How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

As a business owner, it is important to provide your audience with a steady supply of interesting and engaging content. But let’s face it. There will come a time when you’ll run out of ideas and don’t know what to write about. If you find yourself in this situation, then a content calendar may be just what you need.

Creating a content calendar allows you to plan your content in advance and schedule them across multiple channels at once. This allows business owners to come up with well-researched and valuable pieces of content and then schedule them on multiple platforms in one go. Plus, it will spare you the trouble of having to come up with a topic just before the deadline.

You may not realize it, but creating posts and content on the fly is more prone to mistakes and typos. With a content calendar, you’ll have enough time to write your content and proofread them before publishing.

Ready to create your own content calendar? Here are 4 tips to help you get started.

1. What content does your tribe want?

It is important to know what your audience is looking for before you just start posting. What do they like? What are they engaging on, sharing, talking about? Look at your past social media posts if you have them or your competitor’s posts and see what is working. One way to do this is looking at your social media analytics to get a good idea of what posts people have engaged in. What if you are just starting out and you don’t know what your audience is looking for yet? This is where your competition comes in, take a look at a good competitor and see what are they talking about, what type of posts are getting the most engagement?

Be sure to mix up your content, have posts with just text, articles, blogs, images, videos, gifs, to make sure you are grabbing their attention. Once you have a good idea of what type of content your tribe/audience likes then you can start creating!

2. How often should you be posting to each platform?

This is a question we get asked all the time! Each platform is different. As a business owner, you will have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and maybe even more than that. It is important to keep your audience in mind when posting. Meaning, how often should you post and what times should you post. When you were doing your research in step one, also check out the times that people were engaging.

You do not want to bombard your audience by posting too much and you don’t want to post too little so they forget about you. It’s kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you don’t want your porridge to be too hot, too cold, but just perfect!  

Here is the common rule of thumb for posting to the social media platforms:

  • Facebook: 1 time per day and 3 on the high-end
  • Twitter: 3 times a day on the low-end and 30 on the high-end
  • LinkedIn: 2-5 times per week
  • Google+: 3-5 times per week
  • Pinterest: 5-10 times per day
  • Instagram: at least once per day

Each platform is going to be different for you, some you will have more engagement so you can post more and some you will have less engagement so you may need to only post a few times per week.

Remember to use the analytics to look at the numbers and see what they are reflecting so you can stay top of mind to your tribe/audience!

3. Time to Create Your Content

Once you know what your tribe/audience is looking for and how often you should be posting, it is then time to create!

Remember to keep it fresh and mix it up. Here are a few different content ideas for you:

  • Create a custom image through Canva, WordSwag, Typorama, Prisma, etc.
  • Create a video through Ripl, iMovie, Videorama, Animoto
  • Post your blog post from your website to social media
  • Find outside sources, articles, other blogs and videos you like, that align with your brand to share
  • Gifs to increase engagement

Here are a few tools we use to help keep our outside sources organized:

Feedly

The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.  Stay ahead of the curve. The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.

Stumbleupon

Discover the best of the web, one click at a time.

4. Time to fill in your calendar

Now that you have put your plan together and figured out the type of content you are going to write, where you are posting it and how often, you can fill out your calendar.

We have found that there are a few tools to help you with that content calendar. Everyone is different, some people like more of a visual calendar and others like more of an excel type of calendar. We love creating the content calendar in Google Sheets then using Trello to write the content and copy from there to our platforms. Others like to use Google Calendar for their topics and then put the posts directly into Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule them at one time to the correct social media networks.

You have to explore each option to see which one resonates with you the best! So we wanted to give you some to choose from:

Trello

Trello is a project management tool that’s very popular with bloggers, marketers and social media managers. It’s a good way to keep track of your content ideas and even has an additional calendar add-on you can use to get a monthly view of your planned content.

Google Calendar

If you want to keep it simple, you could always just create a new Google calendar for the process and invite everyone on the team to view it. Those teammates could also add all of their own posts and ideas to the same calendar.

Google Sheets

We have created our clients content calendars into here for topics and it will look like this:

Or this is how our Social Speak Content Calendar looks, you can be as general or as detailed as you want:

Buffer

Buffer is a new and smarter way to share what you want to share on Social Media. People have called it great names before, like your Social Media Assistant or the Siri of Social Media.

What it does is simple. Posts in your queue will be sent out automatically by Buffer, according to the posting schedule that you put in place.

Select the social account you’d like to customize the posting schedule for, select the Settings tab at the top, and then select Posting Schedule. From here, you can choose which timezone is best for this account and customize the days and times your posts should go out. Select the days you’d like to include and add the individual times you’d like your content to be shared.

