Blogs have quickly become one of the top tools for individuals to express their opinions and share their knowledge. They are great forums for reaching new audiences and expanding your reach. Many folks that I know have started their blog and then get stuck, not knowing how to keep the momentum going and how to engage readers. Well…here’s a few helpful tips that can make your blog be bloggerific!

• We always recommend that you should have 3-6 months of posts “in the can”. This will keep you from getting stuck and not having any content to post.
• We also recommend creating an editorial calendar with the “topics”, assignments and bloggers. Someone should “own” this. Again, keeps from not having relevant and timely posts…the whole point of a blog.
• Not only should you announce that you have a blog on your Facebook and Twitter, you should also make posts on your followers’ pages and feeds. Additionally, you should share this information on other relevant blogs, follow other blogs and ask these bloggers to follow you.
• You can also set up your Facebook page to have your blog RSS feed pulled in directly (like we do for Willow). There is an app to do this within Facebook.
• You should make sure that your blog has an easy to use RSS option and encourage people to sign up to receive these feeds.
• Use your blog to link to other blogs or people, to draw on their traffic and encourage them to come follow your blog.
• Your posts should be search-engine-friendly, and this is more than just incorporating keywords into your content. Your posts’ URLs should be natural-language, keyword-rich: “/your-blog-directory/the-title-of-this-post-keywords/”, not “/your-blog-directory/?p=123″ (in WordPress, use “Permalinks” to accomplish this)
• Register your blog on relevant blog search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search, Bloglines, and other Blog search engines. Here’s a list of some other great places to register.

If only we could count the number of times we’ve heard, “We know what our ___(insert target audience)___ wants from us.” Do you? Ever heard that expression, “When you assume, you make an a** out of u and me.”~ Oscar Wilde

Five years ago I didn’t have a facebook or twitter account, Google was not something I visited multiple times a day, and purchasing a smart phone was out of the question.  I thought a phone’s purpose was simply to allow me to chat anytime, any place and my little Samsung with its 12 keys did the job.  Today my iPhone is practically a limb. I text, tweet, mobile upload photos to facebook and occasionally still talk on my “phone”, although it is really a computer the size of a phone.  My point is, you can teach an old dog new tricks and if one were assuming my communication preferences were the same as they were five years ago, because a database indicated that I like to be called, one would be very wrong.  These are just my qualitative observations, but research shows that times are changing.

According to Nielsen, by 2011, US smartphone users will catch and surpass feature phone users. This means that around 50% of current mobile subscribers will shift to smartphones. What does that mean for marketers? It means access to multiple communication channels (text, e-mail, social media, websites, and the good old fashion phone) from one handheld device. But how do you ensure that you reach your target audience through those channels?

Step one in becoming savvier marketers is recognizing and accepting that your target audience is fickle. Their behaviors are ever changing and to remain relevant you’ll continually need to use qualitative and quantitative research to gain insight about your audience, your competitors and the marketplace that we all live in.

Step two in becoming savvier marketers is recognizing that as marketers continually saturate all these channels, consumers will become weary from their methods. For this very reason you need to continually pay attention to your target audience’s preferences, what your competitors are doing and what innovation is available in the marketplace.

Bottom line – don’t assume anything. Testing and research is key.

There’s one thing that I encourage every one of our clients to make sure they’re doing – strategic planning. Doesn’t sound so simple does it? But it can be if you just take a little time to Write It. Share It. Visualize It.

Write It. – As the leader of your organization or your division, you certainly have a strategic plan in your head…along with the million other important items on your mind. It’s important to take the time to write out your strategic direction. That doesn’t mean that you need to draft a 20 page strategic plan. It can just be the 5 key things you want to accomplish this year and how you want to do that. Leaders need to get the ideas out of their heads and documented.

Share It. - Now that you’ve written down the direction you want to see the organization head, sharing it with key individuals or the entire team is critical. If your employees don’t know where you’re headed, they can’t help you get there. They don’t need to know all of the details, but they do need to know how they can help in being a part of the strategic direction of the organization.

Visualize It. – Don’t just write down your strategy and put it on the shelf. Keep it handy. Reference it when you’re making key decisions. One simple thing that we encourage our clients to do is to visually display their strategic objectives for the entire organization to see. Whether it’s a banner in the break room, a screensaver on all of the computers, a progress chart shared at quarterly meetings, or simply a 1-page infographic, find a way to easily and visually keep the strategy top of mind for everyone on your team.

And of course, for those organizations that need help with facilitating a strategic planning session, determining the strategic direction they should take and how they can most effectively reach their goals, Willow Marketing is here!