Puzzled about what will work in the social world and how to shape your content marketing strategy, here are seven content trends that never die down. The world of Social Media. How do you ever get to tame it? How do you know what works there? How do you get to meet your prospective clients, pitch your services, lay your PR pitch, define your vision and finally generate leads. While there is no set formula for success on social media, there is one crucial thing you can control – and that is the content that you put out on your channels – content that defines your company, your services, your goals and ideals and your approach to the customer. And that means a whole lot of precious and engaging social media content writing, going on, on a daily basis. Here are a few trends we found that work on social media. Never mind if you have already started, we would still like to know your opinion. 1. Harvesting Happiness: Using Positivity To Market Content Users of social media are most likely to share positive, interesting, and unique news, not negative, boring or commonplace ones. Also, the commonest emotions used are those that invoke laughter, awe and curiosity. So, to promote your material on social media, it would be prudent on your part to use pieces of content that loosely follow this framework. This will ensure that your content will be consumed, enjoyed and shared. 2. Reacting Readily: Be There To Respond Fast! Everybody, every business has access to social media 24X7, thanks to the magical boon of these days – smartphones. So you can, on behalf of your company, instantly react to any moment, any comment, or anything that is relevant and related to your business on social media. Share interesting bits of content, and breaking news, and make your social media stand your platform for exchanging your opinions and views on topics that are relevant to your work. If you desire to talk about special event or such, don’t forget to leverage the power of relevant hashtags! 3. Leveraging Likes: Taking Advantage Of Social Validation It is human nature to adore approval or adulation. Various studies have found that users of social media are much likely to ‘like’ any comment or post they find already ‘liked’ by others. The best way to accomplish this online is to provide prominently visible ‘share’ buttons, close to all of your social media posts. Also, you can provide numbers and figures about your social media popularity, in a visible way on your homepage. This will prompt new visitors to gravitate towards checking your company out on social media and then liking your page as well. 4. Alluring With Aesthetics: Make Your Content Good Looking And Easy On The Eye Most social media users scan content and read only bits and pieces from the more aesthetically pleasing part of any page. So it will help you in your social media marketing endeavor to organize your content in such a way that your target audience will be able to scan it easily, and this can be done mainly by providing, in the method of display of content, a clear path for vision in order to elevate the level of engagement on part of your audience. Bread up chunks of content, using subheads frequently, but then don’t overcrowd it, and use a font that will be comfortable for anybody to read with pleasure. Bullet point usage is another trick that you could use. All these will go a long way in keeping your audience inquisitive about what is to follow and engage them in what you want to say. 5. Controlling Controversy This is an interesting tool! Say something that might provoke a certain sense of controversy by invoking opposite natured feelings in the public. Content that talks about controversial subjects, usually garner more interest, more likes, more comments than other content. Just enough disgust, just enough positivity can go a long way. 6. Telling A Tale: Use The Wonder Of Storytelling Anything is better understood when a story is used to explain any concept. Most of our purchase decisions are founded on drivers in our mind that are plainly emotional, and far removed from the logical. Use this aspect of the human mind to tell a good story, appeal to your audience’s emotions, touch their hearts and move them, so they feel inclined to take an interest in your business. To perfect the procedure on the Internet, use words to describe emotions, and evoke sentiments for characters and situations, make sure the characters you create are realistic and close to the kind of people the story is intended for. 7. Embracing Emotions: Make Them Feel Your Sentiments Users of social media have the tendency to share content that instigates a feeling of some sort, be it happiness, laughter, disgust or even embarrassment. So make sure that your content, images etc invoke sentiments and emotions. Other tips to keep in mind: Most importantly, remember the following three points a) Try to make your potential target audience feel smart and elegant b) Make sure to share information or posts about causes and other concerns that are related to the core of your business, and attempt to engage your clientele through campaigns etc. c) Nothing beats a piece of juicy, succulent, gossip. Use it by all means, when all else fails, but do so in moderation!
