Hello my lovely readers!
Boy have I missed you. But now I'm back from France, refreshed, rested and ready to work hard for the next six months of the year.
Nearly three weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend my first ever conference, called SAScon: Search Analytics & Social Media. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you'll have been well aware that I live tweeted the whole event. There was so much incredible information, I couldn't not share it. Which made me realise that I also needed to write about it. So here we are.
In this post, these eleven points will open your eyes as to where the blogging and online world is heading. They aren't action points to work on, and I'm not going to tell you how to do anything. This will be more of a discussion as to what you need to know to get a head start in the direction our industry is heading in.
So sit back, relax and get ready - some of these points will definitely shock you.
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Have you come across the phrase 'digital marketing' recently?
Or how about online marketing? Chances are you have. And chances are it’s pretty unclear what this actually entails. I'll admit this is one of the places you see the phrase 'digital marketing' being mentioned a lot. But it's essentially what we're doing. Digital marketing encompasses everything we do on a daily basis.
Simply, digital marketing means to use the web to grow your business.
You apply different online techniques to expand your business reach, and you market products or services through various digital channels.
Digital marketing moves at the speed of light. As soon as we've learnt one thing, something new appears that we have to get to grips with. When you're a beginner in the industry like I was, this can be really challenging. You can read all the advice in the world.
But what you focus on is ultimately down to your decision and what your instincts tell you.
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Did you know 500 million tweets are sent every day? (source).
500 million. Millions of tweets about sport, fashion, news and, of course, for promotional uses. But there's a very thin line with the subject of promoting ourselves and our business on Twitter.
We have a common ground - it's something we all have to do in this industry. When you're a one-woman show and you're managing social media for your own business, you're okay. You know what voice you want to use and how you want to come across. The problem arises when someone "thinks" they know Twitter, but then has to tweet on behalf of a small business. Do you tweet as yourself? Or tweet as the business?
That's what Tom is here to talk to you about today.
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There are around 70 million users on Pinterest.
That's a huge figure. And it's no wonder. This purely visual site not only gives us inspiration; but for some, it's a huge driver of traffic. Today, I'm not here to talk to you about how to promote your blog on this platform, or what to do to completely organise all your pins. Instead, I'm sharing two boards that I've been putting together recently, and that I'll continue adding to on a regular basis.
They're exactly what you need and I know you'll love what's on there as much as I do.
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Stats. A word that a lot of people want to avoid.
Some keep track of them each month in order to see how they've progressed. Some keep track of them as and when they remember, just out of curiosity. And some just don’t check them, each for their own reasons. I know people in each of these categories. But I also know a lot of people don’t like looking at their stats because they don’t understand them. Honestly? Sometimes I’d even prefer not to look at them.
But I've come to learn that your data is key when it comes to analysing your website's performance.
Every digital marketing agency is different. But there's something that the majority of them will have in common - they'll do reporting. They'll report on their clients' traffic, monthly and yearly. This gives them explanation and identifies what it is important to focus on in the next month.
Reporting helps to see where you've been, where you are now and what to do to achieve more in the future. It might sound intense. But it's exactly the same as what we can do to analyse our site's performance.
And the best bit? It'll take you an hour, tops.
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By the time you’ve finished reading this post, you’ll be a Twitter goddess.
This is a social media platform that creators should be utilising.
Whenever I’m asked about social media, Twitter is always what I discuss. Sure, I know people who gain traffic from Pinterest and Instagram. But Twitter allows you to pull everything together. And it brings results. How do I know this? Well, I’ve done it myself. So today, I’m sharing a list of ways that you can improve your presence on Twitter and up your social media game. Many of these ideas can be done constantly, and some will definitely overlap.
So I encourage you to take each step one at a time and pick the ones that are most suited to you.
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What do you think of when you hear the word “competitor”? Do you feel the fear? Or do you feel the confidence to succeed? A competitor can be seen as one of two things. The first, being someone you think is doing everything better than you. This just transforms into jealousy. I’d say that a competitor is very different to that description.
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