Why Your Product or Service Needs To Be Blogging

This one goes out with the intent to all of the product and service sellers out there. You really do need to start a blog and maintain writing on that blog! I know I know this sounds like a complete hassle for two big reasons:

1. I know that you do not have the time.

2. You have no idea what parts of your products or business to write and share.

Here’s the thing; blogging helps your audience connect with you differently. Sharing your stories will help them relate to you and develop a different level of a relationship than you have on social media. Not only does blogging mean that your audience feels a connection with you it also means that Google loves you because you are showing the Google algorithm that you are a current website and this, in turn, helps boost your SEO and ranking.

As a product seller and any business, you need to have the mindset that the purpose of your content marketing strategy is building that “know, like, and trust factor” because the more ways you are pumping content out there that content is working for you to turn into a connection and connection turns into currency.

We all want to sell all of the things right away off of our website, but in the times that we are in, we have to work harder because chances are there are more people out there offering the same thing that we have to offer.  We need to set ourselves apart, with the goal of getting these potential customers to subscribe to your email list or directing them to another platform that you would like them to learn more about you and follow you. The road to the intent to buy or book can be painfully long these days, and the only way to shorten the distance between marketing to the point where a wallet comes out is to build an actual relationship.

Now you’re thinking, “But I’m already using social media as a sort of microblog for my products and services.” To this, I say fantastic, however, using social media as a blog for your business is handing over the rights of your content to social media and it’s not doing any SEO favors to the website which customers can buy or book you from. Blogging on your platform provides an SEO boost to your site, while also providing value to your audience. Building and focusing your core content out via Instagram or any other social media source is not going to offer that same or any return on the time investment. Look at Instagram or any other social platform as creating a lead for your audience to connect with you another way. Work on creating lead generating content there that triggers a response from a user to click your website to learn more about you and your products.  By having current blog posts on your site that your audience can stumble upon and read is going to help you create a connection which will in time lead to the exchange of currency.

Having your content on your site also helps when people are searching for you on Google. Having your content current and living someplace on the internet gives your SEO a massive boost, which will cultivate long term growth because your content isn’t on a death march to die in an algorithm 72 hours after you post it.

So how do you do it?

Blogging today is much different than it was when it first came out.  In its popularity, which btw lead to influencer marketing, we used to sit in front of our computers with our cups of coffee and read the latest post on whatever lifestyle blogger we were following. Much like how the generations before us would sit at the kitchen table and read the morning paper over their coffee or breakfast.  While both these ways of consuming content are pretty much extinct writing and maintaining a blog puts searchable words to what you do out onto the world wide web. These words are what your target is searching for and the key to getting your target of potential customers to find you and learn more about you.

In a world where consumers being fed content every day, you will need to be more strategic, creative and mindful about how and what you are blogging. The goal here again is to thoughtfully gain the attention of your target market and convert them to your email list, to speak directly to them, earn their trust and eventually have them make a purchase. Some ideas on what to actually write include: talking about yourself, how you got started, educate them on a part of your business, talk about what you are currently working on or what is inspiring you.

Stop stressing, you do not need to be blogging every day, because that is craziness and I know that you do not need one more marketing thing to add into your daily mix. You could start with a few basic posts that are full of crucial relevant search words for your product and continue to post twice a month or even a monthly post about new products, services or what you have been up to.

Remember, whatever content you are putting out there, it creates a connection that will eventually create currency.  Content creation doesn't have to be hard, but it's just going to be time-consuming. The overall goal of your content should be getting eyes on your products and offerings enhancing your site's SEO and triggering your target to signup for your email list so you can connect and talk directly with them, if they happen to purchase at first look then that’s even more amazing!

If you need help with this, I offer one-on-one coaching sessions as well as a FREE monthly 20-minute speed session where you can ask me anything related to your business's content marketing plan and management.

In Your Business: Money Is A Renewable Resource; Time Is Not

Money is a renewable resource; time is not.

Read that again.

The chances are that your business is not styling and taking 100 product photos to get just the right one. Your actual business is not researching and writing blog posts. Your business is not writing captivating scroll stopping Instagram and SEO rich Pinterest captions. Your business IS something else.

Your business is a physical product, or it’s a service that you offer and provide to other businesses. Your business and passion is most likely NOT creating the marketing content to bring awareness to your target market about YOUR business.

In the monthly 20-minute speed marketing sessions, the top three frustrations that I hear from other business owners are:

1. I loathe social media. I don’t know what photo to post, what to write or have the time to do it.

2. I don’t know what platform I should be concentrating the limited amount of marketing time I block out to reach my target.

3. I feel like no one is even engaging or paying attention when I post, so I just don’t post.

After we discuss these issues and we chat about the services that Maven & Muse provides it always comes down to money and not time. The phrase, “I wish I could afford to hire you.” gets thrown out a lot.

We are all good at something, that’s why we have a business. The skills that we lack we need to learn to hire out. We are a society of multi-taskers, because multi-tasking gives us a sense of purpose. We feel empowered because we are capable of doing ALL of the things, except we are not doing all of the things well. If we flip our focus to investing our time on the one thing that we do well and hire out the rest the money will renew itself and our business will grow.