Author: meenaxi.badola@justwords.in
How content of your SEO articles can put difference in your SEO performance
When it comes to search engine optimization, to write or not to write quality content is no longer a question! People are constantly trying to unravel the mystery of future search; what is it that will get a business prime space on the Search Engines. While the debate continues over various techniques that can be applied to catch the crawlers, it has been safely established that the search engines have a special weakness for quality content. And yes, that swings us right back to the content courtyard where it won’t be wrong to say that Search Engine Optimisation and content are interlinked somewhat like great food is to a happy life. The more content, and by that we mean quality content, you put up on the Internet, the easier it becomes for the search engines to find you. That’s the basic equation. Which means, that the content of your website, blogs, guest blogs, PR, social media platforms, and third-party sites, all can make a difference to your SEO. While there is a lot to talk about in the content context, today we deal with just SEO articles– a part of the content that has been routinely underestimated and sort of abused by content writers across the world. Till recent years, a large part of content writers across the world would feed the Search Engines with meaningless articles stuffed with keywords of a particular business/brand in a bid to attract the crawlers. But not anymore! With major algorithm updates from Google in 2013 and 2014, you need to make greater investments in content – in short, you better not stuff Google with nonsensical SEO articles. Google Algorithm changes Hummingbird algorithm catches writing errors Do you think that investing in SEO articles is a waste of money? Think again because Google does not accept waste from anyone anymore. In fact, not investing in SEO articles writing may turn out to be extremely expensive in the long run because any writing error might directly harm your rankings. Hummingbird algorithm makes it extremely hard for SEO writers to share low-information, keyword-stuffed content. Penguin algorithm to stop spamming During the initial years, it was a common practice among writers to spin the content and share numerous articles on the same topic. This was changed when Penguin was released in April 2012. The Penguin algorithm tracks if the readers find the article share-worthy. Hence, if an SEO article is shared or referenced, the higher it will rank on Google. On the other hand, sharing garbage through SEO articles may harm the rankings as well as brand image. Panda algorithm and SEO articles Gone are the days when plagiarism was not as serious a crime as it is now. Google’s Panda Algorithm was released in February 2012 to stop writers from sharing copied or low-quality articles. Today, a low-quality article can harm the ranking of your website. Manual Action It is not possible for Google’s new algorithms to always detect spam, due to which, the team at Google has decided to review the article shared and determine if it offers unique and informative content on a given topic. Today, the search engine giant labels any article that is shared for advertisement purpose only – as spam. Any SEO content article that does not comply with Google’s quality expectations may harm your business. How Google scores your SEO articles Well, when Google commands, everybody listens! Every article shared on Google cannot rank on the top page; however, a quality SEO article can make a huge difference to your brand value and product marketing. Hence, an honest assessment is required on your part for the article you are sharing. Need SEO articles that please both Google and users? Contact us!
Google Places For Business: A Listing You Wouldn’t Want To Miss
It’s a mad, mad world, which becomes crazier if you are in competition with billions of businesses, craving for the attention of customers. This is the era of regular updates, smart work and customary brand building and interaction. Today, hundreds of millions of people all over the world use Google Search, Mobile, Google + and Maps to discover a local business that can meet their requirements and provide quality products or service in the places they are headed. Google Places For Business: The Center Of Gravity For Local Search The local sphere is definitely smaller, and though, your enterprise might face a lot of competition, you certainly have a much better chance of connecting with prospects than if you fight for the top position on a global level. Long story short: Listing your business on Google places isn’t an option; rather, it SHOULD BE a priority for any small and medium enterprise if it wants to take advantage of online presence. “Want your listing done with a 360 degree virtual tour of your business click here.” Reasons To Verify Your Business For Google Places Verifying your listing gives you an opportunity to share more information about your brand, products and services on Google. Once you have verified the local listing for your company, you get the opportunity to enhance it by adding coupons, videos, photos and any other real-time update. The Benefits Enhance the possibility of ranking on the top of Google for your local business Constant update or edit your listing without any technical expertise Extremely practical and simple to manage Get premium options such as photos, all for FREE Start with a simple sign up and verify your business Free advertising Google Places And Google+ Local: What’s Cooking? Any business listing in Google Places for Business Dashboard that has been upgraded to social functionality is directly tied up to that social presence. Dan Pritchett, who plays a major role in dashboard development at Google said – “To be clear, with the new dashboard the G+ page and the listing are tightly associated. Every G+ Local page is backed by a listing and once you get a G+ Local page, your places listing is tied to it. Removing one always removes the other.” Final Thoughts Creating a presence on Google Places for business allows you to reach maximum prospects without costing anything. Is your business getting enough customer attention? Are you using Google Places or Google + Local? Have anything that you would like to share regarding local search and Google Places for Business? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!
