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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Blogging your way to a better brand


Blogging is a very important aspect of social media marketing that is frequently underestimated. A lot of companies think of blogs as an outdated source of social media and decide to skip creating them altogether.  However, blogs are one of the best forms of social media to easily create relevant content for your target audience.  Blogs are extremely effective in increasing your brands SEO and drives search engines to new up to date information. They can also help to increase the traffic to your website and are a great way to communicate with customers. Southern New Hampshire University has multiple blogs from the president, faculty, current students, and alumni. They do a great job creating content, however they could improve on sharing the blogs through social media.  Some important tips to blog your way to a better brand are outlined below.

How Often Should You Blog?

·         Frequency of blogs is important but consistency is key.

o   It is important to blog often depending on your company’s capabilities. For example a small firm might only be capable of blogging once a month compared to a large firm blogging weekly.

o   The key is to keep your posts consistent. For example, if you post weekly try to post around the same time on the same day of the week so your audience will know when to look for your posts.

Guidelines for your Blog

·         Keep the format and fonts unique and consistent.

o   Make sure to use the same font, style, and personality for your writing throughout the existence of your blog.

o   Create a unique background display, relating to your company.

o   Have an exciting title to get users to read your blog

·         Content is more important than length.

o   Make sure to create meaningful, current, and relevant content.

o   Keep the length between a half a page and 2 pages.

·         Integrate your blog with other sites.

o   Link the blog and create share buttons with other forms of social media to reach the largest audience.

o   Make sure to link the blog to your website to increase the traffic flow and brand awareness.

o   Use Google AdWords for your title to increase SEO.

o   Use “link love”, make sure to provide backlinks to other sites that are referenced. This will help you in the future if you ever need help from these sites.

Hopefully this information will help you start blogging your way to a better brand. The most important thing to take out of reading this blog is that blogging is not an outdated from of social media, and is actually one of the best ways to create meaningful content on the internet. Thanks for reading my blog today! Hopefully you found this information helpful, and will check back for my next post.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Picture Sharing is Taking Over!


Well, that title might be a bit of an exaggeration, but picture sharing is certainly blowing up right now. With the rise of smartphones, people are now uploading pictures on the go and picture sharing is really taking off. One of the most popular picture sharing applications is Instagram. Instagram allows users to upload and take pictures with their mobile phone and edit the pictures to their liking. Users then post the photos with a description, and it appears on their follower’s timeline.  Brands everywhere are jumping on the Instagram craze, but like all forms of social media it is crucial to understand how to correctly utilize this application. Southern New Hampshire University does an excellent job correctly utilizing their Instagram page and provides many great examples I will outline below.

Keys to a successful Instagram campaign

·         Integrate with other sites:

o   When creating an Instagram campaign it is important to not just rely on Instagram and to integrate your account with other social media applications.

o   @SNHU links their Pictures to Twitter and Facebook to maximize the viewing potential.

·         Use #hashtags:  

o   #hashtags will allow you to easily connect and find related content and users.

o   @SNHU will follow and create certain #hashtags such as the #SNHUItaly and be able to follow events related to campus.  

·         Involve the community

o   Repost pictures from users that are relevant to your content and make sure to credit them in the post.

o   @SNHU will repost pictures relating to campus and give credit to the user and tag their name.

o   Create best picture of the week contests to get the community engaged.

o   @SNHU successfully did this and featured a theme of the week such as alumni weekend.

·         Allow people to see behind the scenes and promote your features and products.

o   Giving people a look behind the scenes will keep people interested and talking about your brand.

o   @SNHU Instagram pictures of updates on new construction on campus such as the inside of the new dorm building.

These are just a few important tips and examples to get your brand on track.If you would like some more information check out this helpful video below by 500 social media tipsInstagram is unquestionably a great tool for businesses and can help to create a positive perceived image in the consumers mind. Thanks for reading my blog today; hopefully you can take away with you the importance of picture sharing in social media marketing!