Erich Stauffer

Tag: Blogging

  • How to Write Blog Posts Like General Motors Makes Cars

    General Motors pushes a new car off of their assembly line once every minute, but it takes 2 months in total to make a car. How is that possible and how does that apply to writing blog posts?

    To use another example, the online retailer, The Grommet, launches a new product every day, but it takes them two months to prepare for a single launch. How can both timelines be true?
    A New Way of Thinking about Blogging
    What if I told you that you could publish a new blog post every day by only working one day a week? Would that interest you? What if you didn’t have to do it in one day, but could stretch it out?
    The reason why General Motors and The Grommet and you can do all of these things is because of the power of batching work. Instead of building one thing at a time, each sub-task is batched.
    The idea is that each sub-task can be optimized by not having to get your workspace and mindset setup for working a particular task before putting it away and switching to the next part of the process.
    Playing Devil’s Advocate
    However, there are also studies that have showed that when a human is tasked with making something with multiple steps that in the short run it’s actually faster to finish each item instead of batching.
    There are also advantages to building something to completion if time is a critical element. If you only have a short time to do something, it’s better to get 1 thing done than 1000 unfinished things done.
    However, I have found that there is a difference between physically building something to completion and doing the mental work of creating a blog post due to the cost of task switching between the different steps.
    How to Batch Creating Blog Posts
    Writing a blog post is actually a series of several different, distinct steps:
    1. Determining what to write about – this could include browsing BuzzSumo, news sites, or Google Trends to see what people are interested in; it could also include asking customer support or the social media marketing team for what questions they’ve been getting or seeing online lately
    2. Researching a topic – once you’ve determined what to write about, it’s time to research the topic to see what sort of angle you can bring to the story. You want to add value to the conversation. One way to do that is to find an answer to a problem someone has (where our product is the answer).
    3. Writing the first draft – this process could involve two steps of writing an outline and then going back and filling it in or you could write it all down as fast as possible. The goal of this step is not to write a finished draft, but only to write as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
    4. Editing the first draft – after you’ve given yourself some time, come back and (or have someone else) review your work. Don’t be afraid to delete things you’ve written. Your words are not your babies. Some writers even go so far as to delete their entire first paragraph. Edit for grammar.
    5. Editing the second draft – after some time has passed, go back through and edit for readability and SEO. Make sure it flows in the right order, has the right sub-headers, and has the right amount of keywords and internal and external links, and also make sure it has a call to action.
    6. Finding images to use – I add this as a distinct step because it’s a different mindset and skill to find an image for use with a blog. There are different ways to do this from searching Dropbox, to asking the Marketing department, to taking a photo yourself, to making an image, to stock photos.
    7. Publish the blog post – when a blog post is published, there are several things to consider such as what the title of the blog post is, what URL is used, what the description of the blog post is, what thumbnail is used, what tags are applied, and when the blog post will be published.
    8. Promoting the blog post – this step could be as little as handing off the URL of the new blog post to the social media marketing department or it could be doing the posting yourself to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You could also make a custom graphic of the post for Instagram.
    9. Repurposing the blog post – [optional] once you have the blog post created, then you can record yourself with some b-roll cut in reading the blog post in your webcam. The resulting video could then be uploaded to YouTube. In this way each blog post could also become a video.
    10. Aggregating the blog post – [optional] once you have a series of blog posts, they can be combined into an ebook and sold on Amazon or used as a giveaway to attract new email subscribers or as a free gift in an email newsletter.
    If you did all of these steps in one day, you would likely be worn out from all of the task switching. But if you could spend one day doing step 1 and found 20 things to write about, that would be one month’s worth of blog posts. On day 2 you would spend all day doing step 2 for all 20 blog posts. By the end of the second week you’d have 20 blog posts published one month in advance and scheduled on social media.

     

  • How to Get Started as a Freelance Marketer

    Recently I got asked how to start freelancing doing marketing with a focus on social media, email marketing, and blogger outreach:

    Hey Erich! So I’m trying to venture out on my own with freelance marketing specially focusing on social media, email marketing and blogger outreach. Joy mentioned you might be able to give me some tips on how you got your clients so I thought I would ask!!

