Written by: Rosemary Lafferty

Read time: 2 minutes

Wondering how to structure a blog or social media post so that readers will actually stop scrolling and read? Follow the following format to improve the “user experience” i.e. – how easy it is for the user to digest your post.

Below we discuss

1. Blog Post Title
2. Graphic for your post
3. “Read Time”
4. “Written By”
5. Introduction
6. What you will learn
7. Main body of the post
8. Links to related articles
9. Conclusion
10. Ask a Question
11. Calls-to-Action
12. About the Author
13. Company logo

1.Blog Post Title

• The title should include a Question/ Statement that addresses a known customer Pain Point – i.e. the reader must see immediately why reading this post will help them…..e.g. reading it will help improve their work/save time/reduce cost/make work run more smoothly etc
• Includes keywords in the Title for SEO
• Avoids industry jargon – uses lay person’s version of the wording

 2. Graphic for your Post

Create a graphic that incorporates the title, an image and logo – it must convey the benefit of reading this post to the user within one second. For social media, this is possibly the first most important thing to get right in order to catch the eye of your prospects as they scroll down thier News Feed. On your website, use this graphic as the “featured image” so that it may show when your blog is shown in search engine results pages.

To see examples of excellent blog and social media graphics, check out the Content Marketing Institute

3. Written by

Name and Thumbnail photo of the author

4. Read Time

Indicate how will it take the average user to read your post or blog. (Most readers can read 200 words per minute)

5. Introduction – What is (your topic) and why is it important?

Some readers might be new to what you are writing about. Obviously, if what you are writing about is well-known, you can skip the explanation and instead explain why your reader needs to know about this.  Talk about the personal and/or business implications of understanding, employing, or using the topic you are writing about.

6. What you will learn/topics covered in this blog

This section should have numbered headings e.g. as seen in the post

7. The main body of the Article, divided into sections with subheadings

Divide the main body of the article into sections. Give each section a subheading and use keywords and synonyms of those keywords. For example, if you sell accounting software, use synonyms such as bookkeeping software, accountancy software, accounting IT systems etc. Your prospective client may not know the industry jargon to be sure to try to include as many versions of the keywords as possible.

Ensure that you set those headings as H1/H2/H3 in your WordPress post so that the search engines may find those headings.

Explain all industry terms/jargon in brackets if you are targeting users who will not understand these terms.

• Give examples to illustrate your point
• Throughout the post, give links to other relevant posts you have written. In those other posts, link back to this article. This is known as the Pillar – Cluster blog method and helps with SEO.

8. Links to related articles you have written

Provide further reading or resources for people just getting started who may want additional information. This section could include industry blogs, books, social media accounts for thought leaders, and/or suggestions for support/assistance.

9. Conclusion

Wrap up your blog post with a great closing. Remind your readers of the key takeaway you want them to walk away with and consider pointing them to other resources you have on your website.

10. Ask a Question

Stimulate comments by inviting readers to ask a question, give their opinion etc in the comments. Remember to always reply to comments as soon as possible. In some social media algorithms, the faster that comments occur on your posts, the more your post will be shown in news feeds. The volume of comments will also affect how many news feeds the algorithm will show your post.

11. Calls-to-Action

Place “calls-to-actions” at the bottom of your blog post. These can include

• Email the author – add a link to email address.
• Visit our website – add your website link
• Follow our LinkedIn Company Page – add your LinkedIn company page link
• Sign up for our eNewsletter – add your website, eNewsletter sign-up page link
• Connect with me on LinkedIn – add your LinkedIn personal profile n link

Not all readers will be ready to pick up the phone and start the buying process. However, we don’t want them to read the article and then not take any step closer to buying from you (we want this post (i.e. a touchpoint) to create another touchpoint.

12. About the author

Add a short bio about the author – including the author’s experience and qualifications or a link to their LinkedIn profile.

13. Company Logo

Add your company logo at the foot of the article if it is being shared on social media. If it is on your website, you can leave out the logo.

Conclusion A well-structured blog or social media post will increase the chances that your readers will read your entire post.

View Rosemary Lafferty’s Profile here

Want to discuss your social media marketing with Yellow Ruler Marketing? If you need help with your social media, give us a call 086 3061260 or email us on rosemary@yellowrulermarketing.ie

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The post How to Create a B2B Blog and Social Media Post appeared first on Yellow Ruler Marketing.

If you are an SME that has recently created a social media account to help your business, you will have found out by now the creation of the social media accounts (by yourself or by an outside agency) is the often easiest part. The following tips will apply regardless of whatever industry you work in.

Maintaining a Regular Flow of Good Posts is Important

The hard part is regularly keeping these accounts “topped up” with regular information/posts/updates that are of interest and use to your customers and prospects. (in this article, we will use the word “content” to mean posts on a Facebook page, updates on a LinkedIn company page, tweets on a Twitter page etc as they are all the same thing.

