See also: How to create a perfect blog post

Killer content

Huffpost blog has 110 million estimated unique visitors. Wonder how they manage it? Because they not only write articles, they also are a news aggregator. That means that they collect all the mainstream articles and republish them on their domain. As the result, people found here the greatest and the most popular content of all sites.

You can also try to collaborate with well-known bloggers and asked them to write in your blog. That you’d be beneficial to both parts, as you get more traffic to your site and the other blogger wider audience and maybe new fans.

Enhance curiosity

The second blog – TMZ – has 30 million unique monthly visitors. Yes, it’s a gossip site, and that explains a lot. But you should also now how to use celebrities to enhance such a popularity. We are curious about how the elite live with fame and fortune – sometimes a life to which we aspire. But what TMZ do to make it even more affective, is creating intrigue headlines. They always left something unknown.

For instance, Mariah Carey in a SKIN-TIGHT wet Suit – Wait ‘Til You See These Curves – The teasing headline compels people to click and see those curves. So what basically you could do, is not just used some famous people, but also write powerful and intriguing headlines as well as offer some secrets, tips, tricks or inside information.

Be aware of your audience

The third one is Business Insider. With the number of readers they have, you would never thought that it’s a blog. But it is. And now they are bigger than its rival CNBC and Forbes. What is they secret? They know their audience perfectly, like the time that their audience could spend on reading their articles, what is the most interesting for them. As they did careful research about this, they started to use engaging headlines for those who love business news, are curious, but as well like celebrities, clothing tops and cool start-ups.

So what you should do first, is to carefully describe your targeted audience and think how you should improve your blog: should you write more frequently, longer post, put more images, do more social promotion, create better headlines. It is a critical thing to do to the success of any marketing effort, especially content marketing.

See also: 7 things to do after writing a blog post

So if you want to improve your blog, maybe it’s not the design that is wrong in it. Try to adjust these simple principles and probably soon you will see the amazing results.

See more: How to maximize your social network with minimum time

Let’s begin with an easy ones!

Vertical Pictures

When uploading a picture, think over that it’s more comfortable to view picture if it’s vertical. Try to use only that kind of pictures.

Schedule Pins

There are many devices to schedule your pins like Ahalogy, so that your followers would see your pins throughout the whole day.

Descriptive File Name

The descriptive name is the one that pin will be automatically given, so make sure it fits and introduce people your blog.

Featured posts

Make one board only for your pins and make sure it is easily noticeable that it belong to you. These picture will promote your blog, as they will show people what to expect in your blog.

Profile page

Followers might judge you by seeing your Pinterest account page, so do your 3-4 rows of boards with precision. They should accurately reflect your style and blog’s topic.

Pinning

Pin your pictures to all the categories that it fits, just make sure you do this at different times.

Appealing Graphics

Look carefully does your picture looks well on Pinterest – have nice graphics with words that are visually appealing as well as contains the information that that attracts the people to click on it.

Publicize

Put the link of your Pinterest in every media that you think it fits. Try to put it in your email signature or closing of a blog post.

Collaborative boards

You can join a collaborative boards to enhance your blog popularity. If you see the board that you would like to join, just write for its owner and ask maybe you can join it.

See also: How to create a perfect blog post

Use these tips and you will feel the rhythm of you Pinterest soon. It not necessarily require using them all, maybe you will need just few of them. But be consistent and don’t give up. Because it doesn’t look like Pinterest is going to stop growing and neither should you!

See also: How to create a perfect blog post

Your niche

Find something you are passionate about. Don’t blog about something unless you have a unique perspective. If you’ve embraced simple living and have a unique perspective, then by all means have at it. Enjoy yourself. If the blog is for the business, you should think about your average customer’s passion.

Result and goals

It should be one of the first things you do before starting a blog – decide what is your goals and what kind of results you want to achieve. It’s the best to do it at the beginning as the results will keep you motivated to keep going on.

Ideal reader

Think about his age, sex, hobbies and occupations. And these things will let you decide how much time he can spend on your blog and for what kind of reason he will benefit from your blog. These answers will help you to make easy schedule for the articles and their content.

