Samurai CMS

Hope everyone had a great week! Last week was fantastic for us! Had some incredible meetings in Edmonton, signed some exciting deals and have several opportunities lined up!

I’ve written today’s article in my head so many times. So many people DECIDE, that becoming 2.0 friendly means writing 3000 word blogs and assume that Google will magically send traffic their way. Get real.

The reality of it is, nobody really cares about the uncut tour of your store (insert motion sickness here), your six page essay on quilting, or anything else you’re going to write with a stoic, vanilla tone. Oh, you know the quotes you write on your Facebook post to position yourself as intelligent or sophisticated? It’s getting boring. Stop subscribing to “quote of the day emails” and start posting things that actually mean something to you and that you can explain (or defend)

I read an excellent article by Shane Snow,that captured Stylelabs’ blogging philosophy quite well in seven points. I’ve compressed it into four and added my 2 cents!

Mix Stock and Flow Content. Stock Content, is exciting, insightful articles/pieces that you write that position you as a key opinion leader (“KOL”) in your field. This is generally longer in form but captures and holds your readers attention through clarity, authenticity and wit. Flow content (quick hit aggregation; LOVE THE TERM) , are curated links and excerpts you feel are relevant to your audience with commentary. Offering the two on your site, fan page, twitter and portal will firmly engrain you in your client’s evoke set (top of mind), increase conversion (sales) and foster an environment of trust based selling.

Personalize. Shane and I have different perspectives on what this means. He suggests smart widgets on your blog that will “make suggestions” on behavior. However, realistically, you’re not amazon and you likely don’t have libraries of content. To me, personalize means developing between 2-4 core segments (or personas) and categorizing each client into those containers. In my case, although everyone will see this article, many of you might get tig bits from me via email as I see things that I feel would benefit you. This hybrid “personalization” allows me to have dialogues with all of my clients, based both on their individual needs as well as on a macro level.

Let Your Content Spread! The article you’re reading right now, will be repackaged into three forms. An email newsletter, a Facebook note and a blog from my website. I may then break it up into four or five chunks and offer it as a tweet or status updates with a “read more” call to action. I’ll probably find other blogging articles, comment on them and offer my article as a link for further elaboration. The other absolute NON NEGOTIABLE for me, is empowering my readers to share and comment on my articles. Depending on medium, my weapon of choice is Add This and Facebook Commenting. It allows for two way discussion between the Facebook universe and your site and easily allows for distribution to over 300 social media platforms. And, it’s free!

Once people subscribe to my site, become a fan, friend or connection, you have now permitted me, to interact (market) to you for free by offering you my expertise. Kind of a “try before you buy.”

Create Anticipation! If we’re connected, you’ll notice that on Friday (or maybe it was Thursday) I posted/tweeted the title of this article with a call to action; Sticky Blogs! Look out for my new article on Monday. Email subscriptions went up 20% and this morning, I’ve already received four emails inquiring about status. Wicked!

Email is Your Friend It’s a lot easier to dismiss a status update than it is to delete that same article you get in your inbox every Monday. Recently, I did a focus group for a post secondary institution that reaffirmed my theory that people prefer communication through email, rather than social mediums. Although Qual research is not statistically viable, I believe this to be true. Besides, its easier to forward this article to contacts and flag to read later. Emails can also be filed in the “supplier folder” for future consideration ;)

Break it Up! Remember I told you that nobody cares about your 3000 word essay? What if it was robust, humorous “how to” segments? I believe, that this will both cater to people’s unfortunately short 30 second attention spans as well as pique their need for more.

Wiki-Link Throughout Have you noticed that when you look something up on Wikipedia, there are links throughout the article that will lead you on an endless journey of new information? That’s awesome! Not only does this do incredible things for your site’s SEO, but it also offers your audience a greater depth and appreciate of your subject matter and the point you’re trying to make. How does this work? Well, you’ll notice the term “SEO” has is hyperlinked. Clicking that will take you to a site that explains SEO or another article I wrote on the subject. Linking usually doesn’t (or shouldn’t) have a call to action attached to it. The intention is to offer information to whoever would like it, without disrupting those who wouldn’t.

Love the way he closed the article. He says:

“Stickiness is one of the best metrics of content’s success. Of course, everything here hinges on the idea that your blog is worth reading. And that only takes time and practice. The good news, however, is that while writing a compelling blog may be an art, stickiness is a science.”

984 words.

Yikes!

Almin Kassamali is the Chief Imagination Officer of StyleLabs Marketing Group. StyleLabs offers full service business and marketing solutions for entrepreneurs, musicians, athletes and small/medium business. www.stylelabs.ca