Engage Your Audience With The Right Dose Of Storytelling
If you ask us “why storytelling”, we would like to explain to you “why not storytelling”. Let us tell you what a well-told story can give you for your business. You might have visited Connaught Place one of busiest the places in Delhi. Here you can see the densest concentration of advertisement messages. Image Source Life Cycle of a Good Story Suppose you slowly turn around the road and count every advertisement on hoarding, billboards, building, bus, cab, street light. You would come up with no less than 500 messages. Now you come back home, tell me how many of these advertisements you can recall? Whatever the number is, do we look at the advertisement this way? No. Then how do we see the advertisements? We walk around in that area, do shop-hopping for a couple of hours. Once we return home, how many advertisements we could you recall? Hardly 4 or 5 – we would bring in mind, even though we have been fully exposed. That is because our brain can’t truly process that many visual attacks. That happens with every normal average human being. These normal average human beings are the audience of your business; they look at your advertisement, research for it, watch it, listen to it, remember it, and experience it. But what makes them involved with the advertised products or services? The answer is the message that links with audience’s own desire or interest. But the key is how that message is told to them? Probably in a story format; because people can remember the story only. If you want to advertise your business, you have to tell the sticky story. The story has to be a tale of an experience. Showing the story, with a back story, involving characters, asking the audience to share their story – these make your audience emotionally stimulated to buy the products or services. And if you can tell the good story, it would spread like wildfire and inspire other to take action. Now you would probably like to know how story reaches the audience of your business.
Adding some creativity to Google Business Photos
It’s the day of the shoot. You have dressed up your workplace, primed up all the décor and now just waiting to project the ambience which you desire. But there is one thing missing. It’s called a little bit of “fun”. Google Business Photos since its inception has become a great boon to many companies who with its help have been able to showcase their ambient offerings and products. But the business photos offering is so much in demand and becoming so much common that an idea to spice up this application can be a good plan for the business. So, let’s roll in some artsy creative ideas to make Business Photos more exciting. One of the exciting things which can be done is to make the tour into a game. Hide an object (something directly related to the business you are in) and tie the photos into social networking games that rely on image clues scattered within the virtual tour of your business. This will turn the usual tour into a virtual treasure hunt. Make this into a contest and spread it across social media channels and you will get people talking about your brand. Another innovative way to make the tour exciting is by making your employees participate in it. Tell a story by way of making your staff be present in the photos dressed up as some eye catchy characters promoting your brand. It would quickly grab the attention and result in multiple re-visits. Now, If you are into businesses of a subtle kind, you can still have your employees be present in the tour, where they can be featured doing regular office jobs. The presence of the human element will make the tour all the more organic and closer to connect. If your business is in a special locale, it is time to highlight that too. Make sure to make the visitors know about the special spots in your workplace, it can be a corridor size aquarium or a crystal masterpiece. Make them enjoy it. Other alternative attention-grabbing ways are the usage of visual shockers, subliminal messaging and frequent appearance of the brand logo to create a touch point in the minds of the virtual tourists regarding your brand. By default, Google Business Photos will always be visible on Google search, Google Maps, Google+ Local. You retain full rights to the photos and can use them on your website and on Facebook. All this makes Google Business Photos the perfect tool to get to the masses and gain your customer. If you make this tool a little more exciting and fun, the result will be sweet as sugar.
Are you building a brand? Then tell a story.
