blog posts – Nicole Munoz Consulting

How To Use One Idea On Multiple Sites Without Duplicate Content: Social Media Mash-Ups

Effective marketing requires more and more content as different platforms become available. It can exhaust your creativity and monopolize your time. As a small business owner, you can’t afford the overhead required to hire a full time team of marketers to cover all the bases. What can you do?

“Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.”

You’ve heard the old saying, but what does that look like for you and your content creation? You know that duplicate content hurts your website in the eyes of the search engines, so you’ve been struggling to create unique content for all of your social media platforms. As a result, you find yourself stretched thin and having to choose between taking care of your current customers and finding new leads via social media.

Sound familiar?

You need to develop some social media marketing mash-ups!

What’s a Mash-up?

Mash-ups are when a musician blends two or more different songs together to create something new. Perhaps you’ve heard a DJ do a mash-up at a wedding or seen it on a movie like Pitch Perfect. The musicians are using what’s already been created to make something else.

Let me explain. We’ll begin with something fairly simple: a blog post.

Starting With a Blog Post

You’ve written a great blog post and put it on the company website. Is that all you can do with it? The answer is no. You can share that post on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google+ to reach a wider audience. Did you include an image with the post? (Pro tip: that’s definitely a best practice for blogging.) Pin it to a relevant board on your Pinterest account.

Let’s take it a step further. Can you think of a way to use that same content in a video? If you had to give a presentation with that content, what would it look like? Could you do the same presentation in front of a camera and post it to your YouTube channel? The MOZ Blog has perfected this idea with their Whiteboard Friday posts.

Recapping. You wrote one high quality blog post, shared it on five social media sites and used it as the basis for a new video. You’re starting to get the hang of mash-ups.

Starting With a Podcast

Let’s try another one. This time we’ll start with a podcast. Maybe you prefer talking to writing, so podcasts are less time-consuming for you. Great. Let’s work with that. After you record the podcast and upload it, what else can you do with it to get it to a broader audience?

You can link to it on Facebook and Twitter with a catchy introduction that fits with your audience there. You could have the content of the podcast transcribed and edited so you can post it on your LinkedIn profile. If the content lends itself to illustration, it could be transformed into an Infographic and posted on Instagram or Pinterest. What if, while you recorded the podcast, somebody on your team shot a video of you talking? Now you’ve got a YouTube video, too.

Recapping. You started with the content for a podcast, linked to it on two social media sites, created an Infographic for a third site, posted the transcript on LinkedIn and uploaded a video to YouTube.

Are you beginning to see how this kind of thinking can help you to maximize one great idea by using it on multiple platforms?

One more example before we move on to some pro tips.

Starting With a Webinar

This time we’re going to start with the content you’ve created for a webinar. You’ve created the content for the webinar as a free resource for those who filled out an opt-in form on your website. (Good thinking!)

In preparation for the webinar, you put the content into a PowerPoint presentation. You’ve also decided to use your Google+ account and hold the webinar as a Google hangout to keep the cost down and make it as easy as possible for your attendees. By recording the hangout, you are automatically producing a video you can post on YouTube later.

As a bonus, you can use any good questions your attendees ask as the basis for future content creation. After the webinar, you decide to upload the PowerPoint presentation to SlideShare in hopes of directing more traffic to your site.

Recapping. You prepared for one webinar, added to your email list with opt-ins, added connections on Google+, made a video for YouTube, uploaded to SlideShare and came away with ideas for more content. All in all a successful endeavor, wouldn’t you say?

I think you’ve got the hang of mash-ups now. Here are some things to keep in mind as you go.

