Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Share Blog Responsibilities
If your main excuse for not
starting a business blog
is your lack of time, you might want to come up with something better. While the responsibility of blogging and engaging in social media traditionally has fallen upon us marketing folks, let's be honest - it really doesn't have to be that way.
This week's top inbound marketing article by Jeff Cohen advocates the idea of sharing the blogging responsibility...
1. 5 Ways to Expand B2B Blogging Beyond the Marketing Staff
Author: Jeffrey Cohen of Social Media B2B
Developing and maintaining a successful business blog is a big responsibility - so why not outsource some of it to other departments in your company besides marketing? Jeff's article highlights five ways you can initiate this change.
There is a lot of knowledge and expertise in other areas of your company, so it only makes sense to exploit it. Some ways Jeff suggests you do this include promoting industry issues via your company's emerging thought leaders, setting up a friendly, company-wide blogging competition and uncovering hidden talents within your staff with video.
Lesson: Your blog's contributors don't all have to be on your marketing team.
2. Creating and Using Web Video Never Easier
Author: John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing Blog
Creating online video of all types has become a staple for many businesses as it becomes increasingly easy and more affordable. If you haven't jumped on the bandwagon already, John urges you to try it out, offering a quick guide to get you started.
His article covers some reasons why you should use video for marketing and highlights helpful resources to get started with online video , from how to capture and record video to helpful editing software suggestions, places to publish your finished products and video promotion tips.
Lesson: Now is as good a time as any to start experimenting with video marketing initiatives.
3. A VC's Advice on How to Pitch VCs
Author: Raj Kapoor on TechCrunch
As a guy who has sat on both sides of the VC table, Raj Kapoor is a great person to take advice from when it comes to how to pitch VCs on new entrepreneurial ideas, particularly Internet-related ones.
In his TechCrunch article, Raj highlights 10 main points all pitches should address in order to have a chance at success. Some of these points include revealing your end game, identifying your go-to-market strategy, describing the reasons you're different in the long run and explaining plausible financials.
Lesson: In any presentation, know what your audience is looking for.
4. 13 Types of Posts that Always Get Lots of Comments
Author: Darren Rowse of ProBlogger
Looking for ways to get your readers more involved? Darren investigates the science of blog comments in this article, particularly focusing on the various types of blog posts that attract the most reader comments.
Darren highlights 13 types of blog posts. I'll give you the first five, and you can reference his article if you're thirsty for more.
- Competitions: offer readers a chance to win something if they leave a comment
-
Personal Stories:
sharing stories people can relate to can sometimes elicit stories of their own
- Show Off Posts/Share a link: ask readers to share/promote a link to something they've done (e.g. an article, a photo or a video)
- Creative Posts: posts that go above and beyond what's normally on your blog; often have a "wow" factor
- Hacks: walk people through a process; show readers how to do something themselves (AKA DIY)
Lesson: Catch your readers' attention and get them talking with fresh, offbeat or engaging blog content .
5. 5 Website Tips To Keep Your Brand Image Fresh
Author: Erica Charney of Search Engine Land
First impressions are key, whether you're referring to a face-to-face meeting or a first experience with a product or brand. Because a business's website is such a prominent representation of its brand image, it's critical to keep it well-maintained.
To help keep you on track, Search Engine Land has published 5 tips to help you keep your brand image fresh . These tips include keeping your keyword list up to date, continually freshening Web copy, doing your own site crawls, fixing broken links and doing regular traffic analysis. Gotta make that good first impression!
Lesson: First impressions make a difference, even on the World Wide Web.
Photo from Shutterstock .
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