When I (Louise) first started blogging

By the time Sam and I got together and started blogging for Savvy Marketers in 2008, we both made a commitment to publish one post each per week. We haven’t deviated from that timetable, even though we haven’t always felt like writing.

Regular and consistent blogging is essential if you want to build a list of subscribers and have your content found quickly by the search engines.

One of the systems which has made it possible for us to keep blogging steadily and build a list of great readers and subscribers, is setting up a calendar, which we did at the beginning of this year.

Here are some reasons why you might want to consider setting up your own Blogging Calendar

Keep on topic
It’s very easy to become distracted from the main theme of your blog if you write posts without a plan. A newspaper headline, TV show or some other great discovery may suddenly inspire you and cry out to be shared, but is the topic what your subscribers and target audience are expecting to read about on your blog? Relevant content is what keeps people coming back, so give them what they want!

Help with promotions & campaigns
Assuming your blog is part of your business, writing posts related to products or services is a good idea (so long as they aren’t pure sales pitches). You can use your blogging calendar to plan such posts ahead of time so they become an integral part of your launch or campaign.

Build your reputation
You know your business well and publishing blog posts will show your readers that you do too. Plan how you can showcase your work and demonstrate your area of specialism by scheduling posts on your calendar.

Expand your knowledge
With new developments and upgrades being regularly introduced in just about every field, you can use your blog as an opportunity to learn by sharing with your readers. Online tools such as Evernote and Google Reader are great for collecting material as you research. Use your blogging calendar to give yourself a deadline for writing the post.

Get past the blocks
Although when you first start blogging, you may think you’ll never run out of ideas to blog about, just about everyone sometimes sits in front of a blank page and struggles to get started. One of the benefits of setting up a blogging calendar is having a central place to make a note of ideas for future posts. This comes in very useful on those days when ideas seem elusive.

We use a Google Docs spreadsheet which makes sharing and amending our blogging calendar very easy. This was one of the ideas we shared on a recent Q&A Hour – you can see all the slides here.

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On 19 April 2008 I signed up for my Twitter account

Quite apart from the many lovely social networking colleagues I’ve connected with, being part of the Twitter community has resulted in great phone calls and face to face meetings with like-minded people (who already seem like old friends); and yes, on occasion those connections have led to new business.  Twitter has also become a rich source of news and information; clicking through to shared links and discovering a previously unknown blogger with informative and well-written posts, is one of life’s little pleasures for an avid reader such as myself

It’s so easy to become distracted with all those tempting links just calling out to be clicked on! We are increasingly using Twitter as a ‘real time’ news service which feeds our desire to be among the first to hear the stories as they break.

And in a world where information flies faster than the proverbial speeding bullet, trying to keep up with important notices and their implications for business, has become both time-consuming and increasingly, totally overwhelming.

Here are a few suggestions to help keep Twitter under control

1. If you’re busy or have deadlines to meet, restrict social networking to 10 minute sessions and close down the tab or client when the time is up, so you don’t sneak a look.
2. If a tweet looks interesting, use the ‘Favourite’ toggle and save it to read after work.
3. At the beginning of the week, set up a few tips to tweet automatically (use this very sparingly)
4. Schedule Retweets and spread them out, so they don’t all appear at once
5. Don’t automatically follow people back, and don’t feel obliged to follow back either
6. Use a Twitter Client like Hootsuite, Seesmic or TweetDeck to keep the flow of chatter organised so you don’t miss anything important.

Because I didn’t know any better, my eagerness to be part of the exciting community online meant I didn’t think through a practical strategy to use Twitter.  I just jumped in and made it up as I went along!  However I don’t recommend that approach for you as it will reduce the effectiveness of your overall online marketing efforts and take a lot longer to see results.

Just as you would plan out an offline marketing campaign, it makes sense to take time and plan out in advance how you’re going to take part in social media marketing.

How has Twitter (or another social network) changed your business?  What do you do to keep it under control?  Please share in the comments below (and don’t forget to follow @savvymarketers if you aren’t already )

I went to an #smday event last week and was really surprised that blogs and blogging were only mentioned in passing whereas they are actually the main hub of your business online and bring all your online marketing efforts together.

From your blog, you can share valuable content that demonstrates your expertise and attracts the search engines.  New posts go out automatically to all your social media ‘outposts’ alerting your communities there to your latest pearls of wisdom.