Ideally, these posts/updates are so good that your followers or those who liked your social media pages will share and “like” this content so that more and more new prospects are being driven to your website every day. (Hopefully, you will also have an eNewsletter or downloadable Guides that visitors to your website will want to sign up to or download so that you can capture some contact details from these prospects)
This will help you achieve many business goals such as increasing the awareness level of your business, providing helpful information to your customers, improving your business’ performances on search engine results pages (known as SERP) etc.

Neglected Social Media Pages Reflect Poorly on your Business

However, we have all seen Facebook, Twitter, Google + pages that began with a flurry of posts when the page first launched but gradually the number of posts dried up completely so that page’s most recent post was 6 months ago. Clearly, this does not create a good impression of this business. Indeed, many people who view this page may wonder if this business still exists. Therefore the challenge is to create content in a systematic, consistent way that won’t require hours of work looking for suitable content.

How can you regularly create content for your social media accounts?

Get organised for content creation

Create a file on your PC or laptop for content. Every time you think of an idea for a useful post, however, half-formed or poorly researched, make a note of it and save it into this file. If you don’t have access to your PC or laptop at that moment, upload it to the cloud or send yourself an email to remind yourself when you do get back to your computer.

Decide on the frequency of your posts.

Make a decision on how often you will post to your website or social media accounts. Try to be consistent. It is better to do good quality content consistently, once a month, for example, than lots of posts in one week and then no posts for months.

Create a Content Source table before you start.

Content comes mainly from 2 sources – content your company creates or content from outside sources that you “curate”. (Curating content simply means posting information on your website or social media that was written by somebody else. This would, of course, be information, opinion et. that you think would be useful to your customers and prospects. (To avoid copywriting issues, you must give full acknowledgement to the original author.)) I find it useful to create a table of Content Sources in my content file. Therefore, when I come across an article that would be useful to my audience, I will save the link to the article in my content articles file for future use but I will also save the website link where I found the article. Therefore, each month when I set about creating my eNewsletter, I will have a list of websites that I can check out to see if they have any new articles that are of interest to my audience.

Record any customer “pain points” for future content.

“Pain points” are all the things that your customers complain about or cause misunderstanding or stress. None of us likes to spend time thinking about things that have gone wrong or the times that our customers complained or walked away. The good news, however, is that recalling these situations can be a great source of content.

Example of a customer “pain point” 

For example, if you are a printing business, perhaps a previous customer didn’t fully understand that the colour of a signed off proof may not look exactly like the final printed job because the proof and the final printed job are not printed in the same method or on the same paper or cardboard. This customer’s dissatisfaction arose from a lack of understanding about how the nature of proofing and final printed job. Therefore an article explaining how this all works can be very useful as a post and also as a permanent guide on your website that website visitors can download. As with all good content, this article helps the customer to do his or her job better and reduces their “pain”

Regularly ask the salespeople what their customer’s issues are.

The salespeople or customer service staff are one of the best sources of content as they are on the front line – dealing with customers every day.

Explain to all staff how content is important to your business.

You or the marketing agency you use will need to have an explanatory meeting with all relevant staff to explain how content is important for your business’s marketing and why you want them to keep feeding you information for content. Do not be tempted to skip this step – generating good content is a company-wide job and it is really important that all relevant staff – from the receptionist to MD, understand how it can benefit your company. In most cases, the frontline staff can provide the best content topics.

Monitor your content’s performance.

Check how your posts are performing. All social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter etc.) provide statistics on the number of shares, likes etc. This will be invaluable in guiding your future content choice.

Headlines are very important.

Choose headlines that are clear and address the customer’s pain points. This is extremely important in today’s speedy, information-overloaded world. If the headline doesn’t grab their attention, then your hard work in creating an excellent piece of content may all be in vain.

Book a free consultation with Yellow Ruler Marketing

If you would like a free consultation to discuss your social media planning or any aspect of your sales or marketing, contact Rosemary Lafferty, Yellow Ruler Marketing 086 3061260 or rosemary@yellowrulermarketing.ie

The post Tips for creating Regular Posts for your Social Media accounts appeared first on Yellow Ruler Marketing.

Printing Businesses – Creating Regular Content for your Social Media sites

If you are an Irish printing, packaging or labelling company that has recently created a social media account to help your business, you will know that the setting of the social media account is the easy part.

Add useful content for Print Buyers

The hard part is regularly keeping these accounts “topped up” with regular information/posts/updates that is of interest and use to your customers and prospects. (In this article, we will use the word “content” to mean posts on a Facebook page, updates on LinkedIn company page, tweets on a Twitter page  or posts on any social media site you use for business).

