While we’d all love to be social media rock stars (and even business blogging rock stars), the ticket to social stardom comes with a plan. Firing off “buy me” tweets on Twitter and plastering promos all over Facebook won’t get you as much as a like or a re-tweet, let alone a conversion. In order to truly make an impact with your social media campaigns, you’ll need a strategy that’s driven by quality content—and your business blog serves as the perfect source.
Studies have shown that interesting content is one of the top reasons why people follow businesses on social media. When you take a look at profiles of brands that are executing a successful social media strategy, you’ll find one thing in common: they consistently share relevant, helpful, and entertaining content to their customers.
But why is a blog so important for your social media strategy, and how can you get the ball rolling?
Social Media Sends 31% of Traffic to All Websites (And You Can Drive it With Blogging)
Social media reportedly drives over 30% of traffic to all websites, which is great news for those who aren’t having a lot of luck for competitive search terms and SEO. While social media is proven to send traffic flowing to your website, this said traffic might not always come easy. Simply tweeting a link to your website won’t result in a rush of traffic, but compelling blog content can help your cause.
The idea is to create interesting, engaging blog content that lures potential customers to your website to check things out. It’s sort of like bait, but not the bad clickbait that you hear so much about. Your blog content is legitimate bait—a juicy article that attracts readers into wanting to learn something or gain something out of your post. The difference is that you deliver what’s promised from your headline, and never trick customers into clicking on your blog content just to get traffic.
As you share high quality blog content that you share on social media, your traffic numbers can tick higher. Social media may bring around 30% of your traffic, but this number can grow much larger depending on the content that you offer and your promotion strategies.
What to do now:
Begin ramping up your social media strategy by mixing in high-quality, shareable blog content. Over time, this tactic will push more traffic to your website, and send potential customers further into the sales funnel.
Deliver Something of Value to Targeted Demographics
If you build it, they will come. This famous line is sadly wishful thinking in the world of blogging—and the fact is that if you blog it, you must promote it to the right people.
If you’ve taken the time to prepare a social media strategy or a blog, hopefully by now you understand your target demographic. Think of your target demographic as your ideal customer—envision their education level, income, and even their age. Depending on the exact demographics of your ideal customers, you can use your blog to spread your message on platforms that serve your ideal audience.
Source: Smart Insights
While age is just a small slice of the demographic pie, you can see here that specific platforms are more effective for targeting certain age groups than others. You won’t want to waste your time with the 16-to-24 crowd if you’re targeting high level executives with 20 years of experience. Clearly, Tumblr and Instagram isn’t your best choice for this demographic—but LinkedIn might be a different story.
Once you know who your target demographic is and where they spend their time on social media, you can prepare and craft blog posts that will grab their attention on your designated social platforms. Then, you’ll need a vehicle that can deliver something of value—and a polished blog article can do just the trick.
What to do now:
Deliver valuable blog posts on the right social platform to quickly enhance your social strategy. Teach your readers something new or compose a thorough guide. You’ll build trust with your audience and give potential customers a reason to engage with your brand. Give it a try.
140 Characters Just Won’t Cut it
Although you can certainly make a statement with 140 characters on Twitter, sometimes you need more characters (OK, a lot more) to hammer your message home. Your business blog will help add depth and context to your tweets, pins, and Facebook posts. Not to mention, longer blog posts can help increase your number of social shares.
Source: Buffer App
To further prove the point, the following chart shows the average word count of viral content from popular media companies. As you can see, the word count with a high number of of social shares comes from New York Times, which consistently publishes content with 2,000+ words.
Source: Newswhip
Tweets are perfect for snack-sized bits of content, but studies have proven time and time again that your customers want in-depth content. That means offering blog content that is well researched and includes timely information, with a minimum word count of at least 1,600 words. As you become more comfortable with blogging, you can increase your word count until you come in around 2,000 words—just be sure that you’re adding value within those words, and not rambling for the sake of hitting a specific word count.
What to do now:
Craft long form blog content to encourage social sharing and build buzz around your brand. To enhance credibility, back your posts with facts and data from reliable sources.
Keep Your Customers Intrigued, Engaged, And Inspired
With the human attention span coming in at just 8 seconds, it can be difficult to grab the attention of distracted customers. In order to encourage your audience to follow your brand and stay in-tune with your updates, you’ll need a solid social media strategy that’s packed with unique, powerful content. Pretty pins and witty tweets can capture attention, but your business blog is where the magic happens.
The first step to intriguing your social media followers with your blog is to publish consistently. Your followers will begin to notice the pattern of how often you publish your blog, and they’ll begin to expect your posts during specific times of the week. If you consistently publish high-quality blog content on a regular basis, you’ll gain more followers and attract devoted readers.
Keep in mind that your headlines play a large role on intriguing your audience to read your blog. The most intriguing blog headlines include the following characteristics:
- Strong and interesting adjectives
- Asks questions
- Promises to solve problems (and follows through on said promise)
- Promises something else of value (e.g. teach how to learn a new skill)
- Includes numbers and lists
- Includes keywords that are naturally placed
- Contains words such as why and how
And when it comes to inspiring your social media followers with your blog, offer blog content that includes actionable tips that they can get started with today. This gives your reader an immediate solution to fulfill a need, leaving the reader as if they can conquer the world.
What to do now:
Perfect your headline formula and split test over different social media platforms. Generate intriguing and inspirational blog content to build a trust connection with your social media followers, and put yourself in the light as an expert in your field.
Create The Ultimate Hub of Shareable Content
Let’s face it—sometimes blogging gets pushed to the backburner, but you need something new to share on social media. Every business needs a go-to source of content that they can share on a whim, so why not use your own blog archives as a hub for quality, shareable content? Although curating content is another great alternative, you can get more mileage out of old blog posts and boost traffic while you’re at it.
As you blog on a regular basis, your stockpile will grow, and you’ll have a continuous stream of content to share with your social media followers.
Make Your Blog Content Super Shareable With These Quick Tips
- Add social sharing buttons to every blog post, making it a no-brainer for readers to re-tweet and spread the word of your blog
- Review your Google analytics data to analyze your best-performing posts, and brainstorm how you can branch from those topics to create similar content that your audience enjoys
- Add the element of entertainment to your blog posts—tell stories and include custom graphics
- Offer valuable and original content that your readers can’t find anywhere else
- Consider long form posts to cover topics as thoroughly as possible
What to do now:
Build a solid archive of evergreen blog posts that will resonate with your audience for months (and even years) to come. Focus your blogging strategy around posts that are high quality, timeless, and useful.
Send The Right Social Signals With Your Company Blog
Your company blog is an essential component to include in your social strategy. Excluding your blog from the strategy leaves web traffic, social shares, and conversions on the table. Your company blog can help your business send the right signals to your readers, build your presence online, and kick your social strategy up a notch (or three).
What to do now:
Custom, quality blog content can kick off the social media strategy of any business. Contact us today and learn how our social star blogging package creates content that’s likeable, shareable, and on point with your target audience.
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