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How Blogging Can Grow A Business

How Blogging Can Grow A Business

Do you have a blog on your website?

  • Why should you have a blog?
  • Not enough time to blog?
  • What’s the point of blogging?
  • I can’t write blog posts

Which question are you asking right now?

Some small business owners struggle with keeping up with a blog on top of everything else they have to [usually] solely manage.

And larger organisations don’t always use the resources they have to create a blog as their teams are busy doing other things.

BUT having a blog on your website is extremely beneficial for these reasons…

  • A blog drives traffic to your website
  • Traffic turns into leads
  • Provide knowledge and expertise and create authority
  • Help solve problems, whilst building trust
  • Build relationships with fellow readers
  • Boost social media efforts
  • Blogging is an amazing way to drive traffic to your website and increase your SEO

Here at KJP Creative we use our blog to help answer questions that people are asking, in order to give them value and help them in their online marketing journey. It ticks more than one box when it comes to engaging with an audience, answering the common questions that customers have, and providing content that can help other business owners in topics that they may be contemplating within their business.

Blogging also helps us to keep up to date with relevant news and trends, and keeps us on our toes in terms on knowledge and expertise. We also love to be able to share how-to’s, advice and tips with our audience, which is a great way to engage with people who are searching for solutions.

 

how can blogging grow your business? KJP Creative

Blogging is a must for SEO

Absolutely, search engine optimisation helps to create fresh and exciting new content on a regular basis and will do wonders for Google! It will help to raise your profile, get you appearing in more search results, and help to improve that search listing. Want to be on page 1 of Google… get blogging!

 

Create fresh blogs / content

When we say ‘fresh’ content, that’s what we mean, not just updating a few lines on a page or swapping out an image, we mean creating regular new pages with lots of juicy content that the search engines can use when people are searching online for your products or services.

 

Use keywords in your blog posts

Ensure that you’re using keywords within your content and that it is all relevant to what you are writing about, however, the last thing you want to do is create top heavy keywords throughout the whole post, without relevance to the specific content. It will not work! Research your topic, understand the audience and what they might be looking for and typing into Google when they’re searching for a topic. Use free keyword tools to generate ideas to help you incorporate these into your posts.

 

Always use good blog titles and headlines

Again, a must when it comes to blogs and articles on your website. You want the post to be found and by creating a title that is directly what someone maybe searching for, gives you more of a chance to be found. This is also said for the meta data that goes with title. What people see and read on their search feed will determine whether or not they will click through.

What will entice them, what will make them click, what urgency or interest can you serve them in order for them to choose your post over another?

Having a blog on your website and utilising specific keywords gives so much more opportunity for your business to be discovered and also when it is, providing information-rich content will go a long way in establishing trust and reputation for your brand.

 

Not sure what to blog about?

If you’d like to blog but not sure where to start, why not make a list of all the questions that people ask you within your business. These questions can be turned into full blown answers, which can be written, structured to incorporate other links and helpful advice, and put onto your website.

If you’ve not got the time to blog, that’s ok. Many businesses don’t create the content themselves but instead they use people have. This is a perfectly normal practice for business owners of all sizes. Content creators are experienced in researching a given topic and finding the best way of putting this down in writing for others to read and act upon. Perhaps you’ve got lots of topic ideas but simply don’t have the time to put it into action – outsourcing your blog is definitely a solution.

There’s always a way if you want to make blogging happen and to give your business the extra credibility it deserves -, and with the added bonus that blogging is such a great way to boost SEO and search result listing, you’d be mad not to take advantage 😆

 

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more out blog and content marketing services.

In the meantime, why not download our free social media checklist to help ensure you’re ticking all the boxes when it comes to your social media marketing… enjoy!

 

social media checklist free download

 

Be Passionate In Your Marketing

Be Passionate In Your Marketing

Our social media news feeds are filled to overflowing of posts and articles that half of the time are pointless to us. There is so much content out there that it can be really hard to make an impact or float your business above everything else that is going on out there. But there is a way for you to be proud of your posts and make people more aware of you and your brand – and that’s by being passionate about your business.

Let’s be honest, it’s quite easy to put a quick Facebook post together and put it out there in the hope that someone will see it but it’s not as easy to create a post that is going to get noticed and create a reaction.

We need to stop ‘just putting posts out there’ and start being passionate about our brand, the products or services that we produce and put our enthusiasm into the content. There was a reason you started your business, there is a reason why you believe in what you’re doing, there is a reason why you want people to work with you. You have a story to tell, you have a drive and motivation that you want to get out there… and that’s the ammunition that you need to use in order to create a result.

