder. I have 11+ communities that I need to build around 11+ different topics. I don't have much idea how to do that, let alone doing it quickly, but that is what I need to do at work right now. The only idea I really have is to write. Write blog posts, write newsletters, write tweets, write Facebook status updates, you name it. Writing is what I do best and content marketing is what I know. I don't have any other solid ideas, and at least great content and content marketing has already been proven to work to build a community. It's just not something that gets done quickly. However, if you start and do it well, then it will work wonders in terms of building (and keeping) an active community.

I've Blogged About Recruiting and Have Never Worked in HR

I spent about nearly two years writing blog posts for the RPOA, a recruitment association that was a client of one my previous clients, Webbright Services. I never worked a day in the recruiting industry when I wrote my first blog post for them, and if I remember correctly, I seriously said that the fact my mother has over 10 years experience in human resources as part of my credentials. However, when you write weekly blog posts for a recruiting association that are based off of hours of webinars for recruiting professionals, you can learn quite a bit about recruiting in a short amount of time. It's not the only example from my career, but it's a gig that I enjoyed.

Perhaps that's just what I should do: watch a ton of videos and webinars about the topics I need to focus on and write blog posts based off of what I've watched and learned. I should do this every day and see how far I can go. I wish there were 11 days in a week, then it could be one topic for each day of the week. Alas, that is not  the case, so I'm probably going to have to shoot for writing multiple times per day to make magic happen.

Excellent, Original Content is a Rallying Cry

Sure, there are tons of people doing original content and who have something to say. Not all of it is great and not all of it eventually congregates people into a community around it. But, if you're one of the few who can write well and who has important, interesting things to say, then that's a competitive advantage that's for competitors to replicate. By the time the effort put original content yields results that turns heads, competitors are playing catch-up. The idea and hustle of original content is part of that "golden moment' I previously mentioned. If this is truly the moment I've been training for, then I need to work harder and better utilize the training that I have. That training is in content marketing, writing original content and in being a chameleon who can write well on nearly everything.

Original content and content marketing is also a golden opportunity because so few folks in my space are doing this well. They fill their blogs with a company announcement featuring the product's newest features and latest updates.

BORING!

Nobody cares. Nobody wants to read about what's new in version 4.1. How is that valuable to anyone except the company? Current customers don't care because what's new may not be anything they want or is relevant to them. After all, they were perfectly happy on the previous version and probably had no idea about an upcoming version or what was going to be in it. Too many folks have the misconception that the company blog (one of the best places for original content) is for current customers or should be about the company, when the company blog should be about potential customers and what they want to read about. The company blog is a fantastic way to pull people in, pull folks in who don't yet know about you.

Enough About Me and Enough about Writing Here

It's time to start writing elsewhere. My personal blog isn't the platform to be building those other communities that I need to build, although it makes great practice.

Content and SEO are the Same Thing!

Get That Into Your Head Already!

An interesting problem that we run into regularly is that a client hires us to do business communications, such as press releases, blog posts, web content etc. That's great, but what the client also does is hire an SEO firm to do whatever it is they need to do. It's a problem because there are now two competing entities to do the same thing. Search engine optimization and content creation are the same thing! You only need one to accomplish both!

Without Content, What Will People Find on the Search Engines?

Perhaps there are technical aspects that the SEO firm emphasizes, like server capability, load times, and 301 redirects. Google's latest algorithm change, Google Hummingbird, emphasizes mobile search and the use of voice to conduct searches. Although we can provide the content, we wouldn't have anything to do with creating the mobile site and making sure that site works correctly. In those cases, an SEO firm might be best.

However, as we found with our problem, the SEO firm hired is tasked to do original content as well. Even though more quality, original content is better than less, there's no good reason to have both if all you want is original content. After all, if you don't spend time creating content, then what's going to come up under the keywords for which you want to rank? Yes, factors like domain name, meta description, backlinks, and social media matter, but even optimizing those aspects won't help with your search engine rankings if your content is thin, irrelevant, or just horrible. Businesses engaging in content marketing and business blogging need to understand that getting found online is only half of the story. You also need to think about what people will find when they do find you online, and that's when you need to think about the content.

