Make Posts Work Smart and Hard
My original plan was to focus on ghostwriting blog posts, maybe recommend images to use and a few ideas for social media sharing. I mean, that would make it a complete post, right? I tried delivering this tidy package to my first blog ghost-writing client and walk away. But I know too much. I have experience managing the whole shebang. Lots. I decided to look at the content posted on her website and even test it by sharing it on social media, even though not in my scope. It wasn’t quite right. Then I saw something completely unrelated on her website and dove into the rabbit hole. I wanted them to be successful. I raised the issue and left her to have it fixed.
All this comes from many years of marketing. Now, I am sharing what came up with you! Blog posts work best when they look good (typesetting and featured image), are shared well on social media and have some kind of next step.
Making It Look Good
When I post my own or other clients' blogs on websites, I run through a process that helps me make them look good and consistent. The hierarchy of information design means we need to have subheads and even secondary subheads, if appropriate, that look different from the body copy to break up walls of text and make it visually pleasing so it’s easier to read. These are all there for me to apply using the visual editor. I even check between posts to ensure I am using typestyles and even capitalization consistently. The PREVIEW button is your friend. I also always add a featured image.
Images Say A Lot!
Images are very powerful tools. I heard a seminar speaker tell a story about finding a weird stick on a path while hiking. It resembled a snake, so his reptilian brain hijacked his entire body and moved it out of the way before his grey matter could reason out that it was just a stick. Having an image attached to your blog post can go a long way toward setting the tone for the reader and enhancing the impact of the post. When the post link is shared on social media, the ‘featured image’ (not an image inserted into the body) will display and be clickable. It will: 1. get your social media post more attention, and 2. make click-throughs more likely.
Sharing Strategically
When you share the blog post link on social media, it should pull the image, title and first few words (or the snippet you specify in your blog settings). In the social media post itself, you have an opportunity to introduce the post and say something intriguing. You can share a blog post more than once; no one will notice across their busy feeds, especially if you introduce it differently each time. Use that space to address different audiences, focus on specific points from the post, etc. However, each post like this (sharing free value, yes, but self-serving too) should be mixed with other social media activities: 4x sharing and responding to other people's content and 1x overtly self-promotional posts.
If you only build it, they will not come.
Blog posts are a great way to build awareness, demonstrate your genius, share value, and better explain all the things you do. These posts are also an active part of a marketing map. While they may not lead directly to a sale, they should lead somewhere. They make you easier to refer, provide excuses to follow up with people and are great social media fodder, so use them that way. Provide a low-pressure next step: draw people deeper into your world by leading to other posts or sign-ups, use appropriate/subtle calls-to-action at the end, or as part of a greater social media strategy.
So I Say Something
You can see that if I just hand over a Word doc with the post and image, it probably won’t be that successful for people. Time and again, they won’t do all the things that make it successful. Besides being a control freak and design snob, I want whatever I deliver to work hard and help them achieve their goals. Now, I must figure out how to bill for the five minutes it takes me to share tips drawn from the almost 30 years of experience that led me to it.