Which option will be our future?

I have just read a great article* by Amy Birchall about social media being used to predict the future.

A researcher at Illinois University, Kalev Leetaru, was able to ‘predict’ events such as the Libyan revolution, Osama bin Laden’s location and the Arab spring revolts by monitoring conversations and trends on Twitter. (This made me think of the TV show Person of Interest which is based on a machine predicting the future!)

Extrapolating from that and other observations, the article discusses how social media can be used in many fields to predict things – giving warning to health authorities about epidemics for instance could be very important. Obviously, marketers and advertisers are interested by this as they can predict trends and position themselves accordingly.

It has also pointed out how valuable it can be to target the right (read influential) people can be. The example given was to immunise 96% of people for community immunity – or immunise the most connected 30% for similar results. In business terms, work at promoting yourself to 96% of your market, or to the 30% that influences the rest of the market.

With has tags and various data monitoring and mining platforms available, it is possible to use social media to research your market and tailor marketing to suit. Have you used social media to decide on a strategy or campaign? Do you think it helped you make good decisions?

Don’t assume you can only use major events (like Christmas, the end of financial year and Mothers Day) for a seasonal flavour to your blog and newsletter. Find seasonal things throughout the year that are relevant for your clients – especially things around times when your marketing may need an extra boost.

Here is a list  of seasonal examples I’ve though of to get your creativity flowing…

• at the start of summer, a hairdresser writing a hair care blog can discuss protecting hair from chlorine and salt
• many businesses can find a new year’s link – make a resolution to get fit, sort out your accounts, update your will, care for your heath (quit smoking, visit a dentist, get your eyes tested, etc), buy new tyres or learn something new are just a few possibilities. Write about what is possible and give tips on how to achieve it
• a car detailer could write a newsletter article on how to make a car nice before taking out someone special on Valentines Day
• anyone in security (including computer security) can give blog tips on protecting empty homes and offices leading up to major holidays (Christmas, Australia Day and Easter for instance) when people won’t be at home
• any business can support an awareness or fundraising event so write about your efforts even if not directly related to your goods or services – e.g. give a discount to all new parents during world breastfeeding week, offer a part of profits to the cancer council in Movember. Use the newsletter article or blog post to explain why the cause matters. The event or cause may not be related to your industry but make sure it does align with your brand and company beliefs.
• write blog posts and newsletter pieces about clients or suppliers who do community work around a specific event (such as a client who shaves for ‘shave for a cure’ or a cafe who hosts a ‘biggest morning tea’)
• in September or October, a VA could write about spring cleaning a filing system and a ducting specialist can write about the importance of cleaning heating ducts
• a nutritionist could explain the benefits of hen eggs over chocolate eggs around Easter time
• a physio interested in RSI topics will find plenty of examples during January with the Hopman Cup, Brisbane International and Australian Open underway
• a town planner has the Tour Down Under and Tour de France to inspire blog posts about including bike paths in developments
• Clean up Australia Day is a great time to post about reducing clutter (any organisers or storage solution people?) and cleaning (cleaners, cleaning product sellers and chimney sweeps)
• a conservationist can give non-paper wrapping tips in December and environmentally friendly cleaning ideas for Clean up Australia Day or spring cleaning – in an electronic (not paper) newsletter of course!

What creative seasonal ties have you used in your blog posts and newsletter articles?

All related to business today, some back-end details (like blog security) and some customer related issues, but all worth a read. In order that I think of them…

How to do yourself out of a thousand bucks – the ethics of business

Social media, trade secrets and why you shouldn’t give a rip about the competition - great message and enjoy the graphic too!

Why perfect is the only acceptable business measure

5 easy tasks to outsource as you grow your business

how to keep your WordPress blog secure

Working at home blog carnival –  in particular, I liked the included posts by Eldon and Blogging your passion (and my own of course!)

Customer Service Carnivale

Preparing business for difficult times 

Happy reading! If you have any comments on these posts, I’d love to hear them…

The short answer is definitely

Here’s the longer answer! A promotional article is 500 – 600 words of information that you make available for people to use on websites and in newsletters. At the end of the article is your bio which is how you get promotion by letting people use your article.

A guest blog is a blog post you write for someone else’s blog. The length will vary depending on the blog and topic involved but is probably 300 – 500 words long. You may have a bio at the end of the post, a bio elsewhere on the blog or simply a link form the author line. Generally, the blog post is not duplicated anywhere else.

So the promotional article will potentially be used in many places while a guest blog post is generally used once. Guest blog posts give you exposure almost exclusively though blogs (ie attracts people who read blogs to read your blog) whereas promotional articles get broader exposure and don’t require you to have a website, blog or newsletter.

My answer – no!

There are certainly a lot of promotional articles available, and many are not worth the time to read (or write!), but for a well prepared article there is definitely a return on the investment of preparing promotional articles.

A couple of reasons that they are still worth considering to promote a business:

• people still want content for sites, ezines and blogs – promotional articles save them time and provide a variety of information for their readers
• things change so there is a need for current articles to replace out dated ones – for example, articles about employing staff in 2010 would not cover paid parental leave responsibilites 
• each topic has many angles so even if there are 50 articles on running a business as a parent, you may be able to suggest a different perspective or a new method
• search engines and people want fresh content so even if Joe Blogs wrote a fantastic article on email marketing it could be time someone else wrote one so we don’t read Joe’s article in five different newsletters
• we all have different approaches to learning so the way you explain something in an article may be a better way for some people to understand it

In short, the internet has put us into an information age and there is power to those who provide quality information. Promotional articles are an excellent way to share information so we have not seen the end of their value.

If you’re still doubtful, think about the last time you searched for information online – what were the most useful sources?