It's the latter half of getting found online that's so difficult to get into the heads of small business owners and marketers who want to rank high on the search engines. Part of the importance in understanding this is that content marketing will get you there if you do it right. Search engine optimization isn't about gaming the search engines, and focusing on SEO without thinking about the content can get you into trouble. There are many SEO practices that may have been good at one point, but will now get you into trouble. These include keyword stuffing, overloaded keyword density, and cloaked pages. One of the newest "black hat techniques" is to add fake positive reviews on sites like Google+ and Yelp. Reviews on both sites show up on search engine rankings, so there's an incentive to do what it takes to get the positive ones. However, paying someone to write reviews or to add positive reviews of your own does violate the ethics guidelines of both sites.

The Two Aren't Competing. They Work Together.

Because they work together, hiring both a content marketing company (or writers, bloggers, content creators) and an SEO firm/consultant is redundant and a waste of money. Although it's obvious we're going to say that the money should be put on the content creators, the decision is ultimately up to you. The main point is that they work together, and that content is SEO because it's content that's showing up in the search engine rankings and it's content that people will find when they type in search terms. It's possible to create content that's search-engine friendly but also engaging and entertaining, so figure out how to do that and everything will fall into place.

Creating Blog Content: Why "Contact Us" is a Horrible Call to Action

At the End of Your Blog Posts, That Is

One thing that we see on a lot of business to business blogs (and on B2C blogs) is a call-to-action to contact the company or to visit other pages on the website for more information. It's great that these businesses understand the benefit of putting a call-to-action at the end of the blog post, but the "contact us" is a horrible one to use, maybe even the worst one to use. Here's why, when you're creating blog content, that you don't ask readers to contact you at the end of it:

It's Rarely the Next Logical Step

A call-to-action is simply the next logical step that you want the web visitor to take. When someone visits your website home page, what's the next step for that person? When someone take a look at a product page, what the next step for that person? It differs between those two pages, and it would differ on your blog, and with each individual blog post as well. Because of this, contacting your company directly is very rarely the next logical step with a blog post.

If you write a blog post about how to unclog your sink drain, for example, the next logical step for that blog reader isn't to call your company about your plumbing services. If that person just needed help with the sink drain, then there's no need for your services. Therefore, the better logical step is to offer a tip sheet or a white paper about maintaining your sink drain, or how to keep all drains unclogged in the house. No, this doesn't generate any sales, but it does position the company as one who understands its audience and its pain points. When they do need plumbing services, who are they doing to think of? Probably you, the one who offered great advice and provided something valuable.

Your Business to Business Blog Should Generate Leads, Not Sales

Here is the definition of a business to business blog, in case you aren't already aware:

A collection of articles that provide helpful, valuable, educational, and remarkable content to your target audience. By providing this value, blog can easily and effectively draw prospects to your website.

According to this definition, the purpose of a corporate blog is to draw prospects i.e. generate leads. The point of a corporate blog is to engage those who need information, but may not  necessarily know about your company and what you specifically have to offer. You need leads before you can get customers. Blogs are better for generating leads and aren't so great at making sales. If you honestly expect that people are going to read one blog post, and then buy from you right away, then that's a misunderstanding of the buying process and what readers are doing when they visit your blog.

Yes, it is possible to acquire a customer through your blog. Yes, blog posts can have a significant impact on purchasing decisions. But, don't expect prospects to make a purchasing decision right then and there.

You Don't Necessarily Get the Information You Need to Make the Sale

Let's say that someone actually does read a blog post and then contacts you. Depending on your contact form, you might not get the information you need to make the sale or to convert that prospect appropriately. If your contact form is just name, email, and a comment box, then you probably won't know if the person who contacted you is the decision maker for the company, or even if the company would be a good fit for your business, or why they have an interest in the product or service that you offer. This could mean that your spending time on a prospect who could have been disqualified earlier the process with a different call-to-action.  It could also mean that you have to spend a lot more time getting to know the lead, and figuring out which product or service would be best for them, when that information can be gathered with a different call-to-action and allow you to make a better first impression when you do call them back.

Overall, if you're creating blog content, you ought to have call-to-actions that are the next logical step for that reader on that topic. Oftentimes, that next logical step isn't a purchase or a sales call. It's additional information. It's further qualification in the leads funnel and the buying process. It's another way to engage with your brand that doesn't involve speaking to a salesperson.

Related Links:

How to Capture Leads from Your Business Blog

How Business Blogging Generates Better Qualified Leads

How to Create a Resource Center and Visibility for Your Brand