Small Business Marketing | Marketing for Entrepreneurs | Realtor Marketing » internet marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk The Thank You Economy – Is It Scalable?

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:30:32 +0000

Okay, gotta get this out on the table first so there are no unpleasant police surprises…:) I am semi-stalking Gary Vaynerchuk…not in the creepy way, but in the way that my dog (who is a super scaredy-cat) thinks that it is okay to stay at home alone if one of Gary’s keynotes is playing in the background because I listen to them so much! Oh and I have seen him a couple of times in person, have both of his books…well…maybe need a 12 step…BUT…

He sent me a present!!! Okay, I know he sent LOTS of people a present BUT I still felt great about it and think he is an even cooler guy than before!

For those of you who do not know, Gary’s book, The Thank You Economy is about how having a connection with people from the online world is super important and vital to your small business marketing going forward. BUT, the one thing I hear about all the time is people asking him, “is it scalable” to have thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of “friends” online? How do you make them ALL feel like they know you?

Well, you send them an email asking them to help get your book higher on the Amazon rankings, PLUS a promise to send something super out later. No promises when later, just later. No promises what later, just later. No expectations, just a good communication.

Then, many months later, another email verifying an address. Asked and answered. Then….drumroll please…a box of really cool stuff comes in the mail!!!!

Now I am surely not on the scale of Gary, but I have some big networks, speak a lot in public and KNOW that a lot of people look down on the fact that I cannot honestly be “friends” with all of them….well no. Seriously, they are all not someone who I would see or talk to on a day to day basis, but they are people who at least know me a little and probably feel like they could reach out for help if they needed it!

For example:

Yesterday a fellow who had attended one of my classes called me and asked if I do website hosting, I DO NOT! But gave him a really great referral for a lady who could help. SCORE – helped the man AND gave a referral to a friend-friend.
Also yesterday, got an email from an old friend-ish. He was writing an ad and had some of his HTML messed up on a link. He sent me an email and I fired right back with the fixed code. Now, could/would I do that if I was super busy speaking or meeting with a client? Nope. BUT if I am there and he needs help, HELL YES I am going to help!
Lastly, I am often able to use my social capital to help charities who need a new roof, or a Facebook page like or even just a bump in traffic, all cool things I sometimes do for “friends”. I don’t do it every time someone asks, but if it is something I support I am glad to help!

So is The Thank You Economy scalable – pretty much! Do some people feel left out, ignored or otherwise disgruntled, I am sure they do! Are there always going to be that type of people? Yep!

Long story short (too late I know), so if you are worried you will have TOO MANY FRIENDS or TOO MANY CONNECTIONS, stop that. Get more friends, be nice to them and see what happens!!!

Thanks Gary…I think it is scalable!

The Thank You Economy – gary vay-ner-chuk

Photo Sharing Sites and Apps – Small Business Internet Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:47:18 +0000

Photo sharing sites and apps are a big deal in small business internet marketing! These are the wave of the future so grab your board and let’s get going!

My prediction is that within 2 years and 9 months (used to say 3 years but gotta move the bar!) ALL initial contact with your company will be through a video or a photo first. Now, I am not one of those who say that tablets and phones will take over laptops and computers BECAUSE I am WORKING on a computer. Love to surf on my tablet, dabble on my phone, the portability of my laptop, but for hard-core, bang it out and get it done, I have to sit my happy ass in a chair and WORK. Not on teeny tiny screen but on a dual monitor, giant processor computer.

So what does this mean for me and using photo sharing apps on my phone? TODAY I draw the line in the sand and figure out which photo sharing app I will use! Here are the criteria:

Is it easy? This is my NUMBER ONE criteria. EVERYONE thinks I am a techy doll but I can’t even hook my mouse to my laptop so I need ease of use!
Can I get it from the phone to the other social sites I need (for this experiment I am considering primarily facebook, pinterest and google+ – just to let you cats know, NONE of them shared to either Pinterest or Google+ at this point so focused instead on facebook, twitter, flickr and email)
Can I take pictures on my phone and NOT have to email them to myself to access them online for other uses like blogging or posting later?
Who has recently been bought by whom? Instagram has recently been brought into the Facebook fold so this is where I will start BUT want to consider other options because I am not only interested in how it works with Facebook!

