 The internet has redefined communities. My grandparents, who are in their 80s and 90s, still consider a community the people they see pulling out of their driveway, or those they run into at the grocery store on a weekly basis. To them, a community is the physical people around them that share a similar lifestyle to their own. They also don't own a computer.
For those of us that do, we know that a community doesn't have to be made up of those in close proximity to us, and often times aren't. Take the TopRank blog for instance. We have loyal readers from Minnesota, Texas and Illinois. Then we have international readers from India, Australia, the Netherlands and France. They're all joined by east and west coast readers from California and New York. Regardless of where they're from or how far away they are, they make up our community. Like the physical community my grandparents still hold dear to their hearts, online communities need to grow and change and adapt. Cora Harrington has built an incredibly successful community for her blog, The Lingerie Addict. In her NMX session Harrington told the story of creating a community and gave a few pieces of sage advice to help others do the same: What a Community Is and Why You Should Care Every blogger should want to have a community. That should be your ultimate goal. They're who will read your site, promote your site and be your calling card when people want to know where to go about a certain topic or for certain information. A community is a group of people who are really into you—they know what you're about, they care about what you care about, and they care about what you're doing. You want to care about the people who are going to keep coming to your site day after day and share with their friends. A community exists even when you're not directly around. Those people will still talk about you, your product and your message—they'll keep contributing to your blog, your comments, and your social media channels. How to Define Your Community Defining a community is where a lot of people fall short because people want to appeal to everyone. Well, you can’t be all things to all people. It’s just not possible. There are a few things you should do to define your community: - Create a clear sentence of who your audience is: don’t just say your community is women, or bloggers. Be more specific. ‘New moms who are interested in starting a blog and are looking for deals for their children’ is more targeted. The more specific you can be the better. Trying to talk to everyone will frustrate you and no one will know why they should come to you because they won’t know you're talking just to them.
- Think about who is welcome, and who isn't. Everybody doesn't have to be a part of your community. For example, Harrington’s blog doen’t allow people who participate in ‘body snark’ (talking badly about other people’s bodies). They just don’t need to be a part of her community because they go against what her site stands for. You don't want people in your community who are going to drive away your target visitors.
- Think about core values. What are the top 2 or 3 things they should think about when they hear your name?
How to Make Sure Your Community is Full of the Right People Defining your community will naturally filter out some people online. But there are a few other things you can do to make sure your community is full of readers you want that will enjoy and share your content: - Address commonness: You can create a very strong, robust community on any topic or subject. What matters most is that you’re passionate, can come up with ideas, and have a clear enough point of view that people will want to come for you. Find what you all have in common and start there.
- Be conscious of size: Communities be humongous, but they can also be small. Sometimes, the smaller the better. A small, extremely passionate one can be more invested in what you’re doing than a massive one that's only minutely interested in your topic. Spend your time thinking about who you want to be in your community and who you specifically want to talk to, and attract those people.
Actual Things your Community Needs - Rules/Boundaries: This community represents you and your site and what you're about. For example, The Lingere Addict has a rule "no body snark" because Harrington wants all of her visitors to feel welcome regardless of shape or size and know they won't be attacked for their bodies. Whatever your rules are, make sure they’re enforceable and easy to remember -for you and your readers.
- Sense of Direction and Purpose: What makes you different? What do you have to offer that no one else in your particular niche can offer? Why should people listen to what you have to say? What needs are you answering that aren't being currently fulfilled? Those things can help you provide the best content for your community.
- Relevant Issues: They need you to be a leader about the topic you’ve chosen. Sometimes you’ll have to talk about things that are completely different than what other people are talking about, and that’s ok. Being different helps you stand out and gives your community a reason to become loyal.
- Access to You: It’s essential to interact with your community. That will mean different things to different people. What it boils down to is paying attention. Show that you're paying attention to people as individuals—that they're not just blips on a screen or lines on a chart—that you actually care about them.
- Connections: Be a connector–how can you connect your readers to things they haven't heard about, or other people in the industry they should care about? Doing so shows you care about them and are interested in helping them.
