Packaging is very important when creating content for social media. Your materials are battling to grab the attention of a reader who is bombarded by lots of messages. Why do some stories take flight while others fail?
Hook- It’s key to find something to draw your audience in. A great title helps with this. Pick a title that does one of these:
Provides a solution: Ex. Fix Your Bad Credit or Keep That Weight off For Good
Shocks the reader: Ex. Aliens Found in New Jersey or 98% of All Men Prone to Heart Failure
Offers value: Ex. Get a Free iPod or Become a Social Media Superstar
Intrigues the reader: Ex. How Much Does the Average American Pay in Taxes? or Sir Walter Chevrolet Has a Secret
Quote from your blog/article: Ex. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin Roosevelt or “It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.” Muhammad Ali
Audience- Now that you’ve reeled your reader in you want to retain them. This means considering their wants and needs. Their needs will be pressing matters they have to attend to and their wants will be attractive distractions that they choose to indulge.
Wants: What does your audience want? A busy business executive may want more time with their family. A chef may want a larger kitchen. Think about how your story might satisfy one of these wants for your audience. Tailor your content to their wants and they’ll keep reading.
Needs: Everyone needs to have a place to live, food to eat and a job. Can your article assist your reader in fulfilling one of these needs? Finding out the needs of your audience can be accomplished by just asking them via a poll or requesting that they comment in your blog.
The “Shiny” Effect- People like things that come in attractive packages. Make your blog entry easy on the eyes.
Avoid long blocks of text. Break your text up using bullet points, short paragraphs and lists. (Test this by sending it to a friend without warning. Twenty minutes later contact them and ask them if they read it all. If they didn’t ask why.)
Use a funny picture, relevant video or an interesting graph. Some people are visual learners and will appreciate this.
People love features similar to what appear in magazines online. These include Top Five Lists, Do’s and Don’ts, Daily Fun Fact, Quote of The Week and many more. Check out www.people.com for great examples of this.
Hope you found something of use here. Got anything to add? Hit up the comments section.
I apologize to everyone for the lateness of this blog entry. It’s been a wild week or so here at Click Optimize. Our Leaner. Greener. Cleaner. program is humming along nicely. Its purpose is to help curb climate change here in our office and through positive interactions with our clients.
Leaner- So far we’ve instituted our new policies of powering down computers at night, using natural light as much as possible and cooling the office with some clean Spring air (invigorating!). We’ve also instituted a “ReUse” pile of paper next to our printer. Next month we’ll discuss transitioning as much as possible to a paperless environment.
Greener- We purchased our first carbon offset from TerraPass. Our money is going towards clean energy, farm power and landfill gas capture. Nice! Check out the details HERE. Next month we’ll be purchasing our first air cleansing plant and getting the recycling program rolled out.
Cleaner- As a part of our Tag! You’re Green intiative we’re selecting a few of our clients to carry on the spirit of our program to their companies. The first client we’re “tagging” are Louis Moinet North America. They are a luxury watch brand with a really interesting history. It will be exciting to see what green programs they institute. The second client we’re “tagging” is Progressive Plumbing & Piping. They are a locally owned and operated commercial and residential plumber that has been in business since 1983. Given the concerns in our area regarding water conservation I think they’ll provide some excellent green tips for us all.
Click Optimize is searching for a summer intern. We’re an Internet marketing firm here in Raleigh that assists our clients with web design, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media and web video. Rather than put you through the paces of a boring cover letter and shooting over a resume let’s do something different. You can do ONE of the following:
A. Create an informative video about yourself and send it via YouTube.
B. Send over an example of a web site, graphic design project or copy that you’ve developed/created/written. Tell us a little about each piece and what you think makes it great.
C. A local car dealership needs our help with SEO and SEM. Tell us what you would propose we do to help them in one page.
D. Write a one page description of what you’d like to accomplish in the marketing world and how working with us would help you.
Also, just to keep everything legit please send over your resume. If you couldn’t tell already we’re a young company and looking for folks who are eager to learn. You’ll have lots of chances to get your hands dirty in real projects. What you help us with will depend on the answers you provide in the interview process.
What can we do for you? We’re willing to provide a small travel stipend, college credit, a potential part-time paid position at the end of the internship and access to our network of contacts once you’re ready to search for a job. Looking forward to hearing more about you!
