Archives for April 2017

Online marketing is constantly evolving, which means that there is always something new to learn.

This is something that overwhelms many, from business owners to experts.

In my experience, the trick is to accept it and learn to pick the areas that you need to pay attention to.

A few days ago I had the opportunity to read the following post:

26 Lessons From Social Media Marketing World 2017.

The post includes a list of 26 valuable lessons and a summary of the current state of online marketing.

Author Steve Rayson, director of Buzzumo presents us with a summary of the 26 Lessons he learned in Social Media Marketing World 2017.

I thought it would be of great value to share this post with you because it answers many of the questions I frequently get asked.

For example: the current state of social media, the importance of knowing your audience, the critical role of titles in your content, the importance of using live video, etc.

The post: 26 Lessons From Social Media Marketing World 2017 , inspired me to think about how I can put these lessons into practice in my own strategy and it gave me the opportunity to pause and rethink how to improve my strategy.

If you want to do this exercise, I recommend you first answer the following 2 questions:

What is the goal of your marketing strategy?

This seems like a simple question, but it’s really not.

You think it’s to increase your sales, increase your subscribers, acquire more followers, improve the positioning of your brand, etc.

But the more precise and detailed your goal is, the clearer your vision of what you want to achieve.

What’s the reason you want to reach you goal?

This is the reason behind the goal and it’s as important as the goal itself.

The post allows us to have an insight into the present state of online marketing.

The question is how to choose which lessons to focus your efforts on.

And the answer is that you should choose to focus on the areas that will have the most impact and boost the growth of your business.

Here are the lessons I consider important for my business:

How to boost your online marketing results (5 lessons to put into practice)

1. Improve my social media strategy

The posts describes how Facebook is still the most important social network even though its reach decreases every day. It also talks about the effectiveness of LinkedIn and Twitter.

This information is excellent and key when deciding  on which social media channel to focus.

How to apply this?

Although I have been able to experiment with social media, I can definitely improve my social media strategy.

In addition to understanding the social network that my audience prefers, I also to need understand which social media channel works best for my types of content and how to improve the way I use them every day.

2. Create content that is shared

The process of sharing content on social media is more powerful than you can imagine and the reach of your content can be amplified if it’s shared on social media.

So the first question we must ask is make makes our content shareable?

The second question we need to ask is what does it mean when our content is shared? And more importantly, what to do once the content is shared.

How to apply this?

There are different tools that allow you to get information about how your content is shared, Buzzsumo is the tool I recommend and use.

3. Create content that will attract your audience

It makes no sense to create content to say the same that others are saying.

Your content allows you the opportunity to stand out.

How to create content that stands out?

It is about communicating a message, transferring your experience, creating curiosity and capturing the attention of your audience more than your ability to write content.

There are different ways to achieve this and it will depend on each business.

How to apply this?

For my business, my goal is to be the bridge between the online marketing world in English and Spanish.

I have found that what works well for me is to use visual content to explain complicated topics in a simple way while also taking the time to create the content in Spanish and English.

And I know that I need to continue to work on this to to get better results.

I have created an infographic that includes the 5 lessons that will boost your online marketing results.

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com
Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/lessons-will-boost-online-marketing-results-without-wasting-time/"><br>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1284" src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/boost-your-online-marketing-results-infographic.png" alt="boost your online marketing results" width="500" height="2389" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/lessons-will-boost-online-marketing-results-without-wasting-time/">Netklik</a>
</div>

 

4. Create strategic content

The key is to create strategic content that helps you reach your goals.

How to apply this?

I have found that what works best is to create content that provides a transformation to my audience.

It is not enough to serve your audience, you need to offer value and solve bigger problems.

5. Identify the best content

Again, it is not just about creating content.

An important part of your content strategy should be to analyze the performance of the content to be able to take advantage of those contents that generate greater benefits for your business.

How to apply this?

This is an area where I need to invest more time and resources.

Once I identify the best content, I must define a system that will make the most of it.

Conclusion
Online marketing is not easy, however it does not have to be complicated.

Every time I think I have learned something new, I realize how much I still need to learn.

Sometimes this feeling can be overwhelming and terrifying, however the process becomes easier once we accept the fact that the learning process never ends.

But what’s most important is to learn how to choose where to put your energy and attention because this will have the greatest impact on your business.

It’s early morning and I just got back from a walk.

It’s part of my daily routing and I do my best to walk first thing in the morning every day.

