blogging Archives - One Social Media

5 Quick Tips for Creating Fresh Visual Content

September 7, 2012 By Joe Soto 3 Comments

The pressure is on for marketers to come up with fresh content, consistently each week. It’s particularly challenging for business start-ups who want a fast start social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and their Blog.

What should you or your company be blogging about? What will be informative, interesting, educational or entertaining enough to attract them? What content will your community actually enjoy seeing posted and engage in? Perhaps you should just ask them.

To give you a head start, here are some quick tips for creating fresh visual content.

1. The Expert Interview. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog. You can do this via telephone conference or via video conference using Skype. Recommended resources: For phone interviews try FreeConferenceCalling.com, for Skype: try Ecamm.com (mac) and Camersoft.com (windows).

2. Create a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video tutorial, or show the steps in a series of photos. Resources: Camtasia, Screenflow, Screencast, Jing, Prezi, Snap Guide (mobile).

3. Do a simple case study about one company, or offer a few visual examples of how other companies do something successfully. In a recent blog post, I visually showcased brands using social media well and how some were using it poorly to talk with their customers.

4. Poll your community on Twitter with Twtpoll or on Facebook with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.

5. Give your community visual choices. Here are two examples of this:

Example 1: One of our clients asked their community which of the author’s books is their favorite. It quickly became the most popular post for that Facebook page since it started with over 200 Likes and over 200 comments.

Example 2: We asked our community to choose which one character Mike most resembled that day.

Visual content is the hottest trend, and it’s not going away. The popularity of Instagram alone should be waking people up to this. And video content will rule in 2013 and beyond.

When thinking through your social media content strategy, think about what content will add value and/or attract prospects to your blog or social media sites. Attracting them is only the first step, but it’s perhaps the most important as you refine how to convert and then analyze the results to see which of these ideas works best for your brand and audience.

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Joe Soto

Joe Soto is the CEO of One Social Media. A leading expert in social media marketing, Joe has over 16 years of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, online lead generation, and Internet marketing.

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Filed Under: blogging, Branding, social media marketing, Social Media Tips Tagged With: how to engage your audience, One social media, social media blog, social media engagement, social media marketing, social media strategy ideas, social media tips

Can Social Media Be an Artistic Outlet?

April 16, 2012 By Tom Hummer Leave a Comment

In my last blog post, The Language of Social Media, I wrote about how social media is changing the way we write. Our vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation all take a back seat to being casual and brief.

Whether this movement is good or bad is entirely debatable: there’s no objective answer. But regardless of your view on the matter, some people are embracing this change and seeing it as an opportunity instead of an obstacle. Here’s one of them.

Teju Cole is a Nigerian-American writer, who has spent time living in both countries. Cole’s experiences give him a unique perspective on life, death, and the different social issues that America and Nigeria face. Along with being an accomplished author and photographer, Cole uses his Twitter account as an artistic outlet of a different kind.

Cole’s tweets mix social commentary, American history, and Nigerian culture– only he writes them as poetry. This unique blend of content and delivery often come off as morose obituaries or headlines, and they certainly aren’t for the weak-hearted. Still, Cole achieves a goal that most of the Twitterverse has yet to reach: he makes you think. Here are some recent examples of his tweets:

What Cole proves without a doubt is that social media can be used as an artistic outlet. And I don’t mean in the way that bands, artists, and authors use it to promote their newest product– I mean it in the sense that social media is providing the actual basis for creation. Twitter is Cole’s canvas, not just a place where he can post a link for people to view or buy his canvas.

On top of that, Cole hardly ever self-promotes on his Twitter. After going back through a week’s worth of tweets (probably about 100), the only kind of posts I could find besides the ones shown above, are the occasional wordy (albeit macabre) joke, and a lot of interaction with his followers.

Cole is showing how to make a personal brand through social media while keeping his integrity as an artist. So what can we take from his example? A lot of things:

Be unique.
Provide value in a way that nobody else is.
Don’t be overly-promotional.
Write about what you know and care about.
Don’t be afraid to be provocative.
Be persistent.
Don’t complain about or shun change: use it to your advantage
Be consistent.
Turn obstacles and restrictions into opportunities.

Tom Hummer

Tom’s two biggest passions in life are writing and music. In his free time, Tom reads, writes, and works on musical projects.