Value for the reader

It’s the only reason why people will read it. Think about it carefully and clearly identify those reasons. Built a content constantly checking them up.

Storytelling

The unique voice of the writer is the main thing that separates blogs from other sources of information. So be yourself, or get a unique voice of telling a stories. The important part of the story telling, however, is removing the superfluous details that make the story uninteresting. A great storyteller removes 99% of what really happens – the absorptive details – and leaves the interesting 1% for the reader.

Building a brand

Choose on the certain colors and  also on fonts (more about your web design read here). Draw a sketch of your usual blog post – where will be the pictures, what paragraphing you will use. All the technical details should be taught over before you start building it. Nevertheless, make a logo, which will include all your main colors and will represent your idea.

Illustrations

That may sound a little bit not so important, but believe me, this is the thing you should be concern about really seriously. Making a content it’s usually not so hard, when you love the thing you are doing, the illustration thing can be more complicated. You should thing over where do you get the pictures, how you edit theme (to make brand image consistent) and how often do you get those. This information will strongly influence the schedule of your posts.

Social media

Decide on social platforms. Now there are plenty of them and to manage all them will take some time. So we would advise you to pick tree the best for you blog depending on its context. However, still it’s good to bookmark them in sites like: digg, Stumbleupon, del.icio.us. While promoting them, use the keywords. Make them more specific and by putting the same keywords everywhere try to own them.

Connections

And finally, after you’ve built your blog, don’t forget to communicate. Always respond to readers, visit others’ blogs and communicate with bloggers from your niche. Join groups on social media that are connected to your topic. Share useful and relevant posts from other blogs. People will love you for that.

See also: Marketers’ techniques to attract customers

Now you have the guidelines. So start a blog without doubts and enjoy the benefits of it.

See also: How to create a perfect blog post

Persuade the reader

There four principles of persuasion that have been proven to influence people. First, people defer to experts. It sound kind of truth when Guinness says “Guinness is good for you”. Second, people believe in social proves. Kitekat says “8 out of 10 owners said their cats preferred it”. Third, people act on their commitmets, so it works when they say “Like x? You’ll love Y!” Finally, people want what they can’t have. American Express says “Quite frankly, the American Express card is not for everyone…”.

Use right structure

Right ideas and write words is not enough, what is also very important is the right order. So choose a structure that leads the reader from self-interest to action. One of the structure is to describe the problem people have and then position a product as a solution to it. Second structure can be tell a story. Telling a story about how the product was used and how it let to achieve the goals can be very beneficial. Ask and answer the reader’s most likely questions in order like “What is it?” “How does it work” “Why can’t I just..?” Finally, try to speak from the several different people’s point of view.

Know how to write informational pieces

The structure should be organized thematically. Answer the reader’s likely questions, in order. For the best design and layout use informative cross-headings so people can scan and jump in. Choose all the visual tools to enhance readability such as bullets, tables, diagrams, graphs. Talking about tone and length use the words, which would you use for 10 years old kid and make it as short as it could be, but no shorter.

See also: Marketers’ techniques to attract customers

Being a copywriter means not just you should know how to put words into grammatically right order, but as well you should understand people psychology. And if you just can’t come up with idea, imagine yourself as a customer – what would crab your attention.

See also: How to create a social media marketing plan. Part 1

Morning

While taking your train/bus or metro to work try to do three things: write your ideas to Evernote, read some content on Zite, catch some podcasts on downcast.

Mornings are a creative time. Don’t miss it. Shortly after you arrive to work, let’s create some content, kick of a marketing campaign and schedule everything out for the day.

Around mid-morning is the best time to monitor your keywords. Also, you should “eat some snacks” of social media: read Feefly, share using buffer and interact on Hootsuite, Sprout social or Nimble.

Mid-day

Having your lunch, you can do some catch-up of sites you follow. You can use Flipboard which is an alternative to Zite. It’s a really nice user interface and great way of catching up on content.