A community should be a place where people feel safe to contribute, engage and participate. Use your blog or your site to create that space for your audience. Then put in the effort to maintain it so they don’t fall by the wayside. One of the best things you can to do turn your audience into a community, "don't be wishy-washy," Harrington says. "People will know, and they'll call you out on it and that's no good. Know what you're standing for and be prepared for the consequences of it." How have you attracted the right people to your community? Keep your eye out for our continued coverage of NMX. For instant updates and quotes, follow @BenBrauen, @elizalynnsteely, or @NickEhrenberg on Twitter!
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | How to Build Your Blog Community with the Right People #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com   Uh oh. The apocalypse is coming. It’s like impending doom, lurking closer and closer, threatening to take us down. What’s even worse is that we're bringing it upon ourselves.
But there is still hope for survival. We can draw our proverbial swords, channel our inner hero and fight back. In her NMX session, Social Media Explorer's Tamsen Webster taught how with The Content Apocalypse Survival Guide: How to Keep Your Content Alive and Kicking in 2014. I thought this talk was about content. I never imagined what happened next. Crap content and hoax headlines are starting to take over. They're even being picked up by big media. You know the kind, headlines just to get the click. They’re zombies. We have to stop them before they kill us. Everyone is content marketing and so many are creating content just to get views without anything of value to the content. Readers are starting to get distrustful of what we're offering. The more zombie content we give them, the less and less our readers will bother with it. If we don't follow up with our headline in our content, customers will stop going for it. We're making it worse with every single piece of bad writing and content we put out there. Every time someone has that bad experience, they get more distrustful. How do you identify zombie content? It's content that serves the needs of the brand before and over the needs of the customer. Brand centric content is advertising. People already see over 5000 ads a day. Why do you think yours will get through to them when others don't? If you're creating brand centric content, you will unlimitedly kill you. Because the virus starts with you, you are in the best position to kill it. Our reason for content is a lie. We tell ourselves it's about the people. We try to pull them in to serve us. In reality we're really just trying to serve ourselves. Why should we serve ourselves if we’re trying to appeal to other people and motivate them to engage or convert? So how do we kill zombie content? The 2 ways you kill zombie content are the same ways you kill a zombie: Kill it on sight by removing it's head from it's body: - Does my product or service make the occasion better? If it doesn't, kill it! Does this product or service make the customer better? No? Kill it.
- Would I say that if I didn't work here? Take the marketer hat off.
- Would I share it? If you didn't work there, is it something you'd care about?
- Will it compete with cats? If you're asking to be invited into people's personal streams, you're competing with their ex-high school boyfriend and cats on their feeds.
- Does it belong here? If it could be on Condescending Corporate Brand Page on Facebook, don't put it up. Kill it on sight!
Starve it: This one is super easy. If you don't feed the beast it won't get bigger. Stop making content that only serves your goals. Self promotion, sales focused junk and fluff created to simply drive traffic. Stop it. If you don't feed the zombies they won't grow and they will die. The content apocalypse may be coming but we can fight back. We need to recognize the problem we're creating and fight back. Stop feeding the horde. If we cut the zombie's head off and starve it we still stand a chance. Be sure to follow the real-time updates from our TopRank team at NMX 2014 by following @BenBrausen, @ElizaLynnSteely, and @NickEhrenberg on Twitter!
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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | Guide to Surviving the Zombie Content Apocalypse #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com   Growing up, there was always a battle in my life: school vs. cartoons. School taught me to be structured—the elements of good writing, the processes to follow, the fundamentals. Cartoons taught me to be creative—to think outside the box (thank you Wile E. Coyote), to be creative, and to strive for the eye-bulging, jaw-dropping outcome.