The Language of Social Media

March 22, 2012 By Tom Hummer 1 Comment

In this video from the TED Education series, Terin Izil talks about the relationship between brevity and clarity in language. “Ten-dollar words are rendered worthless if they’re not understood,” she says. According to her, the secret to great communication is efficiency: get your point across in as few syllables as possible.

All you need to do is read the comments on this video to get an idea of the controversy it’s sparked. Some people think this is a dangerous idea, and that it would mark the death of artful language.

But despite the opposition, society has definitely moved toward simplicity. In National Treasure, there’s a scene where Benjamin Gates (played by Nicholas Cage) reads the following line from the Declaration of Independence:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

After he’s done, Gates says “People don’t talk that way anymore. Beautiful, huh?” and his friend, Riley, responds, “No idea what you said.” This conversation sums up the gap between the 18th century and now quite well.

Unsurprisingly, social media has definitely played a large role in this trend. On Twitter, for example, where users only have 140 characters to make their point, brevity is key. And that brevity often comes at the expense of interesting language. Even on Facebook, in text messages, and (shockingly) LinkedIn, punctuation and grammar are commonly thrown to the wind.

Since this new style isn’t going away anytime soon, the real question becomes: Is it good, or bad? Or neither?

As a social media professional with a background in literature, I’ve seen enough “LOL”s and “OMG”s to make Chaucer and Whitman roll in their graves. But surprisingly, the lack of engaging language in social media doesn’t bother me– after all, it’s about context. There’s a place for fancy, artistic language, and everyday communication isn’t that place. Izil makes that point when she talks about knowing your audience. A novelist’s audience expects different things than an online audience, because they serve different purposes.

The language of social media is here to stay. Rather than complain about it dumbing down the way we communicate, we should try to improve its efficiency. Remember– you can still read Shakespeare and Hemingway any time. But when connecting and understanding is the goal, simple is better.

Tom Hummer

Tom’s two biggest passions in life are writing and music. In his free time, Tom reads, writes, and works on musical projects.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Introducing The One Social Media VYou Channel

October 17, 2011 By Rob Wormley Leave a Comment

Back in February, I wrote about a new website that I had just started experimenting with called VYou. If you haven’t seen or read about the site before, here’s my simple explanation of how it works: Ask a question about a topic—get a video response.

And here’s how it is explained on the site:

“VYou allows people to broadcast video structured as conversations, offering the most personal form of social interaction on the web. It works like this: you record video responses to messages entered by friends and fans. VYou organizes their messages and your videos into conversations, making the experience feel continuously live even though the content is stored” (Source).

Over the last few months we’ve been working closely with the team at VYou to develop a place where you and others can go to individually interact with our team in order to learn more about social media marketing, online trends, technology, and everything in between.

The day is finally here. I’m extremely excited to announce the launch of the One Social Media VYou Channel: The Social Media Think Tank.

As mentioned before, The Social Media Think Tank exists as a place for you to go to learn more about social media marketing and other topics that may also interest you.

So here’s how it works: after you click here to get to our channel, click on team member that you would like interact with. Once you click on a profile box, you will be taken to that team member’s profile where you can ask your question (it can even be anonymous!). Once you hit Send, the team member you wish to interact with will receive a notification that someone has left them a question to answer. We’ll do our best to respond to questions in a timely manner. In addition to asking a team member a question, you can also look through other questions that have been asked and the responses that were given.

Our team is more than excited to start interacting with you on our new VYou channel. We’re always looking for new ways to interact with our online community. Our passion and goal as a team is to help people learn how to take advantage of the power of social media. Take some time to learn more about VYou and our channel by asking one of our team members a question. Just click here to go to our channel now.

One last thing: Do you like what you see? Create your own VYou profile and start interacting with your friends and other VYou users. You can even sign up using your Facebook account! Click here to create your VYou profile now.

Rob Wormley

As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.

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How Social Media Can Lead To Sales

July 26, 2011 By Rob Wormley 2 Comments

If there’s one common question that every business, brand, or organization new to social media has, it’s probably “how will using social media lead to sales?” It’s a fair question to ask. The problem with this question, however, lies in how it’s worded. What businesses new to social media should be asking is not “how will using social media lead to sales?”, but instead, “how can using social media lead to sales?”

