At my old agency -
Great Marketing Works - we taught companies how to be GREAT at marketing.
Each letter in GREAT standing for something -
see here -
the R standing for "remarkable" - mainly taken from Seth Godin's wonderful works on the subject - if you have never read his blog -
here is a link - which itself is a series of how to guides by example.
But for now, have a think,
are your blog post remarkable? i.e. would someone who read them tell someone else, would they share it, would they comment on it?
Are you blogs really GREAT content?
With more and more people realizing that the old game of SEO has played out and that Clay Shirky (et al) were right when they predicted everyone would be a publisher soon under the great book title -
"Here comes everybody" - so the greatness or otherwise of your content has become a big issue.
Be that a PDF for your site, a little bit of link bait for your SEO, a well phrased personal blog to enhance your own expertise level on Linkedin, or now a days a nicely designed infographic for the informational hungry (time poor) visual consumer of today's SO LO MO world.
It's something that I have been thinking about whilst working helping
The Apprentice Academy get more social (and help their SEO) and for their brand to become a thought leader in the realm of digital apprenticeships. Which it will - as God is my witness. As our
new digital apprentices will kick ass, as I am one of their trainers, and the course looks amazing...
Anyhoo - this below is taken from
Heyo's Mike Sweeney - and I like the style and the feel of the piece which raises some great points about blogging.
Most of which I have not adhered to at all in this blog for ironies sake. The first one makes me chuckle in a blog based on
The First Five Top Things to do with Blogging.
1. Remarkable blog posts focus on one point and one point only.
One of the first things I do when I sit down to plan a blog post is
determine the one and only point that every reader should take away
after reading it. Sure, you’re going to need several supporting points,
but if you stay focused on that one objective, your readers will stay
focused with you.
For instance, after you’re done reading this post, I want you to
think, “Wow. I need to start (continue) creating remarkable blog posts
and use these ten tips as a guide, or my material will get ignored.”
2. Remarkable blog posts help someone out.
If you’re about to hit publish and you can’t say to yourself, “This
is going to help at least one person—if not potentially thousands—do
something better, learn something new, or discover a new way of thinking
about something,” then you’re not doing your job.
The great bloggers understand that educating and entertaining the audience is the best way to keep them coming back.
3. Remarkable blog posts follow the same story structure you learned when you were nine years old.
A blog post should be written like any other piece of content—it
needs a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. Start with an outline
(like your fourth-grade teacher taught you) and your final product will
almost write itself (almost). Keep it organized, both from a formatting
standpoint and from a copy standpoint, and you will keep your reader’s
head in the game. Who knows, he or she may even make it through the
entire post, which brings me to my next point…
4. Remarkable blog posts are skimmable.
If you’ve captivated your readers enough that they are hanging on
every word of your post, good for you. You’ve definitely created a
remarkable blog post.
For the rest of you, make sure your blog posts are skimmable. Your
reader should be able to skim the post, pick up the main points, and
decide whether he or she wants to dig in deeper on a particular topic.
Use methods like bullets, headings and sub-headings, numbered lists, and
bolded call-outs to achieve this.
5. Remarkable blog posts use headlines that are both relevant and attention-grabbing.
My stance on headlines is a little different from others’. Some
believe that you should focus exclusively on the attention-grabbing
aspects of the headline, most times at the expense of the relevancy of
the headline. Not only is that unfair to your readers, but when they do
click over and realize that the headline doesn’t match the content, you
just lost them.
I used to write my headlines last. That was a mistake. I now write
them first, because a great headline can inspire a great post, or even
change your initial direction for the post.
Copyblogger is a fantastic resource for those looking to write great blog post headlines.
So we hope that these top five top tips taken from
Heyo's Mike Sweeney are useful. There are 5 more to follow when I can find the time to edit them.
You see this is the other thing about blogging - is that it takes time. Time and effort. Time and effort that should be rewarded. Has to be rewarded. But as a business owner (if you are a business owner reading this) wouldn't it be great to
have a digital apprentice to help you / your team on the editing? Or even on some of the production of some of the blogs?
The new digital apprentices from The Apprentice Academy are here to help your marketing team be more productive - so save your time and help you get the most out of this HUGE opportunity that social media is.
Did you know that 77% of people would rather buy from a brand where the CEO blogs? Amazing isn't it.
But who says the CEO has to edit his own work....or put it out on twitter.