Hootsuite

Manage all your social media in one place. From finding prospects to serving customers, Hootsuite helps you do more with your social media. Save time by scheduling your social posts. Keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts at once, across your social accounts.

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your BusinessHow to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

 

How to Create the Best Infographic for Pinterest

One of the best visual tools to use on Pinterest is Infographics. Over the past few years, infographics have become a big deal. They are a great way to visually explain data to people. Not only are they easy to follow and digest, but they are also a powerful tool for capturing the attention of your target audience, teaching them some tips and tricks, and sticking with them long after they’re out of sight. 

Let’s face it. Infographics just look at home on Pinterest. Be in on mobile or desktop, there is no denying that they fit perfectly on the Pinterest feed. And now, you’ll find thousands and thousands of infographics on the platform. So if you’re on those people or brands that are sharing infographics on Pinterest, then you’ll have to find a way to stand out. Otherwise, yours will be lost in the sea of content.   

People can get too caught up in making an infographic, what data do you use, where do you find that data, how do you create the image, what colors do you use, etc. The list goes on and on.

We have created a 5 step system for you to follow to create the
BEST infographics for Pinterest!

  • 1 – Picking the right topic
    • Does it relate to your business?
    • What topics in your industry do people find interesting?
    • Is this topic something you are passionate about?
    • What data do you want people to receive?
    • Can you tell a story within the graphic?
  • 2 – Be creative, funny, or useful
    • Can you get a reaction out of people?
    • Explain something to your audience that will resonate with them
    • Explain the data you want them to learn on their level
    • Will your image be shareable?
  • 3 – Keep it simple
    • Have a simple and clean image
    • Keep your infographic to 3-5 points
    • Using text and images within your infographic
    • Have a good Call-to-action within the graphic, don’t give it all away in one image
  • 4 – Look and feel
    • Make sure you are using clear fonts that your audience can read
    • Tie your infographic into your brand colors only use 2-3 colors per image
    • Put your sources on the bottom and your logo
    • Keep your infographic consistent with your brand
  • 5 – Sizes and dimensions
    • Vertical is the way to go in terms of pins. Make your image longer rather than wider
    • The best dimensions for infographic Pins on Pinterest are 1000 x 3000 with a Pinterest Pin ratio of 1:3
    • Infographic pins should be no larger than 600 x 2400 pixels. Otherwise, they’ll get cut off.

Wonderful, now you know how to create your infographic, what it needs to look like, the things you should have and shouldn’t have, but now the BIG question is where do you get all the data?? I know as an entrepreneur I am always looking at infographics on Pinterest for our company and for our clients, I say WOW that is awesome, I want to create something like that. BUT where did they get the data, how do they know the key points they want to talk about??

As you can see there is a lot that goes into making just ONE image, right? This is a process. It’s really about finding that perfect topic that you really want to share with the world and being able to explain it in such a way that everyone gets it! You have to do your research with each infographic, make the process fun. As you think of these ideas for your infographics, keep a journal or word doc to start collecting your data. 

Lastly, you may also want to consider Pinterest SEO. Not only will it help you drive more traffic to your website, but it will also help you improve your reach and ensure your pins are getting maximum results.

Conclusion

Remember you are always going to analyze your data and try to create a story with that data. Once you have your data, story, and image complete you can craft together a successful launch. Where will you place this image first? Each infographic needs to have your call-to-action, visually appealing, and clearly branded. Here are a few steps we recommend for a successful launch:

  • Write a blog post about your Infographic with the image within the blog content
  • Share to Pinterest, Google, Facebook
  • Make another image that is the correct size for Instagram and share it on Instagram

When you follow these steps to create the best infographics and implement our techniques in your data and design process you will be able to deliver an infographic that will resonate with your audience. An image that they will want to share and will build your brand.

If you need a hand in creating Pinterest infographics that stand out or need help with Pinterest marketing, please feel free to schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with us.

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Growing Your Followers

Today we are going to talk about growing followers organically on social media. This is something that our clients ask all the time: “How do I increase my followers? How do I increase my followers?” And you can do it organically. We’re gonna talk about Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn company pages today, okay so we have a lot to cover.

Twitter

With your Twitter account, you need to make sure you are tweeting consistently. So whatever that schedule is, make sure you’re sticking to it. Maybe it’s one time a day, two times a day, three times a day. Optimize your posting time, so try different times. Thinking of your ideal client or patient, when are they home? Usually, Twitter’s always done by your mobile device, so most likely they’re on Twitter from their phone, so think of lunches, break times, maybe if your patients are parents, maybe later in the evening. Get creative with that posting time. It doesn’t always have to be 9:00 to 5:00. It could be at 6:00 AM, it could be 9:00 PM. So playing around with those posting times and seeing where, what times, and what days you’re getting the most engagement. You may be thinking, okay because you’re open Monday through Friday that that’s when you need to post, but maybe doing weekend posts is a great idea as well.