It’s a slight difference, but here’s why the second question is a better question for business owners or brand executives to ask: it shows that they already understand the fact that creating a presence on social media sites doesn’t automatically lead to sales.

Unfortunately, most business owners just can’t seem to grasp this truth—that just joining social media sites isn’t a guarantee of even one new sale for a company. Developing a social media strategy for your business and joining social media sites are two very important steps to take, but if you want to actually start seeing real results—i.e. actual ROI—then you’re going to need to walk a lot further than you might have originally planned.

So with this new question in mind—”how can using social media lead to sales?”—what’s the answer? I’d be lying if I told you it was a simple “a + b + c = $$$” equation. There are a number of factors that play a part in whether or not your efforts on social media will actually lead to sales. To help you better understand what some of these factors are and how they work together, I’d like to share with you a chart that I like to call the social media equation. Here it is:

If the chart above looks complicated, it’s because it’s meant to. Because using social media to make sales isn’t as easy as a lot of people want it to be. It takes things like time, consistency, transparency, interaction, and value. It takes real work.

You may know that you have a good product that you think a lot of people could use, but if you can’t take the time to genuinely care about your followers and show them that you have a good, valuable product, you aren’t ready to be on social media.

No one wants to see a video on Facebook or a photo on Flickr that looks like an advertisement. No one wants to see the same “great deal” tweet ten times in one day.

If you decide to take the first steps to create a presence for your business on social media, it can lead to sales. It just takes time, effort, passion, dedication, authenticity, patience, and above all—a good product.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

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How To Put The Power of The Elevator Speech Effect To Work For You

June 1, 2011 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Every good business person needs to understand how to communicate ideas. Whether you’re speaking to a theater full of people, a room full of board executives, or even someone you meet in the elevator, you need to understand how to effectively present a compelling message— and it needs to be one that generates real results.

So how can you improve your speaking skills so much to the point where you could pitch an idea in less than 180 seconds? Here’s one way: read a great book that was recently released titled Small Message Big Impact. In the book, awarding-winning speaker Terri Sjodin outlines the tools and skills you need to perfect in order to master the art of the elevator speech effect. According to Sjodin, “an elevator speech is a brief presentation that introduces a product, service, philosophy or idea. Its general purpose is to intrigue and inspire a listener to want to hear more of the presenter’s complete proposition in the near future.”

If you’re serious about improving the effectiveness of your communication methods, I strongly recommend you read this new book:

To order YOUR copy of Small Message, Big Impact today, click here.

Learn more about Terri Sjodin:

Connect with her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter. Watch her videos on YouTube. Read her blog.

Joe Soto

Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, Social Media Strategist, Speaker, and always learning.

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5 Embeddable Resources You Could Be Using To Enhance Your Blog And Keep Visitors Coming Back For More

May 26, 2011 By Rob Wormley 1 Comment

For a lot of businesses, the idea of blogging can be scary. It’s easy for a CEO to decide that his or her company needs to have a blog. For most blogging platforms, the setup process is fairly simple. In fact it only takes a matter of seconds. The hard part, however, comes when the person who has been put in charge of running the company blog realizes they have no idea what to write about. So what’s the secret to running a successful, interesting, valuable blog that keeps people coming back for more? It all comes down to two things: strategy and creativity. That’s it.

Here’s the deal: Blogging isn’t hard. It just takes a little strategy, and a little creativity. Blogging is a must for all companies. Joe Soto, CEO of One Social Media, said it best at a recent social media luncheon that he spoke at following New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer’s sales seminar. When speaking on the topic of blogging, he said: “If you don’t have a blog, you’re not taking your business seriously.”

To help you come up with effective blog strategies, AND to help you boost your creativity, I’d like to share 5 embeddable resources that will help you enhance your blog and keep visitors coming back for more.

