Taking Chris Brogan’s advice to be brief, my goal with this post is to be short and sweet.
Recently, I had to complete a website audit for a local company and make recommendations on how they could improve their website. It was an interesting experience because I picked up many neat tricks and tips that I would never have learned since I have no experience in web graphic design. The central message to this all – beauty is everything in web design.
Visuals are fantastic but using lots of images can be ineffective without captions. Apparently, our attention gets drawn away from the body of the text to the images but is then quickly lost without any caption tie in the picture and direct our attention back to the body.
Bullets make your information-delivery crisp and easy to consume.
Keep your fonts simple. Stylish fonts apparently confuse us!
Don’t information overload: keep one page limited to about two screenfuls of info.
Put your most important information at the top! Everything at the bottom gets scanned over.
Animations and sounds are things of the past – they clutter and confuse.
Never use more than one exclamation point! (This made me slightly sad. I love !!! but apparently they scream ‘amateur’ and exude desperation. Point taken.)
There is a wealth of knowledge out there on how to take your website to the next level. This list doesn’t even begin to skim the surface so I encourage you to go out there, explore, and learn!
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to knowing what the latest trends are or intuitively understanding every buzzword that comes flying through my door. One thing to be said for this blogging exercise is that I’m trying the whole learn-more-by-reading-other-bloggers and lo and behold…I’m learning a crazy amount of new things about e-marketing. The next time a new buzzword comes around, trust me, I’ll already know what it means.
While doing market research for a company that wants to motivate kids to exercise through the use of interactive mobile games that require physical movement and incorporates an online reward system, I heard the words “gamification” and “gamifying” being tossed around a lot. I had no idea what was going on. Then I came across this infographic (thank goodness for infographics) on the ReadWrite Enterprise blog and “gamification” was no longer gibberish to me! As this was a moment of enlightenment for me, I thought I’d share my findings with you because gamification is rapidly becoming a powerful tool in the marketer’s arsenal.
There is a huge opportunity for businesses to incorporate gamification into their marketing strategy with so much of the Internet being gamers. Check out these stats:
In case you’re like me and didn’t know exactly what each of these groups stand for, I thought I’d point out that Casual Gamers, which encompasses Social Gamers, are Internet users who play games online at least once per month. Casual Gamers (excluding Social Gamers) will play games via web browsers, while Social Gamers play games via social networks. Mobile Gamers, who use mobile phones to play online games at least once a month, represent a goldmine for marketers as they can be reached more times throughout the day and can therefore be enticed to engage in revenue-generating gaming more frequently.
I think it’s part of human nature to enjoy playing games and the younger generations are increasingly gaming-oriented, with iPhones essentially becoming a baby’s first pacifier. Companies are realizing that they can (and should) be incorporating gaming effects into their marketing strategies in order to captivate their target audience and therefore keep them immersed in their webpages longer. Not only do they create a captive audience, but marketers can harness the power of gamification to influence their audience to act in desired ways.
Just because gamification is still a foreign word to some and might sound super technical, I don’t think businesses should be intimidated. Scratch the name and the principles behind it are very simple. All it takes is a little understanding of human psychology: we love being rewarded for our actions! It makes us feel good and it motivates us to keep acting in a such a way that we will be rewarded again. As soon as businesses understand that gamification is simply using positive reinforcement to increase desired behaviour in their customers, creating a ‘gamefied’ strategy will come naturally. Customers will appreciate and value a business that acknowledges them for taking a desired action (such as making an online purchase, writing a positive product review, or checking-in at store so others see where they are and what great deals they might be getting) and rewards them for their efforts. This appreciation will foster customer loyalty and we all know the immense benefits of loyalty to the success and health of a business.
My only hesitation comes from marketers possibly trying to incorporate gamification into everything just for the sake of capitalizing on this trend. I think we as natural gamers have the intelligence to know and feel when something is being forced. An unnatural fit between the brand and gaming won’t fly with consumers and may cause the strategy to flop. It’s those brands that can almost organically marry their brand together with gamification that will succeed and engage their audience best. At least, that’s my two cents on the matter.