Pro Tips for Social Media Mash-ups

Don’t just post links on Facebook and Twitter. If you really want to peak interest, use a great quote from the content before you link to it.
Duplicate content hurts your website in the search engine rankings. Refrain from posting the same content on your blog that you post on LinkedIn.
Keep your audience in mind. You may need to tweak some of your content in order to meet your audience of different platforms. The goal is to reach different audiences, but people who read posts on LinkedIn may be different than people who follow you on Pinterest. Mash-up accordingly.
If you don’t have a target audience presence on a certain social media site, focus on other sites instead. Let your buyer persona work for you.
Don’t try to do it all yourself. Graphic designers, photographers, video editors and writers on your team can adapt your content for various platforms.

I saved the best pro tip for last…

You can always hire a virtual team of professionals to create and manage the content for you. We’d be glad to help. Schedule a free consultation today.

Content Planning Ideas for Facebook Marketing

by Nicole Munoz

The first order of business is the content plan. Facebook marketing is all about the content that you will share with your audience. Without a plan you will be aiming in the dark and be in danger of spending more than 10 minutes a day. Use a calendar like Google Calendar in which to help you make your plan.

In addition to scheduling in the time that you need to work on Facebook each day, write in the subject matter, titles, and even outlines when a burst of creativity hits you for content that you’ll be sharing with Facebook.

Let’s talk about the different types of content that you will share and promote using Facebook.

Blog Posts — Every blog post that you write on your blog or other blogs related to your Facebook Page should be shared via Facebook. Don’t just post a link to the content, post a blurb about the link, and ask people to read, like and share. Without this call to action included most people will look at it, and do nothing else. If you do automate sharing these blog posts, comment on your own post to get the interaction ball going.

Images — Using a software program like Gimp or Photoshop alter images to include a relevant quote and a watermark for your Facebook Page, and then post and share it with others. Again, post something related to the image for people to read. Ask people to comment, like and share. The reason you want a watermark on the image is to show where it originated. These images have a good chance of going viral.

Infographics — These are simply images that are longer and bigger that show the results of a survey or other information that is put together as a visual representation of the data. Infographics have a large chance of going viral, so also watermark infographics that you create. Again, explain the graphic, ask readers to comment, like and share.

Videos — Naturally these videos will live on another space like Youtube.com and your blog. You can link directly from YouTube.com or from your blog but you should also be sharing videos on your Facebook page. People love watching video. Your videos should be short and to the point, and as usual you should post a blurb about the video and include a call to action to watch, comment and share.

General Update Posts — These are not accompanied by an image or graphic but are just general posts that you start to get a discussion going. You might ask your audience a question, post a poll, or other information in order to get a response from your audience.

Comments — You need to comment on other people’s information on their pages too. By commenting haring, and helping to disseminate information from other people’s pages using your business account you can find more people to “like” your page. Make sure your comments are relevant and useful.

Depending on your target audience and your niche, make everything relevant. This is not the time to post about troubles at home, or potty habits of your children. Unless of course, that is what your niche is about. With each type of content that you will post on Facebook include an explanation or teaser and a call to action. Without the call to action, your readers may not follow through.

Create a Comprehensive Plan

Your content plans should include a goal for the content, how you will share the content, and when and how you will share the content. There are different goals for each type of content that you share. You may want to get more likes, more shares, attract more subscribers, or educate your audience on the topics of your choice. You may also want to encourage blog visitors to get more traffic, or to make more sales for a product or service. Every post to Facebook needs to have a purpose. Without a purpose don’t post it.

Know Your Purpose

You can have numerous goals at once, but you might want to start with just one or two goals such as growing your audience and increasing traffic to your blog. Once you master these, you can move on to more goals. With any goal you make, always take a step back and assess whether or not your actions are having the impact you desired.

Know When and What to Post

First decide what days of the week you want to post to Facebook, and decide what type of content you’ll be posting on which days. For instance if you’ve chosen to spend 10 minutes a day 7 days a week, you could devote one day to each type of content using the 7th day to assess everything.