1. VYou
Site: http://vyou.com
What it is: The concept behind VYou is simple, yet ingenious: Ask a question about a topic—get a video response. Click here to learn more.
Strategy Tip: Set up a VYou account and start interacting with your clients. It provides a great opportunity for organizations and companies who want to start connecting with customers on an entirely new level. Invite people to interact with you on VYou by embedding your profile in a blog post.
Cost: Free
Example:

2. ISSUU
Site: http://issuu.com
What it is: ISSUU is the leading digital publishing platform on the web. It’s a site that allows you to upload and share publications.
Strategy Tip: Create a profile on ISSUU for your company and start uploading your brochures, reports, case studies, and any other marketing materials you have. Then embed your publications into a blog post on your company blog.
Cost: Free
Example:

3. Prezi
Site: http://prezi.com
What it is: A new way to present information. Prezi allows you to take your personal or corporate messages, meetings, and speeches to the next level by helping you create visually-stunning presentations.
Strategy Tip: Set up your account on Prezi, then spend some time learning how to use it. In the meantime, share other presentations that you come across by embedding them into your next blog post. Search for a topic that relates to your industry.
Cost: Free
Example:

Power of storytelling on Prezi

4. Twitter Search Feed
Site: http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets
What it is: A Twitter widget that allows you to create a live stream of tweets based on a specific search term.
Strategy Tip: Search for a word(s) that relate to your industry. Help keep your clients and future customers informed by embedding a Twitter search widget into your next blog post.
Cost: Free
Example:

5. LiveShare by Cooliris
Site: http://www.cooliris.com/yoursite/express/builder
What it is: A new way to share YouTube videos, Flickr photostreams, Facebook photos, and more!
Strategy Tip: Use LiveShare by Cooliris to share your company’s YouTube channel with your clients. Embed the LiveShare app into your next blog post.
Example:

Hopefully these ideas will help get you started. At the least, they will help you drastically improve your next five blog posts. Just use one resource per blog post and share them across all your social media sites. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the positive feedback you receive. The key to using your blog as an effective resource for future business is all about value, and in order to provide value on your blog, you need to invest in two things: strategy and creativity.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley
As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.
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10 Reasons Why Your Competition Is Beating You On Social Media

April 29, 2011 By Rob Wormley 3 Comments

Although you might not want to admit it, I bet you’re paying attention to how your competition is doing on social media. Have you noticed lately that their social media profiles are growing a lot faster than your company’s social media profiles? It might be because of one of these ten reasons:

1. Your competition has a presence on multiple social media sites. While you’re spending all your time updating your company’s Facebook page, your competition is busy sending out tweets, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with potential leads on LinkedIn, creating a new album of photos on their Flickr photostream, and updating their blog. Your competition understands the importance and value of building an online brand presence through the use of multiple social media platforms.

Create a presence on all the popular social media sites

2. Your competition is updating their social media profiles consistently. Your competition’s social media profiles continue to grow because they continue to provide consistent, valuable content to their followers. They have maintained a loyal following thanks to the consistent updates they post on their social media profiles, and have even started attracting new followers.

3. Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers to connect with them on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Are you telling the customers who walk into your door about your social media presence? Is it in your brochures? Your quarterly newsletter? Your email signature? On the back of your restaurant menu? Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers and prospects to connect with them on their favorite social media sites.

4. Your competition is posting a variety of content. Your competition isn’t re-posting promotional text from their website. They are creating Facebook photo albums of their last corporate event. They’re finding interesting links that relate to their industry and sharing them with followers. They are uploading client testimonial videos and behind-the-scenes video tours to their YouTube channel. Your competition is posting content that they know their followers will like. They aren’t worried about leaving out the promotional text from their website, because they are attracting new customers by providing value.

Create a Flickr photo gallery and share it on Facebook

5. Your competition is cross-promoting. Your competition is telling their Twitter followers about their Facebook page. They are ending every YouTube video by inviting viewers to connect with them on their other social media sites. They are embedding their Facebook page feed into their blog. They understand that their LinkedIn connections might not ever realize they have a Flickr account unless they occasionally share links to their Flickr photostream on their LinkedIn profile.

6. Your competition isn’t afraid to answer the hard questions. If you’re afraid to answer the tough questions that people might post on your company’s Facebook page, don’t be. Your competition isn’t afraid. In fact, they encourage their followers to ask tough questions, because they see it as an opportunity to strengthen their online reputation. Instead of ignoring or deleting tough questions that show up on their Facebook page, they’re being proactive. They’re taking the time to come up with a helpful, thoughtful answer that will show people how much they care about their customers.

