The formula that syncs blogging and social media for success is this: Build a solid content marketing strategy using information that sets yourself up as a thought leader/expert in your area, publish it as a blog and syndicate it to your social media networks. This is how blogging and social media work together to showcase your expertise!

The most important component in marketing today is great content.  It can sound like a daunting subject to understand and take on, but it’s really nothing new.  We have always used this method in marketing, we just have new tools these days and have more places to share it.  In short, content marketing is the focused distribution of YOUR EXPERT information to inform and educate your target audience.  Accomplishing it takes a well organized system:

1. CONTENT you write
2. SHARE out to social media and the web
3. MONITOR results
4. ADJUST for relevancy as necessary

Imagine a wheel like the photo here.  Your content (information you create about your area of expertise) is the hub of the whole marketing wheel for your business.  Each “spoke” supports the functioning of the wheel (the wheel MUST turn to get traction, right?) and the areas your message is reaching.

Before you jump in, you will want to start by writing a strategy that you can easily follow.  Plan your content around what you know and what has a direct relationship to your business services. Incorporate your business key words into the article you write. Be informative, thorough, and entertaining. Use relevant images and video in your blog post.

Long form blog posts are good and seem to get more traction on Google, BUT, if you want to use short blog articles that’s fine too. Just be sure to cover your topic thoroughly.

Staying consistent and focused is one of the most important requirements in executing a content marketing program, so stay with it! Keep your blog articles flowing, it will pay off.

Scroll down to see the blogging stats fresh from Optinmonster.com.

Happy marketing!

BLOG STATS

General Blogging Statistics

1. Each month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages.
2. There are about 70 million posts being published each month by WordPress users.
3. 77 million new blog comments are generated by readers each month.
4. Websites that also have a blog are shown to have 434% more indexed pages.
5. Companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites.
6. Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information.
7. 77% of internet users read blogs.
8. Internet users in the US spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email.

Blogging SEO Stats

1. 34% of bloggers say that updating content produces strong results.
2. Titles with 6-13 words attract the highest and most consistent amount of traffic.
3. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.
4. 72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic.

Blogging Traffic Stats

1. Businesses that blog experience twice as much email traffic as businesses who don’t.
2. Having a hyphen or colon in the headline increased click-through rates by 9%.
3. Making your headline 6-8 words can increase your CTR by 21%.
4. Over 50% of bloggers report that it has gotten harder to get traffic from Facebook over the past two years, and nearly one-fifth say it has gotten harder to get traffic from Google.
5. Over the past year, there’s been a 93% increase in blogs using promotional techniques to drive traffic to their post including paid ads.

Blogging With Visuals and Videos Stats

1. Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.
2. 71% of bloggers report using visuals as part of their marketing strategy.
3. Using photos of real people instead of stock photos can result in a 35% conversion increase.
4. 43% of consumers increasingly want video content.
5. 45% of bloggers who add audio to their posts such as podcast see better results.
6. Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.
7. 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their businesses.

Sandy Hibbard Creative can provide your weekly or monthly, short or long, blog article writing and post it to your website and social media. Learn more here or contact Sandy at 214-208-3987.