A Blog Is Not Just A Blog

Do you BLOG? - A Blog isn't just a Blog

Blogs are great for you to share with others about what you do and another way to highlight to your connections, followers and audience that you are an expert in your field.

Blogs are mainly created to encourage SEO to our website, however how are you using them within your social media?

Social media platforms are a great place to share your Blogs as content. Plus what’s the point in sitting, planning and creating your Blogs if people aren’t going to be able to access them to read.

HOW!

* Share the link for your Blog in a post and direct people back to your website - helping you with your SEO and of course getting people directed to your website.

When sharing the link for your Blog don’t forget to give people a teaser in the text post to encourage them to click on the link, and please put the link in the post and not in the comments of the post. The social media platforms have no issues with you using links in posts. They see it as you are helping build their communities.

By adding you link in the comments you could be missing out on people clicking and reading your Blog.

We are lazy when it comes to social media and our attention span on a post is no more than 3 seconds so if the caption to accompany your blog isn’t going to grab your audience you could be losing peoples interest before you start.

Also by adding your link to the comments it could get lost within comments left by your connections, people aren’t going to spend the time looking for it. Give your audience the info they need there and then.

If your link to your blog is to long think about using Bitly https://app.bitly.com/ it’s a FREE app that allows you to shorten your links. Especially when sharing on Twitter as you don’t want to eat into your characters.

* Turn your blog into a LinkedIn Article - LinkedIn Articles are so underrated, hardly used and yet they are a great LinkedIn tool and one that you should be definitely using if you do Blog.

When your connections look at your profile your LinkedIn activity is one of the first things they will most probably go and look at and possibly engage with. This also includes your Articles.

So why create an Article?

Our LinkedIn timelines are not as neat and tidy like they are on others platforms and can be tricky for people to see how we are an expert in our field at a quick glance. Having Articles allows us to capture this and grow a catalogue of all your blogs in one place.

This also allows you to recycle them and reuse accordingly.

LinkedIn Articles allow you to add your blog text, images, videos, links, snippets and slides, really helping you bring your Blog to life.

When publishing your Article don’t forget to add text that will capture others to open up and read your LinkedIn Article.

* Add your Blog to the Notes section on your Facebook Business Page.

What! there’s a Notes section, what is this?

Notes is a well hidden Facebook secret and not a lot of people know it even exists.

You can find Notes with your settings.

Open your Facebook Business Page via desktop, Select settings - Tabs and Templates and then add NOTES.

Notes allows you to add your blog text and images and then share on your Business page you can then directly share it to your personal Facebook profile and any Facebook groups.

When sharing your Notes to other areas of Facebook don’t forget to add text that will again capture your audiences attention to open and read your Note/Blog.

The Notes section appears on your Business Page and creates a catalogue of your Notes for your audience to read.

* Create a Video from the content of your Blog.

If you are brave enough why not turn your Blog into a video. Your video can then be used across all your social media platforms. You can use them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram.

When using them on Instagram remember that a video longer than 60 seconds has to be uploaded into IGTV.

You don’t need lots of expensive software, lights and backgrounds to create your videos, this is something that can come later when you are use to doing videos.

There are some great apps that help you create, edit, add logos and subtitles to videos on your mobile phone. It’s just finding the right one for you.

Once your confidence builds you can then look at different ways to creating videos especially if you are doing them on a regular basis.

Adding subtitles to your video will also help with more engagement and reach, remember not everyone can listen to videos with the sound on. Also don’t forget to add your logo or even your contact details.

Don’t add your contact details to the end of the video as unfortunately only a very small percentage of people will watch your videos right until the end. In fact the average time someone will watch a video on social media is between 45 seconds to 2 minutes (depending on the social media platform) So when you are creating your videos think about how long they are going to be.

When sharing your video upload it organically and don’t forget to add text that will engage and capture your audience to watch your video.

* Do you have a You-Tube challenge?

If you start to create videos from your Blogs you might want to consider creating a You-Tube challenge, another great way to increase your online presence.

However please don’t share your You-Tube videos to your social media platforms, unfortunately The platforms they don’t really like this and you will get more engagement and interaction by uploading your video organically to your social media platforms as I suggest above.

* Become a Podcaster

Podcasts are another great way to get your Blogs out there. Not everyone likes to read or watch videos so by turning your Blog into a Podcast allows you to reach an audience that like to listen to something on audio.

Again you don’t need to spend a fortune on equipment to start your Podcasts, there are some great FREE apps out there and once you become more confident and you think it’s something you are going to do on a regular basis you then can invest in your Podcasts.

If you are sharing your Podcasts throughout your social media platforms then don’t forget to give people a teaser into why they should be listening to your Podcast.

* One other thing to consider that if you are Blogging regularly why not look to turn those Blogs into a Book or E-Book.

Now do you still think a Blog is just a Blog