As with all of my experiments, this one will be highly unscientific and biased! I will be taking pictures in relatively bad lighting of a duck. SOOOO sorry to my actual social media friends who have to see this on my various walls! Let’s get started!

Photo Sharing Sites and Apps – Instagram

I did not have to research to check this one out. Instagram was bought by Facebook and so will obviously be a good choice for them, BUT are they a good choice for my other needs?

First off, I downloaded the app to my phone. Rats, had it but forgot my login, heading to the website to see if I can reset it…yup! Easy peasy, they gave me my password AND username…score! No picture…I’m sure they want a picture picture but really, just use an avatar (clients could use a logo), not digging this so much but moving on (later was able to pull in my Facebook picture so it worked out okay after all).

Leaving the website and heading to my phone to take a picture of a duck! Push the camera button, bunches of style options come up,picked one, check mark, heads to screen to enable caption, twitter, facebook, email, flickr, tumbler, foursquare. Hooked up twitter, facebook, email and flickr for now. A note, facebook’s authorizer was in french (ack), I did NOT hook up foursquare because it hooks to my Facebook already.

DOH – forgot a caption so it said “just posted a photo” instead of what it is…trying again! Perfect.

Instagram Review – Okay, I like that I can tooggle on an off the the different services and there is an email with the picture as well as being able to pull it down from Flickr. BONUS – the instagram put the picture into my photos on my iPhone so I can upload it Pinterest from there if I wanted to! Seriously two thumbs up.

SUPER BONUS – if you are playing the Empire Avenue game, then one picture adds like a gagillion points (not sure how the points work so my numbers may be inflated).

TruHDR

Okay, this is an artsy fartsy one. It makes pictures look dimensional and I like to think that it makes me look like a brilliant photographer (I have ACTUALLY brilliant photographers all around me so I am a little touchy about this!).

So I took a picture of the duck, then went looking for the sharing bit, NOTHING! Hmmm maybe get creative? WOW!!! I could upload my artsy fartsy photo TO the Instagram and then share it on the ones that I had set up. Holy Buckets batman, have to see if I can find a good competitor to make this a fair race!

Photo Sharing Sites and Apps – Photoshop Express

Okay, take a picture of a duck…:) I am getting good at this! There are MANY more editing tools that I am used to from Photoshop like hue, saturation, cropping, etc. Have to say that I am not good at using a little tiny phone to edit pictures, if I was going to be manipulating them a lot, would probably take them down off the internet and do it on my computer.

Okay, BIG downer here!! I set it up so that I could share to facebook, email and flickr (no foursquare or twitter available like there is on Instagram although you could send it to TwitPix but damn, how many sites do I need?!?!!?) So all happy, hit the share button and I have to do them one at a time. Share to email, share to flickr, share to facebook, are you kidding me?!?!?!

For an editing software, I think this one is hand’s down, the winner. BUT for a click and go photo sharing app? Two thumbs down on this one.

Photo Sharing Sites and Apps – Wrapup

Okay, I am in. Instagram it is. Took a little over an hour to write this post and check out ALL of the different photo sharing app places and take pictures so if you budget an hour to learn it, you should get out the door super easy! The ONLY thing I can see ruining this commitment is if Facebook shuts off the other sharing features and turns Instagram into a Facebook only photo sharing site, but will keep the faith for now!

Internet Marketing – How Important Is A Website These Days?

Tara Jacobsen — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:58:01 +0000

So we do internet marketing and we get a lot of questions about websites, websites versus blogs and whether they are important anymore with the advent of social media. So let’s break down the bits in a way that my small biz peeps will be able to understand!!!

Having a hub…first off, let’s talk about what either a blog OR a website does. It makes a place (HUB) for all of your social media marketing to land and is your home base for your marketing efforts. ALL of your marketing materials, online and offline, should point back here.

Some of the places that you should have linking to your “HUB” include:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Email Marketing
Pinterest
YouTube
Your Blog (if separate)
Business Cards
Brochures
Photo Sharing Sites

the list goes on and on!

Why You Should Have A Blog

Okay, I have to say that as a marketing person, I am a HUGE blog proponent. The RSS capabilities of a blog make having one vital in today’s interconnected internet. There are two types of blogs, free blogs and paid blogs. Free blogs come from places like Blogger.com and WordPress.com and are a great way to dip a toe in if you are not ready to go the paid route.

