Social media has made sharing our lives, businesses, events, etc has made quick and easy. We can add an update from our phones without too much work so why bother blogging?

Your website is your storefront and your blog and social media are the crumbs to lead people there. While social media platforms connect tons of people with your product (so you should also be using social media for your marketing) you have to realize what it is and what it isn’t. First off, and I would argue maybe most important— is that social media isn’t yours. Social media is like the worlds large MLM— you are the consultant bringing more and more value to the platform. You are renting followers and the store front from them (them being Instagram, Facebook, etc.) Your website on the other hand is yours. You own the traffic and the leads. What would happen if one day you find your social media account hacked, or reported for not following “community rules”, or one day you wake up to a world that doesn’t have Facebook or Instagram any more. How would you connect with buyers?

Your website and your blog are value to your brand and should be used to consistently grow

How many times have your heard “blogging is dead?” I wholeheartedly disagree. While social media and influencers changed the game people are still searching Google for lots of information and guess what — finding lots of blogs with useful information. From recipes, to top 5 travel destinations for kids, to best Topeka, KS restaurants for anniversaries. Please search the internet all the time to solve peoples, ask questions, and find information. How often have you heard from someone to “instagram in?”… no you hear “I’ll just google it.” Now does google bring people to social media sites yes— but more often it is going to take them to specific sites to answer their questions and help them solve their problem - a blog or website. So while social media is incredible — don’t forget about your blog.

Top ways your blog helps you

1. Your blog builds trust and authority

   • You have this amazing platform to assert your self or company as the authority in a certain area. A vet who tells you how to prepare your pet for boarding. A realtor who has great information on best lawn services in the area. A fitness coach who provides great ideas on how to workout without any equipment while traveling.

   • Provide valuable information and be rewarded with more traffic. We blog to bring people in to solve one problem, but hope they stay and look around because we have lots of their value they may not have realized they needed.

2. Your blog content is sharable

   • Write a blog once and then share it to multiple places such as Pinterest, Facebook, and LinkedIn

     • Gaining incoming traffic can help boost your SEO. Even if that traffic is coming from people who never intended to hire you.. Google sees you as a greater authority and pushes your content up higher. For example, a gym owner is trying to attract people to their gym locally, but maybe they have a competitive market. They start creating short workout blogs, make an attractive Pinterest post leading back to the blog— now great, they are helping someone who will never hire them… maybe yes, but what they are also doing is driving traffic to their site making them a greater authority in Google’s eyes.

   • Your content has a longer shelf life.

     • You get to reshare posts. I see it all the time. The content you create maybe is seasonal or is just worth repeating. As long as the content is still valid and current — reshare it. You worked hard to create it and let’s be honest— only a fraction of your followers on any single platform may have seen it. Doing this saves you time.

     • You can tag or put your content into categories for longer organization. Social media content is overwhelming, but you blog can have a long lasting organization to make it easier for someone to find information. Let’s say your financial company blogs about kitchen table issues - and have sections about “saving for college”, “budgeting for a vacation”, “Investment properties” and under each of these sections you have a number of blog posts that all tackle a small portion of that topic. Someone searching for “how to start a college fund” may find a blog post you did two years ago, finds it helpful, and then finds another helpful post on your site.

     • Social media is here today gone tomorrow — it is fast. But you blog is a library of information that waits for the right people to come along.

3. The intent of the viewer

   • Most people don’t head to social media to do research, we go there to see what others are doing, maybe get the highlights on the news, see what events are happening in our area. But they do head to Google to ask questions and are invested in the answer. When they hit your blog or website full of the information they are looking for they are way more likely to engage with your call to actions more seriously. I will say social influencers or well created Facebook posts do engage people (believe me I have bought at a lot of stuff an influencer suggested), but imagine how much more engaged someone is who is actively looking vs passively being sold to.