Start with yourself and your story

This is a good place to start, from the beginning. What made you passionate about what you’re doing? How did the whole business get started and how has it built to where it is today? Take your customers / followers on a journey or getting to know the real you. Let them gain enthusiasm like you do and take them through all that you love, say, do in order to really understand everything that you’re doing. You want to create a bond, a trust with your audience and you want them to love your brand as much as you do.

Speak with relevance

As we said, anyone can create a quick Facebook post but does it have meaning, is it true to your business, will it inspire or educate someone, does it reflect your brand? All these things make up what a post should include. It needs to speak to your ideal audience, not your next door neighbour or family member. Don’t put up a post that has no meaning or relevance to your business, you can do this on your personal profiles, but stick to relevant content that your readers are going to want to hear.

Be passionate in your social media content

Create eye-catching content

We’re not all brilliant graphic designers but there are many (free) tools out there that can help. If you’ve not yet discovered Canva, we suggest you take a look! The perfect space for you to create images to the right size, with the right feel, utilising templates, colours, fonts and more to speak to your audience. There are many pre-made templates to inspire you and if you simply don’t have an eye for design, you can use these as your own. There are also many royalty free stock image sites that you can make use of too. The image you choose for your social media posts are going to be the stopping point, or not, for your readers. If they like the image, they’ll stop to read what you have to say.

Use thought-provoking copy

Just like the image, your copy should make someone have a reaction. Whether you are trying to make them smile, laugh, cry or think, touching a reader’s emotion will create an impact. By understanding your audience and knowing what they are looking for, you’ll have a better understanding of what to put in your posts. Create emotion, empathy, use real-life illustration or examples – touch hearts and minds by what you write.

Use call-to-actions

You don’t need to do this in every post but the way to create engagement is to tell your readers what you want them to do after reading your post. Do you want them to comment, to share, to click through to a website? Ask them to! In most cases you need to ask someone to go to the next step in order for them to do it. It’s not cheeky and don’t feel guilty about asking people to do things – use your social media in the best way possible to get people to know, like and trust you – if that’s by giving them something further to follow or read, that’s fine!

 

With everything you create online, be sure to keep it branded, relevant and inspirational. You want your content to stand out and you need people to engage, as that’s what social media is all about! The key to growing your business, seeing an increase in sales, building a following and creating a sustainable business is in the engagement. When you’ve established how to get people to interact and engage, you’re on the right path to seeing the rest fall into place.

If you’d like help with creating a strategy or social media marketing plan that will keep your audience coming back for more, we’d love to talk. We’re online marketing specialist who love to get social, love to get to know your business and want to help you create a successful, engaging brand online. Get in touch today!

In the meantime, why not download our social media checklist – don’t forget the basics to get you started. It’s FREE! 👇

 

social media checklist free download

 

What’s The Point Of Social Media Marketing For Business?

What’s The Point Of Social Media Marketing For Business?

We’ve all heard it said by someone; “What’s the point in social media marketing?”, you’ve probably even said it yourself at some point. But as a business owner there is absolutely point in making an effort to showcase your brand online through the power of the many social media platforms there are to hand.

Not every platform is going to be relevant or applicable to your business. Not everyone has time to spend creating fantastic eye-catching content to spread across social media. But the point of the matter is, it is a necessity in today’s digital world that a business needs to be online in order to be heard.

  • But where do you start when it comes to online marketing?
  • How do you create great posts, especially if design or creativity is not your strong point?
  • When and where do you post and how do you manage it all?
  • Why should you bother?

Lots of questions and all that have some great answers which we’ll cover in this post.

Here at KJP Creative we believe that you must have a passion and drive for your business in order to believe in it. There’s absolutely no point pursing a business venture if you don’t believe in it. And this is the same for your social media content, your online presence along with everything else that you do and say when you meet others. Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people turned to online resources to stay afloat and to keep their business going. And things are not going to stop here as the world heads back to normality – this has changed the way of business, this has created such an impact on the online world that you need to be in it and with it to be noticed.

We’ve said it before, but those who are visible and adding value through everything that has happened, will be the ones who are remembered when it stops. This is applicable to any pandemic, not just Coronavirus, it’s about standing out, creating a safe place for people to find out about you and providing value to every person that you come into contact with – both online and offline.

Is there point to social media marketing for business owners?

Where do you start?

You need to start with your audience. Our coaching courses dig deeper into this but we fully believe that in order to know where to start, what to say and who to say it to, you need to understand your audience and be confident that the content you produce is what is needed in a very noisy and busy advertising world.

Get to know and understand your audience. Research everything you can about their likes and dislikes, their needs and problems. What they want to hear or see. What would make them buy from a business? Put yourself in their shoes and think as they would – what would make you buy from you?