Paid blogs have hosting with a company like GoDaddy and are owned by you, providing much more latitude to selling or pitching your product. We recommend having a blog because of the high SEO (search engine optimization) factors and the ability to target keywords with each post! MANY of our marketing clients have a website HUB and a separate marketing blog (which we recommend and is a post for another day!).

Now, blogs can be prettier than they were in the past, BUT we are not going for pretty with our blogs, we are going for FUNCTION! Hard core SEO and get you noticed on the search engines kind of thing. Find out more about our blogging setup and maintenance services!

Why You Should Have A Website

So, am I anti websites with all this blogging talk? Nope! I do think that for specific industries a blog is not going to suffice. Blogs are for computers and a really beautiful, well designed website is for humans!

This website is for a pediatric office, and is designed by the internet marketing for doctors company, Officite. If you are considering taking your child to a new doctor, you DO care what the initial impression of the website is. Does it convey professionalism and reliability? Additionally, it offers functionality like appointment scheduling and an interface with the doctor’s office.

So who needs a website versus a blog? Doctors, lawyers, people who require confidential information be submitted online like mortgage pros, oh and Ecommerce peeps who want to have a big online store!

Wrap Up

So, with all of this social media talky talk, are you saying that you need Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, videos, photos, a blog AND a website? For some of my small biz owners, YES! I KNOW, having all of those properties and managing them effectively is a hassle and I would love to tell you that all you need to do is buy a yellow page ad and be done like in the old days…but that is not the way the world works anymore. Having a strong web presence is VITAL to having a success business in this day and age!

Great Display Banner Ads Examples – What Makes A Great Display Ad?

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:21:25 +0000

I was searching the internet looking for examples of great display ads examples and couldn’t find much using a google search. With that in mind, I thought that I would compile some of my favorites with why I like them.

The reason I was looking for ads was not necessarily for making “ads” ads, it was more to see what attracted me and would make me want to find out more design wise. The actual use for these ads was to use them as a design template for the new Facebook timelines and getting people excited to visit a timeline page or app. With that in mind, I am also going to post the Facebook Timeline Buttons for apps later this week that we developed for our social media marketing clients (keep your peepers open!)

I like this one for skinnytaste on Pinterest. Because Pinterest is is such a media darling lately and has brand appeal, having the logo prominently displayed with pictures they have pinned made an impact and I would have been happy to click through if that was my cup of tea. display ad courtesy of skinnytaste on pinterest

The difference between these two ads is very powerful for me! The left ad is all about “what is in it for them” – a free book and information about Steve Jobs. Additionally, after looking at about a thousand ads for this piece, I like the call to action button so that I know EXACTLY what to do! display ad courtesy of audible

This one is VERY interesting to me personally. I included a screenshot of the website where I found it and it literally jumped off the page at me. I have a feeling that this is because I am a graphics artist and the design elements were very powerful. Just one more thing to keep in mind…who is your audience? display ad courtesy of full sail university

Here are some additional display ads that I thought were either great calls to action or were visually appealing!

Small Business Marketing – Layering Your Marketing Message

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:49:44 +0000

Small business marketing is all about getting prospective customers to notice you. I KNOW, you think that small business marketing is about getting them to BUY from you, but first they have to know you exist!

The easiest way to get people to notice you is to show up everywhere they go, from in person, to their mailbox, online at social media and in their email inbox. This process of being everywhere is officially called layering and should be part of a planned structured marketing campaign.

LL Bean is stalking me. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the LL Bean gang! They have American made clothes (I am from the rust belt near Pittsburgh so this has always mattered to me). Their clothing is unbelievably high quality and they have a no questions asked return policy. Seriously, you can wear your shoes, clothes or coats for YEARS and if something goes wrong, they will make it right, no questions asked.

Years ago I got on their mailing list and they have continued to send me catalogs, even though I have not ordered in quite some time. Sort of nice, but did not compel me to buy.

Social Media Marketing

So today I opened my Facebook and they had posted a message about extreme weather clips on the LL Bean Facebook page. Not a picture of their product with a link (although they have them too!), a video from the weather channel about terrible cold weather.

