 We want to create engaging content but we don't always feel like typing a lot. For some, it's a constant struggle to get our thoughts on to paper (or in this case on pixels). Typing isn't always required to create content your readers want. Marcie Hill showed us 5 Ways To Create Engaging, Sharable Blog Posts Without Writing… A Lot, in her New Media Expo 2014 presentation. Check out these quick and easy ways to create great stuff that your readers will want to see and share.
Photos Over 1 billion people will buy a phone this year and most of them will have cameras. Most of us take pictures all the time. These can be great sources of content for your posts. With more than 350 million photos uploaded to Facebook each day and 55 million to Instagram (35 million are selfies), it's obvious that people love pictures. Get creative. Take a look at things from a different angle and show your readers something they don't see every day. Don't fancy yourself a good photographer? There are plenty of online resources to help you take awesome pictures, even using your smartphone camera. Infographics We all learn in different ways but most seem to learn better visually. That's one of the reasons that infographics are so popular. They take information (sometimes dry and boring stuff) and break it down into easier to understand and consume visual representations. Though they do take some research to get the info together, infographics can be a great way create engaging content without writing much. They're also highly sharable. Pinterest users love them and with the site driving more traffic than Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter combined, it has the potential for huge traffic. Audio In a spot you can't type? Some of us get our best ideas while we're driving or when we're away from our computers. Bloggers can audio record their thoughts and ideas to make easily sharable content for their audience in a hurry. Most smartphones have built-in audio recording apps and you can even use an audio transcription service to translate those recordings to text if you like. Not only is audio great for recording while on the go but it's also great for people to listen to when they don't have access to a computer. Lots of people listen to podcasts and other audio programs in the car on the way to and from work. You might find a new audience you didn't know was out there. Video People watch over 6 billion hours of video a month on YouTube. Video is huge. Be part of those 6 billion+ hours of viewing by recording video for your blog. Interviews, events, thoughts, and more can all be made into great video posts. With the built-in editing tools on YouTube, and the numerous other tools such as iMovie and more, anyone can make their video look great and draw tons of viewers. Animations Looking for a simple and super sharable way to attract attention? Animated GIFs are a form of content that everyone loves. People are highly amused by them and they love to share them. Tumblr is a great source to search and find them but you can also easily create them yourself. GIF Brewery for Mac and Giffing Tool for Windows both allow you to simply capture any on-screen video and turn it into a high quality animated GIF. Capture video from YouTube and overlay hilarious text in minutes with interfaces easy enough for anyone to use. We all consume content in different ways. Though text may be great for many, there are other ways people look to consume too. While we might not always be up for writing out every post, there are still tons of options for great sharable posts that will resonate with your readers. Try out these text alternatives on your own blog and let us know how your readers eat it up!
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | 5 Ways To Create Great Content Without Writing A Lot | http://www.toprankblog.com   Fortune cookies are notoriously cheesy. They tend to be something that could happen to anyone (e.g. you'll meet someone special today) or something extremely vague (e.g. there is a big success in your future). But what if they could teach you how to become a better blogger and a better writer?
Spud Hilton made it so they could. While in San Francisco, he had tips printed and folded inside the sugary cookie to pass out to random strangers. He dedicated his NMX session to teaching those 12 tips, and elements of good writing to help bloggers up their writing game. Why Quality Matters:
People will tire of you before they tire of the topic. Your topic is always going to have more longevity than you do. You need to make sure you're presenting that topic in a straightforward way that's unique. Those people want to read blogs by people that sound smarter than them. If you're not writing well, presenting yourself in an intelligent manner, you're missing out on an audience and essentially leaving behind people who feel that they want to read something by someone smarter than them. Knowing your audience is the important piece—write to that and understand how elements fit into that. Elements of Good Writing: - A Point: Writing has to prove a point (premise, angle, nutgraf). Every element has to—down to the captions. When you start to write something you have to know what the purpose is. In order to find it, ask yourself 3 questions:
- Why do I want to write this post? Because I want to inform? Engage? Because I want hits? What are you trying to do?