Without a blog, your website is more or less isolated from all the followers you’ve carefully cultivated in the social networks.  There’s a limit to how many times you can link to a sales page in your tweets or on Facebook, before you annoy people.  And once they’ve signed up to your newsletter (you do have an email newsletter don’t you?) why should they keep returning to your webiste?

So keeping your blog busy and refreshed with new information which is automatically shared with all your online connections enables the valuable interactions to keep on going and keep on building stronger relationships,  some of which will then lead to new business

“Why should I give away my best stuff?” is the often asked question.

“What first impression do you want to give to a new prospective client?” is our reply.  Clunk … whirr ….. and then the penny drops!  Giving away your best stuff can only be good for your business.

You can also give generously using Social Media, although I would caution against swamping your friends and followers with every great quotation or cute video you come across.

I’d recommend that you keep your real-life friends and family separate from your business acquaintances, which you can easily do using the groups or list facilities within each network.

While you will want to share your own great blog posts and products, if that’s all you do, you won’t get the best results from networking online.

Share information by others at least as often as you share your own.  Social Media is all about giving and sharing.  When you come across a great blog post, free give-away, or product being offered by someone else and which you believe would be of interest to your network – let them know about it.

Your reputation as the source of high quality, high value information extends to the quality of other people’s information too, so make sure you take the time to check out the material before you share it!

There are many ways to share information online, including all the different book-marking sites and, of course, the great Retweet button! (hint, hint…)

Do you have any examples of great sharing or generous giving?  We’d love to hear about them.

One of the most important things to consider for your website is timing, and how long some activities will take to kick in. Having recently spoken to someone who thought that traffic would somehow dramatically increase with the launch of a new site, it struck me that she hadn’t planned ahead at all, and probably hoped that sales would rocket with a new site before Christmas – this isn’t going to happen.

If you’re planning a new site, then you must think ahead beyond the launch of it to when you might start to see traffic. You’re in a much better position if your site is well-established and you’re planning a re-launch, then you should find traffic bounces back fairly quickly once the search engines index your new site.

If your site’s a new venture, then you must think ahead to when you really need traffic and if you’re relying on Christmas traffic now, then it’s too late unless you pay for your visitors or try other avenues to promote your site.

Many small businesses still fail to think ahead with the timescales involved in seeing results from their website and do no research at all into SEO and internet marketing.

Internet marketing needs to be addressed before the site is even being built, in fact when you start working on your new business idea. Worrying about it once the site is built is far too late.

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is most definitely a long term activity, as it can take several months to see your website ranking highly in the search results, at least a year (on Google) if you’ve just launched a brand new website. While waiting for your SEO to start sending traffic make sure you’re working on complimentary activities such as link building or starting a blog.

2. Blogging
Although a blog can be fairly quick to set up, again it’s a long term activity. You need to be very proactive when you go down the route of blogging but it can really pay off in the long term. Most blogs take time to get traffic and regular readers and you need to encourage your readers to participate on your blog. Promote your blog as widely as possible too, not just relying on the search engines. Some of the social networking channels can be a good place to do this.

3. Social Networking
As with any networking, online social networking is a long term activity, and rather than needing to fork out for membership fees, most online networking is free – you just need lots of time. In the current economic climate, social networking can be a great place to show off your knowledge and give your business credibility, and most importantly, meet new prospects or potential partners for your business. Bear in mind that it takes time to get to know people and you’re not going to make sales or leads instantly. Stick with it and you’ll soon start to see the long term benefits!

1. Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)
This is the quickest way to get a presence in the search engines and the 4 major search engines all have PPC offerings. Google Adwords, the most popular PPC platform shows its results on Google and a network of search sites which include Ask. Yahoo and Microsoft (MSN) also have their own PPC offerings. What you pay depends on how competitive your industry is and which keywords you choose to bid on. The more competitive the keywords, the more each click will cost.

2. Email Marketing
Email marketing can give you short term and long term results. Email newsletters can be set up very quickly and you can soon be up and running with a regular newsletter to your existing customers, prospects and contacts. However, growing your list takes time plus the fact you need to keep reminding your prospects regularly, so it can take a while before you see the benefits of your newsletter.

3. Writing Articles
Make sure you have a bank of articles written about your area of expertise that are ready to use, not only on your website and in your newsletter, but that you could use to distribute as content to other websites or even ask if they could be included in someone else’s newsletter. Articles are a great way of showing off your expertise and building credibility. As with email marketing, this is an activity that could yield quick results, but is better in the long term as you need to gain confidence with your readers.