Small Business Marketing Tip – So NOW I am thinking about cold weather in conjuction with LL Bean! They have snuggly warm coats and slippers in case it snows like that here.

Email Marketing

After cruising the Social Media and noticing the LL Bean clip (I didn’t watch the video but got the gist and the association stuck). I popped open my inbox to delete messages (I mean read my email…hehehe). What showed up there? An email from LL Bean!

Now I am in marketing so I tend to notice when things happen like this, but I am also human and the urge to buy something from LL Bean is getting greater and greater!

Direct Mail Marketing

So, as most of you know I am an internetty kind of gal. I get leads from the internet, teach internet marketing classes and have every whiz-bangy kind of appliance needed to access the internet at my disposal.

That having been said, I rarely BUY things on the internet. I go to stores and look at catalogs (doh, I just happen to have an LL Bean catalog handy!). Sending me a catalog will definitely make this layering marketing work better for the Bean!

How To Do Layering For Small Business Marketing

So you are a small business owner or entrepreneur and you are thinking to your self (in a really snarky tone, I can hear you) that you do not have the millions of dollar advertising budget that LL Bean has! That figuring out all that technology is going to take time and money you don’t have.

Here are some easy ways for small business owners to capitalize on what we have seen here today!

Direct mail marketing – There are two ways to do direct mail marketing on a shoestring. Print dinky postcards on colored paper, 4 to a sheet or buy them from Vistaprint for pennies on the dollar. I checked yesterday and the cost for a postcard stamp is 29 cents so the cost to do a 100 piece mailing should be less than 50 bucks total. I am getting ready to send a 100 piece dinky postcard mailing this week and will let you know what the response rate is!
Email marketing – if you are not using an online database like Constant Contact or Office Auto Pilot (the one I use) yet, start today. Figure it out and start building a list! Send them informative emails. I KNOW, you are all clamoring about what to send, send something that is related to your business!
Pick up the phone – Call them to see if they got what you sent! Your mailing made this a much warmer call.
Social Media Marketing – Post something about this on your social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or LinkedIn. Be careful not to be too salesy, just something good and interesting for them to enjoy that is related to your business.

With my coaching clients, I recommend that we have “theme months” where we pick a theme and market to that using multiple sales channels. I can’t stress enough that you should pick a theme for this month RIGHT NOW, set up some of these layered sales outlets and get started bringing in more prospects and sales!

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If you would like to find out more about my Small Business Marketing coaching programs today, give me a call 727-415-9165.

Small Business Marketing Magic – There is no get rich quick!

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:43:09 +0000

Small business marketing magic is a lie! There is no get rich quick scheme that can grow you a sustainable, ongoing marketing plan. Having a good marketing plan that feeds into your Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel, is hard work and not something that you should expect overnight.

Facebook Business Page Lies

Yesterday I was working away diligently and got a call. It looked like one of my client’s numbers so I answered. A lady wanted to know if we sold Facebook fans. I asked her if she wanted us to help her grow her page with real people and she said no, that she wanted to know about getting 10,000 likes right away. Sigh. We have clients who have paid some money (eighty-nine bucks) for 1,000 likes. They got about 400 total new likes and honestly, they were not real Facebook people. They were profiles that were auto-set up with a photo and very limited info. They had no friends, they had no updates, basically they were just one like from someone who would never share your page, comment or care about what you do.

I cannot see any way that having 10 or 10,000 fake fans will help anyone grow and told her so. She then brought up the fact that there were LOTS of companies selling this so it must be real! I told her that I would love to lose 15 pounds a week and that there are lots of companies selling that also. Doesn’t make it so!

Social Media Marketing Will Result In Immediate Sales

Small Biz owners are always surprised when we tell them that social media will not be likely to get them SALES in the first month. The first month of getting your social media and internet empire set up is a building process. It involves building a Facebook business page, branding your Twitter and YouTube channels, making videos or writing blog posts. All of these things are vital to showing the world that your company has a strong online presence.

So, does that mean sales will start flooding in once you have your empire set up? Nope. Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news BUT, social media is a great channel for getting people interested, doing networking and talking about your business in a way that will spark an interest in what you do. No matter what the hype is, Facebook will not sell a million of your products if they do not sell at that rate in the open market. What it WILL do is act as a great source of leads, leads that have to be nurtured and grown, just like you would in the real world.

