Moving forward

“The Future of Blogging”

(Viper Chill)

Digital World

 

 

“This is an important blog post, because it makes a prediction. A prediction about the future of blogging; a platform actively used by over 181 million people (Nielsen data for October 2011).  A quote from Glen Allsop

 

Viper Chill is a blog authored by Glen Allsop which covers Viral Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation and blogging advice. He is a young internet marketing pro with a background in Social Media marketing and online reputation management.

With his popular blog from 2012 he aims to predict the direction blogging will take in the future. Not an easy task with social networks growing at such record speeds.  This lengthy blog was worth the read for the useful tips and insights.  A successful blog judging by the amount of comments and feedback from fans and fellow bloggers.  With my blog I will pick out and discuss what I consider to be the relevant points from his site

According to statistics, blogging started off in the early 90’s as an online journal where people shared their interests and thoughts as a form of self-expression.   It has since evolved into a major publishing business. A popular news and gossip site, The Huffington Post was sold last year for a staggering 300 million dollars. The Daily Mail has become the world’s most visited newspaper site which is slightly surprising as their work is generally considered quite poor.  They use a tactic called ‘article clustering’ which basically means they write a huge piece on a hot news item, and constantly use that same information whenever they cover the story again. When writing an article about the event they’ll take 50-75% of the content from the original article and simply paste it into the new one.

Most influential tech blogs

Techcrunch and Mashable are two of the most influential tech blogs. They both cover a vast majority of news happening in the start-up and social media world. Mashable adapted their content to the social media space and started to publish more articles than ever before. If you want to find tech gadgets or online apps Mashable is there for you.  Though both sites have been around since 2005, TechCrunch quickly established itself as the industry leader.  In the last couple of years though, that’s changed. Mashable – still trailing far behind TechCrunch in feed subscriber numbers – began to overtake them in traffic figures. This transition happened in parallel with the rise of Twitter and Facebook as platforms to share content.

Trending Analytics

Bloggers have access to trending analytics so they can predict which hot topics they should be writing about next.  Google analytics, for example, is considered one of the most comprehensive website tracking tools.  Users can set up custom reports, which is handy for bloggers who like to track specific advertising campaigns, and best of all its FREE!!

Email Lists

The main tactic for a blogger to market their blog is building an email list and using that to distribute their content. Glen Allsop is a huge advocate of bloggers using email lists, the benefits having been well documented. He feels that a lot of bloggers haven’t yet caught on to this but this is likely to change in the not too distant future. In general people can be fussy about what they allow to come to them via email and a once loyal reader can rapidly discard your content if it is no longer relevant to them. You don’t have to be some computer whizz-kid to take advantage of the benefits that email marketing provides.

Your brand doesn’t matter like it used to.  What people do is share the story that brand is producing, and if those “stories” are no longer relevant to your audience, they’ll quickly go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for. It is easier than ever today to find alternatives.

WordPress is the most popular choice of blogging software available because it is open and customisable.  If you want a certain feature, there’s a chance that someone has already discussed or created a plugin for exactly what you’re looking for. It is relatively easy to get started on wordpress.  You simply publish posts and they appear on your homepage in reverse chronological order. People can leave comments and subscribe to your updates. For industry based blogs you can take this further by finding a programmer to do anything you could ever think of, it if hasn’t been released already.  Thinking outside the box!!

Content & Design

Also, the design of your blog is more important than ever. The way your site looks is a huge factor which determines whether people stick around for long enough to check out what you have to say.  Obviously, it will never be as important at the content you’re producing, but it’s something a lot of bloggers overlook.  ‘Content is key’ and a ‘good enough ’design is not good enough.

Glen Allsop’s final words of wisdom referred to consistency with your content. From his experience he realised that lack of consistency was a big hurdle to the growth of his site and he would be reaching a much wider audience if his posts had been closer together.

Inspiration

“Websites still best tool for business”

 

According to Social Media expert Damien Mulley on a recent visit to Griffith College

 

With so much advancement of Social Media in recent years it was a bit surprising to learn that according to Mulley: “A company website is still the best business tool”.

The site feeds out to Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites thereby reaching a vast audience, further promoting and advertising the business.

We learned how “content is the key” to attract visitors to your site. The more engaging the content the more interest it generates. It can be further enhanced by the use of photos, links and even short videos. It may also need to be changed from time to time to maintain the interest of your audience. The demographics of your audience is another consideration what percentage are male/female? What age range are they? What interests do they have?

Mulley mentioned that with the advancement of social media “creativity is making a comeback” and how having a personality is important.  Brands with personality tend to work better, basically be authentic on social media.

He stressed the importance of a  facebook presence when marketing to consumers. Statistics show that the best time to make updates to your facebook or twitter page is nine o clock at night as more people are likely to be online.  In Ireland alone, a staggering 2.7million people per month log on to facebook.

Mulley also explained about metrics, looking at stats regularly to see whats working on sites such as Facebook.  He explained about an algorithm named Edgerank which Facebook uses to determine what articles should be displayed in a users news feed.  This helps filter out unsolicited adverts and messages.

While the traditional word of mouth and reputation can still be relied upon, digital and social media is definitely the way forward.

Damien Mulley runs a communications company where he does consultancy work and Training sessions in Digital Marketing and Social Media. He can be contacted at

http://mulley.ie/

The Digital Age

Digital World

While recently studying a course on the diverse world of Digital Media, I became fascinated by the amount of people who use social media as a platform to promote their business ventures and personal campaigns. My personal foray into the world of social media began with Facebook using it primarily to keep in touch and connect with friends at home and abroad.

As students we were encouraged to look at different organisations and businesses and the way they use social media to promote their product or service. A list of suggestions was duly pitched to the class. It was a fairly mixed bag that was presented, ranging from humanitarian organisations to unique cafes to marketing and media sites.

One particular website caught my interest, namely Fuzion PR, a Marketing and PR company based in Cork & Dublin. Established in 2000, they describe themselves as a ‘no-nonsense’ Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm. They have a team of in-house specialists in PR, Communications, Media Training, Event Management & Social Media working together to deliver successful campaigns.

They conduct an initial face-to-face meeting with a potential client on a non-commitment basis. This is a good incentive to any business who hasn’t previously considered how they were going to market their product. Once a plan has been agreed Fusion will oversee the execution and working of it leaving the client free to run their business.

Fuzion recently produced an info graphic called ‘Safebook’ which can be downloaded free from their website. It has been downloaded globally by parents and teachers. It encourages young people to use online platforms ( namely facebook) responsibly and to help them cope with negative scenarios, mainly cyber bullying. Greg Canty a partner at Fuzion has written an informative blog questioning the leadership and ethics of facebook, specifically their relaxed privacy policy. *

While the concepts of Marketing and PR have been around for years, social media helps to bring them to the forefront of the digital communication age.

With so much competition in the market place today, it’s more important than ever for a business to get their name ‘out there. Digital and social media is the best way to achieve this and should help businesses build a solid reputation. *

Digital Media