- Who's the audience? New media takes a lot closer look at who the audience is than more traditional media.
- What's the message you want readers to take away? The trick is once you answer this, you have the point.
- Observations: There's a difference between observation and description. A description is the facts. A photo can describe visually but it can't make an observation. That's why it's such an important element. It's an interpretation of the situation and makes your writing more interesting. But you have to mix them with reporting and narrative because Hilton says, "Observation without narrative and reporting is basically an unsupported rant."
- Reporting: You need to know if your story is false—you have to do the actual reporting. Look up info from some other source to verify what you're talking about. It's not enough to just have you support you. That's how fake news stories get picked up by so many publications. Every time that happens the credibility of all writers drops. Hilton points out that, "Reporting without narrative and observation is Wikipedia. It's a list of facts and doesn't tell your story."
- Narrative: This is whatever format your story is in and who it's told by (e.g. first person, third person). Narrative without observation and reporting is your diary. We're in the age of sharing and putting yourself out there and really getting into people's personal everything—but no one wants to read your diary.
Fortune Cookie Tips: - Grab the reader's attention and grab it now! Grab it by the throat. You absolutely can't bore a reader at the beginning of a story. More than ever it's important to grab their attention immediately. If you just start with context and the background of your topic, it won't grab anybody.
- Zen editing: When is it done? The great thing about zen—it's not done when you've put everything you can into it. It's done when you've taken everything out of it. Filtered content—things that you made decisions on—is going to be better than if you just leave everything in.
- Prose is the frosting, not the cake. Everybody gets bogged down in prose—telling things in a pretty way. But it's not the point. It's frosting—it's the extra stuff you put on. You still have to have a good story to tell, a good point, something to say.
- Be creative with context. When you have a lot of facts,and are trying to explain something big or why it is superlative—how do you do it? Be creative with context—taking things you talk about all the time that are plain, and do some reporting to make them interesting. Metaphors and comparisons are great for this!
- Where is the emphasis? You have to figure out where the emphasis of your sentence, caption, paragraph, and story is and pay attention to that. What is the point?
- Avoid brochure speak. Take a more authentic, forward role in your vocuabulary. If you start with a question, people associate it mentally with advertising and a brochure, but you want them to feel like they're getting the real thing. Showing that you're quality over time will help you keep readers. Use language to your best advantage but if it doesn't sound like you, it won't work.
- Check Your A.S.A. It stands for: Action. Storytelling. Aesthetic. It applies to photos and content. Does it have action? Does it tell a story? Is it pretty? You can get away with it if you have one of those things—it's great if it's two of those things, but if it has all 3 it's incredible. If it has none of those things, do you know where it should be published? Nowhere. You grossly overestimate your own photos and your own content because you know the context behind them. Go back and ask yourself: will people understand what I'm trying to say.
- Does it need to be about you? Make sure you're presenting the topic, not you. Try to present the topic without talking about yourself. Then go back and sprinkle judiciously and sprinkle in a few "I", "me", and "we".
- Find the humor. Snark gets tiring really fast. It will only take you so far. What you want to look for is the absurdity of a situation and point it out. How do you find it? Using observations and a little reporting of course!
- Did you stay on point? And did you kill the bunny? You're getting ready to write a great post and you've stayed on point, except there's one little thing you REALLY want to put into it but it doesn't fit. It's your bunny. Don't try to force things that don't belong into your story. Hilton says, "Kill your bunny. Or at least put it into the freezer until you need it later."
- Read everything twice. Once for fun and the second time to dissect it. Do it with other people's content too. Find the elements—the attention grabber, the examples, the point. Then you can begin to see patterns emerge and what's working and be able to emulate it in your own writing.
- Quirky is currency. It's money in the bank. Think about it. If a nightclub tells you they have bottle service, do you care that much? No probably not. What if the nightclub told you they had a package that included a swanky designer selection of champagne that range in size from 750ml to 30 liters (which weighs 80 pounds by the way and holds the same amount as 40 normal bottles)? That gets through the wall instantly and resonates with people.