Many times I hear that people don’t want to spend all that time talking to people online. I think they want people to call and say, “give me 10 of those widgets”. The best way to think about social media is to equate it to real life networking. If you have ever gone to a networking event and had someone chew your ear off about how great their product is, that will give you an idea of how some people come across online. The SOCIAL in social media means that you will have to talk with them (either through messaging or emails) before they are going to want to call and place an order.

You Can “Go Viral” And Your Business Will Explode

I wrote a post the other day about Trying To Go Viral With Your YouTube videos. Some of the data that I found was astounding like only 80,000 hits on a video that had Eminem, a commercial on the superbowl and a cost of 9 million dollars. That is a REALLY high cost per hit.

Going viral online is like getting on the Oprah Show. We ALL dream about producing something that is so brilliant that everyone wants to share it and we can get rich and retire to Aruba. The fact is, Oprah rarely features companies on her show and going viral mostly involves people, pets or kids doing something funny and non-commercial.

It is much better to try and capture a target like “going viral to people who want to buy or sell a house in the Stratford Lakes subdivision”. Not going to be a lot of people, but are going to be people people who are interested in working with you! For a pizza shop, going viral nationally will not do all that much to increase business, but if you can get videos of the neighborhood kids enjoying your pies, they may share them with their friends who can comfortably reach your business by car or on foot.

So, there are three small business marketing magic myths busted! Really, all it takes is hard work and time to promote your business. Not sexy but the truth!

PS – Next post is going to bust the loch ness monster, yetis and the fat guy in the big red suit wide open!

Small Business Marketing – How Do People See Your Company

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:46:42 +0000

Small business marketing, sigh. In the past it was easy, take out a yellow page ad and you were done. Well times they have changed and small business marketing is now a million moving parts that all have to be working together to make a whole campaign.

We talk to our clients every day and they are grouchy that they have make videos and answer online questions and basically be available to their potential customers who have not even said they are willing to buy yet, they are just exploring their options.

In this day of always on internet (remember when you had to log in and out and only got 1 hour a day), consumers are researching your company or product extensively before they are willing to give you their hard earned money. They are checking to see if you have good reviews on Yelp, seeing what your Facebook page looks like and if you talk there. Some like Twitter and tweet you first to see if you are a real person. I know what you are thinking, GIVE ME A BREAK, who has time for all that sillyness, I just want to run my business and make some money.

Here are two of the small business marketing quotes that we have heard since YESTERDAY

“She found us through an ad and went to the site and found Facebook there…. Don’t know why in the world she didn’t just call in the first place.”
we have a listing that would like to list with us but they do not find us on internet searches when entering XXX luxury or XXX waterfront etc.

These types of things come through every day. A customer of ours who doesn’t understand that the lady is not going to buy ANYTHING before vetting it on the Facebook. A realtor who doesn’t like the internet or blogs and who never saw the benefit of ranking well for keywords, until every other client asked why they didn’t show up in Google.

Unfortunately, if you are going to be in business in this day and age, you HAVE to be fluent in small business marketing online. Every day you are not out there, you are falling behind and may never catch up.

Small Business Marketing Solutions

So all the doom and gloom, what is a business person to do? Here are my top tips for getting started.

If you are OK at using the internet yourself, start taking classes to find out what you should be doing and then start small and do something everyday. I have a membership site that can help with your DIY Small Business Marketing efforts.
If you truly have a very small marketing budget and no computer skills what-so-ever, find a kid. They grew up on this and are technically savvy about how to use the systems. The problem with hiring a child is that they have no marketing knowledge and could hurt more than help your efforts.
If you have any kind of marketing budget at all, it is worth hiring a professional marketing company like us to do your marketing for you! I KNOW most yellow page ads cost about $800 a month, for that you could have a really good running start to a small business marketing online empire!

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is just how it is and only going to get worse going forward. We didn’t mention QR codes, mobile or any of the other things on the horizon that you are going to have to master along with all the “normal” things we have to do small business marketing wise today. My best suggestion to the small business owner who wants to stay in business is to start today!