While having your mid-afternoon coffee, check your Disqus. It’s a great commenting system that send you notifications about comments in WordPress. Go back to Hootsuite, which check every mentioning of your brand in internet. And check some Grouphigh – the gadget that help you outreach the relevant blogs to build your relationship with.

Don’t forget to do some sports, because as the saying says – healthy body, healthy mind. But while running you can also improve yourself by listening your latest podcast. Here are some ideas what you can listen to: Entrepreneur on Fire, Marketing Profs, Amy Porterfield, Social Media Examiner.

Evening

You are so tempted to check some twitter while sitting in front of TV, but if you so tired that you just can’t hold the tablet, maybe don’t. Mind needs some rest. Better after some relaxation, check some data before sleep. That’s the time you check your traffic on google analytics, see who was on your site with Kissmetrics and check your Pinterest stats with Tailwind.

See also: How to create a social media marketing plan. Part 2

The trick with social media is that how much you would use it, you still feel that you haven’t done enough. But if you use the right tools and processes this can save a lot of time.

See also: How to create a social media marketing plan. Part 1

Posting strategy

There are dozens of questions connected with posting: What to post? When to post? Where to post? And so on.  But the answer to them all is more personal and it’s mainly depends on your niche and audience. The thing that is the same for any niche is pictures. They are ruling the social media right now and every social platform becomes more beneficial if you use it with pictures.

Despite that you can begin with a strategy like this: start with a basic five types of updates we all post (links, images, quotes, reshares, plain-text updates). Than choose a “staple” update, a single type that will make up the majority of your posts. Finally create a 4:1 ratio of sharing: for every four “staple” updates, publish one different type for variety. This way followers know what to expect from you and as well you could do some experimenting. Just consider to develop the message according to social media.

 Analyze, test, and iterate

When you decided on the posting strategy, it’s time to see how it’s going on. This is a research faze which will explain you what works for you and what doesn’t. Using some analytics is mandatory (google, buffer). Than find your average – how much is the average clicks, shares and so on. It will be your benchmark which will let you know if your new ideas helps you or takes you down.

Engage

Now you just have to automatize your work and continue doing your strategy every day. The other thing you should consider is to keep some time for your customers. They will write comments or will start discussion and you should keep in mind that it’s too important to ignore.

See also: New social network trends you should know

So this is it, now you are prepared to rock the social media world. Just keep in mind, that in social media there are no strict rules how to act, you can always try to improve things, do something different and check how the audience react to it. Who knows maybe you will be the one who will create a new shocking formula for concurring the social media.

See also: How to maximize your social network with minimum time

Decide on social media

Now there are plenty of social networks to fit every business. So you should choose the social networks that best fit your strategy and the goals you want to achieve on social media.  The things that can help you to decide on social media is time, resources and audience. See how much time you can devote to prepare the material for social network. Then be acknowledge by the resources you have – like do you have more pictures, or more of information, is that information is quality one or more casual. And the most important do some little survey to decide where your potential audience gathers, which social media works the best for you platform.

Do a perfect profile

Do a monthly check for your public profile: make sure your avatar, cover photo, bio or profile info is up-to-dated. There are two parts of profile that should always be considered: visual and text. For visual part try to be always consistence. Make sure that all the photos on your social media platforms look alike. About the text, try to say what you are and not what you’ve done. Don’t use buzzwords and make sure that it would look beneficial to your followers to be connected with you. And don’t forget to be personal – social media is for that.

Find you voice and tone

Finding your voice in social media it’s not easy, but to do that it’s worth efforts, because you will be noticed and distinguished only by this. How to do that – the question may occur to you. There some questions that need to be answered by yourself. First, if your brand would be a person what kind of personality would it has. If it would be a person, what kind of relations it would have to consumer (friends, family, etc). Secondly, describe in adjectives what your company’s personality is not. Thirdly, check are there any companies that have a similar personality to yours? Why they look alike? And finally, how do you want your customers to think about your company. So after this you will have bunch of adjectives that should always be with you while creating social media plan.

See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

Now that you have some guidelines, you can start preparing for your big debut. But just before starting we would strongly advise you to wait for other part of tips. You won’t be disappointed.