    Yeah, I agree with Joy. That’s a great idea. When I first started all I had was a website and that worked for a while, but that’s not enough anymore. You’ll have to be much more direct.

    I’d recommend identifying the type of customer you’d like to work for, something very specific you can do for them, and then be laser-focused on contacting them.

    For example, let’s say you wanted to sell your services to a business owner you know. You ask around, search the Internet, and you find their email address. Then you upload it to Facebook as a custom audience and make an ad that only appears on their Facebook feed.

    Another approach is to start to tell people stories about how you solved a problem and that you’re looking for other people to help in the same way. Use these stories on your website and in conversations with people you meet.

    That brings us to the third leg: networking. Find out where your customers meet outside of work and go there. Get involved. Tell your story. Offer value upfront. Give your best ideas away for free. If you have enough ideas, write a book down (10-40k words is enough) and have it printed at createspace.com. Now you’re an expert. You wrote a book on the subject.

    Host a live teaching event and charge people to show up. This is not to make money, but to show that your time is valuable and to filter out people who don’t have money.

    Lastly, there are lists where you can sign up to bid on marketing jobs such as thumbtack.com. Hope that helps.

    If you liked this post you might also like, How to Learn to Become a Blogger.

  • 5 Ways to Get Your Staff to Blog

    You’re not the only one with a blogging problem. Here’s how I’m overcoming the problem in the organizations I serve:

    1. Separation of duties: keep the writing, editing, picture creation or capture, posting, and promotion processes separate. Even if they are all done by the same person, you’ll get better results if they are all done as separate tasks.

    2. Internal interviewing: get staff members to interview other members about the topic and include the best excerpts as quotes in the blog post. This has a secondary effect of getting everyone more invested in the process.

    3. Schedule time for blogs: when leadership allows staff to block off time for blogging activities, the results are two-fold. It allows dedicated time to achieve the stated result and let’s the team know that management is aligned with the outcome.

    4. Measure the metrics: publicly record and distribute to the team the metrics you want to improve. For example, if you want more blog posts, track “# of blog posts per month”. Replace the metric with whatever element you want to improve.

    5. Make it interesting: attribute goals and rewards for stretch goals based on blogging metrics. For example, if “# of blog posts per month” exceeds the stated goal, the team gets to go out for lunch together ‘on the office’ as a fun gift.

    Need more tips on blogging for business? Need some help writing blog posts for your business? Email me.

  • Beginner Business Blogging

    What is Content Marketing?

    Content marketing is about educating potential customers over time, gaining trust, and establishing credibility. It does this by creating knowledgeable, interesting, and shareable content of value to the reader.

    Content marketing is the act of creating stories to promote your business. Every blog post, tweet, or email you send out is an asset your business now uses as part of it’s overall marketing platform.

    Once a blog post is created it can be repurposed, cross-referenced, or re-used in a variety of different ways. For example, a blog post could be summarized in an email, and then further summarized into a tweet. In the same way, a series of blog posts can be strung together as a white paper, a special report, or an ebook. Images created for blog posts can be pinned to Pinterest or used in a Slideshare.

    What-is-Content-Marketing

    As the business owner or expert in your field, you have acquired a ton of knowledge about your craft – that’s very valuable information and people will look to you for insight. Content marketing is a way to educate and help your clients and potential clients – all while boosting your profile and enhancing the value of your product.

    Why Building a Platform for Your Business is Important

    Let’s say you’ve just developed an awesome new product or service and you want to let the world know about it. How would you do it?

    You could pay to put the message out in a newspaper or magazine, you could post it on Facebook and pay to have it promoted, or you could publish it to your own platform for free.

    Why-Business-Platforms-are-Important

    A “platform” is the collection of business resources you own for the purpose of promoting your business. The central hub of this collection is your website, but primarily, your blog.

    If you were to build a house, would you build it on rented land? Your best assets should be built on your own platform, not one someone else runs. Those other sites can point back to the blog.