Post visual content. So Twitter used to be just all text. It doesn’t have to be now. Upload images, upload videos, make it eye-appealing, and utilize hashtags. We will put in the description below different hashtag tools to help you, but Twitter and Instagram, even LinkedIn, they thrive off of those hashtags, and you can follow different hashtags. People are always searching certain hashtags, and those are the people they follow. So look for those hashtags, follow the people that are utilizing those hashtags, make sure that you are Retweeting. So have a list of people in your industry that are like-minded. Not necessarily competition, but maybe it’s news articles. So if you are a OB-GYN, you may wanna look at the Women’s Health Magazine and Retweet stories that they’re posting. Look at those resources and make sure that you are utilizing those Retweets because then their audience will start to see you as well.

One great thing with all social media is that famous little search button on every single social media platform, whether it’s in the right-hand corner or in the middle, up top. Usually, it’s always up top. With Instagram, there’s a search icon when you open up the mobile app and search for certain people. If you are looking for… If your office is only within a 25-mile radius in that location, search for people in that location. Start following more people, and set a goal to maybe follow 20 people per week. One thing with all platforms and this is just a personal preference, but when you’re following people, don’t go follower happy, okay, and what I mean by that is you’ll look at some accounts and they’ll say they’re following 1000 people, but they only have 60 followers. Well, that ratio, it just seems kind of spammy, so when you start growing your followers, follow people, but do ’em in low numbers. So follow maybe five a day, 20 per week. Figure out what that looks like and make sure that those people are following you back. The more people that you follow that are in your niche, in your target market, they’re more likely to follow you back. Okay. So those are just a few tips for Twitter.

Instagram

Let’s go into Instagram. So again, you’ll see these… The same tips are, again, staying consistent, making sure that you’re posting at least once a day on Instagram, utilizing different content, trying live videos, doing Instagram stories, doing Instagram TV, along with just your regular posts. Share content from other users. So it’s user-generated content, so mentioning them, “This is a great article or a great story from so-and-so,” and make sure that you are collaborating with others. So thinking of your referral partners, is there a way where you guys can share a post every week or a couple of posts per month? How can you work with your referral partners on a much bigger scale to be able to help grow each other’s social media? Look at your analytics. Find out… Instagram does a great job with letting you know who’s looking at your posts, what days are your best days and what times, and then also your demographics. So where are they at, are they male, female, what stories are getting the most engagement? So paying attention to your analytics so you can make sure you’re giving that content back to them and that they are engaging with it.

Engage with your fans. Every follower you have… And again, you can search for your target market and follow them, engage with them, take the time to like their posts, to comment on them. Also look at those resources, those same people that you are gonna be retweeting on Twitter or sharing stories on Facebook, look at what they’re posting and start commenting on it because if they are a resource that you like, again, if it’s Women’s Health Magazine, and you start commenting on their stuff on Instagram, their followers are gonna see those comments as well. So being active and engaging with these platforms is a great way to be able to increase your followers. Again, it takes time. It’s not gonna be an overnight success by any means, but to have somebody that’s dedicated to your social media to make sure that they are reaching those correct people, that is key.

Facebook

Facebook, you can always invite your friends to like your page. So that’s always a great starting point. And then really with Facebook having your icon on, and all your social media icons and your email signature, having a sign at the front desk, follow us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, you know, because each person is gonna have that social media platform that they like, and they trust, and that’s kind of their go-to. So giving them the option of where they wanna follow you and engage with you as great.

So being able to put those signs up there, you know, on your marketing materials, but then with Facebook, working on having a little bit of ad spend, and you’ll see with especially with LinkedIn, as we get into that, you know, running those targeted ads, and having like campaigns following, follow our campaigns running, that’s where we’ve been able to see the most growth with our clients. And again, this is a paid feature, this isn’t an organic feature.

Start by inviting your friends and family to like your page. You’re always gonna have more friends because that’s where you most likely started doing Facebook was having a personal profile, and then you created your business page. So you could also have your employees of your company, also invite people to like the Facebook page. So consistency, inviting and then working on some of the paid options of boosting and running a paid like campaign to reach your target market.

 

LinkedIn

Going into LinkedIn, so you have your LinkedIn profile, and LinkedIn company pages are really growing. LinkedIn, what they’re doing with their platform I mean, it’s huge. And it’s a great b2b tool. So again, thinking of those referral partners, and inviting them to like the page, inviting your contacts to like your page, adding your employees to your page. And so they can say, “Okay, but it’s not just this one person, but they have a whole team and what their roles are.