Welcome to our first blog post. For the past three years that we have been doing business (we are a content agency), it never seemed to be the right time to start a blog – or so was the thought, even as we churned out blogs for other businesses. Well, it was a mistake. When you start a business or run a business there is a story to tell everyday. There is a story that every business owner has to tell about the first deal signed and the several deals that went bust, about the great idea/product that got launched or faded away, and of the lessons learnt through the victories and the failures. Finally, its those small stories that shape your company’s identity and its important to recognize those and put it in front of the people recognise those and put it in front of the people. Telling your story can make a difference since people relate to a story and identify with a brand. They don’t just buy your product or service, they buy your conviction of ‘why the product or service will sell’. By telling the story about your brand, your also giving your customers a lot more to remember about you (the brand) and allowing them to think that they know you. In my previous job at 9dot9 Media, where I was associated with the India version of the US-based Inc. magazine, which provides fantastic content about growing companies, I edited a lot of stories about brands and their startup days, and sometimes about startups that were trying to become brands. In the process, you come to feel as if you know what they are doing and talking about; you relate to their experiences. And that’s where the connect with your audience is established. In today’s fast-moving hyper-connected world, it is not enough to just publish content to build your brand. You need to engage with your audience, and allow them to form an emotional connection with you and your organization. And that is where the story-telling part comes in. By sharing your company’s story through effective content, you are effectively transferring knowledge and emotion to your audience – in the process allowing them a deeper identification with your brand. Here are three tips to help you get started: 1) Get your story right. Know your ABC’s: Don’t rush to tell a story before you know what to say to the audience. Writing for the sake of just publishing content and attracting search engine attention is not likely to get you anywhere. When you are telling a story, you are dealing with the emotional heart of your brand. Be honest about it, and write with a clear plan in mind about what will be your core narrative. Think of your company’s ABCs – Audience, Brand, Category – before creating your content. So here are the questions you should think about. Who are your targeting? What is the USP of your brand? Where is your audience and how do you want your brand to be perceived? 2) Choose the right channel: There are far too many channels nowadays to publish your content. The trick is to find the platforms that suit your product/services. Its not necessary to be on every platform, its necessary to be where your audience is. So find out which are the channels they use the most, and how do they like their content served. If you have not started with anything, go with the fundamentals – a good website and a Facebook page. Both are prime real estate on the internet for your brand. 3) Be consistent in serving content: There is no point in telling a story that you don’t want to continue with. Starting a content marketing plan is also about making a commitment to be regular with your stories. Its about continuous storytelling – a steady stream of engaging and entertaining ideas and innovative brand narratives. All of this must be backed with proper planning and resources to keep the content cycle alive – basically, continuous story telling. If you ditch your readers midway, they are very likely to never come back. Telling brand stories is an evolving process but the success of content marketing also depends on how honest and dedicated you are to your story and its planning. So what is your story?
10 Tips To Get Past The Writer’s Block
Do you sometimes wish that you had a magical wand that could cast a self-writing spell on your computer screen? Well maybe you are suffering from a bloggers block; a temporary writing block suffered by bloggers. It’s just one of those times when everything except from the task at hand (i.e. writing) seems appealing and the words won’t come, no matter how hard you try! It would comfort you to know that almost all bloggers have experienced this at one time or another. After all your brain does need a break from all the creative thinking it has to do to put a piece together. Luckily there are some simple things you can follow to skip and hop past this hurdle TAKE A BREAK Do something other than writing for a bit. It may be any activity that rejuvenates you and is easy on the mind. Even a short break can do wonders sometimes. READ UP Reading always gives you a fresh perspective on things. It may spark up some new ideas related to the topic at hand and also widen your knowledge base. JOT IDEAS ON THE GO Great ideas may strike you anywhere and at any time, and when they do, just make a quick note somewhere. Trust us, ideas and thoughts have a weird way of disappearing in some far corner of the brain when you wish to revive them. WRITE REGULARLY Doing so will help your brain become accustomed to writing and will help your thoughts flow in an organized manner. Besides, practice makes perfect, right? QUALITY RATHER THAN QUANTITY It’s best to take up a limited amount of work as it helps you focus better. Taking up crazy amounts of work just saps your creative energies and robs your work of exclusivity and uniqueness. TITLE IS THE KEY A title for your post should be the first step towards writing a blog. Having a title gives a direction to the brain and prevents it from wandering. It will also ensure that your blog is coherent and covers important aspects. VERBAL VOMIT Simply jot down anything that comes to your mind, no matter how silly it may sound. This will help energize your brain and get it rolling. FIND A COZY PLACE Having your own comfortable place for writing can help prevent a writer’s block as it eases your brain and puts it at ease. Anyplace that makes you happy and calm can be used to pen down your thoughts. BREAK THE TOPIC Some topics can be hard to write and may seem ‘heavy’. In such cases, it is best to break the topic into smaller and more manageable content. START AT THE BOTTOM Sometimes it is okay to write the main body first and weave in the introduction later. This bottom-up approach works well as you can draw inspiration for the intro from the main text. There you go, some simple stuff to follow the next time you can’t seem to tame your brain. Happy writing!