    That’s why having a blog is so important. It’s a critical part of your overall marketing platform. It serves as the hub for all social media, email marketing, and other promotional activities.

    In other words, your blog is kind of like your business itself, and should reflect it.

    Why Do I Teach Business Owners About Blogging?

    I believe that blogging is the single most important thing a business can do to gain more customers, streamline internal processes, and grow the business. But why do we teach it?

    Business owners create jobs that help people take care of their families. Our mission is to help people make more money and the best way we can do this is by helping businesses grow.

    Why-Do-We-Teach-Business-Blogging

    I have worked with large and small companies. I understand what it’s like to be just starting out and what it’s like to grow as an established company.

    I also understand how powerful stories can be to communicate your company’s value to current and prospective clients and how blogging does that while building a community around your business. The best way to tell great stories is to have great stories and we want to help businesses and business owners share how great their story can be.

    I’ve taken our shared experiences in helping businesses manage people, processes, technology, and marketing to take your business to the next level – whatever that level may be.

  • Where do I go to Learn to be a Blogger?

    How to Get Started Blogging

    I was recently asked, “Where do I go to learn to be a blogger?” Here’s my response:

    Blogging in it’s simplest form is just “writing” on a blog, but since you mentioned getting paid, what you’re really asking is “how can I make money by blogging?”

    There are several ways to do this and even more teachers who have already written about this topic and are more than willing to share with you, but these are my thoughts.

    How to Write Content that Attracts New Blog Visitors

    I like to use the STAIR method, which is just an acronym for: State the problem, list your Tools, create an Algorithm, Implement a solution, and Revise the solution.

    Problem: You don’t know how to make money online by blogging (let’s disregard for a second that there are other ways to make money, online and off).

    Tools: WordPress for the blogging platform; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+ for social networking; Mailchimp for email marketing; Photoshop.

    Algorithm: Determine what questions people have about a topic, write the answers to those questions, repurpose the content, and then monetize the blog.

    Implementation: First determine who your audience is, figure out what questions they have, choose one question, and then write a blog post answering that question.

    Revisions: Once you’ve written a few blog posts, use Photoshop to create images about those blog posts and then post the blog posts on social media.

    Over time, if you’re writing valuable content that people like and you’re capturing email addresses from visitors, you’ll be able to build up a audience you can monetize.

    How to Monetize Your Content and Your Audience

    Once you have an audience, you can do things like:

    • Write an ebook
    • Create an online course
    • Start a mastermind group
    • Throw a conference
    • Create and sell physical products

    There are other ways to make money from visitors:

    • Ads by Google Adsense
    • Affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates or Clickbank
    • Asking for money and providing a “Donate” button
    • Direct sale of ads to brands
    • Getting paid to write about a company or product

    I’ve written previously about how to make money from blogging in Blogging for Profit. But blogging for money is not necessarily the best way to make money (online or off). It should be done as a “twofer”.

    Other Possible Reasons to Blog

    • To become a better writer
    • To get thoughts out of your head
    • To journal or leave a legacy
    • To share what you’re working on
    • To attract attention to yourself

    No matter what the other reason, to blog as a business is probably not the best way to make money. Here are 5 reasons why blogging is not the best way to make money online or off.

    Reasons Not to Blog for Money

    • It can take a long time to get visitors
    • You don’t always know what people want to read
    • It may be hard for you to convert visitors to click ads or buy products
    • You might write something you later regret or that could be used against you in court or by an employer
    • You could show everyone that you don’t know as much as you thought you did.

  • Facebook: The Journal of Our Times

    Before Facebook, unless you kept a diary or wrote a blog, there was little recording of day-to-day events in most people’s lives. Some people made baby books for their children, but mostly just for their first or second child. But now, the combination of smartphone cameras and mobile apps, documenting our lives has never been easier and never before have more people done it.

    Enough time has passed since the mass adoption of Facebook in 2009 for us to see how people are using it long-term. We know what people like and what they hate. We know who their friends are. We know when they start relationships and when they end them. We know what they looked like when they were younger and what they look like now. We know everything someone is willing to share.