Then for them to share the page to their personal profile, and for them to invite their contacts to like that page. So that process is really important too, is really to get your employees involved with your LinkedIn company page. And so that’s a great way to grow your followers organically with LinkedIn, you know, utilizing LinkedIn groups and Facebook groups as well, finding those targeted groups, being able to… Now with Facebook, you can share your content from your business page into a group, which is awesome. With LinkedIn, you can’t, but you can still post and be able to mention the company page.

Utilizing those LinkedIn groups, inviting your connections to like, following the page, and sharing your content from the company page to your personal profile, as well, is a great way to grow those followers organically.

YouTube

So last but not least, is YouTube. YouTube is a little bit different. It’s not so much of a social media platform, as it is more of a search engine. And really, that’s what it is. It is a video search engine. Google owns YouTube. So having videos on there is great for your SEO as well.

A few things to help your channel be found and to increase those subscribers to your channel is making sure you’re utilizing playlists and that they’re clear. So when people go there, they can see what type, what categories, and that’s really what the playlists are, they are categories that you have of different videos. Publishing longer videos, so having a mix between short tips, you know those three to five-minute videos, and then the longer ones that are 10 plus minutes that are really educating your audience on certain topics.

You know, maybe again, I always like to use the OB-GYN’s example, you know, maybe you’re talking about a eating plan for a pregnant woman or a birth plan or certain tips. These videos can be longer because they’re going to be educational. Maybe you’ll put together a PowerPoint presentation, and you’re walking through that as you’re talking. So publishing 10-plus minute videos is a great way to increase your subscribers.

Promoting your videos on an end-screen. Using those options that YouTube gives you, it will say end screen, you can say subscribe to our channel there, it will also allow you to promote your… Like another playlist, or if you’re doing a video that’s specific to that playlist, you want them to stay in that loop of that playlist. And so utilizing those tools to be able to do that.

Reply to every comment, if you get comments, and a lot of them, not a lot of them, but some of them can be spam. And just, you know, like it, but reply to the comments that need to be… That need to have a reply because those are gonna be the people that are gonna subscribe to your channel. Another one is just making sure your channel’s optimized completely. So having a tagline with your channel, making sure you have your channel app up top, and it’s clear and that they can… YouTube does this where it will show you what it’s gonna look like on a computer, on a TV because smart TVs people are watching YouTube all the time from their TV, and then what it’s gonna look like on their mobile device.

So you wanna make sure that that header is clear so when they come to it, it’s not cut off on every device that they are watching your videos from. They know exactly who it is. Making sure that you have a clear description, that your contact information, your website is in there, so they can reach you if they need to from your channel, but then also each video making sure you have that clear description, that keyword friendly title, the tag words, you know, making sure you have a YouTube thumbnail.

Just going through that little checklist to make sure everything is filled out correctly with your channel and your videos. Then also when you’re doing these videos, we always take our video and we put it onto YouTube and then we take the code from YouTube and we embed our videos into our blog post, which is a great way to get viewers to watch your videos, promote them on social media, have a video within your email signature, use them in your newsletters, people love listening and watching videos. So being able to utilize them in multiple places and having them link back to YouTube is a great way to be able to grow your subscribers.

I know we covered a lot today, if you need help putting together this strategy, this… And again, what we talked about today was really looking at that organic growth. You can run ads on all of these platforms to increase your followers and that we do help our clients with both the organic growth and the paid growth to make sure that you’re reaching your target market. If you need help with that and would like to talk more about the increasing your followers on all these platforms, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and click on free consultation.

Schedule your 30-minute free consultation today.

Benefits of adding a podcast to your digital marketing strategy

Podcasts have become a very popular way to connect with your target audience. They are easy and convenient which is always a win-win situation when it comes to digital marketing!

Today, we are going to be covering a few tips on Why Podcasts need to be implemented into your digital marketing strategy!

00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network Podcast, I am your host Amber Irwin. And today, we are going to be covering tip number nine: Podcast Marketing. We’ve covered a lot in these past tips of how to really create that content strategy. And I wanted to talk on [00:22] ____ really about just podcasts in general, and how and why they’re so important to your content strategy. So let’s jump into the why. Why are podcasts so important? And why have they gotten so popular? And let’s start with number one. They’re engaging to your audience and convenient. So when we’re thinking of our digital experience for our audience, we wanna think of what are the things that are convenient for them, that are easy for them to consume, and still give that value, and show that we are the experts in that industry. Whatever industry that is.