I’ve been in love with Jasmine Star since March 2010 when my boyfriend first introduced me to her photography (no, he wasn’t insinuating anything but as a photography enthusiast he took notice of the experts). I will confess to having spent countless hours pouring through her ever-growing portfolio, totally engrossed by the gorgeous photos she takes of engagements and wedding parties. When someone takes photos like this…
or like this..
how can I not be enthralled?! (Let’s be honest, I really just wanted to share some of her fabulous pics.)
And then I found her blog. I wouldn’t call it an obsession but I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading every single thing she writes and even though I know that my homework won’t get done or my dirty dishes will continue to pile up on the counter, I come back looking for more. Jasmine pours her heart and soul into her blog, laying everything about her open and bare for you to read, embrace, or judge. And she doesn’t just post the pictures she takes, she shares beautiful stories about the people in those photographs. That makes the difference. That is what keeps me coming back. That is what makes me want her as my future wedding photographer. And that has spun itself into an absolute marketing success story that has made her one of the most sought-after and influential wedding photographers on the market.
Jasmine has her own style of marketing that diverges from traditional forms of print and online advertising. What has grown her business in enormous leaps and bounds is her unique strategy of marketing her big personality and crazy quirks, not her business, and harnessing the power of the Internet (through her website, blog, and social media) to multiply the spread of her personality and web presence.
To showcase your personality makes so much sense to me because there is no one quite like you in this world – that is how you differentiate yourself from all of your competitors. With the Internet making it so easy to quickly pull up hundreds of different wedding photographers, real estate agents, dog-sitters, what have you, there needs to be one defining facet that truly sets you apart from the rest. And I don’t think that is going to be the products you sell or the services you provide – unless they’re truly one-of-a-kind. But in most cases, there is so much similarity that, to me, one company blends into the other.
Jasmine sums it up perfectly:
“I have come to believe beyond all doubt that brides are choosing photographers not photographs, so stop focusing on that very thing that makes you the same”.
Just insert what you do and what you sell in the place of ‘photographers not photographs’!
My question is can you put too much of yourself on the web? Is there a point at which what you post becomes too personal to allow it to be professional? I believe that there is probably a delicate balance to be struck and your type of business will somewhat dictate how much is appropriate for you to put out there. But there is power in showcasing YOU over your products and services. I will buy into you, people will buy into you. It is much easier for us to feel a connection to people and that sense of connection becomes an open gateway for building trust. When I trust you, I will start talking about you and then I, and each of your followers, will become your advocates and the voices for you and your business.
Take a look at Jasmine tell it herself in The Importance of Being You:
Walking home from yoga class tonight, I began wracking my brains for ideas to put up on the blog. My thoughts strayed and I reflected (dismally) on how incredibly stiff I had been during the class. I mean, I was so inflexible that I must have looked like a tree trying to do the downward dog. I knew it was my fault because I had missed a week of yoga classes and just hadn’t been practicing on a regular basis. It occurred to me that spending money on yoga classes was a waste if I wasn’t dedicated to a continual practice. The moment I stopped, I backtracked in any progress I’d made. And that’s when it hit me – practicing yoga is just like engaging in search engine optimization by blogging and running a website.
If there is anything I have learned about SEO in the last few weeks of classes, it’s that there is no point in having a website or promoting a company blog if you don’t update it on a regular basis. It’s a waste of your time, your money, and it’s not bringing you any SEO benefits. In fact, it could even be detrimental to your corporate image. A stale blog may be perceived as laziness or that you don’t care about maintaining an active relationship with your customers. An archaic website is unacceptable in today’s competitive webscape where companies are pushing the frontiers with modern, sleek, and highly interactive websites. If your website looks like it was made in the early 90s, I really think you run the risk of having potential customers question your credibility and capability.