7. Your competition is customizing their profiles with recognizable brand designs. You might understand the importance of presenting a consistent brand design when promoting your business in the physical world (you have a standard design or logo that appears on your flyers, your company shirts, your store sign, and your press releases), but you’re not (successfully) incorporating your company’s consistent design into your social media profiles. Your competition has taken time to design visually-interesting, customized designs for all their social media profiles.

: Customize Your Social Media Sites

8. Your competition is taking time to listen to advice, suggestions, and other helpful comments. Your competition is not only improving their online reputation by listening to advice and comments made by their followers, but they’re also using these comments to improve their business in general. They value the interaction that is happening on their social media profiles, and they are using suggestions made by followers to evolve their business in the physical world.

9. Your competition is utilizing social media tools to become the expert in your industry. Where are your potential customers going to learn more about your industry? If you think it is your website (or your competition’s website), you are wrong. Your potential customers are learning about your industry on places like Facebook and Twitter because it’s easy for them. Your competition understands that. That’s why they are going out of their way to provide valuable content and information to people on their social media profiles. They are becoming the experts in your industry.

10. Your competition has support from employees, clients, and other businesses in the community. Your competition is succeeding on social media because they have support from every employee who works for the company. Every one of their employees is promoting the company’s social media profiles in email signatures, at meetings with potential clients, and everywhere else. Your competition also has support from clients. They even have support from other businesses in the community who are interested in building a relationship online with them.

: Interact with other businesses in the community

If you want to start seeing better numbers on your social media sites, implement some of the strategies that your competition is implementing. Use this list to beat your competition on social media. Become the expert in your industry. Invite your customers to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and any other social media site you use. Listen to what your followers have to say. Update your profiles consistently, and provide value. It’s worth your effort and your time.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

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5 Simple Things You Can Do To Improve Your Facebook Page

April 9, 2011 By Rob Wormley 2 Comments

One common question I often hear from businesses and organizations who are new to social media is, “How do I measure the success of my social media efforts?” It’s a fair question to ask in my opinion. Answering that question, however, isn’t always as easy as asking it. What’s hard for many businesses who are new to Facebook to understand, is that the success of their social media efforts shouldn’t (and can’t) be determined solely by the number of overall ‘likes’ their page has. There are many other factors that need to be taken into consideration when trying to measure the success of a Facebook page, or a social media campaign in general. Sometimes it’s important to recognize the quality of interaction that exists on a Facebook page, rather than the quantity of users who ‘like’ a page.

What I mean by that is this: you might not have as many Facebook fans as you would like, but what you do have is a number of loyal Facebook users who continue to consistently interact with you on your Facebook page. If you’re getting caught up in the numbers, you’re probably not paying attention to the great interaction occurring on your page. Measuring the success of your social media efforts sometimes requires you to ignore quantity (the number of ‘likes’ your page has), and instead focus on quality (the interaction from loyal fans).

I understand, however, that ignoring the numbers isn’t always easy for some businesses and organizations to do. For that reason, I’m offering five simple things you can do to improve your Facebook page. Here they are:

1. Add Value: I just got done reading a great new book about social media by author Jeffrey Gitomer, who explains that “the purpose of your online presence (especially on social media) is not to sell, it’s to attract people who want to buy” (Jeffrey Gitomer, Social BOOM!). Wise words coming from someone who is actively creating valuable content on his social media sites. It’s important to understand that people who connect with you on Facebook aren’t necessarily interested in buying from you (at least not right away). What they are looking for is value. They want to connect with you because you have something to offer to them besides your latest product. You have insight. You have advice. You have knowledge. You have expertise. Start offering valuable content on your Facebook page, and you will not only see an increase in the amount of people who ‘like’ your page, but you will also see an overall increase in the interaction that occurs on your page.

2. Add Variety: If you aren’t sharing photos, videos, or links on your Facebook page, you shouldn’t be surprised that your numbers aren’t where you want them to be. Providing consistent updates on your page is great, but it can only do so much. You need to start sharing other forms of content with your Facebook followers. Upload photos from your last event. Upload customer testimonial videos. Share interesting links, or links to your blog with your Facebook community. Once you start adding variety to your Facebook page, your numbers will most likely go up, and the amount of interaction occurring will also increase.