Be Consistent

Finally, if you’re going to embark on Facebook in 10 minutes a day, be consistent. Spend the ten minutes enacting your plans. Avoid getting side tracked on irrelevant topic discussions and game playing. Spend the ten minutes following your plan to the letter. If you’ve created a comprehensive plan, you’ll be successful.

10 Blogging Mistakes You Are Probably Making

by Nicole Munoz

Blogging can be an incredibly rewarding way to make an online living. You get to build a community of people who listen to you and love what you say. You create a community of people who discuss your ideas. You make a lot of money. You get invited to speak at conferences. Your traffic goes up organically and you don’t have to spend anything on advertising.

That’s the dream, of course. Many bloggers live this dream today and more still will live this dream in the years to come. Unfortunately, not everyone makes it to the dream life.

Many bloggers get started – Then simply never reach the finish line. Some stop before they build a real follower base. Others build a follower base, then make a mistake and alienate their readers. Still others manage to reach a certain level of success, then hit a wall that they just can’t break through.

This happens mostly because bloggers make one of these ten mistakes. These ten mistakes are common blog-killing mistakes that bloggers all over the internet make. If you’re starting a blog (or already run a blog,) avoid these mistakes at all costs.

Mistake #1: Blogging Irregularly

Blogging is all about building a loyal base of followers that want and expect to hear from you. Once you have a successful blog following going, you’ll literally have thousands of people who would get angry or worried if you don’t post on time.

In order to build that kind of supportive audience, you absolutely need to blog regularly. Regularly simply means you post on a set schedule that you don’t change. It could be once a week, it could be twice a month, it could be every single day.

Your audience needs to be able to rely on you to produce content. When you’re beginning your blog, start off with a manageable load like once a week. If you’re sure after a couple months that you can handle a higher workload, then go ahead and increase it. Don’t start off trying to blog every day, or you’ll most likely burn yourself out.

Regularity is more important than post frequency. Set a regular schedule and stuck to it.

Mistake #2: Writing for Search Engines

It’s not hard to spot a blog post written for search engines. Their keywords tend to be in the title tag or bolded in the subheads. The author bends his flow to fit the exact phrase of the keyword in the text. They might publish several similar articles with similar content because they wanted to target several similar keywords, each with its individual page.

The difference might seem subtle, but it actually makes a huge difference. Your readers can tell that you’re not flowing naturally when you write for search engines, even if your content is good.

The irony is that it’s the websites that consistently and regularly publish high quality content written for real human beings that actually end up ranking in the search engines. It might seem like optimizing your content for search engines is a wise idea, when in reality you’ll end up alienating both the search engines and human beings.

Write for people, not search engines.

Mistake #3: Not Carefully Analyzing Your Blog Analytics

Your analytics data can tell you a lot about your audience and about how to better run your blog. Yet many blog owners don’t look at their analytics at all, or only give it a cursory glance.

Here are some of the important things your analytics can tell you:

Where your traffic is coming from. Is it from search? Is it from referring sites? Is it something else entirely?
What keywords people type in to find your blog. They might be completely different than the keywords you were deliberately targeting.
Who’s linking to you and who’s sending you traffic. If someone went out of their way to link to you, there may be other opportunities for partnership there.
Your best posts and your worst posts. What kind of topics did people like and what did they not like? Which posts get people to stay the longest?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Your analytics data can give you all kinds of insights into how your audience operates and where you should take your blog next. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking this treasure trove of information.

Mistake #4: Not Having Reserve Posts

If you’re writing every blog post as you go, at some point that’s going to come back to haunt you. Life will get in the way. It could be a car accident. Or perhaps you get sick. Maybe something in your romantic life happens that throws things out of balance. Or perhaps an employee stole your money and you have to spend all week dealing with the fallout.

Whatever the case may be, there are going to be times when you just won’t have the time to write new content. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” If you don’t have backup posts for these times, then you’re going to be late on posts or miss posts completely.

Don’t let that happen. Have at least three, preferably five backup blog posts you can turn to whenever you need a quick break. Whenever you use one of these backups, make sure you replenish it within the next few weeks.