*This is a guest blog by our AdWords Guru Frank Andolina. Enjoy!*
Do you manage your own Pay Per Click campaigns using Adwords? It can be challenging to see the results you’d like to achieve. Here are some insider tips to help you increase your ROI.
1.Make sure to keep your keywords in small, manageable groups.Your Ad Groups should always be specific to one product, service or idea.If you own an online computer supply store, you wouldn’t want every keyword displaying just any ad.You should have an ad group for each product you sell to ensure that the searcher sees the ad most related to their search. You wouldn’t want a potential customer searching for a new router to trigger your ad that describes your printers.
2.Download AdWords Editor today!This is a great application to help handle bulk edits within your campaign.You don’t necessarily have to have a robust campaign to find value in AdWords Editor (it is free).It will cut campaign change times immensely.
3.Using AdWords without tracking website activity with Analytics could be very costly as you won’t know which keywords are truly converting for you.It’s like driving with your eyes closed.Maybe even more dangerous.
4.Use embedded match when appropriate.If you sell Barack Obama merchandise, you should set an embedded match on –[Barack Obama].This way, your ad will appear for “Barack Obama merchandise” or “Barack Obama t-shirts”, but not the exact match, “Barack Obama”.
Quick little video to show you some of the highlights of our event on 3/12/09 at LoneRider Brewing Company. Thanks again to LoneRider Brewing Company, The Q Shack, TriangleBlvd.TV and all of you on Twitter for showing up. There were over 120 people who came to eat, drink and learn about social media. Awesome. Watch the video and for fun call out the Twitter names of people you see in the video in the comments section!
As lovers of all things sporting and competitive the questionable individuals here at Click Optimize have decided to hold a wee contest of sorts. The premise is simple. Whoever tweets the most about our LoneRider Tweetup that we’re throwing on 3/12/09 at 7 pm in Raleigh will win a secret, awesome prize at the event. A few rules:
1. You must use our hashtag for each of your tweets to be counted. Psssst! It’s #lonerider.
2. The contest starts now and will be counted up at 7 pm at the event.
3. You must be present to claim your prize at the brewery.
4. The prize is stupendous. Work your tail off and you’ll be stoked on the fruits of your labor.
I just heard back from Tom from over at The Q Shack regarding the LoneRider Tweetup. He’s got some great ideas for food pairings for our twtpoll.
Shotgun Betty: Pulled Pork BBQ: Locally raised whole hog bbq from Johnston County. Smoked over hickory wood for 14 hours at The Q Shack at North Hills, Raleigh. The bbq sauce is a mixture of cider and white vinegars, tomatoes, chiles and spices.
Mashed Sweet Potatoes: Organically grown (Hurdle Mills, NC) Beauregard sweet potatoes, mashed with milk, butter, nutmeg, ginger and brown sugar.
Macaroni and Cheese: Homemade mac and cheese with nutmeg, coriander, salt, black pepper and sauteed garlic and onions.
DeadEye Jack:
Beef Brisket Chili: Slow cooked (10 hours) dry rubbed beef brisket, simmered with onions, tomatoes, cumin, chili powder and other spices.
Sliced, Smoked Pork Loin: Dry rubbed local pork loin, sliced and served with a chipotle-honey bbq sauce.
Black-Eyed Peas: Black-eyed peas simmered with tomatoes, spices, onions and a bit of jalapeno.
You’ll get to vote on your favorite pairing at the event via twtpoll. RSVP HERE!
So in case you hadn’t heard we’re throwing a party with our friends over at LoneRider Brewing Company on March 12 from 7 pm – 9:30 pm at their brewery here in Raleigh. Haven’t RSVPed yet or need details? Everything you need can be found here: http://www.amiando.com/lonerider.html
1. So like any good Tweetup we now have a Twitter hashtag. Please include #lonerider whenever you tweet about the LoneRider Tweetup. New to hashtags on Twitter? Check this video out to LEARN MORE.
2. We now officially have a catering sponsor. Our friends at The Q Shack will be providing a variety of tasty appetizers. They’re picking the perfect matches for Shotgun Betty and DeadEye Jack as we speak. More to come on this.
3. We created a goofy video for LoneRider here in the office. More entries are on the way but you can preview the videos before we pick the winner on our YouTube Channel HERE.
We hope to see you all there! This event is free and open to the public. Please INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!
Posted on March 30th, 2009 by Nick
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