When it comes to creating an online marketing plan, chances are you have blogging and social media in two separate columns. While it's true that these 2 marketing methods can operate independently, you'll find they work best when they're treated as complementary methods.
Learn how to make these 2 essential inbound marketing practices work together for your business:
The first and most important part of your social media and blogging mix should be social sharing. Every time you publish a new blog post, share it across all of your social media platforms. In regards to your overall social media marketing sharing, aim for 80% curated content from value-adding blogs and 20% of your own content. Use a scheduling tool like Publicize, CoSchedule, Hootsuite or Buffer to help automate the process of sharing new blog posts to social media.
Twitter can drive lots of traffic to your website. Retweet your old Twitter posts to get more mileage out of the platform. Find your top posts on Twitter using Buffer or another tool, and retweet them to your followers. Another method is to setup recurring tweets for posts so that they go out every 4-6 days over a period of months for the same blog post. You can do this with a tool like PostPlanner. It helps ensure visibility on Twitter where tweets are visible and gone in short order.
Your website should have social sharing buttons on all blog posts. These are buttons like the Facebook, Tweet, and others buttons. The easier you make it for users to share your content, the more likely it is to happen. As well, you might consider the use of a comment system that integrates with social media (like Facebook), or investigate social media login options that push content and comments posted on your site to social channels. It's an easy way to get more exposure.
It's been proven time and again that the Tweets and updates shared most often include video or images. Make your channels and your blog rich environments by embedding images, graphics, and videos in every post, and make sharing, linking and commenting as easy as possible.
If you want people to share your content, it has to be as simple as possible. Add click to tweet buttons to your blog posts. Or make some of the valuable content "share to pay" only content, that requires sharing on social channels to access. If it's valuable enough, people will share to get access.
The goal of your social media campaigns and your blog posts is to get leads. The best way to do that is to get people to sign up for your lists. Embed a sign-up form at the bottom of your blog post. Add a slide in or pop up on exit form also. Place prominent buttons and links to encourage readers to follow your blog.
When your readers sign up for your newsletters or RSS feeds, make sure you add social media buttons and links to your blog on those too.
[Tweet "The truth is, digital marketing is a collection of different elements, but they are all interconnected."]
The truth is, digital marketing is a collection of different elements, but they are all interconnected. Everything you do helps with all other parts of your plan. Blogging and social media are a match made in heaven, and they're a great place to start integrating your efforts!
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