Just as my advice to myself is to continue practicing yoga on a regular basis so that I don’t lose that benefit of any gained flexibility and strength, my advice to businesses looking for higher rankings on search engines is to update, update, and update some more. Regularly updating your websites and continuing to generate fresh content on your blogs will reap you many rewards.
Readers and potential customers will be drawn to you with the expectation of seeing and learning something new. A more personal relationship will develop between web visitors and your company because you have demonstrated that you have a voice and are active in the community – you care enough about your readers to put in that effort to produce new content for them. And search engines will love your efforts and reward you with exposure through higher rankings. Search engines are looking for original, new, and relevant information to present their users. The more you give, the better recognized you’ll be. This is how you will make long strides in your SEO campaign.
Doing yoga everyday is a huge commitment for me and one that I’m still working up to. Blogging everyday seems just as hard! To help you (and me!) along the way, I wanted to see if anyone had some easy-to-follow tips on successfully blogging on a regular basis. I swear I’m not a personal advocate of Chris Brogan but he knows his stuff and makes it so easy to understand. Here are a few of his suggestions and I highly recommend checking out Chris’ post for all fourteen tips.
Every day find something new to read.
Brainstorm titles and topic ideas in a notepad file. (He even gives 100 blog topics to get you jump-started!)
Sit down for 20-40 minutes every day and write (or type).
Post quickly. It doesn’t have to be perfect. As he says, “perfectionism kills good habits”.
As someone who has never blogged a day in her life, I thought I would call myself out on being new to this realm of blogging before embarking on this exercise to write about all things in the e-marketing world. It’s been quite a few years now since blogging went mainstream and now the Internet is absolutely saturated with millions of different blogs. To start a blog now seems like a daunting task and, if I’m being honest, it is one task that totally intimidates me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I kept thinking over these last few years that blogging was something I should probably do. I just couldn’t bring myself to start one. It was intimidating then, when blogs were just emerging, and it’s even more intimidating now. It must be the fear of putting my voice out there for others to read and being judged on my content or (lack of) writing ability. What if no one likes my “blog voice”? What if I can’t be engaging? What if you think I’m unoriginal and passé?
Why should I write a blog in the first place?
The first slew of questions I’ll attribute to self-doubt and it’s probably time to just sweep those aside and take the leap. But the question of Why Blog? is one that should be reflected on and answered, I think, before even starting one. I think anyone with a blog, who truly wants to make something of their blog, should have some sort of central purpose for why they are writing. It is this core reason that will become the blog’s foundation and act as a guide that brings consistency and fluidity to the writers’ voice.
There are a lot of reasons that answer the Why:
It’s an amazing opportunity to showcase who you are or who your company is.
It can be an outlet for your beliefs, views, and opinions.
It can act as a creative and interactive forum for you to share your knowledge or particular skill-set with others (and learn from them in turn).
It is how you can engage with a wider community and possibly attract potential customers.
The reasons seem limitless but pick one or two and let that be your focus. My Why is to share what I am learning about e-marketing. It is a subject I am new to and one that I know very little about. What I share most likely will be things you already know but perhaps you will pick up one or two things along the way as I cast out my nets and try to reel in as much knowledge as I can about this vast and fast-paced world of online marketing.
To kick it off, I thought I would share some tips for creating a successful blog from an already successful blogger, Chris Brogan. After all, why start from scratch when the knowledge is already out there and I figure the first step to blogging as part of your online marketing strategy is learning how to do it right.
Don’t overthink it. (It’s a blog, not a dissertation.)
But be thoughtful.
Don’t be mean.
Publish often enough to build a relationship.
But be mindful of your audience’s time.
Just reflecting on this list, I know I have a long, long way to go but I will definitely be keeping these in mind moving forward! And as one last reminder to myself, I thought I’d share this quote with you:
“Blogging is best learned by blogging…and by reading other bloggers” – George Siemens
So I’m off to read other blogs, starting with these that I found in this awesome and interactive infographic by ELOQUA & JESS3:
Taking Chris Brogan’s advice to be brief, my goal with this post is to be short and sweet.