Small Business Internet Marketing – RSS Feeds

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:35:36 +0000

I am a small business internet marketing kind of gal. Notice the small business part? While I try to keep my posts non-techy so that my peeps can implement most of the concepts themselves, this RSS Feeds post is going to be a little technical BUT worth reading if you want free traffic to your blog, facebook or videos sites!

What Do Search Engines Do

Before we get too technical, lets talk about search engines and what their job is. Search engines are constantly looking for new information to show humans who have used keywords to do searches. So, if you do a search for “big screen tvs”, search engines will provide you with a variety of sites, some with reviews, some with sales and some with research data. They will do their best to provide a variety of content so that the human who is searching finds what they are looking for, be it a news story, blog post, picture, press release or any other manner of information.

Additionally, search engines have algorithms that allow them to know that when you type “superbowl” you really mean “super bowl”, that big football game played at the end of the season. They can also know that humans search for “cold remedies” when they really want to know about “sore throats”. Our language is diverse and keeps the google on its toes.

Small Business Internet Marketing – RSS Feeds

So what are RSS Feeds and what do they have to do with search engines and content? RSS Feeds are technically “Really Simple Syndication” feeds that PUSH content you have developed to other places such as blogs, twitter and other aggregator websites who need to have LOTS of content. There are couple of ways to find these feeds, (1) if you are using the Firefox web browser they appear in the address bar as blue icon or (2) you can look around the page and see if you can find an orange icon that indicates an RSS feed is available.

As a small business marketer you can use these feeds for a number of different things like auto-publishing to your Twitter account or posting to your Facebook page, but today we are talking about the magic of other people using YOUR feeds to produce content for THEIR site.

The picture above shows a screen capture of someone who took my blog post about Superbowl Demographics and posted it on his website. This site did a REALLY nice job of it, pulling quotes, recognizing me as the author and adding backlinks to my blog. See HIS post here. It is safe to assume that he has taken my RSS feed and is using it to publish content on his blog. The picture down here is another site that publishes my content, RealtorYou.com. They pull my posts and put them onto their pages, adding backlinks to my recent posts although they are not as good at crediting me as the author of the content.

So why would these people take my posts and publish them on their sites? I am trying to rank for certain keywords like realtor marketing, small business marketing and entrepreneur marketing. The RealtorYou.com site seems to be trying to rank for “internet marketing for Real Estate Agents”. Search engines DO put a lot weight on having the exact keywords people search for BUT they also add up different bits to make a whole. In this case it seems that RealtorYou.com is hoping that my Realtor Marketing articles, plus the work that they do will get them to the top of the search engines for the search term “internet marketing for Real Estate Agents”.

Additionally, they are running google adwords down the right side of the page so they get a little bit of money anytime someone clicks on one of those links. For all we know the whole site is nothing but aggregated feeds that they never have to do any work to update and which may pull them in a ton of money.

What are pingbacks?

When you have a blog, often you will get a message from your blog that you have a pingback. A pingback means that someone has published your content on their site with a link back to your blog. It is VERY nice and you should ALWAYS approve it unless the site publishing it is a “bad neighborhood” like porn, pharmaceuticals or gambling sites.

So what does that mean for small business internet marketing?

Is this post going to explain EVERYTHING about RSS feeds and how they help your small business internet marketing efforts, no. Is it going to tell you about everything that you need to do to get your feeds recognized so that complete strangers publish your content on their sites, no. As small business marketers, what I hope it does is open your eyes to why having a blog, Facebook or YouTube channel might be so important. As you publish content on these media which have an RSS feed, you never know who is going to pick it up and use it for SEO or to “plump” up THEIR content!

If you would like to find out how we help our clients use RSS feeds and other fun marketing items to grow their business, check out our Small Business Marketing Services!

Thanks to Richard Turcott for featuring my post in his RSS blog!

Blogging – When to post and when to just do it

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:50:17 +0000

Blogging is a GREAT lead generating tool and the best bloggers know that to increase traffic, all they have to do is post an article. That having been said, if you can not have a perfect blog posting schedule, do not miss an opportunity to get something out there!

I write blog posts about 2 times a week during normal times. This month I am writing 31 posts in 31 days so I have some good data to tell you about in regard to what a normal month looks like compared to a month where ridiculous amounts of blogging are happening every day!