If you have read a lot of my blog and heard me speak then you know I believe in the power of promotional articles. Well, the potential power as many have no idea how to use them properly and therefore fail with them.

What’s so good about promotional articles? In other words, why I do keep writing and talking about them, and giving tips on improving them?

Well here are some of the reasons:

• you only have to write them once and you can get long term traffic to your website – for example, I wrote about chickenpox in 2003 and it is still one of the most popular articles on my site
• you can build your credibility by showing you truly know your topic and are willing to share some of your knowledge – higher credibility means more trust from potential clients
• you can get exposure to new opportunities – I have been approached to do media interviews because reporters have googled a topic and found one of my articles
• using them on your site may mean fewer questions from people – this can save a lot of time from people just after information without ever planning to pay you
• people will share your article (either giving a copy to a friend, linking to it or including it in a newsletter for instance) in a way that an ad would never be shared
• it only costs you to produce it – having it on websites and in newsletters is free. Compare that to paying for an ad to be designed and then to place it anywhere…
• it provides you with website content that search engines will reward you for – again, this equals more traffic

So do you see any value in using promotional articles for your business?

I have often read about including keywords and business names in articles, newsletter and blog posts, and sometimes it even tells you how many times to include such words*.

Instead of some ‘magic’ number of times to use a word, I suggest writing it so the article is interesting and worth reading. Overuse of a keyword becomes obvious as a ploy and the writing then looses some of its credibility as a source of information.

In particular, how often can you mention a company name before someone stops reading it? Here are a couple of tips for use of a name in an average article,  blog post or web page (so about 500 to 600 words):

• do not start every paragraph with the name, and preferably only start one paragraph this way
• generally, once per paragraph is enough. I would only break this rule if necessary for clarity (e.g. “Word Constructions produces content for Acme Coyote. It is a big company. It also prepares it’s annual report” is getting confusing with the word it used so often so a repeat use of a business name would help)
• if the business style guide allows it, use a less formal version of the name after the first use – for example, only use ‘Pty Ltd’ the first type or use initials for subsequent mentions
• the name doesn’t have to be in every paragraph – try for at least one without the name included

* I won’t repeat those numbers partly because I didn’t bother memorising them but mostly because they are meaningless – compare if I said ‘add 2 tablespoons curry powder’. In a huge pot, 2 tablespoons may give a very mild curry but in a tiny saucepan it may burn your tongue! I’ve never seen an article qualify how long the article is for the number of suggested keyword repetitions…

I’m pretty sure your answer is no – when we want to find something out we don’t want to read the same article we found last week. In itself, that’s enough reason to provide unique content on your website, in your blog and so on.

Unique content that is obviously yours (not just a PLR article copied across, an RSS feed or worst of all plagiarism) shows your knowledge, your generosity in sharing information and helps your search engine results. People will learn to visit your site/blog/newsletter for a fresh perspective on relevant topics; many copied articles and they have no real reason to bookmark you rather than the others posting the same writing.

Private Lable Rights (PLR) articles can be useful for filling a site quickly but they are not truly showcasing you or your business. Some people edit their PLR articles to make them a bit different to others’ versions of the articles, which is useful, but if you are going to so much effort why not just write your own to start with? Or get someone else to write it for you (given the editing time you may be surprised at which is cheaper in the long run).

When you do use PLR articles (edited or not), add something to it. For example, if the article is on travel insurance and you cancelled a holiday last year, add in a story about how travel insurance saved you $1,000. It will personalise the article, build your credibility and offer something new.

Likewise, openly using other people’s articles can be a valuable addition to your own content, but it works best when you introduce it appropriately to make it relevant.

What success have you had with PLR articles? Did you make them ‘yours’ before using them or not?

What is a promotional article?

Any useful article can be used as a promotional article, although they tend to be around 300-600 words long. At the end of the article, you include an information section (called a bio box or resource box) about yourself and/or your business.

To be a good promotion for your business, it is best to use topics that build your credibility in your industry. For example, if you are a hairdresser you could use articles about choosing shampoos, the best types of hair accessories and hair care tips, but if you sell children’s party accessories, you would be better using articles about how to plan a birthday party, dealing with invitation lists and party game suggestions.

Note that a promotional article is not an ad. An article about the services you offer or how you are better than a competitor is not a promotional article – it is an ad. The aim of your article is to provide information, and/or entertainment, to readers.

** If you are going to the conference, please come and chat to me – I’ll be there all weekend as I know from experience that is a positive, information pack weekend that will benefit my business.

If you havent bought tickets yet, Save Time Online is offering an advertising bonus if you mention them when booking.

A week or so ago, I looked at a new blog – well, newish as it replaces a previous blog by the same person – and noticed a few spelling errors. Knowing the blogger, I let her know about them and thought nothing else of it. A few days later, I noticed that Melissa had added a new post in which she talked about fixing those errors I had pointed out and the importance of proof reading.

This reminded me of how we can find blogging (or article or newsletter, etc) topics from the simple events that happen in our business and personal lives. Small events can remind us of important things or create a useful learning tool. So here are some suggestions for next time you are stuck on what to write…

• questions clients have recently asked you – e.g. I recently explained bleeds to a couple of clients and I have been asked if I do editing of articles (which I do!), and both of those could become a blog post
• tips you come across from other business people – for example, I shared some decluttering tips I gained from a workshop I attended
• mistakes you see in others’ work – not as a means of criticising others, but as a means of learning from their mistakes
• turning points and changes in your business – either just to let people know of them, or as a means of teaching others alternatives

By including little things in your list of ideas is a good way to increase the amount of topics you have to write about.

Use your words wisely!