Blogs: Quick and Easy Tips to Increase Readership

Writing and publishing a blog is a lot of fun. It allows the author,using articles photos, and videos, to creatively  develop their online personality. Many bloggers develop an intricate and detailed online personality only to be disappointed at the lack of interaction with their online community.

Here are a few words of encouragement. Whatever you do, don't give up! Try these easy steps to develop a long term group of faithful followers who interact with you through your blog.

• Post - Quit waiting for the perfect article. Take the idea you have and express it. You can always go back later and expand your idea by posting more detailed information. Just Post it!
• Distribute - Make sure your blog posts are shared throughout your online media sources. Remember to use your blog as the hub and sources like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others as the spokes. These  other social media communities will help you draw in more readers to your blog.
• Engage - Ask questions in your posts. When your readers comment, it is important that you respond. Listen so you can interact. Do this by setting up notifications to your phone or email (or both) so that you are immediately notified when someone comments on your post. By  responding to their comment quickly, you can create a real time conversation.
• Adjust - Analyze and tweak as you go. Watch your statistics and and analytics so you understand what interests your readers most. Post on subjects that have high interest and comments. Stop posting on subjects that have little to now interest.

Enjoy developing your blog and your online community. Keep your blog fresh by updating it frequently. You'll be glad you did!

Blog: Content is King Use an Editorial Calendar

Many blog enthusiasts believe the way to increase readership and interest is to blog at least three times a week. Consistently posting creates expectation by readers who eagerly anticipate the blogger's next feature. Though this has great credibility, it is only true if the post is worth reading.

Want to increase readership and interest? Write when you have something to say not just according to a schedule.

Content Marketing Plan

Always having content to write about isn't easy. Try using a Content Marketing Plan developed from an Editorial Calendar. Wikipedia defines editorial calendar as an efficient way for bloggers to develop, organize and publish content on blogs and other social media sites like facebook and twitter. They have been used for years in the publishing field and adopted by bloggers to facilitate the publishing process.

Two simple but important questions come to mind when considering content.

• What do you have to offer?
• What do your readers need from you?

Having succinct answers to these two questions will help a blogger develop their interests and keep readers returning looking for more awesome content.

Editorial Calendars need not be as sophisticated as the efficient plug-ins developed for blogs. Some bloggers use paper files and folders. If it works for them then it's the right thing to do. Other bloggers organize ideas and unpublished articles using spreadsheets or online calendars. No matter the format, an editorial calendar should be used to keep writing focused on desired topics and getting it published in a timely manner.

At a minimum, an editorial calendar needs the following elements:

1. Brainstorm a list of topics based on your interests and audience needs
2. Prioritize a list of what to publish focusing on time sensitive information
3. Consider how much work each topic and piece will need to publish
4. Assign dates for writing, editing, and publishing each article
5. Determine where to publish each article (blog, facebook, email, newsletter)

Blogging has to be fun and interesting for the blogger. Creating lists on interesting topics, writing in shorter time periods, and understanding audience needs will increase the level of success and readership.

Content Marketing for Social Media Sites

Many new Facebookers have true concerns about what and when to post material. Instead of creating a page and then trying to determine what information to provide, do it in reverse. Decide what content to provide and then create a page designed to deliver the information.
Before creating your Facebook page decide what kind of content or information to provide. This will depend completely on who the targeted audience is for the page. This allows the page to focus completely on consumer needs and delivers enough content for the first thirty to sixty days.
Three good questions to ask before creating a Facebook page are:

1. What kind of information does my targeted audience mostly likely need?
2. Why do I love selling real estate?
3. Why do I love this community?

The answers to these three questions are the beginning of a cntent grid. Use the following chart to help create a content grid.

Post several times a day in order to maximize exposure. Some recommend even posting the same material more than once to increase readership. Though this may look a bit like spam to frequent Facebook visitors, allows for the greatest exposure.

