Blogging Best Practices Guide: Integrating Social To Extend Reach, Track Engagement
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With content marketing continuing to gain traction, blogs are re-emerging as a critical foundation for a company’s messaging. Blogs not only help to showcase a company’s offerings and supplement Web site content with an extended forum for prospects and existing customers, they also help to provide threads of conversation on social media channels.
The bloggers we interviewed included: Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya, who pens the “Buzz Marketing for Technology” blog; Jim Cahill, author of the “Emerson Process Experts” blog; and“Jonathan Kantor, Founder & Principal of The @ppum Group and author of the “White Paper Pundit” blog.
All three bloggers pointed to frequency, measurement and reach as key factors of success for the format. Some of the specific tips they offered included:
Finding the Right Frequency:
Our panel of bloggers agreed that the timeliness and frequency of content is an essential component of blogging. “I started my blog a few years ago with regular posts every other day,” said Kantor. “I soon realized that it wasn’t enough time between posts to allow social media to assimilate the information and foster retweets, comments or reposts, so now I post twice a week.”
Kantor said he keeps his focus each week with Monday posts on unique aspects of “Short Attention Marketing,” in addition to his Friday posts, which features a “Free White Paper List.” Kantor collects anywhere between 20 and 30 white papers from Twitter that do not require registration, which, he said, attracts visitors to his blog.
“Consistency is key,” agreed Dunay. “If you are starting out — weekly is fine —you can always crank up the frequency.” He added that the ambitious daily approach to blogging is simply not practical as you are likely to run out of content and disappoint your readers.
Cahill noted that although he has maintained consistency posting 2-3 blogs per week, the exception is vacation and/or holidays. “Then I’ll do a post explaining why the blog will go dark,” he said.
Extending Reach:
It’s no surprise that social media is a prominent component of the BtoB blogging process. Particularly for Cahill, who supplements his posts with podcasts, leveraging social capabilities in an essential way to “increase footprint and findability,” he said.
“I communicate posts to my followers on Twitter, and some are retweeted by other Emerson individuals and brands for ones that pertain to their area,” Cahill said. He added that he also leverages YouTube for videos, Flickr for pictures and Slideshare for presentations to increase the surface area of his content.
Dunay tweets about 6 to 10 times per day to supplement his two to three weekly blog postings. “All of this gets aggregated into my lifestream on friendeed, Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo, which is were I syndicate all my content to,” Dunay said. “The way I extend the reach of my blog (which has about 3,000 RSS readers), is to send an email to my email readers every three weeks with the “Best of” my blog over the last three weeks.” Dunay said this list reaches 6,500 email subscribers and provides an ample boost each time it is sent to his readers.
Kantor said he promotes his blog through every available online vehicle, including his newsletter, email signatures, online forum signature, RSS feed and social media outlets. “Each post is tweeted and updated via LinkedIn,” he said. “It is also posted to BizSugar and includes a retweet button on each post.”
Metrics for Success:
Like any campaign or extended marketing effort, the most telling metrics for blogging will come from measuring the reach and engagement readers experience from your blog.
Dunay pointed to the “Conversational Index,” the number of comments, and the inbound links he tracks with HubSpot , as the most important factors monitored on his blog. He uses HubSpot for backend reporting, SEO optimization and social monitoring.
“Retweets for a particular topic like BtoB marketing on Facebook marketing, which I monitor, are also nice, but I don’t numerically track that as close as I do the comments and inbound links.”
Kantor said he measures traffic via retweets and votes on BizSugar. “Another successful metric is the number of signups to my newsletter via the Action PopUp that is presented on my blog,” he said.
“I believe blogs need focus and someone’s accountability to give them life, maintain a posting pace, listen to the conversations that spawn, and be the face of the blog,” Cahill said.
Cahill said Emerson Process Management utilizes the blog forum to raise company visibility. The blog is integrated into the Emerson Process Web site other places, from “ad looking placements” to individual categories that apply to individual brands. Posts are also featured in various brand communication e-newsletters. Because Cahill’s blog is supplemental content for the company‘s offerings, measurement is sales-focused.
Cahill said the company uses standard Web analytics packages to measure blog traffic, which is around 40,000 visits per month and a range of 900-1000 RSS subscriptions.
“I also use Bit.ly to look at views from Twitter posts,” Cahill said. “By far the most important measurement is the contacts I receive through email, phone, Skype, and Twitter. Many lead to business opportunities for our various divisions in our Emerson Process Management group. Automation projects typically have a very long, complex sales cycle so it’s difficult to get direct ROI on the blog contribution, but the earlier these opportunities are spotted the increased chance we have of winning business.”