Writing and Social Media Services for small businesses and nonprofits

When a customer is trying to find your company or organization, they no longer use the Yellow pages. They turn to the internet to find whatever it is that they are looking for.

Where do they start? Google. Use your small business or nonprofit blog to generate qualified leads. By having a blog that is updated frequently and uses the correct keywords, your blog posts will appear near the top at Google, Bing, and other search engines. Being one of the first on the list translates into more potential customers clicking on your link instead of your competitor’s.

So now you know why your business needs a blog. Are you too busy actually running your business to write one? If so, then let Karla take care of it for you. For about the same cost as that ad you used to buy in the phone book, Karla will update your blog with high quality posts a couple of times per week.

Karla is also available to manage your company or organization’s various social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+.

Contact Karla at karlawheaton@yahoo.com or 207.712.3091.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights provide page owners with metrics around their content. They also provide the ability to see geographic and demographic data for people who are connected with your page.

To see them on your Facebook page, go to your Insights Dashboard. Insights are only available to pages which are liked by at least thirty people.

You can review your Insights data through the dashboard, or export it using the “Export” button in the top right corner.

To see Insights for your website, you must first claim your domain by associating it with a Facebook page or with your Facebook account. To do this, click on the green “Insights for your Domain” link from the Insights Dashboard.

Pinterest

Quite a few people have asked me about Pinterest lately. It is one of the newer social media platforms, but is really taking off. A few weeks ago Real Simple magazine revealed that it has started receiving more traffic to its site through Pinterest than Facebook.

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. It lets you share and organize all of the beautiful things you find online. People use Pinterest to do things like find new recipes, organize their home decorating or keep track of images and quotes that inspire them. Like a lot of other social media sites, you can follow people and they can follow you. You can browse other people’s pinboards in order to see what there interests and likes are.

If you are a business and your target market is women in their twenties through forties, you really should be on Pinterest. Please contact me if you need any help getting started.

Email Marketing

Email marketing can be a very effective strategy for your small business or nonprofit organization, but most people just aren’t sure where to start.

For my personal blog, I use the service Mailchimp. It helps you design email newsletters and share them on your social networks. Once you sign up for free, they have online trainings you can do to show you how to create a subscriber list, design your signup form, and create or send out an email campaign.

What sort of information should be in your email newsletter? You can include coupons, special offers or practical tips that your customer or supporter would find useful. Make sure you include pictures and everyone is busy so keep the length to a minimum.

But it doesn’t do you any good to have an email newsletter if you don’t have any email addresses to send it to. In addition to capturing email addresses on your website, put out a sign up sheet or book at your store and at live events.

Small Business Blogging Challenges

The biggest blogging challenges most small business owners encounter are a lack of time and ideas of what to write about. The good news is that I can help with both.

When I work with a client, the first thing is getting to know their business as much as I can. I have a conversation with them about their short-term and long-term goals for the organization. I research who their customers are and what they want to know.

People often ask how I could be the one to write about their business and have it appear to be geniuine. The answer is because I am a geniuine person. I put the time in to learn about their business and customers first before I ever type a word. I really enjoy doing this work and will do what I can in order to see small businesses succeed.

Related articles

• The Overwhelmed Small Business Owner’s Guide to Simplicity (smallbiztrends.com)

Nonprofits and Blogs

Is it possible to integrate social media with your fundraising campaigns? Absolutely. You only have to engage your fans and make it easy for them to share your organization’s story with pride and joy.

You can use social media to personalize your interactions with potential supporters more. If you are a small organization, blogging is something you can do without a big marketing budget.

Nonprofits can also use their blogs to report back from events or conferences, to involve staff and take advantage of their knowledge, and to involve volunteers and document their work.

Developing a Social Media Strategy

A Gallup poll asked more than 17,000 American adults how they use social media. Their results revealed some things businesses can do to come up with more effective online strategies.

The study suggested that “one-size-fits-all” strategies, such as a generic Facebook page or business owners bragging about their own products on Twitter, are not particularly effective. Everyone gets the same message even though your target audience is really diverse.

Before you decide what sort of social media messages your business should be sending out think about whether you are trying to reach current customers or prospective ones, people who’ve already heard of your business or those who haven’t, or those customers who are already engaged with you.

Think some more about those customers who are already the most engaged with you. How and why do they use social media? To tweet, to blog, or to keep in touch with friends? They won’t change their reasons to fit your messages, so you’ll need to fit your approach to match their motivations.

Why Hire a Professional Copywriter?

You may be saying to yourself, “Everybody can write. Why should I hire a professional?”

Whether you sell pillows or cars, words are very important to your company. Many people know how to run a business, but they don’t know how to effectively convince others that they should buy their products or use their services. If the right words do not come out the right way, your sales will suffer.

A copywriter has more experience with the informal and casual style of writing that is most successful for blogs. They can help you determine who is in your target market and what is the best way to reach them. In other words, hiring a professional will save you time and frustration.

Already been doing your own marketing for years? A new writer can offer fresh ideas and a different perspective.

 

Length of Posts

Try to keep your blog posts as short and concise as possible.

Your customers’ time is limited and valuable. People’s attention spans online are usually shorter than they are in print. Most readers only scan and browse sites until something catches their eye.

Readers should be able to finish your article in five minutes. If you have more to say about a particular topic, break it up into multiple posts. If they enjoy the first post, they are more likely to click the links to read further.

Always make a great point, but make it quickly. That way people will want to come back for more.

Compelling Blog Post Titles

Writing compelling post titles is a very important part of blogging.

The title of your article is the first thing people will see and it is often in the largest text other than the name of your blog. It is also what makes your readers decide whether they want to read the rest of your post or not.

Here are a few tips:

• Use a question to encourage people to leave comments.
• Use keywords so search engines can easily find your post.
• Choose keywords that are the most popular search terms.
• Keep it short, simple, and straight forward.

If after you’ve published a blog post it doesn’t seem to be having the draw you thought it would, no worries. Just update the title to see if more traffic comes in.

Measuring Your Blog’s Success

Once you determine your objectives for your business blog, you need to decide how you will track and measure your success.

• If your objective is to sell more product, have your sales increased? By how much?
• If it is to market your services, have you gotten more inquiries or clients?
• If it is to build an online community, how many comments are your posts getting? Or how many new email subscribers?

The most obvious measurement is to track traffic using Google Analytics, but remember that blogging is more of a long-term strategy rather than a short-term one. Do not be discouraged if your blog is not getting thousands of views a day at first. It takes time and effort to build an audience.