On weekends, cartoons always won out. But Paula Pant, a blogger, journalist and entrepreneur, believes the lessons of cartoons should always triumph. The title of her NMX session, The Art of Crafting Jaw-Dropping Content: Why You Should Forget Everything You Learned in School proves that. Crafting creative, memorable content that motivates readers to share is the goal of almost every digital marketing agency. Each has it’s own approaches, methods, and beliefs. Regardless, Pant believes that you should "kill your darlings, murder your adverbs, and embrace active tense" through stories, the power of thirds, and your own natural pacing. But how? Here are a few tips to help writers like you and me create that eye-bulging, jaw-dropping result we all strive for: Be Simple & Tight with Your Writing
In school we're taught to take a sentence that could be said in 5 words and stretch it out to 15. We are taught to cloud our writing and to make simple things complicated. Forget it. Be direct. Be simple. Ask yourself how to express your thought in the simplest language possible. And never unnecessarily complicate a sentence. We've all listened to someone tell a story and wished they'd just get to their point. Don't write your blog like that. Write tightly by cutting any extraneous information. Long blog posts are fine, as long as that post is as concise as possible. Cut out any sentences that don't push your reader forward. Be Clear - Watch for repetitive verb forms. When you see two similar parts of speech together, try to eliminate one. For example "rather than trying to draw the blueprints" can become "rather than drawing the blueprints”. If you can't eliminate one of the two, group them together. "Buy the medicine and distribute it" becomes "buy and distribute the medicine".
- Start with a subject. It will help your reader know what you’re talking about right away.
- Start with a present tense active verb—especially in lists. They add power right up front in your post and they force you to economize.
Model Your Writing After a Sandwich (Not a Fairytale, Inverted Pyramid, or an Hourglass)
Traditional stories and fairytales follow a format that looks a big like a hill or a bell—they start out slow, climax somewhere in the middle or towards the end, and slow down again. Journalists tend to write in inverted pyramids giving the most newsworthy information first and going down from there. Others write like an hourglass—starting off with the inverted pyramid but adding a twist in the middle to get readers to stick around until the end of the piece. But Pant's favorite structure is the sandwich. You begin with a face or an anecdote (the bread). Then, progress to the meat of the story—the facts, the details, the data, the research, the tips—the things you want your readers to know. Then, you'll close out with the face. This structure allows you to emotionally connect with your audience, helps get your point across, and gives them a reason to read your entire piece of content. Be Rhythmic
Every story needs to have rhythm. It isn't just for poetry or for music, it happens in a blog post as well. The best way to include it is to mimic the natural ebb and flow of how people speak. How? - Alternate long sentences with shorter ones. When we talk, we pause to take a breath. Give your readers time to take a breath—take a sentence.
- Embrace the hyphen. Adding a dash in the middle of a sentence isn't necessarily grammatically correct all the time, but it reflects the way we talk. Your job as a blogger is to bring pixels to life and add character to those pixels.
- Rhyme. Would you remember "an apple a day decreases the risk of coronary failure"? Nope. But you remember "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". It doesn't necessarily make sense, but it's memorable.
- Alliteration sets up a pattern and is easy to do. Create one in your headlines, in your titles, anywhere in your content to help make it a bit more memorable and create rhythm.
- Use onomatopoeia. Write out how something sounds—"Zing" "Woop woop!" or "Briiiiiiing". It catches attention, shortens sentences and is much more interesting to read. Make your content audible.
Be Powerful
Verbs move your story; they sell your story; they're powerful. But they have an enemy. Adverbs. Adverbs enable us to get away with using weak verbs. For example, "he shut the door forcefully". Shut is a weak, overused verb. But "he slammed the door" is much more powerful. Pant advises replacing your adverbs with a powerful, killer verb. But you don't have to all the time. Occasionally, they're ok to leave in. For example, "he ran faster and fell" being changed to "he ran and fell" conveys two different things. In this instance, the adverb is justified. Imagine you're a publisher paying $2 a word. If it's worth the $2, it can stay. If not, delete it. Spice Up Your Adjectives
Adjectives like great, wonderful, and fantastic are overused. Try to use ones that aren't. Create cognitive dissonance. Mouthwatering is usually used in regards to food. Use it in a new context—talk about mouthwatering content, or mouthwatering shoes you saw—something to become more memorable. Be Engaging
Personally, I like to read for fun. I love books that bring you into a different world. I get so wrapped up in the story that I lose track of time, I'll laugh out loud, or get so emotionally connected I can't put the book down even though it's really late. Pant offered a few key tips to help us write like those books: • Add pops of expression. Example: "they're announcing layoffs on Friday. Yikes!"