Nowdays there are a variety of gadgets that allow us to measure the number of steps we take every day.

It’s no secret that the recommended magic number of steps per day is 10,000.

The reality is that not every day is the same and I do not always have the same time, which means that the time and distance I walk varies every day.

For me the important thing is to be consistent with how often I walk, regardless of how many steps I take and for how long I do it.

In other words my goals are long term and that is how I measure my results.

In a way, the same thing happens with content creation.

Recently I received the following question: What is the right length for a blog post?

I thought this was an excellent question, so let’s dive right in:

What is the right length for a blog post?

I wish I could give you an exact answer, but the truth is that it depends.

You may be curious and want to know how many paragraphs or how many words your content should include.

It’s a difficult question to answer, because the answer depends on many factors.

You see, you not only need to take into consideration the average time that scientifically a person dedicates to reading a post, you also need to consider the medium you use and also the goals of your strategy.

According to Time , 55% of visitors spend 15 seconds to read the content of your articles.

There are different opinions on how long a post should be because things have changed a lot in recent years.

In my opinion, the quality is more important than the length of the content.

Below are some interesting studies mentioned by lean-labs

• According to Medium, the length and ideal reading time of a post is 1600 words and the time to read it is 7 minutes
• According to SERPIQ , if what you are looking for is to position your web page in Google, the content must have between 2350 and 2500 words.
• Moz reported that if what you are looking for is to generate links, when a post is between 1800 and 300 words it will attract more links.
• According to Neil Patel, when a post has at least 1500 words the results are better from the point of view of SEO results and Social Media.

In order to help me you make the best decision about how long, here are 4 questions you need to answer that will help you make the best decision about what is the right length for a blog post:

4 Questions you need to answer to decide what is the right length for a blog post

1. What is the goal of your strategy?

If you have a clear vision of the goal of your content strategy you can design a strategy that allows you to reach your goals.

It is not about writing content just because everyone does it.

Every post you write must have a goal and you must be able to track the results of each post effectively.

Once you have a clear vision of your goal, you will have a better idea of what type of content is best for your strategy.

2. How fast do you want to see results?

If there is something I have learned, it is that you need to set a deadline to reach your goals.

We know what happens when there is no deadline.

Nothing.

The speed with which you want to achieve your goals affects the types of content you must create.

If you have more time you can include longer content. If your strategy is short term, you simply do not have time to work on long content and your best option is to write short content.

3. What will your main source of traffic be?

The type of content can vary depending on how you plan to generate traffic: If part of your plan is to generate traffic from Google, you must write longer content and your strategy needs to be medium and long term.

However if you plan to generate traffic with social media, you can think of a short-term strategy and include short content.

The scenario changes completely if you can generate traffic paying for advertising, the type of content you must create depends on the medium you use, whether Google or social media.

I have created an infographic that includes the 4 questions that you must answer to help you decide: How long should a blog post be?

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com

Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/right-length-blog-post/"><br>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1265" src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/what-is-the-right-length-for-a-blog-post-infographic.png" alt="what is the right length for a blog post" width="500" height="1250" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/right-length-blog-post//">Netklik</a>
</div>

 

4. Will your content include visuals?

According to Lean-Labs , it turns out that visual content counts as words.

When you include images in your content, the content automatically becomes longer.

In addition, Moz reports that including visual content can help generate more links to your content, which in turn also has positive effects for SEO.

According to blogpros , the most popular blog posts include one image every 350 words.

Comparing short vs. long content

In short, both types of content have advantages and disadvantages.

If you decide to use short content for the post of a blog

The biggest advantage of producing short content is that if your goal is to produce more content, writing short content will allow you to produce content more often.

When you create short content you need to be able to communicate your message quickly and effectively.

You may also have less time to promote each post.

The key is to have a system in place that allows you to promote the content, because there is no use to creating content if no one sees them.

If you decide to use long content for the post of a blog

If your goal is to produce longer and deeper content you’re probably going to be on good terms with Google.

However you need to understand that’s it’s not just about writing longer content, your goal needs to be to create valuable content.

In addition, you need to make the content interesting, so people actually read the content.

Writing longer content, usually means writing less frequently, which in turn means you can spend more time promoting each post.

Conclusion

The reality is that the decision about what is the right length for a blog post
will depend on your strategy and you will not know until you try and experiment.

It’s not about counting words, paragraphs or images.

It’s about using content that sparks curiosity and captures the attention of your audience.