You can study SEO until the sun goes down or try the latest trick, but that doesn't tell you how to keep those readers or how to engage them over the long term. Better quality will do that. Make a commitment to become a better writer and produce more quality content for your readers. How have you committed to producing quality content over quantity?
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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | 12 Easy, Simple Ways to Up Your Blog-Writing Game… From a Fortune Cookie | http://www.toprankblog.com   When I first wrote this headline, it almost sounded too good to be true. Sure, you can generate Facebook fans via random followings, scattered postings, and local word-of-mouth. Eventually, you'll run out of steam – and your company page will run out of influence. There is a better way to handle social marketing on Facebook – and it can bring thousands of active people into your community.
Social media consultant Andrea Vahl presented such a plan at NMX, focusing on the harmonious relationship between content strategy and efficient Facebook page design. You won't even need to raid the company budget much – Vahl emphasized that these tips are made for businesses with little room for additional social marketing funding. Here are Vahl's 5 easy steps to skyrocket your Facebook brand page: 1. Set Your Goals How do you want to achieve your Facebook growth plan? Vahl noted that social managers should set goals that make sense – overall growth is still good for awareness, but subscribers are the best goal. Goals should be specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Vahl made specific mention of Facebook's recent firestorm over organic search, and ultimately argued for a change in behavior. Social managers should shift their mindsets on organic search, as Facebook is becoming more pay-to-play at this point. Consider it more as a subscription model – the sooner that you realize Facebook isn't free anymore, the better your results will be. 2. Set Up Your Page There are multiple tactics and best practices to optimize your Facebook page. Vahl highlighted five key strategies to make your page more attractive: - Use an engaging profile picture (sized 180×180 pixels)
- Create a well-design cover photo (sized 831×315 pixels)
- Craft keyword-rich copy on your About page — add testimonials, use milestones creatively, and add your FB page policy
- Create tabs that capture visitor email address
- Set up your custom page URL
These tips should help your page look cohesive and professional – an important goal regardless of the business direction. 3. Develop Your Content Plan As organic search is declining in Facebook, you should adjust posting strategies accordingly. Vahl suggested evenly splitting status updates between text and photos, and using links only 20 percent of the time. Engagement is the primary goal with your social content, so encourage frequent sharing and post on a regular basis (at least 2-5 times daily). As an added tip — instead of using the share button on updates, post something straight on the page and tag users with their Facebook page name. Vahl argued that this generates greater reach potential. 4. Grow Your Page Your Facebook page – business or personal – is a fluid, dynamic property. It doesn't exist in a vacuum, nor should it linger soulless in the digital ether. You'll need to build and cultivate your audience – and there are several strategies that can help. - Invite your warm market. Use the Invite Friends button, and reach out to customers via e-mail. These are the people most likely to follow right away, so utilize them to kickstart your plan.
- Participate as your Page. Target complementary pages, comment on posts as your page, and watch local pages. Spend at least 5-10 minutes per week on community management.
- Use all areas of Facebook. From your page to your personal profiles, to natural groups and private groups. There's much digital real estate for the taking.
- Use Facebook Ads. Focus on news feed ads, which generate the best click-through rates. Also, look to Sponsored Stories for building social proof.
- Add a Facebook Like Box. Embed this handy widget on your website for additional inbound traffic.
- Run a Facebook contest. Providers such as Offerpop, North Social, Woobox, Tabsite, Contest Domination, ShortStack, and Strutta offer contesting services via Facebook.
These are just some of the tools readily available for page managers, and they can help attract, engage, and convert new members. 5. Assess What Works Your Facebook Insights page is a gold mine for engagement data. Look at engagement rate — the percentage of people who interact with your post from those who have seen it. This will help identify which posts are most effective with your audience. Keep an eye on traffic spikes as well – they are often attributed to a single update or interaction. There are no guarantees in social media, but these strategies can help any Facebook page manager legitimately boost their audience – and likewise increase their influence within the market. What strategies have you found useful in increasing your fan base?
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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | How to Get Thousands of Facebook Fans in 6 Months #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com  |
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