   • Clear call to actions are effective on a blog post and website. Maybe your social media posts got them there (remember the bread crumb) but getting potential clients to your websites/blogs mean you can promote your lead generators, other blog content, and hopefully get there contact information for future marketing.

4. SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Really a fancy way of saying - getting found.

• Words words words- Google uses your words to decide if your content is a good fit for the questions or searches it is being asked to do. Using the right words for your business means you have a better chance of being found. To find out more check out your websites “Google Search Console” to see what keywords your website is currently is showing up for. You may be surprised.

• Backlinks- Another way Google decides if your content is worth more than someone else’s content are backlinks- when another website links to yours. Websites with higher Google “authority” scores give your site more credibility. Google’s whole goal into provide the best quality searches for their users - remember they are a business too and want to keep their share of the market.

  • Other websites may link to your site because you have great content and they see you as an expert.

  • Maybe they are providing a list of the top 5 best XYZs in the area and they recommend you

  • Maybe they are a news organization and link to you so their audience can provide more information

How can you start blogging — and create an effective blog?

Solve Problems

We obviously want people to read our blogs so make a list of the top problems your brand/business can help your ideal client solve. Maybe you are an accountant and you write about the top apps for tracking receipts. Or an animal groomer and write about ways to prevent so much hair from being in your home (I would read that!) Again- people search Google to find out information. Instead of writing about yourself- concentrate on your ideal clients problems. If you can solve problems it helps build trust and give you credibility. Talk about the problem and then share your solution. People are incredibly self centered…. we are always looking for ways to solve our own issues. Someone may be way more interested in your solution after you connect it to a problem they face.

Keywords

While I like to write, I write for selfish reasons too… keywords. Every post I make I insert words like - Topeka KS, professional photographer, Creative headshots, corporate headshots….. (see what I did there) because that is what I want to be found for by Google. Those words help my SEO. Now making a list of words like this isn’t really the goal. You want to work words in about what you offer and your location naturally into the text of your blogs and titles. You may see a blog post about, “5 ways the top Topeka Law firm saves your money in your estate planning.” Then the article goes in using the words Topeka, estate planning, and even keywords about issues with estate planning that someone might type in as a question.

Call to actions

Don’t hide the next steps and don’t be shy with asking for more of an investment. “Book a consult” “Download our top 5 ways to start blogging” “Purchase your kit” “Learn more about our service” … Each of these calls of actions ask for a different level of investment- an email address, their time, their money, or just to go to another page on your website. You can add them throughout your blog post or at the the bottom. Don’t make it hard to work with you. You just gave them tons of valuable information about a subject you are an expert in — each blog post is like an effective small sales pitch.

So why does a branding photographer care about you blogging?

I was seeing the same thing happen with small business clients— they thought, “ If I just had pictures my website and social media would look so much better.” And yes, white that is 100% true what they were really wanting was a website or social media that was more profitable. After seeing small business owners who are working their tails off make their businesses work not effectively use their images - or not even knowing what they exactly needed images for - I realized I had to be a better teacher about how to make their brands attractive - through the words they and the pictures they use. Pictures are just a raw ingredient in your marketing plan and it is just one part. Brand owners and companies have to been strategic otherwise they will spend money and not see the return they hoped for.

Imagine just thinking “if I only had a billboard” — only to get a billboard on a road no one goes. That marketing would be highly ineffective and a costly mistake.

I want to work with successful brands who in some ways I have helped to become more prepared in their marketing. I start every branding consult out with the same question- tell me about your project. I ask about a project because the images we create should have a use and purpose. Otherwise they end up sitting underutilized. No one wants that- least of all me.

When you work with me you get more than just pictures. I help you to stat laying out what your needs are to best maximize your images. What areas of your website needs updated images, are you going to blog and if so do you need pictures for those posts, do you send out an email — how often— what kind of contact… what about your social media… you get the point. I mean it when I say, - we plan with purpose, so we can shoot with purpose— so you can post with purpose.