3. Engage When Your Followers Are Listening: Knowing when your followers are listening can be an extremely effective way to increase your Facebook numbers, and improve your Facebook page. If you’re wondering why no one is ‘liking’ or commenting on content that you are sharing on your page, it might be because you aren’t engaging with your followers at the right time. Your followers aren’t always logged into Facebook at the same time you post an update. I recently read a great report from Buddy Media that looked at the best time of day (and best day of the week) to share content on a Facebook page. I was surprised with some of their findings, and I’m guessing you would be too. I encourage you to download the report yourself if you are interested in learning more about how to engage when your followers are listening. There are a lot of great graphs like the one below that will help you understand their findings:

4. Cross-Promote: Your Twitter followers might never know that you have a Facebook page, unless you tell them. The people who visit your company website won’t look for you on Facebook, unless you show them you are there. Your company needs to make sure every separate audience you have online—your website audience, your blog audience, your newsletter audience, etc—knows that you have a social media presence. You need to cross-promote whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Cross-promoting is one of the easiest ways to increase your numbers on Facebook, because you are inviting people who already interact with you others places to join you on Facebook too. Need examples? Click on the photo below to see all the ways we cross promote on our site.

5. Respond: One of the best ways to improve your Facebook page is to respond to questions your followers ask you on your page. Ignoring hard questions is the easiest way to lose Facebook fans and damage your online reputation. If you have decided that you want your company to have a presence on Facebook, then you need to be ready to address questions or concerns that your followers have. It’s easy to delete a question or comment from an unhappy customer and move on, but it won’t help you in the end. Your Facebook followers will think much more highly of you if you actually take the time to answer their questions, and let them know you care. Responding to questions or comments on your Facebook page will show other non-fans that you have something to offer them that your competition doesn’t. It’s worth it.

I hope you are able to take at least one of these five tips and start incorporating it into your Facebook page. When you do, come back to this blog post and tell me if you saw any changes! I’d love to read your comments. Just remember, measuring the success of your social media efforts isn’t always about the numbers. Sometimes, it’s beneficial to think about the quality of interaction on your page, the loyalty of your followers, and the value you are providing to your Facebook community.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

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The Best Blogs Are Good Stories

April 4, 2011 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

At One Social Media we spend a lot of the time reading. Whether it is to gain knowledge for our company, our clients, or ourselves we are constantly seeking knowledge. Blogs are a resource that we rely heavily on. There are a lot of blogs out there, as of April 1st, 2011 WordPress had 18,856,344 sites. Now, there are a lot of great blogs, and there are even more terrible ones.

How do you tell the good blogs from the bad ones? The best blogs tell a story. They don’t just spit out information in random order and digress on any comment they feel like. The best blogs have all the same ingredients as the best stories; love, conflict, heroes, villains, and a point.

Here are some tips to translate any blog topic into a story.

Develop your characters.

Characters is a term loosely used for the purpose of this post. Your characters are the people who are involved in your story. You can turn animals, people, companies, industries, and opinions into characters by giving them traits your readers can relate to. If you care enough about these characters to write about them, attach your feelings towards them to their character in your blog.

Follow a story line.

Never just shout out information at your readers. Draw them in with an intro letting them know the overall concept of your story. A good intro also lets the reader get a sense for you, the narrator. From the intro bring them in to the exciting part of your story and finish with a solid ending or a cliff hanger. The end of your blog should either leave the reader completely satisfied or it should make them think.

Create a sense of urgency, conflict, or attraction.

Any good story revolves around how your characters interact. Whether it is between the protagonist and antagonist or the hero and the damsel in distress, the relationship between the characters is what lets the reader feel like they understand it and that they are a part of it. As I said earlier, you can personify anything, but that isn’t enough. You need to create a relationship or conflict between your characters that is interesting.

Most topics that are blog worthy usually have all of these elements. It is up to you, the writer, to transform it in to something that people enjoy reading. Blogs should be informational but they shouldn’t be boring.

Mike Bal

Hi, I studied advertising, I have a passion for creativity and I love working in social media. I try to write about the combination of traditional marketing, branding, and advertising strategies that can apply and work affectively with social media. I also enjoy music, batman and life.

Rob Wormley

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