Using Blogs as a part of your social media marketing strategy

Do you still consider blog to be important? Does your latest marketing plan include blog strategy? If you are a large enterprise, most probably blogging is already there in one of your agenda, but making a decision over a blog is not that easy. First question could be what do I blog about? Can I really blog about this topic once in a day or more than 3 times a day?
The emerging new platforms like Tumblr, Google+, Facebook are redefining content creation and sharing strategy. In such chaotic eco-system where do the traditional blogging stand? Even major blogging sites like Techcrunch and Mashable are filled with micro-contents and media sharing. So the main question is what exactly is a blog?
If you want to implement blog as a social media marketing strategy, first thing you need to do is understand what you will be using blogs for. Below are some of the areas where blogs can be used:

1. PR communication
2. Products and Services Update
3. Customer Support Engagement
4. Content HUB

These all areas are important areas where blogging can play important part for your business. But your Content Hub strategy is the main area which can transform your blog to a successful social media marketing strategy.
Building your blog as a major content hub will benefit your social media community and your search engine optimisation. In order to start with your content hub, below are the key steps to be taken:

1. Make list of keywords relevant to your business which people are searching.
2. Make list of topics what people are talking about on social media.
3. Make list of top platforms where those topics are being blogged about.
4. Make a list of pros and cons against the products or services which you are selling.
5. Make a list of influencers who talk about the topics which interests your business.

The above research will help you understand the demand of the audience. Building a content hub is all about understanding the demand of the audience. This method is mastered and exploited by every media houses. When you see a book titled “How to become millionaire in 3 months?”, “Improve your project management skills in 10 steps” and”10 secret ways to reduce your fat”, the main thought process behind those title is getting attention from the people by hitting hard at their inner desire.
If you look around every blogs that is going viral or people are discussing about it, take a close look at their title. You will be amazed how often people manipulate the title of the blog posts to make it successful. But that doesn’t mean that you go zero on the content, the content is as important as its title. But the title does the work of brining audience to your blog.
Once you understand these process and know how to come up with great titles for your post, you need to focus on a single theme for your blog. This theme of the blog is going to drive all the content. Theme doesn’t mean the UI of the blog, it means the tone of the blog and how its going to talk about the topics. For example basecamp is a project management platform, which helps people collaborate on cloud. Hence rather than discussing the feature of the product and services, they generally talk about how to efficiently work remotely and how remote working culture is the next big thing. This entire idea about remote work is what drives their content and marketing effort. They have even launched two books on it. Thats what defining your theme means.
As a company providing certain products or services, you need to really believe in them. Its only when you are convinced that what you offer is of great value, you will be able to communicate with similar enthusiasm.
Once you have your content theme finalised and you have started publishing them. The other things that needs to be fixed are :

1. Integrating google analytics integrated
2. Creating rules/dashboards in google analytics which allows you to measure the performance of your blog posts based on impressions generated and lead generated.
3. Social Media sharing icon and social analytics integrated to visualize social interaction happening on blogs.
4. Get the UI theme of the blog in sync with the brand colors.
5. Create a distribution network through which you will promote your blogs (social networkings sites, webinars, discussion groups, etc)

If you consider blogging to be the only platform to share news and updates, then you will not be utilising the maximum benefits of having a blog. You have to place your blog as a major content hub where the audience can find any articles related to their needs. This way you can influence and build your brand and get maximum out of your blogs. The core idea is – “Think like a media house.”