Start with these 7 tips to make your content go viral
No, you don’t really need a content marketing agency to make your content go viral in its reach. Just pay attention to these simple tips and keep them in mind while churning out content. How does one measure the success of content marketing today? On the “Viral” yardstick of course! Ain’t no real content today if it hasn’t gone viral and crossed boundaries. And let us tell you, it isn’t a mere coincidence that makes a content score big on popularity, there’s more to it. It is possible to make content go viral deliberately by following some simple tips. Keep in mind though that there is no set formula for viral content and nothing can guarantee 100% success. But that shouldn’t deter us from trying right? So here you go, our list of carefully compiled tips and tricks to make your content go viral MYSTERIOUS HEADLINES A simple and traditional headline will seldom prompt the user to click on the news as they will not feel the need to explore further. However, a headline that builds suspense and does not give away the content is sure to get clicks. After all curiosity kills the cat! UNIVERSAL EMOTIONS If the content is funny or connected to universal issues, it is more likely to go viral as it will carry global appeal that transcends boundaries. Both negative and positive emotions may be used although the latter is a safer bet. This helps people connect to the content and encourages them to share it. WEAVE A STORY Weaving a story into your post makes it more relatable and triggers an emotional response in the reader. So try to build a story into your content and watch it being shared like hot cakes! USEFULNESS Any content that users find practical usage for or can use in their daily lives has more chances of going viral. It could be a simple ‘how to’ article or posts that enlist tips and tricks to get things done. IN VOGUE The chances of content going viral increase if the content is related to a current happening or the latest news as it prompts the user to hit the share button more. SIZE MATTERS In this case, the shorter the better. Users like to read and share bite-sized frame information that they can easily download on their mobiles and read on the go. RESONANCE It simply means that the content posted by you should find a connection with the reader. If the reader can relate to it and feel that it portrays what is happening in their life, then they are more likely to read/share it. These simple tips can help you polish your content and give it that edge over the thousands of other content that are squabbling for the attention of the net user. Did we miss something? Tell us in the comment below.
A Fail-Proof 10 Step Guide to Good Content
You get it! Content is extremely important for anything that has to remotely do with online marketing or its newer sibling content marketing. It’s the bait that the buyer is eventually going to bite! Yes you got it. And so you sit to write. That’s when you quickly realize, like many many people in the world do, that producing great content ain’t easy. So you turn to the luminaries in the industry and see what these cool guys have to say. This is, in short, what you find – OK, you get it…but how the hell is this going to happen. Well, the good news is that there is a process to every good thing. The process, well you cannot just set up a process and expect good content, what crap, you think. But hey, listen to this – a process always makes things simpler and clearer in your head. And that helps you think better. It’s sort of a way through which you walk to reach the goal of good content. So here it is – a simple 10-step guide to getting you started on your good-content journey. Share this Image On Your Site <p><strong>Please include attribution to https://justwords.in/blog with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href=’https://www.justwords.in/content-writing-services’><img src=’https://justwords.in/blog/wp-content/files/jsw_content/Infographics%2021-8a_1.jpg’ alt=’A Fail-Proof 10-Step Guide to Good Content’ width=’540px’ border=’0′ /></a></p> Do you have any other suggestions to add to this list? We would love to read your views in the comments sections.
Tips to increase social engagement on your blog
You may have thousands of readers visiting your blog, but if they aren’t commenting or sharing they aren’t intrigued enough! Participation of the reader is extremely crucial to a blog’s success. The lack of participation or action on the part of your audience belies the entire content marketing exercise. Social engagement, therefore, is an essential ingredient in increasing traffic and making your blog successful. Studies have revealed that if people comment or share a content they are more likely to also utilize the product or services provided by the website. So spruce up your content with these tips to optimize the social engagement quotient of your blog. Choose interesting and relatable topics. A good way to do this would be to pick something from the latest happenings that is relevant to your website. Everyone has opinions and views to express on trending news. Utilize this desire of the audience to get comments on your blog. Make sharing/commenting an easy task. No one has the time to search for the share button, no matter how good the content is. You can either place it on both the top and bottom of the page or have it scroll along with the content. This way people are more likely to share the blog. Post the first comment. A good way to attract users is to post the first comment yourself. This acts like an invitation and draws the user to post their opinion. Always reply to comments. This helps in two ways: the people who have posted feel heard and important and it also paves the way for more people to share what they feel. You can even end blogs with sentences asking the reader to respond with their views. Make sure the comment request is customized to the content rather than being a generic statement like – “write your comments below”. Charity begins at home. Encourage your employees to share/like/comment on the company’ blogs. This way people will feel that that the blog is important and are more likely to share it themselves. Add some visual elements to the blog to catch the reader’s eye. The chances of sharing or commenting increase if the user actually reads the entire blog. So get into action with these killer tactics and watch your blog swell in size!