Back in December, I listened to an absolutely fascinating webinar sponsored by HubSpot and led by Dan Zarella called “The Science of Blogging.” It included numerous takeaways based on social media research Dan had conducted, along with a survey of 1,400 people. It can be really hard to quantify some aspects of marketing, but Dan did so brilliantly for blogging.
If you are still sitting on the fence over whether or not to blog, consider this:
71 percent of people surveyed say blogs affect their purchasing decisions either “somewhat” or “very much” and 49 percent of people read more than one blog per day.
This was a very numbers- and graph-heavy presentation, so I ignored the numbers, since I hate math, and made notes on the key takeaways that Dan presented. Here is what I learned about blogging:
Sex and positivity sell on social media (including in blogs).
Talk as yourself, not about yourself.
Videos get links, while photos get comments.
People want to read your unique point of view.
Users comment when there’s something in it for them.
Stay away from overly technical jargon (an obvious one to me).
Don’t be boring!
Grammar matters.
Lose adjectives and adverbs, and write simply and plainly. In other words, write like USA Today, not the New York Times.
Use social proof (likes, retweets, mentions, comments) to establish trust.
Don’t say the same thing everyone else is saying.
Social proof reduces fear.
Time of day matters: Publish your blog posts early in the day to get comments, views and links. Retweets occur most often around 4 p.m. Facebook sharing takes place most often midday.
Day of week matters, too: Publish your blog posts early in the week to get views and links, and on the weekend to get comments. Facebook sharing happens more at the end of the week and over the weekend.
The more often you post, the better. One or more blog posts per day can turn you into a go-to source of information.
One thing most people do not do is analyze their blog. Learn its return on investment and make changes as necessary.
Image by Flickr user Horia Varian (Creative Commons)
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Tags: blogging, Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Small Business | 7 Comments »