01:09 AI: And you have to think, podcasts are such a great way to really be able to package all this information into one setting. So, convenience is key. People that are listening to podcasts are usually… Maybe they’re driving, they’re walking, they’re cleaning the house, they’re working… They always have them on because it’s not something… They don’t have to watch the video, they can have it wherever so it’s the convenient piece for your audience is key. Number two is that mobile experience. We talked about this with… A few of the other tips is making sure that the digital experience is mobile-friendly because most people are using their phones to do the work.

02:03 AI: And so 69% of people listen to podcasts from their mobile device. So this is a great way that they’re able to listen to your podcast. Again that convenience piece, it’s mobile, they have it wherever they’re at. And thinking of your audience, what does their day look like? Are they in the car for an hour a day or maybe two hours a day? Are they family, are they mothers where they are sitting in maybe car line [02:35] ____, are they… Think of who they are, and how much time are they spending in the car or what does their lifestyle look like? Are they active? And so they always have their phone with them, so it’s mobile-friendly.

02:52 AI: And they’re becoming… Podcasts. And number three, they’re becoming more and more popular. And this is… So according to Search Engine Journal, there were 48 million weekly podcast listeners in 2018, 48 million. And Statista data says that there will be over 115 million listeners before 2021, a 115 million. What’s really cool about this is it’s growing and growing every day and the type of podcast… It’s really like your YouTube channel. We’ll get into that a little bit later on in the tips I’m giving you, but just thinking of how many people you can reach and your target market by creating a podcast. And it’s very simple, so that was tip number three. They’re becoming more and more popular. A lot of people have their favorite play lists of podcasts in different varieties. If you talk to people, most people will have, I would say, between 5 and 10 podcasts that they listen to, and for different reasons. It may be personal podcasts they like on the personal base. They have their work ones, things that are within their industry, that they stay up-to-date with. They may have, if they are a part of different organizations, a lot of people are requiring or recommending them listen to certain podcasts.

04:27 AI: So these podcasts are… There’s everything out there. So you’re looking at what is your audience struggling with? And so if you are a paediatrician and your audience is mostly mothers. Most of the time, that’s who’s bringing the kids in to the doctors. And are those moms looking for healthy eating, are they looking for… Maybe tips for… Parenting tips. Are they looking for podcast on vaccinations, are they looking at holistic medicine, like what are they struggling with? What questions are they asking you?

05:04 AI: And to be able to put a podcast together around that, that brings me into tip number four: Brand Loyalty. You have this convenience piece, you have the content piece of talking to your audience, and now you’re building this brand loyalty. And so a podcast is something you’ll have interviews, you can find out from your audience, you know what are those topics that they wanna learn more about and be able to interview someone on your podcast. You can just talk about a certain topic just like this on your podcast. So you’re building that brand loyalty. And like I said, most people have between 5 and 10 podcasts that they listen to on a daily or weekly basis, so they’re building that brand loyalty. They are really, they feel like they know the people that are putting on or the businesses that are putting on these podcasts.

06:03 AI: And number five is they are low cost. We’re not talking a big recording studio. I’m in my home office, I have a good microphone, I have my computer. You can use an external camera or your computer camera, you may need to, depending on lighting maybe get a little light, but honestly, it’s low cost if any. The only thing you’re really gonna pay for is where you’re going to put your podcast when it’s done.

06:36 AI: And so, we’re on Podbean. And Podbean I think is like 14.99 a month. And that also allows you… That syncs with iTunes and so that gets you on to iTunes. It gets you onto the other podcast networks as well. So it’s a really good tool. But $15 a month for being able to share information that you’re already talking to your audience about already… It’s brainless, you gotta do it. This has to be a part of your content strategy. And number six is you are building that expertise and value. So every podcast… Again, a great way to start is start serving your patients asking or writing down, what are they asking you when they come in?

07:29 AI: What issues are they running into? What are their pain points? What type of lifestyle are they wishing that they would have or that they’re working towards or what are they struggling with on the home side with their family? So thinking of your industry and your audience and you’re building these podcasts around those topics, you’re providing valuable information to your audience that they wanna know about. So this ties in with tip number four of that brand loyalty. If you are providing them value and you are showing that you are the expert in that industry, that’s building that loyalty.

08:08 AI: They are going to be listening to you. And then going into tip number seven, this is content creation. So one thing I love about podcasts is when you’re thinking of your digital marketing strategy, you wanna be able to think of how people comprehend information and podcasts are obviously auditory. Videos are visual. If you have a white paper, a free download to go along with something, those are gonna be the kinesthetic learners. And so, with podcasts, if you do… Let me give you a little insight tip here.