With all this great consumer centered information being produced, length of article or post is a concern. Facebook users are accustomed to short bits of information which is why Facebook is not in the center of the social media hub. Facebook allows the consumer to readily find topics and shorts posts of information. The true source of the information is the blog. Facebook just directs the consumer to it Even so, some bits of information may come from other sites like
governmental agencies, Realtor ssociations, school websites, news organizations to name a few. Create a link tothis information and post it directly on Facebook. Add the URL to longer articles or helpful link lists posted on the blog.

Each blog post has its own distinct URL or web address. By clicking on the title of the blog article, the URL will appear in the address bar. Copy and paste the URL for the article to Facebook. This gives the blog article greater exposure. The back link helps in placement in Google searches as well.

Content on blogs and Facebook is not limited to written articles. Content can be as simple as a picture with a title posted from Flick’r onto Facebook and the blog. Use the hub to create a network of sites whenever possible! Content can be shared as a video as well. Imagine, for example, keeping the community informed about a local construction project by posting
frequent and short videos. These videos are stored on YouTube and linked or embedded into the blog and Facebook. Creatively, client testimonials can be video as well. Ask satisfied clients to make a short 30-45 second video instead of writing a letter. These are great show instead of tells for blogs and Facebook.

Now that the social media hub is in place and beginning to work, refocus on the content grid to deliver quality and enjoyable information to your targeted group of consumers. This is the fun part!

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Social Media giants dominate the internet

Many agents believe a website will suffice in capturing online consumers. This is far from the truth. In a Comscore Report dated Tuesday, December 21, 2011, consumers spent 35% more time on social media sites than that of a year ago. Websites are too static for today’s online consumer who searches sometimes daily for updated information. Websites should change as the market changes and should provide current
detailed information customized for a targeted group of consumers. In many instances, blogs have taken the place of websites. Agent blogs have the ability to be changed easily, are usually controlled by the agent, and are preferred by search engines like Google.

An agent’s blog can be the hub for consumers to be drawn towards with other even more dynamic sites used as outposts to guide the consumer in. Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are constantly changing and highly trafficked. Youtube, for example, is the second most searched site
behind Google. Facebook has enough members to make it the third most populated country in the world. These, and other social sites, are excellent areas to find consumers who are searching for information about real estate. These sites are needed to help draw buyers and sellers to the agent’s blog. Social sites also allow the agent to create an online personality necessary to creating a personal brand.

Linkedin is a business related social networking site. Somewhat like an online rolodex, Linkedin allows members to connect to each other. Members can post their profile and job history along with updates. Linkedin, according to Wikipedia, has 21.4 million monthly visitors just in the United States and is growing at 2 members per second. Linkedin has over 135 million members worldwide.

Twitter is another fast growing social media site with more than 300 million posts called tweets and 1.6 billion searches a day. Limited to only 140 character posts, Twitter delivers short text like messages and links to its members. Twitter is great for posting links to blog articles and for public conversations within groups.

Youtube is a social media giant with postings of not just short videos but full length movies and music. Youtube, started in 2005, is now a subsidiary of Google. According to Wikipedia, Google reported in May 2010 that it served nearly 2 billion videos a day and nearly double the primetime audience of the three major television stations combined. Registered Youtube users can post videos and video blogs that are viewable by the public or to a specific audience.

Flickr, like Youtube, hosts videos but is mostly used to host photos for use by bloggers. Owned by Yahoo, in June 2011 Flickr had more than 51 million registered users and more than 80 million unique visitiors. This is a perfect place for real estate agents to posts house photos. It also is a great place to post photo libraries of communities.
Though not even scratching the surface of the social media sites, the final outpost of the online marketing hub is the social media giant Facebook.

Facebook Continually updating, Facebook allows users to create both a personal and business persona, posting information about the user’s life and business. Due to its popularity and strength, Facebook dominates the social media scene with over 800 million users. According to Wikipedia, by April 2010 nearly 42% of the United States’ population had a facebook account. In May 2011 Facebook announced it served nearly 140 million monthly users. Comscore's December 20th 2011 report stated that one in every seven online minutes is spent on Facebook while three out of every four minutes spent on social sites are spent on Facebook.

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Video Blogging Helps You and Consumers

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