I personally suck at keeping up my books, and I hate doing it every month. So I have hired out these services. It’s totally a pain in the ass to pay for something that I am fully capable of inputing into my Quickbooks but I know that I would rather do anything else then keep them up. The couple hours that I would spend doing this each month has freed up the time for me to personally write content and market my own services which has in turn brought in the money to pay for the bookkeeper.

I encourage you to actually sit down and think about how much time you are actually putting into feeling frustrated by creating your own businesses digital marketing content. I will put money on the fact that it is the same amount of hours that a content creator would charge you for.

Money is a renewable resource; time is not.

Creating Scroll Stopping Content Takes Practice And Commitment

I have a membership to the Japanese Garden here in Portland, and I find myself there pretty much once a week. The thing that inspires me the most somedays isn’t the garden it’s self, it’s when I see young children with their cameras. I was there early one morning, and this family was beginning to walk through the gate when the young boy of probably 5 or 6 yelled at them all to stop and turn around to look at him in front of the entrance. I stayed behind him because I didn’t want to ruin his shot and watched as he brought his blue v-tech twist camera up to his eye and took the photo of them. He turned to me and said thank you and who I’m assuming was his mom smiled and said thank you as well.

My heartfelt light because this is the future practicing and honing in on their photography skills.

For as long as I can remember I have had a camera on me. I by no means consider myself a photographer, but I’ve always been documenting my memories by taking photos of landscapes and objects. There’s a photo that my grandma took of me, and I have to be about three years old in my uncles' bedroom at their house with his camera around my neck, a baseball hat on backward and I had arranged all of my stuffed animals on his bed to take photos of them.

The biggest joy that I got when I had my vintage business was arranging and styling the products showing how they could be worn or used in today’s world. I would spend hours creating the perfect flat lay or hiring a model for an afternoon and styling them in different looks and locations around the neighborhood. I would say that becoming a content creator was in my DNA since I was basically doing it since before the world even knew what a content creator actually was.

The key to creating good social media content like anything else is practice. Creating scroll stopping content doesn’t just happen in one click of the shutter or typing one narrative of your brand. Scroll stopping involves practice styling objects and assessing the light and angles when taking the photos. Good content means writing run on captions, then re-reading them and trying to get to the point faster. Remember you have 3-7 seconds to capture a users attention to get them to stop and read what you have written.

After you have posted your work, let it sit for 72 hours then go back to it and evaluate what part of the post got the most engagement. Was it the photo itself or was it that you wrote something extremely personal or was it that you let your sarcasm out?

Excelling at content marketing involves so much practice, testing, tweaking and then testing again. You really do need to know what it is that your target market is wanting to see or hear from you. The only way to clearly identify this is through committing to practice creating and evaluating your great content.

Spring Cleaning Your Content: When To Recycle Vs. When To Create

The spring equinox has happened which means that it’s time for all of the spring cleaning to happen. Spring cleaning your house, your car and even your social media feed. Today we’ll talk about reducing your time spent creating new content by reusing and recycling what you already have working for you.

The old Earth Day saying goes “Reduce Reuse Recycle” and spring is the perfect time to put this plan into motion for the content on your social media feeds so you can enjoy the incredible weather that I know you’re itching to get out from behind your computer to go and enjoy.

REDUCE the time that you spend creating content, meaning glance back through your feed to see what posts performed well and REUSE them. Decide what people liked, the message or the photo and reuse that. People are afraid to reuse content which I don’t completely understand, especially if that content is at least 100 days old. I’ll be the first one to tell you that most of your ideal clients are not going to remember if they saw that same photo on your feed previously.

If the post has a message that you want to bring back to your target copy and paste the caption and add a different photo. Remember that the marketing buzz is people need to hear or read something SEVEN different times before they will act on it.

When you are RECYCLING content just be conscious of changing up something about it up. I’m sure that you have learned or experienced something in the time since it originally posted to update the caption and always update the hashtags. No need to have the exact same photo attached to the exact same hashtags.

There is an excellent app that I use to “regram” because I am all about reducing time. What I enjoy about this app is you don’t get that icky looking transparent gray box with the original posters screen name on it. However, with that being said if you are EVER reposting someone else's content make sure to credit the original poster in the caption with “Regram: @Insert_User_Name”.

Spring is also an excellent time to create new content. The spring light is way better than that harsh winter light and I don’t know about you but my creativity feels more inspired with the sunshine. It’s probably all of the vitamin D. Block off time to style and create new product photos, or grab a coffee, get outside and walk around a different neighborhood with your phone or camera and take photos of things that are relevant to your brand that you can use later on in your marketing efforts down the road.

To wrap, reduce your valuable time by reusing and recycling previous well-performing content especially the messages that you want to stick in your ideal client/customers brain. They need to hear/read these messages seven times before they will act.

E-commerce Brick & Mortar Holiday Social Media Strategy Sessions

Wanna kickass this in your social media marketing this upcoming holiday season? Well, it is that time of year when I open up social media strategy sessions so you can have a kickass holiday season. I understand it is June, and you have plenty of other things on your mind like all the summer things. Nevertheless, you need to start your marketing efforts as early as September 1 to kickass this upcoming holiday season.