In addition to helping you in a pinch, knowing you have a backup plan can also help you relax around your blog upkeep.

Mistake #5: Doing Your Own Design or Using Templates

Doing your own design or using a pre-set template is perfectly fine for the first few months of your blog. If your blog is less than 6 months old, it absolutely makes sense to save the money and use a template.

But once you’re ready to take your blog to the professional level, that’s when you should scrap your old design and go straight to having a designer do a custom design for you.

Why is this important?

First, unless you’re a fantastic designer, chances are you just won’t be able to create a design that’s all that great. Even if you use templates, you’re still not going to have a design that truly reflects your core brand.

Having a great designer re-do your website isn’t cheap, but it’s not horribly expensive either. It makes a big different on how people perceive you and your website. If you’re blogging seriously and professionally while having a site that looks unprofessional, you may not keep your audience’s attention.

Mistake #6: Not Moderating Comments Quickly

There are a couple considerations that tie into this mistake.

First, not moderating comments at all is a mistake. If you let your comment stream get filled up with spam, people aren’t going to take the time to read the comments or to respond to them. Even with spam filters like Askimet, you should take the time to moderate comments by hand.

The second and more common mistake is taking too long to moderate comments. If you don’t get someone’s comment up and online within 12 hours, chances are they’re just going to lose interest. When someone responds to their comment, they’re not going to come back to participate. They also likely won’t comment on your content again in the future.

The answer is to moderate comments, but make sure you do so in an efficient and timely manner.

Mistake #7: Not Responding to Comments

If you want to cultivate a community of avid readers, you must respond to your comments. The type of person who takes the time to respond to your post in comment form is also the type of person who’ll share your content on social media or backlink to you from their own websites.

Furthermore, people respect bloggers who take the time to respond to comments. When someone scrolls down and sees that you actually answer your commenters, they feel like you actually care about them. They’re more likely to read and more likely to comment as well.

Get in the habit of responding to every single comment on your site. This is what builds audiences and followers.

Mistake #8: Ignoring Social Media

Having social-media-phobia is no longer an option for bloggers. Just a few years ago, it was possible to succeed using just blogging. Today, the internet is intimately tied to Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools.

In the past, backlinks were built through blogosphere relationships. Today, often time’s backlinks are built through social media relationships and tools.

Readers also expect to be able to relate to you through social media. They want to be able to easily share your posts or like your fan page. They want to be able to interact with you regularly through Twitter. If you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on links, traffic and reader connection.

Mistake #9: Not Using Multimedia

Just as the world is getting more social, the world is also getting more multi-media. If you’re only presenting your content in text media, you’re going to miss out on a lot of viral opportunities.

For example, creating an infographic is a fantastic way to take advantage of social bookmarking sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon or Digg.

Creating videos is also a great way to gain more traction. Videos can help you get more visitors through YouTube, as well as get more shares on Facebook.

Podcasting allows you to gain access to iTunes’ massive user base. Audio also allows you to get your content into the hands (and ears) of people who don’t have time to read blogs, but enjoy having an audiobook to learn from when they’re on the go.

Don’t just use text media. Use multiple kinds of media to really engage your user base.

Mistake #10: Not Building a Mailing List

Head over to the site of any successful blog and you’ll almost invariably find an email signup box. Successful bloggers are meticulous about collecting email. It’s one of their secrets to success.

Having someone’s email allows you to get them to come back to your website over and over and over again. If you don’t collect their emails, the majority of your readers are just going to read your content once, then leave and never return.

Start building a list now, even if your site gets less than 100 visitors a month. It’s one of the fundamental building blocks of building a high traffic site.

These are the ten most common mistakes that bloggers make. Avoid these mistakes like the plague. If you post high quality content on a regular basis and don’t make any of these mistakes, there’s a good chance your blog could be the next leading resource in your industry.