    Suzanne's Blog

    Before Facebook, my wife used to blog about what was going on in the house, about her pregnancies, and about milestones with the kids. Now that’s all on Facebook. If I wanted to create a story of our last 5 years together, that’s where I’d look. And our baby books are on there, too. We still have real-life baby books, but we certainly aren’t printing any of our pictures.

    What will become of this information?

    As a society we’ve all invested so much into this platform. While Facebook’s Timeline feature helps to sort through it all and services that help you print Facebook help, there is still a general anxiety I feel about how we will overcome the White Album Problem. Most people don’t remember Collegeclub.com, but that was a platform like Facebook that one day just disappeared.

    And the other side of the coin is that this information will never be deleted and we will always have a perfectly searchable memory of everything that’s ever happened. Nothing will ever be forgotten. No friend is ever left behind. That’s not how the mind works. That’s not how life used to work. We used to forget, move on, and get on with life. Now it’s all just a click away.

    Why do I still blog in a post-Facebook world?

    I own this domain. I pay for this hosting account. I control what the website looks like and when it changes. I control my own backups. I am not subject to Facebook’s rules. I can download my data whenever I want. I can make my content look like whatever I want. In short – it’s my own platform where I can tell my own story over time regardless of what Facebook is or does, but that’s not the only reason I blog.

    I know there is some benefit to me in the short term to be able to flesh out ideas and some value in the long term to be able to look back on what I was thinking or working on, but I didn’t know if it was actually of value to other people. I considered my blog a ‘failure’ because it doesn’t get that many visitors for the posts I care about, there are little to no comments, and little to no email newsletter sign-ups.
    It turns out that those metrics aren’t the only ones that matter as people have reached out to me in other ways to let me know they’re reading. You don’t always know what effect you’re going to have on people and you may never know, but if you don’t put yourself out there, you’re reducing that chance. This small bit of encouragement helps. I’m glad you also read my blog.

  • No More Stock Photography

    Recently I’ve noticed from social media experts like Jason Cobb and from Pinterest boards like No More Boring Stock Photos, there is a growing revolt against the use of stock photography.

    Now, I’ve used my share of stock photography in the past from sites like iStockPhoto, but now I’ve got a [quiet] goal of not using any stock photography in my posts going forward. I’d encourage you to think about what strategy you’ll use going forward this year.

    As a general rule, every blog post needs at least one picture.

    Why do blog posts need pictures?

    1) It’s sure dull when you go to post it on Facebook, Digg, Google+, or LinkedIn without it.
    2) It’s another avenue for search engine traffic from Google Image search.
    3) People don’t tend to read articles without them (if it’s not important enough for you to add one, why should they read it?)
    4) It allows other people to pin your work on sites like Pinterest.

    How do you propose getting your images then?

    Take them or make them.

    I’ve been taking photographs with a camera and my phone. I’ve also been sketching things in paint programs. I’ve also been creating things in Visio. It’s harder so if it hinders you from accomplishing other goals or diminishes your brand, don’t do it. It’s just something I’m doing. My thought process is that eventually what I produce will get better over time due to practice and I don’t mind a little egg on my face in the mean time.

  • 20 Serial Entrepreneurs: An Analysis

    Serial entrepreneurs want to change the world and “make meaning” but successful ones also make money, and lots of it.

    Here is a list of 20 serial entrepreneurs and the companies they helped create:

    1. Andy Bechtolsheim: Sun Microsystems, Granite Systems, Arista Networks
    2. Biz Stone: Twitter, Xanga, Blogger
    3. David Duffield: PeopleSoft, Workday
    4. Dennis Crowley: Dodgeball, Foursquare
    5. Elon Musk: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors
    6. Evan Williams: Blogger, Twitter
    7. Jack Dorsey: Twitter, Square
    8. Jason Calacanis: Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs Inc., Mahalo, Launch, OAF/TWI
    9. Jim Clark: Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon, MyCFO, Neoteris
    10. Kevin Rose: Digg, Pownce
    11. Marc Andreessen: Netscape, Opsware, Ning
    12. Mark Cuban: MicroSolutions, Broadcast.com, 2929 Entertainment, HDNet, Magnolia Pictures, Landmark Theatres
    13. Mark Pincus: Tribe.net, SupportSoft, Zynga
    14. Max Levchin: PayPal, Slide, WePay
    15. Nick Grouf: Firefly, PeoplePC, SpotRunner
    16. Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis: Kazaa, Skype, Joost, Atomico, Rdio
    17. Scott Jones: Boston Technology, ChaCha
    18. Sean Parker: Plaxo, Napster, Facebook, Causes, Founders Fund
    19. Steve Jobs: Apple, NeXT, Pixar
    20. Wayne Huizenga: Blockbuster, Waste Management, Auto Nation

    Birds of a feather flock together

    Of the companies listed, you may have noticed some repeated names. When we sort the list by the companies with at least two serial entrepreneurs from our list, we get three companies:

    1. Twitter: Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey
    2. PayPal: Elon Musk, Max Levchin
    3. Blogger: Biz Stone, Evan Williams

    Similar Industries

    And of the companies listed, another trend emerges, which is the similarities in industries.  The companies can be narrowed down into a surprisingly small number of groups, which could be categorized as ‘Technology’ and ‘Other’, but broken we see a large amount of Web 2.0 and Entertainment companies as well as Transportation:

    1. Software: Twitter, Blogger, Xanga, PeopleSoft, Workday, Dodgeball, Foursquare, Netscape, Ning, Plaxo, Napster, Facebook, Digg, Paypal, Slide, WePay
    2. Hardware: Sun Microsystems, Arista Networks, Granite Systems, PeoplePC, Apple, NeXT
    3. Entertainment: Pixar, 2929 Entertainment, HDNet, Blockbuster, Zynga, Magnolia Pictures, Landmark Theatres
    4. Transportation: SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Auto Nation

    This follows a pattern in economics called ‘barriers to entry’ of which software has the lowest barriers in terms of cost and transportation, the highest.  Hardware and entertainment, it seems, falls in the middle, which is what you would expect.  So in the future, we can probably expect more serial entrepreneurs in the software arena, probably culminating up through app makers, which has the lowest barrier of entry and the highest audience: a combination ripe for the next round of serial entrepreneurs.

  • How to Identify a Micro-Niche

    How to find a profitable niche to start blogging about on your new mini-site

    In a previous post I wrote about how to monetize your blog, but I didn’t mention how to find a niche market to promote. There are many ‘rules’ about this, but while I may point out some, not all are going to apply. One rule you can keep in mind though is that 7 out of 8 attempts may fail. If you’re willing to seek against those kinds of odds, keep reading.

    When choosing a new micro-niche, there are three things to keep in mind:

    1. Competition for the keyword – when you do a Google search for your keywords, how many root, top-level domains show up in the top ten search results? It’s very hard to break into the pack when competing directly with a home page of an aged domain, but if the search results show deep page listings instead you’ve got a shot.

    2. The product – First of all, is there a product to promote? Goods are easier to sell, but some service industries like lawyers and business consultants can make more – much more. Second, what are the commissions on the product? You have to be comfortable with the commission level, which varies greatly between products, to Make sure it is worth your while.

    3. Traffic (Visitors) – Even if you have low competition and a great product, if no one is looking for it then you’re dead in the water. You want to have enough traffic to sustain your business and make it profitable, but to not be in competition with the bigger niche market. The sweet spot seems to be around 20,000 daily searches for a given set of keywords. You can find this info out using Google’s External Keyword Tool or Market Samurai.

    You want some competition. This is a sign that the micro-niche is profitable. You just don’t want TOO much competition.

    How to Start

    Knowing how to do the research is one thing, but what if you can’t think of anything to start with? What if you can’t think of any ideas to search for? Some advice I heard once was to browse a magazine aisle and look at the ads in the back. If vendors can afford to advertise there they must be making money and so you can too. Be careful not to chase a niche just because you like it. Do the research and be willing to say ‘no’ to yourself if it doesn’t pan out.