I know what you are thinking; I can hardly rock my regular time social media marketing campaign, do you think I can change it for the holiday season? Yes, and absolutely yes, I know that you can change your social media mindset for the holiday season because the holiday season is approximately six weeks where people actually want to be sold to. It is approximately six weeks where people are going to be spending money. Six weeks where those people that have no idea of what to get for so and so on their lists are looking to any place for inspiration. Why shouldn’t they be looking at your social media feed for their much-needed inspiration?

This program is written with both the e-commerce seller and the brick and mortar store owner in mind because both businesses have the same common denominator; to make some damn money from doing what they love. We are going to talk about your holiday marketing efforts on the big three: Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Typically, I meet in July or August with clients for tropical cocktails and to talk about all things holiday marketing. It is fun and productive at the same time. Strategy Sessions are two hours long and can be split up between two different meetings. Sessions can be virtual or in person. However, if it is virtual, you will have to provide your own tropical cocktail.

One on one social media support from me for the entire holiday season, roughly November 1st- January 2nd is included in your kickass social media strategy. You see, this means I am that girl in your corner, cheering you on and available for any social media question that might arise. I will be one email or phone call away. We will begin our efforts with the two-hour strategy planning and implementation meeting in July or August, and your strategy will be ready to launch on September 1st. You will receive the Kickass Holiday Social Media workbook which is full of tips and tricks for each specific platform along with a place to write your goals. Other benefits you will get include a personalized listing of industry-specific hashtags, a personalized calendar of your business’ holiday events, promotions and time frame of when exactly your postings will achieve the best reach and start turning those likes into dollars. The Kickass Social Media Strategy will focus on content for your business’ Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest accounts. Therefore, these accounts must be set up and in working order prior to our first strategy meeting.

The early bird rate is $450 for this entire package if you book it before June 20th. After June 20th, the price will increase to $575.

For specific questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I know you want your business to kickass this holiday season, and that is exactly what I want to help you achieve!

75.3% More For Your Bottom Line

Fact: 75.3% of people will purchase something because they saw it on some social media channel. If you own a business let that statistic marinate for a minute.

Do you understand now why big business pay for influence marketing, why they have a team of social media specialists?  I'm not going to lie when I first saw this face vase from Target blow up my Instagram and Pinterest feed last year, I went to Target stores and had friends near and far searching for it to no avail. I couldn't understand how can it be in some markets and not ALL the markets.  Anyway a few weeks ago on a leisurely stroll through the aisles of Target, there she finally was. The Insta famous face vase was finally in my hands, a year later. 

I would be super curious to reach out to Target to see just how many of these face vases they have sold.  I was so curious that for fun I Googled her and saw posts from people in Australia and other places far away begging Target to add this vase to the inventory at their local stores. She is even going for double her shelf price on ebay. 

If you are a business and are not updating your social media frequently, my question to you is why not? I can get behind the "I don't have enough time" but this is why people like me exist to help give you hours back in your day so you can focus on your business and still have a current social media presence. 75.3% that's just more money for your bottom line. 

If you do not have the time to concentrate on your social media, let's set up and appointment to chat about how I can help give you hours back in your day. 

(statistics via Social Media Weekly)

Let's Go On A Social Media Adventure

Hello 2017. A new year with 12 new chapters, 365 blank pages and endless amounts of business social media adventure opportunity awaits.

If you are a business owner and made a goal to have a bigger or more consistent social media presence this year my one big question for you is, "Have you filled out your monthly content calendar yet?" If you are going at this whole social media promoting thing alone as well as running your business then you definitely need a social media content calendar. 

Content marketing is the only kind of marketing that is left. People stream and dvr shows from network tv and watch original Netflix and Amazon series.  Commercials are now obsolete, you will get lucky with a product placement deal in a show.  For the rest of us all that is left is content marketing on Instagram, Facebook, Periscope and Youtube.  You need to start planning your posts. Sounds easy right? Sounds like you can just sit in a coffeeshop for an hour over a latte and crank out a months worth of content, well you can start there.

Content creation and organization is the biggest and most time consuming part of my job. You would think that it would be easy to come up with blog and newsletter topics, Facebook posts, and eye catching Instagram posts, but the fact is people run out of ideas. We are human and ain't nobody that's  trying to build a business and strong social media presence got time to run out of ideas. 

The most valuable thing you can do for yourself and your bottom line is have an up to date content calendar. It helps plan, organize and schedule every single piece of content you publish online.

It’s the place where all of your social media posts,  blogs,  newsletters,  videos, podcasts and  graphics strategically come together to grow your business. Content marketing takes up so much time and if you're not squeezing your content for all you've got then you are missing out on traffic, post engagement, leads and money. 

Overwhelmed, my apologies, but start small. Plan out a week at a time. Every Sunday morning I sit in a coffee shop and look over the weeks plan for both mine and clients feeds for the week and tweak as necessary when things pop up in real time. 

Need more advice or want a personalized quote on your content management, let's chat.