The first Saturday of this month I posted and got 67 visits, last month when I did not post I got 24 visits. Weekends are usually terrible traffic days for me BUT by posting I more than doubled my traffic (Sunday was 63 and 40).

For the first full week of last month I had 377 visits and this month, posting every day, that number jumped to 743, a significant rise in traffic. Now, this is all organic traffic and I will have to stop my testing because I have started some paid campaigns which will skew the results, BUT just that little bit allows me to extrapolate that I can double my web hits just by posting every day.

So when is the best time to post to your blog?

In his article, The Best Time To Post, Socialnomics guru, Erik Qualman braves a train to tell us that these are some good blogging guidelines:

* Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are your best days
* Saturday is the worst day
* Holidays are slow traffic days (except commerce sites)
* 10 am â€“ 11:30 am and 1 â€“ 3:30 pm are best times to post
* Stagger posts based on time zones

I agree whole heartedly that these are the best times. I get the majority of my traffic on Tuesday through Thursday and find that both B2B and B2C blogs report this shift. It seems to me that business people are accessing information during working hours on weekdays and that employed people are accessing information during working hours on weekdays also!

I have to say that in a perfect world I DO like to get my post out by 9am Eastern Time so that I have time to bookmark it and have the majority of people in the United States available to see it all day. This practice seems to result in the most hits per post, not even taking into account the lifetime value on post that is sitting out there generating search engine traffic for me on an ongoing basis.

Okay, perfect world aside now! I am writing this post at 12:30 Eastern time and will still publish it today. I published one of my 31 posts at 4:30 in the afternoon and still got traffic, maybe not as much but there was still a response to my article. If you set a goal like posting every day or twice a week or every Tuesday, stuff will happen. Your client will call or your breakfast will catch on fire or some other calamity will happen. What I do not want you to do is give yourself such a tight time frame that if you miss it, you don’t post at all.

I have seen this happen with newsletters. Supposedly the best time to send a newsletter is Thursday morning. Clients will miss Thursday morning and then feel like they have to wait until the next Thursday morning to send it and then something happens, I am sure you see where I am going here.

Marketing done imperfectly still benefits your company! Getting a post out there is more important than waiting to have all the planets align just right and never posting anything.

How To Get More Blog Traffic On The Weekend

Tara Jacobsen — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:55:26 +0000

Getting more blog traffic on the weekend can be a real challenge. On the weekends many sites’ traffic drops like a stone, I know that mine does!

If you are targeting business traffic, there is a good chance your site traffic will decrease on the weekends when people are less likely to be working and more likely to be playing. Typically I do not do blog posts on the weekend BUT doing one yesterday doubled my (admittedly low) weekend hits for a Saturday. Since I am posting every day this month, I did not do an authority or evergreen post that would be wasted on a low traffic day and am writing more informational and less keywordy posts. No matter what we do, most B2B (business to business) will occur Monday through Thursday, so targeting that time is vital.

If you would like to find out more about writing evergreen blog posts, check out this link!

That having been said, some sites traffic INCREASES on the weekends and this blog post is for you! If you are selling something that is more personal, fun or family oriented, people can be surfing around looking for entertainment or shopping for themselves or their family. Here are some great posts that I found for this B2C (business to consumer) crowd!

7 Easy Ways to Get More Weekend Traffic for Your Website – The big A HA that I took out of this one was to use paid or PPC traffic on the weekends. Much as I don’t post on Saturday and Sunday, I have never run a campaign on the weekend and may set up one just for that purpose. I DO think that it will have to be more tailored to new business owners and part-timers though.
How to Increase Your Weekend Traffic by Ehow – This one reminded me of how most Ebay contests end on Sunday evenings. You could run a contest that would focus on that deadline, BUT make sure YOUR weekend is open for work so that you can promote it continually on Email, Facebook and Twitter. Just setting up Hootsuite posts will not work for this, you will have to be available to “talk” with people who are excited about your contest.

Overall, I just think that after I do my death march of 31 days of posts I will go back to focusing on the days that are inherently better at generating traffic. I still feel that trying to get people to act differently just because I want them to is counter-productive. BUT I think I will do some weekend PPC just to see what happens with that!