Along with this, there’s probably other brands that are doing exactly what you’re trying to do too – so use this, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. As well as researching your audience, research your competitors. What works for them? What type of content do they produce? What are they saying, who are they reaching, what are they giving or providing? What works for them may work for you too, so take note and use what you can.

How do you create great social media content?

Not everyone is artistic or creative, we get that, so how can you produce great content if (you think) you’re not good at it?

There are a few ways to look at this question. First off, you can learn! There are plenty of free tools out there to help and that are great resources to help you get started. We absolutely love Canva and wouldn’t be without it. There’s a free version so you don’t need to pay out to get started and you can experiment and play with the variations in order to create some images and content that goes with your branding.

 

What's the point of social media as a business? Should you bother - YES! KJP Creative

The most important tip we can give you in this is stay true to what your brand is about and use the inspirations inside of you to think of ideas.

What is your brand about? What’s your story? What are your beliefs or values?

These are the types of things you can be thinking of when you want to put a (for example) Facebook post together. Find an image that says what you’re thinking of, something that says exactly what you’d like to say if you didn’t have words. Then think about the wording that would go with your post, for the text on your chosen social platform. Your image and text should go hand in hand, not contradict each other and be inspirational or educational to your audience.

Even if you think you don’t have a creative bone in your body, you know what you like, you know your business better than anyone and you can use this to create content that is unique to you and your brand.

The second answer to this question is that you can outsource. We all have our strong and weak points and you may find after a few attempts of creating content that it really isn’t for you – that’s ok! You don’t have to be good at everything. And this is something that as a small business owner you can get het up about and struggle with. Stick to what you’re good at and let an expert take over this section of your business for you. You’ll see a much better return of investment by doing so, and you’ll be less stressed and relieved at the whole process.

Example: Talking to a hairdresser who was in a similar situation, who really wanted to be online and creating a fantastic social media presence – but she simply didn’t have the time or the energy to do it well and make it successful. She worked out that if she did one extra set of highlights (or whatever service it was!) a week – and for her it was doing what she loved and using her own skills – she could outsource her online marketing for the month. Result.
How much better is your business going to be if you’re filling the holes with the right sized pegs?

 

scheduling social media for business owners - be productive and effective

 

How do you manage it all?

This is a good question and social media or online marketing needs to have a strategy and a plan of action. This is fundamental to making it successful and doing your best to make it work well. Many people post content for the sake of it, or rush it at the end of the day when they realise that nothing has been posted that day. But what good is that to your audience if you’re not a) consistent or b) putting thought or value into what you’re providing?

Planning is key. Organisation is key. And that’s why we love our Social Media and Marketing Strategy Planner – it’s a wonderful resource to ensure you’re heading in the right direction, you’re making notes and building up a plan of action and you can see ahead to what’s coming and what needs to be done. Yes it takes time and dedication but as with anything, if you’re going to do something, you should do it well.

There are scheduling tools that you can use to manage your posts and to make it easier to create content ahead of time, the last think you want to do is be on your social media channels all day every day, you’d never get anything else done! That’s where a planner comes in which works with your business plan and marketing strategy. Everything comes together to form a smooth social media presence that will help your business be noticed, become loved and trusted and in turn, successful.

 

So why should you bother with social media marketing?

We hope that you want your business to grow, to flourish and to be loved. If you’re a small independent business, do you want people in your local community to hear about you and to use your products or services?

Did you start your business with the mindset that you’d like to see it bigger than just the little startup that you began with, or do you see it stagnate and fizzle out and die? Probably not!

You have a passion to see results. You have drive to be successful in your ventures. You want a successful business, something that you can be proud of, something that will pay the bills (and more) and something that you will get you known within your industry / sector and allow you to become an expert in your field – right?

Your social media presence will help you get there and achieve these things. Raising brand awareness is not always an easy task but with the help of social media, it’s lot easier than it used to be!

Are you using social media for your freelance business?

We hope that you have that passion and desire to want to succeed and realise that online marketing should be part of your business growth strategy in order to make that a possibility. If you’d like to find out more or talk to us about strategy and planning, we’d love to help. Get in touch and let’s have a conversation. Speak soon!

In the meantime why not download our “Social Media Checklist – don’t forget the basics” which hopefully will help you think about the basics of what social media entails and provide you with a checklist of what you can do. If you want to talk through anything, feel free to contact us, we’re here to help at the click of a button.