• Add teasers and suspense. Example "but that's not all". The reader can't leave—they'll want to know what's next.
• Write in visual metaphors. Example: "teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows" instead of "teach yourself to read in minutes as well as hours". Creating jaw-dropping, interesting content doesn't have to be hard work. It should be a creative, fun process and should appeal to your readers. Think of things you find interesting in a conversation and try to include those in your writing to resonate with your readers. How do you convey a voice in your writing without creating nauseatingly-long content? Be sure to follow the TopRank team at New Media Expo 2014 while we liveblog more of the awesome sessions. @BenBrauen, @elizalynnteely, or @NickEhrenberg
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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | How to Craft Jaw-Dropping Content & Become a Better Writer #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com   Everyone wants to be valued for their insights, and today's content marketing-fueled age presents multiple opportunities for people to become influencers. I covered how to crowdsource these influencers in an earlier post, but what if you wanted to become one yourself? What does it mean to be an influencer? How do you reach a point where people in your industry are clamoring for your perspective? Finally, how do you build your business from such influence?
It's not as difficult as you think, and it all revolves around efficient content marketing and re-purposing. Serial entrepreneur Chris Ducker outlined the process in an NMX super session, charting the path for people to build their influence. Ducker, author of The New Business Manifesto, presented a plan for entrepreneurs to build personal/brand influence with content marketing, eventually seeking to launch a business from that attention. Here are Ducker's five steps for entrepreneurs and content creators looking to build the "Business of You": 1. Identify your niche. It's difficult to be truly original in this era of content re-purposing. As a result, few ideas are truly original. What separates your content from everything else is personality. Ducker noted that when you build the "Business of You," nobody else can copy it. Before any entrepreneur or content creator can devise unique ideas, they must first identify their own corner of the content generation map. What do you want to write about? What drives you to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard/touchscreen)? 2. Know who you are helping. Now that you have your niche foundation, identify the audience that you're aiming to influence. Ducker insisted that this involves more than simply following them on social media. Building customer profiles can help you focus your efforts on people that have a need for your content. (Note that these are customer profiles, not listener or viewer profiles. Content marketing is still a business, after all.) 3. Create great content. Content is the gateway to building strong relationships with your followers. Ducker argued that great content should be centered around three main categories: - Educational – Are you looking to teach or instruct your followers?
- Inspirational – Do you want your followers to be motivated to make change, or perform an action?
- Entertainment – Should the content make them laugh or smile – while still generating attention and conversions?
At first, you won't have the necessary data to hone your content strategy, so you'll need to create content what you think the audience wants. Once you collect feedback and quantify the results, you can then start to create content the audience needs. 4. Build lasting relationships. We are in a relational business, and connections help drive influence. Ducker referred to this concept as the "people-to-people" (P2P) philosophy, and he saw a lack of it in the sales/marketing industry. Content creators want their fans to connect with them, ask questions, offer feedback, and hang out with them. They must build relationships with their fans and generate a P2P connection. In the end, the audience will determine what the "Business of You" actually becomes. 5. Monetize the brand. Even with a large social following, it's difficult to generate influence as an entrepreneur unless you monetize your personal brand. It's a difficult aspect to tackle, and many content creators are uncomfortable selling themselves. But Ducker argued that monetizing your brand drives authority, and to be seen as a powerful influencer, you must be "seen to sell." Ducker proudly proclaimed 2014 as the year for profile content creation and marketing. Such content helps build those P2P relationships, and let loose the influencer inside everyone. Stay tuned for more from #NMX, and follow @NickEhrenberg, @elizalynnsteely, and @BenBrausen for live coverage on Twitter!
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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | Unleash Your Inner Influencer with Content Marketing #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com  |
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