08:49 AI: We use Zoom. There’s a paid version and a free version. And one thing I like about Zoom is you can record it, and do a video, and it also records the audio. So when you’re creating this podcast, you can put the audio file onto Podbean or your podcast platform, and then you can take the video format and upload it to your YouTube channel. So you’re able to use this content in multiple different ways. And then, what’s really cool about this too is with your podcast, you can have… Your podcast can be shared out onto your social media platforms, you can have a link onto your website that says, “Join or subscribe to our Podcast.” So it’s really creating this community of people. And again, you’re already talking about these things to your audience.

09:46 AI: So, it’s just recording it and being able to package it in a podcast, wrap it up in the box and put podcast on it. And your audience is able to get it from their phone. They can listen to it from their computer. But again, you’re providing that information to them that is valuable and that is key. So if you’re thinking about starting a podcast in the new year and implementing that into your content strategy, I would start by opening up a document or opening up… Getting a piece of paper and start writing down what does that podcast strategy look like? What are you blogging about? What are you talking about on social media already? Those blog posts that you’ve already written, we were talking about how important blogging is, and how those blog posts should be 2,000 plus words and around that keyword foundation. Your podcast should be the same thing. And you can turn those blog posts that you have already taken the time to write, you can turn those into a podcast and then take the audio file and implement it into that blog post.

10:57 AI: So people can either… They can read it, they can listen to it or they can watch it. So it’s really… Again, you’re touching every type of learning style, so your audience whichever way they wanna consume your information, it’s there for them to do. And I think that that is really important for your digital marketing strategy. So start looking at what are those pieces you’ve already written on your website and on social media? What’s your audience, your patients, your current client list, what are they talking about? What are they asking you?

11:29 AI: And start writing down some topics. And your podcasts don’t have to be super long. Again, think of your ideal, your target market, are they on the go quick, quick, quick? So they do they need to be between 15 and 20 minutes long. Maybe you do your interviews, maybe 30 to 40 minutes long. I would say whatever you do, to keep them under an hour, under 30 minutes if possible. You gotta think of… If they’re listening to them while they’re driving, what’s that drive time like? So just keep your audience in mind. But anything under 30 minutes is gonna be great. And if you keep ’em between that 15 to 22 minutes, even better.

12:11 AI: So, if you have questions or need help creating this podcast strategy, please let us know. You can go to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule a free 30-minute consultation. And while you’re at it, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Podbean, Social Speak Network. And we are here to help you thrive with your content strategy. Have a great day.

If you are looking to create a life you truly love, you may start to think of becoming an entrepreneur. Creating a business that you love and can help others is the best of both worlds, right?

In this interview with Ashley Howard, co-owner of Howard’s Cleaning Service, you will learn how her and her husband Billy are successful business owners. They started this business from the ground up and Ashley shares a few great tips if you are thinking of starting a service based business!

If it something you really want to do, just start your business and do it. Provide great customer service and get good at putting out fires as needed. You don’t know what is going to happen everyday, but just go with it!

Learn more about Howard’s Cleaning Service Here

Entrepreneur Series - howard's cleaning service

How to tell your story

How to tell your story:

  1. How did you get to the place you are at now? Tell us about your journey.
  2. How did you know that you wanted to do “this” for a living?
  3. Core Values – What are your core values and how can you add them to your products or services? (We have a lot of resources o our website on core values)
  4. What makes you different? How do your products or services stand out from the others?
  5. What do you say when people ask you “What do you do for work?”
  6. Who is your target market? What problem are you solving for them or what pain point are you addressing? This will tie into your WHY!

Notes:

  • Once you have your story written down, make that your “About Me” page or create a blog post out of it. Also, create a video that shares your story, Add it to Facebook, Pinterest, make a short one for Instagram.
  • You are creating your Personal Brand with your story
  • Make sure you are fulfilling your target markets needs, are you solving a problem or fixing a need? By writing your story it will help you fill in the gaps you may be experiencing.
  • Check out your competition. Both locally and nationwide, look at what they are doing well and look at what they could be improving on and take notes!

Once you have your story complete and you are ready to move into the marketing piece and really being able to speak to your target market, you need to know first what are they searching for? What keywords are best for your business to be blogging about that will reach your target market and attract those perfect customers or clients.

You are on your way to creating SEO-Friendly content for your website and blog! Please sign-up for our FREE  training video on performing keyword research to improve the SEO on your website and blog posts.