 

social media checklist free download

 

 

5 Steps To Engaging on Social Media as a Business

5 Steps To Engaging on Social Media as a Business

With social media being the most popular way for people to communicate with a business, it is a given that businesses need to be responsive and interact on social media to keep their customers and audience engaged. A place where consumers can discover more about a brand, learn more about a product or service and get to know and trust a business before making a purchase.

The growing popularity of social media makes it an essential place for businesses to be and to reach their audience right where they are. It provides a faster and more personal touch to any conversation and allows the follower to feel cared for and part of a community. However, there are some rules and things that you can adhere to, to ensure that you’re covering the right basis and interacting in a positive way.

 

 

Post valuable content

Whatever social media content you produce needs to (and should always) produce value. Personal profiles are the place where other non-business things can be shared and talked about, but when it comes to your business profile, your customers want to see that they can rely on you giving value and being supportive when they need it. Whether you’re giving an inspirational quote or sharing a tip or advice, make sure that your followers can benefit from it.

It doesn’t always have to be something that you have written, this is called curated content. If another business or industry expert has written a relevant and valuable blog post, why not share this to your audience? Tip: You can use other people’s content to grow your own brand awareness!

 

Show some personality with your voice

You are your brand, yes, but the voice that you portray across social media content should reflect the right tone for your business. People will see through split personalities and conflicts of interests – be true to your brand, the core values that you believe in and the way you want your business to be seen and heard.

Create a voice across social media where you can be yourself and give a good impression of every aspect of your business. Your unique voice is your authenticity and is essential in speaking to the right people, engaging with the right people and reaching the people that are going to want to grow with you and the brand.

Creating your unique voice will make you stand out in a crowded digital space, make you stand apart from the other businesses and competition, and increase your chances of being heard and appreciated, trusted and loved. Become known in a digital world that is fighting for attention by being authentic.

 

Keep your business alive by engaging and interacting on social media with our top 5 tips. KJP Creative

Keep your social media simple

There’s nothing worse than trying to jump on every social channel, keep up with the large organisations and compete with everyone out there – it’s not going to work! Keep your social media marketing simple, make it as easy as possible with the best possible results. Learning to be effective and efficient in your online marketing will make life a lot easier and will help control stress levels which can increase when someone tries to everything all at once.

If you establish that you need to be doing more and keeping up with bigger competition, or even that you’re not the right person to be doing the marketing (everyone has their strengths and weaknesses) then why not think about outsourcing your social media to a VA (virtual assistant) or a digital agency that has the resources and expertise to be productive and reach your business objectives.

When it comes to simply, start with sticking to the point in everything that you post – captions, images, text & copy – keep it simple and easy to manage. Once you start making it complicated and adding in extras, your audience will expect that every time and it is obviously harder to keep up with. Start small and increase as you have the time and skills to do so.

 

Monitor your social channels

There’s one thing to create a great social media plan and schedule every post for a month in advance, but it’s something else to monitor the reactions and engagements that come from those posts. Be reactive and responsive on the content; when someone comments, respond. When someone shares, thank them. When someone recommends, engage. At all times monitor your social media profiles along with other people’s content that mentions you – this is called social listening and is a very valuable tool.

 

Tailwind Visual Marketing Suite

Make the most of User Generated Content

Your followers and consumers are the people who drive your business forward, who are an influence to others seeking out your business and are the people that will help you build trust and confidence with new customers.

UGC not something that is essential in your social media strategy but always an action that will help.

When someone shouts out about your business – engage with them and share their posts on your social channels. Their reviews, experiences, journey with your business can be shown to other people looking in – utilise User Generated Content wherever possible. Not only will it help with finding a variation in your content, but it will provide insight and reassurance to others.

 

Above all when it comes to your online marketing efforts, be consistent and on the ball with everything. Diffuse controversy, especially when it’s something that effects your business or nature. When you say you’re going to post, post. When you get into a routine, be sure to keep it up – people expect what they are used to and can get despondent or bored if they feel let down. Be true to your brand and let your personality shine through in your content. Organise, plan and prepare everything – there’s always room to add in extras, but ensure you have your basis covered first.

 

How do you manage your interaction and engagement on social media? Are you finding that you’re not effective or productive? Do you love social media and have some success stories to share with your audience? Are you looking to outsource your online marketing so you can focus on other parts of your business? Do you need a marketing strategy to work towards? Whatever your situation, we’d love to listen or help you engage and interact with your online audience, feel free to get in touch and let’s talk!

 

In the meantime, our Social Media Checklist can help, you’re welcome to download our FREE resource to give you the first step up. Click the link below.

social media checklist free download

 

 

 

 

How Content Marketing Can Impact a Business?

How Content Marketing Can Impact a Business?