See also: How to become an expert of Instagram

10 minutes for Facebook

Spent 5 minutes to post something relevant with your area on the wall. The other 5 minutes spend on interacting: commenting, sharing or liking posts relevant to your area. Feel free to experiment with post style to stand out.

10 minutes for twitter

Make 6-8 post per day including some tips, statistics or wit. Remember, this platform is to build brand image and keep at the forefront of consumers’ minds.

10 minutes for Google+

You might think that google+ is not useful, but here is the communities of every subject, where you can promote your blog or website. Also, an active Google+ profile is great for search engine optimization.

5 minutes for LinkedIn

Here you can post industry-relevant news in feed or link back to your professional blog. One post per day is enough.

5 minutes for Instagram

Post one picture a day. It can feature your product, reveal your working environment, local scenery or others behind-the-scene details. All social media is image driven, so link these images across multiple platforms.

10 minutes for Pinterest

Post once per day linking to your page. And also create boards that a connected to your area of interest, so that you would be easily find by others. Pinterest is a major driver of Internet traffic. Have pics link back to professional blog/site.

10 minutes for Reddit

Spend 10 minutes in Reddit and join their forum discussions.

See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

So now that you have to do is stick to the plan and keep doing this every day.

See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

Create your story

Decide what visual theme you want to represent as a brand. And keep with it. Always ask yourself is it communicate the same message. Also, make sure that your photo gives value to your followers. Try to make a story out of your products that will caught your audience’s interest.

Create your content

High resolution photo is important and appropriate filter as well. Use editing apps and combine them with Instagram ones. Product images should feature the product in 2/3rds of the picture. Also, don’t just post a product, post a reason to buy a product!

Sharing is important

Try to post your photos on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays – it’s the best days. Don’t add to much hashtags, but also not to little – 11 of them is just perfect. And try to mix them, use brand specific ones combined with industry and trendy ones.

Combine your platforms

The best things about Instagram that it has a connection with Facebook. Share every photo on Facebook. As well, try to share it on other social platforms like Pinterest, Google plus. And nevertheless, don’t forget your website or blog!

Nurture your following

As well as putting hashtags you also should use them yourself. Find relevant users in your niche by search. To extend your reach follow influencers, engagers and other brands.

Follow 5/3/1 rule

It says that you should find one person in your niche, like five pictures of his, comment three photos and that’s how you gain one follower!

Engage people

Add relevant question in your caption that encourage to comment. Reply to all the comment and start a hashtag campaign featuring it in your photos.

See also: How to raise your Instagram followers

So these are the main principles what you should do, but take time to thing them over and to decide on the style which you want to keep. Because once you’ll start, there won’t be way back.

See also: 14 things that your LinkedIn must have

Social platforms

Pinterest is new one of the favorite’s social platforms in the world. Its popularity grows so fast that is hard even to notice it. With page views up 210 percent in just the last three months, the site cements the importance of using high-quality, sharable images in web content.

Facebook also adjusted to image-based social media. They make more space in the timeline for the pictures and a huge cover photo make images an important draw for use attention.

Instagram is a new mania. That’s not surprising that Facebook was even willing to buy it for one billion dollar! Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg commented on the importance of images in the site’s future, saying “Providing the best photo-sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook, and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together”.

How images affect article

Of course, images are good for every kind of article, because it boost that content’s page views. But as well researches show that certain categories benefit more from having images than others, it’s news content, political content and sports content.

How images affect press material

The amount of view have really strong bonds with multimedia that you include. So to get the most out of you images you should add other multimedia that complements your press release and images in different ways.

How images affect local search

Researches shows that consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business that has an image show up in local search results. So choosing a high-quality photo of your business or products instead of company logo is the best choice.

How images affect e-commerce

Customers says that the quality of a product’s image is more important than products specific information, long description, ratings and reviews.

How images affect social engagement

Analysis say that Facebook posts with photos have the highest user engagement than any other post.

See also: Everything you should know about hashtags

To sum up, images affect almost all the areas in social network. So be picky on them, choose gorgeous, high-quality images that people will really want to share and you will definitely win out of it.