Ideally these posts/updates are so good that your followers or those who liked your social media pages will share and “like” this content so that more and more new prospects are being driven to your website every day. (Hopefully you will also have an eNewsletter or downloadable Guides that visitors to your website will want to sign up to or download so that you can capture some contact details from these prospects)

This will help you achieve many business goals such as increasing the awareness level of your business, providing helpful information to your customers, improving your business’ performances on search engine results pages (known as SERP) etc.

However, we have all seen Facebook, Twitter, Google + pages that began with a flurry of posts when the page first launched but gradually the number of posts dried up completely so that page’s most recent post was 6 months ago. Clearly this does not create a good impression of this business. Indeed, many people who view this page may wonder if this business still exists. Therefore the challenge is to create content in a systematic, consistent way that won’t require hours of work looking for suitable content.

How can you regularly create content on social media for your print buyers?

Get organised.

It almost goes without saying but if you don’t have an organised, systematic way of collating and creating content, your social media posts will probably never happen.

Create a file on your PC or laptop desktop or in the “cloud” for content ideas. Every time you think of any idea for a useful post, however half-formed or poorly researched, make a note of it and save it into this file. If you don’t have access to your PC/laptop/internet at that moment, send yourself an email or text to remind yourself when you do get back to your computer. Also, if you see useful content posted by others, you can “curate” this content, i.e. post it on your social media sites. (make sure that you give full credit to the author and a link to the original article.)

Decide on the frequency of your posts.

Make a decision on how often you will post to your website or social media accounts. Try to be consistent. It is better to do good quality content consistently, once a month, for example, than lots of posts in one week and then no posts for months.

Create a Content Source table before you start.

Content comes mainly from 2 sources – content your company creates or content from outside sources that you “curate”. (Curating content simply means posting information on your website or social media that was written by somebody else. This would, of course, be information, opinion et. that you think would be useful to your customers and prospects. (To avoid copywriting issues, you must give full acknowledgement to the original author.))  I find it useful to create a table of Content Sources in my content file. Therefore, when I come across an article that would be useful to my audience, I will save the link to the article in my content articles file for future use but I will also save the website link where I found the article. Therefore, each month when I set about creating my eNewsletter, I will have a list of websites that I can check out to see if they have any new articles that are of interest to my audience.

Record any customer “pain points” for future content.

“Pain points” are all the things that your customers complain about or cause misunderstanding or stress.  None of us like to spend time thinking about things that have gone wrong or the times that our customers complained or walked away. The good news, however, is that recalling these situations can be a great source of content.

Content Examples for Printing and Packaging Companies

Understand the difference between a Proof and the final Printed Job

For example, perhaps a previous customer didn’t fully understand that the colour of a signed off proof may not look exactly like the final printed job because the proof and the final printed job are not printed in the same method or on the same paper or cardboard. This customer’s dissatisfaction arose from a lack of understanding about how the nature of proofing and final printed job. Therefore an article explaining how this all works can be very useful as a post and also as a permanent guide on your website that website visitors can download. As with all good content, this article helps the customer to do his or her job better and reduces their “pain”.

Ways to Reduce the Cost of the Printed Job

Or prehaps your print buying customer is grumbling about the price of his print job?  How can he/she reduce the cost while still getting the printed job that is fit for purpose?

A useful blog, guide or infographic (i.e. content) might explain about the use of 4 colour process and spot colours.

Prehaps a print job that is printed using 4 colour process and 2 spot colours could amended at artwork stage to print these 2 spot colours equally well out of 4 colour process, thereby reducing the cost of the job? (Clearly the customer would need to understand in what situations it is possible do this and in what situations it is not advisable to try to achieve spot or brand colours out of 4 colour process.)

Another content item might help the customer by looking at how different weights of paper or board can affect the price and also the appearance of the final printed job.

Regularly ask the sales people what their customers issues are.

The sales people or customer service staff are one of the best sources of content as they are on the frontline – dealing with customers every day.

Explain to all staff how content is important to your business.

You or the marketing agency you use will need to have an explanatory meeting with all relevant staff to explain how content is important for your business’s marketing and why you want them to keep feeding you information for content. Do not be tempted to skip this step – generating good content is a company-wide job and it is really important that all relevant staff – from the receptionist to MD, understand how it can benefit your company. In most cases, the frontline staff can provide the best content topics.

Monitor your content’s performance.

Check how you posts are performing. All social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter etc.) provide statistics on the number of shares, likes etc.  This will be invaluable in guiding your future content choice.

Headlines are very important. 

Choose headlines that are clear and address the customer’s pain points. This is extremely important in today’s speedy, information-overloaded world. If the headline doesn’t grab their attention, then your hard work in creating an excellent piece of content may all be in vain.

If you would like a free consultation to discuss your social media planning or any aspect of your sales or marketing, contact Rosemary Lafferty, Yellow Ruler Marketing  086 3061260 or rosemary@yellowrulermarketing.ie

The post Printing Companies – Tips for creating Regular Posts for your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts appeared first on Yellow Ruler Marketing.