Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

Should You Outsource Your Social Media? Yes and No

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Building your business with social media takes time and consistency. And with entire blogs, courses and books devoted to doing social media “right,” it can be intimidating to get started.

Some people wish – and maybe you’re one of them – they could just hand this whole social media thing over to someone else. So when they find out I’m a ghostwriter who specializes in web content, they sometimes ask, “Linda, will you ‘do’ my social media for me?”

The short answer is “no,” but the longer answer is “yes and no.” Let me explain:

In social media, there are two equally important components – content and connection.

Content is made up of all the great ideas, opinions, perspectives and resources that you want to share with your network, often via your blog. Having masterful content is the best way to promote your business on social media and help people get to know you.

Connection is all of the back-and-forth interaction you have with current and prospective clients, as well as your fellow business owners, neighbours and other online friends. This is how you get to know people.

More importantly, by connecting directly to your readers and colleagues, you’ll get to see which content they’re looking at and liking. What do they link to or forward along to their networks? When you post something new, do you get comments and interaction, or do you just hear crickets?

Pay attention! These details will teach you more about how to create the content that would be most helpful to your readers.

Many hands make masterful content

Yes! You can outsource your content creation by working with a writer and/or editor who can take your ideas and help you put them into writing.

Ghost blogging is a big part of what I do. My clients and I work together to create feature articles, along with related pieces of connective content they can post to their blog and/or send via email to their mailing list.

Along with that, I’ll usually provide several social media updates for each post. These are designed to announce the new content and invite my clients’ social networks to view it.

And the outsourcing doesn’t have to stop there. Many of my clients have a VA or other team member who will publish the piece to their blog and/or email service provider (or maybe they’ve automated their weekly newsletter), as well as pre-scheduling their social media updates.

Relationships are built through direct connection

No! I won’t and can’t effectively handle this part for you – and neither can anyone else, in my opinion. Connection must come directly from you, or you’re not building the kinds of honest, trusting relationships that will grow your business – not to mention the ethical considerations of someone else pretending to be you.

So even when you’ve outsourced and gotten help with content creation and publication, it’s YOUR job to monitor any responses.

If you’re concerned about missing these messages – or you don’t want to lose productivity by constantly checking your accounts, sign up for a free service like Postling. They’ll notify you by email once a day, or even the instant someone mentions you in a social network or anywhere else on the web.

Aside from posting your own content and responding to comments, it’s also your role to start new conversations and comment on other people’s content. Social networking is just like networking offline, and you’ll succeed by applying these networking basics:

  • Be visible
  • Be positive
  • Help out
  • Educate

To maintain your productivity (and sanity), try blocking out specific times through the day when you’ll go into your Postling account (or other social media dashboard) to participate in conversations and/or start some new ones. Batching the tasks this way will help you make conscious choices about how much time you’re spending on social media.

So by all means, outsource the task of creating great content to share on social media. After all, it’s a lot easier to plant your flag of expertise on top of a mountain of content. Then, practice applying your offline networking skills to this new medium. Let’s keep this social – and fun!

Automating Your Weekly Newsletter

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If you’re not sure where you’ll find the time to create a weekly newsletter, never fear! Once you’re writing weekly blog posts, there are ways to automate the task.

Option #1: Create a customizable email broadcast of your blog posts

I have been very happy with AWeber’s Blog Broadcast feature. Every Tuesday at 5:00 a.m., it gathers together all of the blog posts I’ve written since the previous Tuesday, and plops them into a new broadcast draft – using a template I created with Kristen Beireis and her team a few years ago.

Later that day, I go into the draft and add a personal note. I also revise the descriptive paragraph that my subscribers see for each blog post.

By default, this text is the first paragraph of my post, but I rewrite that to be a more compelling introduction. Usually I mix and match content from the post, but sometimes I write something completely new. I try to put myself into my readers’ shoes and imagine what would interest them about the post.

Once I’m finished these personal touches, my newsletter is ready to go. The last step is to create a test copy and read it out loud before I send it to my list.

[Update May 5, 2014: I now use MailChimp’s RSS-to-Email service, described below.]

Option #2: Create a fully automated email broadcast of your blog posts

With AWeber, I also have the option to send the blog broadcast automatically, without customizing the descriptive paragraphs or adding a personal note. And MailChimp has a similar feature called RSS-to-Email.

The two key benefits of using one of these services are:

  1. You’re not creating a new mailing list in a completely separate program. You’ll be reaching out to exactly the same people (or a segment of that group) who have already signed up for your pink spoon (you do have a pink spoon, don’t you?). Just be explicit about what people will get when they sign up.
  2. You can use your own branded template, so these emails will look the same as the other emails you send to your list.

FeedBlitz and Feedburner are two other services that allow you to send fully automated emails of your new blog posts. FeedBlitz also allows you to send additional newsletters to your subscribers, and has many of the same functions as AWeber and MailChimp – so FeedBlitz could potentially be your sole email service provider.

Feedburner is a feed distribution service that enables readers to subscribe to your blog in a “feed reader.” But you can also use it to create automated emails of your new blog posts, and it does this very well. If you’re not concerned about sending other messages to your list – or if you don’t mind having two lists (or more) to keep track of, Feedburner is a good option.

NOTE: If you’re going to use Feedburner, be sure to read this post from my friend Sandra De Freitas: How to Customize the Subject of Your Feedburner Emails.

