Last week I tweeted out a USA Today article with some statistics on why companies are quitting blogging in favor of social media. I’m glad to see companies embracing new technologies, but troubled by their reasons for abandoning blogging — and the possible ramifications of that abandonment.
I’ve said before that content is the foundation of a successful marketing strategy. And I’ve harped written extensively about ways to create that content. If you’re unable to do your own writing, I recommend hiring someone to do it for you. There are two ways to go outside your company for content, and we’ll take a look at both now.
As a client or potential client of Digett you probably have taken a look through our blog posts and wondered why we bother posting technical articles about Drupal. Some people think, “That’s not what a client wants to read.” or “Prospects aren’t interested in all that technobabble.” But as a client—ours or anyone else’s—the technical materials should be important to you too. Here’s why and what you can learn from our example.
As the world changes and its people become more social and connected, entire lives will be catalogued online. No matter your age, industry, or level of experience, having a personal brand can mean the difference between getting that job, gaining industry renown, and being just another somebody.
Do you know the story "Three Billy Goats Gruff"? There is a troll that lives under the bridge and he is preventing the three billy goats from crossing the bridge to get to greener pastures. What does this have to do with your business/website/life, you may ask?
Often I have a client who needs a lot of words on the page. At first glance, I feel like I can condense the message — but just as often, the nature of my client's industry requires specific language. Good design and marketing practices tell me to have a short page to read, but when I try to edit the page, there isn't much content I can trim (especially when there are product features or legally-required points to cover).
Most of us learned how to write in a system that encouraged us to fill the page. Remember when a teacher said to write two pages, single-space? We filled our papers with adjectives, extra details and asides. Nothing could be further from the goal in writing for the web.
In a meeting today with a new client, a conversation arose regarding their strong and positive feelings for their corporate culture, how important they thought it was, and that the challenge now was how to communicate that culture to their audience (which I'll just suppose for the sake of this post is two-fold: prospective clients and prospective job candidates).
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At Digett we often debate the need to enable comments on a blog, that is, if we should allow readers the opportunity to leave feedback via a form submission.