Sign-Up for our FREE Keyword Training Video

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Interested in learning more? Take a look at the following videos:

Internal and External Goals

Setting Your Business Up On Autopilot

Finding Topics Your Tribe Will Love [Video]

 

pinterest strategy and goals

Pinterest, just like any other network, requires care, commitment, and attention to detail when it comes to implementing your strategy and measuring your results. In today’s blog and this week’s Growth Prompt, we are building your Pinterest Strategy and Setting Goals for measuring your success.

Earlier in the month we’ve explored the in’s and out’s of what Pinterest is, as well as, how to create images, manage your boards, etc, but today we are taking that deeper dive into the strategies to use to optimize Pinterest for your business.

In addition to the information provided in this blog post, be sure to download this week’s growth prompt HERE. This PDF includes space for you to create your Pinterest Strategy and to Establish your Goals on Pinterest.

Download Growth Prompt.

Part 1: Creating your Pinterest Strategy

Step 1: Be Consistent.

On Pinterest in particular, it is of utmost importance to be consistent with your pinning. Why? Pinterest will show your followers a collection of recent and popular pins when they sign onto Pinterest. Imagine that none of your pins appear for days and then all of a sudden 10 branded images pop up at once.

First, the person isn’t going to know who you are and second, they are going to feel like you are spamming their Pinterest feed.

Rather than only signing on one time per month, instead we recommend trying to have a consistent flow of pins to your boards that consist of both your pins and those of other people.

To build Consistency into your Pinterest Strategy, you want to make sure that you have a clear understanding of:

  • When you can pin (ie, can you only commit to pinning on your computer at 10pm while watching Netflix or can you carve out time during the day)?
  • If you would benefit from a 3rd party application to pin and repin on your behalf?

3rd Party Apps to Help Manage Pinterest

Yes! These apps do exist and there are 2 in particular I recommend utilizing.

Tailwind:

The first, Tailwind*, has a robust pin-scheduling tool for your own pins and allows your to set schedules to pull from other pins, as well. Tailwind also includes Tribes, which are groups of people who have agreed to share each others pins on a specific topic.

Boardbooster:

Personally, I utilize Boardbooster* for my Pinterest management. With Boardbooster, you create Secret Boards and pin images to these boards rather than your public boards. In boardbooster, you then create a schedule for how many pins you would like to move from the secret board to your public board and what time of day you want these pins to be published. Boardbooster also has a looping function to repin old pins from your boards at a set schedule.

One downside of Boardbooster is that you can’t really visualize the order of publishing your pins, so let’s say you make 3 images for a blog post, when you pin them to your secret board, you also need to pin other images.

I love boardbooster, however, because I can spend one movie just pinning other images to my secret boards and not worry about Pinterest for a month.

Step 2: Create Multiple Pins for your Blogs.

Rather than just creating one pinnable image for your blog post, change the design and wording slightly so you have 3-4 images for each blog post. This especially works well if your blogs are 1000+ words long as you can create a pin for each topic you cover.

To manage this, I recommend creating a few layouts and templates in Canva that you can just swap out words and images. Then, as mentioned before, rather than pinning all the images at once, add them to your secret boards (if you use Boardbooster) with other images between and try to space out their publishing dates (or at least times).

You’ll also want to make sure the images are rotated into a board specifically for your brand and website. I recommend calling this board “From the XYZ Blog” or “Company Name Pins” – just something that makes it very clear that these pins are only from your website. Put this board at the top of your Pinterest boards as a featured board and you are good to go!

So, how do you incorporate multiple pins in a blog post without being overwhelming? Get your hands dirty with HTML and you’ll be good to go! 🙂

I recommend the following process for adding multiple pins to your blog post:

  1. Create images and name them with your blog topic then upload the images all at once to the end of your blog post.
  2. When you upload the images, add individual ‘alt tags’ to them with the following formula: BLOG/PIN TOPIC, keyword 1, keyword 2, #firsthashtag, #secondhashtag, keyword phrase 3, #thirdhashtag
  3. Drag and drop or copy and paste images to where they fit in the content (for example, if you have one topic at the start of the blog and it flows into another topic, you may want to include one pin that includes language from each of these sections rather than using the same language on every pin.
  4. With the remaining images that are at the end of the blog, you will now want to HIDE them!
  5. Just into the HTML for the blog post (in WordPress this is the Text tab above the content editor) and scroll down in the text editor to the end of the post. You should see the html code for the images here. This looks like: <img src=”URL” alt=”info you added to the alt tags”/>
  6. Directly before the first image you want to hide, add the text: <div style=”display:none;”>
  7. At the very end of the post after the last image you want to hide, add: </div>
  8. Click save and you are all set!

Step 3: Incorporate Pins from other Websites.

The last core piece of your Pinterest strategy is to include the Pins of other accounts and to pin images directly from other websites.

