After a successful Blog World Expo New York, I’m very much looking forward to BlogWorld Los Angeles in just under 2 weeks. Judging from the conference agenda, there’s an impressive roster (275+) of experts, pundits and long time bloggers presenting on just about every relevant topic you can think of.
Blogging has been cited as one of the most effective forms of social media marketing for achieving top visibility in search and on the social web and corporate investment in social media is growing significantly. This is as true for agencies like TopRank Online Marketing as it is for any business with a good story to tell. We’ve promoted blogs as the centerpiece of a hub and spoke model that has been adopted by many other agencies and corporate marketers.
While there are numerous success stories and sources of best practices, most companies handle their business blog in a way that disappoints. Even those corporate blogs that do manage to implement a customer-centric editorial plan, neglect to leverage key discovery and engagement channels like content optimization for search engines and social media optimization.
On November 5th, I’ll be giving a presentation to help business bloggers solve that problem and more, with “Optimize & Socialize for Better Business Blogging“. This presentation will identify key principles and specific tactics that I’ve learned over the past 8 years of blogging here and for other sites, plus working with numerous client blog consulting projects. The session will provide hard won insights into leveraging SEO and Social Media as key tools for blog content planning, creation and promotion from the editor of the only 3 time #1 ranked Content Marketing Blog (Junta 42), #2 Social Media Blog (Social Media Examiner), top marketing blog (Advertising Age).
Key takeaways for the session include:
1. Plan your way into an infinite number of compelling and relevant content ideas that boost search traffic & engage readers
2. Create campaigns that incorporate blog content with other marketing tactics for extended search & social visibility
3. Promote blog content that inspires social sharing, link building and search traffic
In each area I’ll break it down into:
Blog Content Ideas & Planning
- Key Problems: Running out of ideas, Lack of effective ideas, Difficulty in sourcing contributors
- Solutions: Tapping into front line staff, community and the competition using a feedback loop that will boost effectiveness and motivate others to join in.
Blog Content Creation
- Key Problems: Corporate narcism, inconsistent publishing and quality as well as content that does not result in the desired outcomes.
- Solutions: Audience empathy and guidelines for content strategy that result in content that inspires action and sharing.
Blog Content Promotion
- Key Problems: Great blog content with low subscriber counts and poor engagement.
- Solutions: A process to integrate blog content distribution and syndication as well as engagement that will leave readers waiting to see what will come next.
As I’m prone to do, I’ll pack as much actionable information as possible into the session and provide a copy of the PPT deck to attendees. I hope to see you there!