[Update January 19, 2013: Google has stopped providing support for Feedburner. If you’re starting at the beginning, I would recommend using one of the other options.]

If you can get into the groove of writing weekly content, these automation options can help you extend your reach with not much extra effort.

Remember that automation is personal – by setting up these helpful tools, you’re making it easier to get your content into the hands of your readers in different ways. So it’s more likely you’ll tap into the way they prefer to receive information from you.

Before you even think about weekly emails…

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Do you have an email service provider?

Starting and growing a mailing list will be a key part of your content marketing strategy. While it’s easier and quicker than ever to publish your thoughts using online tools such as blogs and other social media tools, just putting your content out there is not enough.

When you have a list of people who have shown interest in what you do and agree to hear from you again, you can build on that initial contact to grow those relationships. Whether they hire you personally, refer you or simply pass along your information to someone else who may hire you or refer you, you never know what can come out of staying in touch.

An email service provider allows you to broadcast emails to a group of people at once. Using one of these services is the best way to ensure that you are complying with anti-spam regulations. Each company offers their own collection of tools to help you grow your mailing list and keep in touch with your readers, clients and prospective clients.

I use and recommend AWeber*. They’re a pioneer in the industry and are constantly evolving and innovating. I’ve also heard excellent things about MailChimp, Constant Contact and iContact.

If you’re blogging (which I hope you are), AWeber, MailChimp and FeedBlitz (and perhaps others) each make it easy to send blog updates. They provide a template that automatically compiles your latest blog posts so you can send links to those in a broadcast email to everyone on your mailing list.

(*The above text was adapted from Write Your Way to More Clients Online. As of June 2013 I have been using MailChimp to deliver the Blogging Tips newsletter.)

If you want your prospective clients to think of you when they’re ready to take action, you need to be in their Inbox more often (you can’t be last week’s news). But before you even consider increasing your email frequency, make sure you have an email service provider in place.

Don’t Be Last Week’s News, Be a Weekly Blogger

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Something wonderful happened when I was on the phone with a client last week. We were only two weeks into our new weekly blogging schedule, and we were on the phone planning content for the following month.

As we were sending some resources back and forth to each other by email, both of us noticed that his newest blog post had just been published and emailed to his list – great! Then, a few minutes later, my client noticed something else.

Someone had just sent him this reply to his email: “This caught my attention. Give me a call.”

If my client hadn’t sent his email, it wouldn’t have landed in that reader’s Inbox at precisely the right time, to deliver the message he was obviously primed to hear. And my client would never have had the opportunity to make that connection.

How many of your prospective clients are primed and ready to hear from you right now? So what’s stopping you from posting to your blog every week and sending that content to your mailing list? Maybe you’re thinking:

  • I don’t have enough to write about
  • I don’t have time for that!
  • I can’t write well enough
  • My audience is too busy to hear from me every week – they’ll get angry and unsubscribe (actually, Hubspot reported that businesses who send one email per month have a much higher unsubscribe rate than people who email more frequently)

We addressed all of these concerns in a Content Mastery Action Day presentation call, “How to Be a Weekly Blogger,” where I covered:

  • How one feature article can feed your blog and newsletter for an entire month
  • How planning and batching can save you time
  • How to make the most out of your editing time
  • How to provide more value in every single post

How to Make Photo Ads for the Facebook Photo Viewer with Free Online Tools (thanks Mari Smith!)

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I’m relatively new to using Facebook for my business, but I love how the new version of Facebook Pages allows me to participate in two distinct ways:

  • Logging in as my personal profile, I can interact with friends and family, or follow companies that I have a more personal interest in as a consumer/greyhound lover/foodie, whatever. 
  • Logging in as my business’s fan page, I can interact with my colleagues, follow companies or people I admire, and – most importantly – meet and engage with people who might need my help with their content marketing.

In her blog post, How to Use the Facebook Photo Viewer as a Marketing Tool, Mari Smith suggests a very clever enhancement to this new layout. If you add “calls to action” (as text) to your photos, and upload them to your Fan Page, theyll be added automatically to the new photo viewer at the top of your profile.

Then, when someone clicks on any of your photos, a scrollable “lightbox” pops up, and viewers can read your photo’s caption (where – ah-hah – you can place a clickable link to a webpage).

The size and shape of the photo are important (Mari gives details on dimensions) and I found that the spacing of the text made a difference as well.

After some trial and error, my third effort was, I believe, my most successful:Write-more-blog-posts960w719h
So are you ready to hear how a self-described “graphically-challenged” writer made this happen in such a relatively short amount of time, and with completely free online tools? Here are the steps I took:

First, I searched for photos at stock.xchang – it can be hit and miss, but I usually find something (and if I don’t, I’ll go with iStockphoto). Hint: Start your search with the emotions you want to capture – i.e., the pain of having the problem you’re trying to solve, or the joy of solving it. Then add another search term about your topic.

As an example, check out one of my other Facebook photo ads. I found this photo with the two search terms “frustrated” and “computer.”

Next, I uploaded the photo into Picnik, where I added the text and resized it per Mari’s suggestions. Here is a brief video demo of how I did that:

Honestly, if I did this, you can do it! Why not give your Facebook visitors the opportunity to learn more about what you have to offer?