When you pin from other accounts, be sure you are looking to find popular RICH pins that include keywords in their descriptions and are frequently repinned. Typically, when you search for a topic, these pins will appear first in the search results.

Why do you want to only repin rich pins? These are often shared more frequently and if your account is posting pins that are shared frequently, you will tend to show up more frequently in Pin search results.

You also want to pin images directly from different websites because then you have the added benefit of having your profile link appear alongside the pin rather than only appearing when someone clicks to expand the pin!

Part 2: Setting your Pinterest Goals

There typically are two main goals businesses set for Pinterest. The first is much easier to accomplish than the second, but both simply require that you are consistently active on Pinterest.

 Goal 1: Gaining Name Recognition and Exposure.

Gaining name recognition and exposure is a great goal for Pinterest and is actually fairly easy to accomplish!

With my Pinterest account, I was able to grow from 100 followers to 60,000 pin views in a matter of 3 months. How? I wrote blogs and used Boardbooster to consistently pin new images, my images, and repin for me while I worked on other aspects of the business.

You can do this too, if you follow the strategy steps outlined above.

 Goal 2: Growing Traffic to Website.

Though to reach the first goal of gaining exposure doesn’t necessarily require you to blog, growing the traffic to your site ABSOLUTELY requires that you blog for your business! This makes attaining this goal a little more difficult as you need to build time in your schedule to blog and create pinnable images.

Once you create your schedule for writing blogs and the images, then, as long as you are using keywords in your descriptions, sharing the pin to group boards, and testing out different pin designs, you can be fairly certain people will click through to your site.

Final Thoughts: Freebies

So, as I wrap up, there is also the important notion to remember about what to do once people get to your site!

I always recommend including Content Upgrades in your content as a way to capture the names and email addresses of those who click through the site. This means in addition to creating the blog post and images, also creating a download and a form to add even more information to your post. Once someone signs up to download the form, you ‘own’ their email address and can send them weekly tips and news to continue helping them on their educational journey in your industry!

We’ll be doing an entire section on the ins and outs of Content Upgrades (Freebies) and Welcome Series, so stay tuned!

 

Did you know?  Pinterest is the 3rd most popular social network and it has become a huge search engine!  People turn to Pinterest on the daily to:  shop, find information, ideas, educate themselves, organize themselves and so much more.  Once you get to know Pinterest and all that it can provide for you, the love affair begins 😉

To make sure your brand’s content hits the ground running, there are some basics you need to have in place, especially when it comes to graphics.  Pinterest is a highly visual platform.  Understanding the best graphics to use on the site is key to making your account perform its best.

We want to make sure you and your brand look your best on Pinterest, so, we put together this helpful 2018 Pinterest Image Size guide.  Download it, print it out, and keep it handy so you can have these image sizes available at-a-glance!  Download the guide HERE.

Part of being successful on Pinterest requires your ability to be found!  That’s where hashtags (#) come into play.  Once you have an understanding of how to utilize hashtags, you will notice an increase in your Pinterest traffic.

Hashtag Know How!

Here are 3 strategies you can use to get your hashtag game in place for your brand

STRATEGY #1:

Know the number of hashtags you can use one 1 pin.  A recommended rule of thumb is to use no more than 20 hashtags per pin.

STRATEGY #2:

Always use hashtags on the pins you post.  When people search hashtags in the search bar, Pinterest will compile the latest pins chronologically, placing the newest pins at the top of the list. That’s where you want your pins to live.

STRATEGY #3:

Organize a list of hashtags for your brand.  Categorize you hashtags into 3 buckets:

  1. Branded Hashtags:  a list of hashtags that only relate to and describe your brand
  2. Trending Hashtags: a list of trending (popular) hashtags on the topics you post about (these hashtags will frequently change based on the topic and current trends you are posting about)
  3. Content Related:  a list of content related hashtags to use in order to describe the post you are pinning

Best Practices When Selecting Hashtags:

  • Avoid using very broad hashtags, be more specific and try to think like your audience.  What hashtags would they use to find your pin?
  • Don’t be afraid to use hashtag phrases if they help to define your audience even better.  For example, we may use a hashtag phrase like #SocialMediaTraining as a hashtag to reach our audience.
  • Do some research!  When adding a hashtag to a pin on Pinterest, Pinterest will populate a list of suggested hashtags.  Next the hashtag, you will see how many pins are using the hashtag you are considering.  If the number is HUGE, your pin may get lost in the shuffle.  Try to determine how you can make your pin more niche with a more specific hashtag or hashtag phrase.

When working with Pinterest, our best advice is for you to get started, have fun, and experiment with different ideas, strategies, and tactics.  Happy pinning!