In order to understand how content marketing can impact a business, we need to understand what content marketing is and the benefits it can have on business owners.

 

What is content marketing?

According to the dictionary, content marketing is defined as: A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Another way of looking at it, is how the Content Marketing Institute put it: Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

The main thing to remember is that content marketing is about being educational and not all about selling a product.

 

What is content marketing good for? 

The reasons we look to content marketing is not ultimately to promote a product but about building a brand and reputation. Here are some other reasons:

  • To build an engaged and interested audience – making sure that you’re taking the people that you want to speak to and not generalising at anyone that will listen.
  • To educate customers – teaching your customers or potential customers about your business or industry.
  • To increase sales in the long-term.
  • To build a loyal customer base and create a brand that people will know, love and trust.

 

How can a business use content marketing effectively?

What do people know about your brand?

If you search Google or the search engines for you / your business, what do you find?
This can be a great exercise as you get to see what other people can find out about you.
Do you like what you find? Are you surprised by the results that you find?

By building on your content marketing, you can start to create a base and substance for what people are going to find when they do their due diligence and research your business. You can start to get control over the content people find about you. And the more good content you create, the more reputable your business will become.

 

Practice – Patience – Persistence

It can be easy to get worked up when you don’t get it right all the time but that’s just part of the process (and a part of life!). Not everyone is good at creating great content, but you will get better if you keep practicing, have patience and are persistent in your approach.

Results will happen when you have patience. But you have to be consistent and persistent. Don’t forget that if you really find that you’re not great after all at content marketing, there are people there ready to help. Outsourcing marketing is a common occurrence and just means that you’re looking after the interests of your business, focusing on what you do best and allowing an expert to take care of the other stuff.

Understand your business goals

understand your business goals and mission statement when it comes to creating engaging content for small business marketing

Producing content for the sake of it will not get you anywhere fast, it will just increase stress, workload and worry about not producing results. Every piece of content should be created with a business goal in mind. Although this may seem a long process, for everything you produce, ensure that it aligns with a business goal and establish how it is going to benefit your long or short-term goals.

Consider your business goals, where do you ultimately want to get to, and think about how your content can contribute towards achieving them…

  • Raising brand awareness
  • Build an email list / customer base
  • Provide a good customer journey and experience
  • Upsell existing customers
  • Help customers to be an advocate of your brand

 

Understand your mission and values

Just as you did with your business goals, each piece of content has got to be in line with your mission and values. There is absolutely no point in creating content that goes against what you believe, or doesn’t sit right with the people you want to reach, or even with the values that you promote. Your content needs to true to what your brand is about.

Consider your values or mission and how your content can contribute towards aligning with these:

  • Who can you help the most with your content?
  • What type of information can you provide?
  • What is the desired outcome with the content that you’re producing?

 

Understand your business goals, mission and values as a small business

 

What type of content can you use?

There are a wide range of resources that you can use to create your content marketing ideas, way to many to list but back to what we said at the beginning, all content must be educational or informational – not selling a product. Therefore the list can begin with:

  • Books / ebooks
  • Webpages / websites
  • Infographics
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Blogs
  • How to’s
  • Surveys

And the list can go on. There is so much content that you create to build your brand, without directly selling.

But the question may come down to what you love to do, what you enjoy doing, what makes you smile and sits right with you personally. Looking at the list about, what jumps out at you and makes you think “yes I can produce that”? These are the things you need to start with. It doesn’t have to be hard, it just has to be true to your brand.

The more you start to think about writing or creating content that adds value rather than selling, the easier it will become. In all you do, the audience should feel like they’re receiving value, or being looked after.

 

What type of content can you use when it comes to content marketing for a small business?

 

Implementing the process

Once you’ve established what content marketing is how you can add value to your audience, it comes down to implementing it into your marketing strategy. Social media plays a big part in today’s society in reaching a wide and engaging audience and is often the best way to market to your customers. Build your content ideas into your social media strategy, creating a solid foundation for your business to gain respect, become reputable and trusted within your chosen niche. The more solid and authentic your content is, the more people will become to trust you, in turn becoming loyal and valued customers.

As we mentioned before, great content can increase your brand awareness, it can help build an audience that is interested in what you are about and ultimately it can lead to long-term sales and business growth.

If you’d like to get started with content marketing but are still unsure of how to get off the ground, or would like to look at outsourcing, we’d love to chat with you. Contact us today – let’s talk marketing!

And in the meantime if you’re looking to create engaging content around some of the issues that are important to your audience, why not download our free 2020 Awareness Days Calendar – it’s always good to have new ideas to share!

We look forward to hearing from you.

Get your FREE copy of our social media awareness days for 2020 - download now!

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