SEO and Content Marketing are very much joined at the hip. The most important thing is to turn up and be consistent.
Produce a piece of content that can be shared across your channels but keep the message personal for each audience. Experient with the times of postings and write from the heart.
This is about building trust with humans before search engines.
We can all get bogged down with trying to be super creative and spending far too much time scrolling the creativity of others. I find it easier to think about what I am trying to achieve rather than just thinking well that’s the blog post out the way!
Document what you are doing and if you are between projects, document your thinking, your ideas. Let your potential clients/customers have a peek around the curtain. Also, try and use imagery that stands out, try and avoid stock photos and just think outside the box. It will be fun!
How often should you blog? That’s a question I get asked a hell of a lot.
Another way of looking at it is what kind of medium do you also want to use? Because there are so many options now.
Are you going to use video? And if you are, are you going to do ‘live video’or is it going to be pre-recorded video?
Perhaps you should be looking at podcasts?
Everyone’s talking about podcasts now. Should you be doing that as well? But again, what about your blog? And what do you even put on your blog and how often should you do it?
Try and see it as one piece of content. I would recommend video as your starting point. I don’t go live because it can come across as an interruption unless you have been promoting it in advance.
On Facebook you might get some people looking at your broadcast, but I tend to find presenters spend too much time saying ‘Hi’ to the people they see pop up in the newsfeed. This behaviour can take away the focus and most people will start to get bored very quickly if you do not stay on message.
Also, it is a major commitment to go live at the same time every week. What if you have a dental appointment or when your cat is sick!
A pre-recorded video has many more options because that pre-recorded video can also be a podcast and once transcribed a blogpost as well.
You can decide if you want to do this monthly, biweekly or weekly and this will be a lot easier to stick to.
The key thing with content marketing is to be consistent and ensure you turn up. Search engines will know there is fresh material coming onto the website, and your audience also knows to check because will not want to miss anything.
This takes us to the other key point. What do you talk about?
This is where a lot of people get hung up thinking they’ve got to find this incredible piece of quality content every time they post. Maybe you do sometimes, and you have lots of engagement, and then you have a nightmare thinking how do I top that!
Rather than getting hung up about being Uber creative, why don’t you document what you’re doing throughout your working week? You will be working on projects for clients, which you could talk a little bit about, perhaps a problem comes up that you solve, the solution could be the topic, or maybe you’ve gone out for a walk, and you got inspired by something that is also a possible blog post.
A photograph from your week and a few lines of texts is a blog post.
Another way to look at this is to see the main pages of your website as your corporate look. Your services are there, your about page etc.
This is the part of the website that wears the business suit, and your blog post is the jeans and tee-shirt version part of your brand.informally
It is more chatty, like meeting informally by the drinks machine. you can talk about what you are up to, maybe talking about what music is playing on in your home office (Deep Purple here!) and bring that into your client work.
So rather than getting hung up, which means that you’ll miss a week or keep putting it off. Pick a day when you are going to publish and make notes during the week and remember it doesn’t have to be long.
This video ended up being about five minutes, but it could be just two minutes next time.
The key thing is to turn up and be consistent because if you don’t do that, you will become invisible!
If you need any help with content marketing or how to feel comfortable in front of a camera, just let me know and I would be delighted to talk to you.
Thanks very much.
How You Make People Feel – Is How You Will Be Remembered
I work a lot with hospitality businesses, Hotels, Restaurants, Pubs, Holiday parks etc. Part of what I do is look for trends and monitor these via SEO and Social.
I have to say that I am appalled by what many of these businesses are having to deal with. I am hearing tales of Staff dreading going in and in tears at the end of a shift.
Establishments that had wall to wall 5-star reviews are now getting 1-star reviews and abuse because customers don’t like current the restrictions or have lost all empathy via online booking and payment apps.
It seems like the personality changes we see some people have when they get behind a wheel is spilling over into those that are using a QR code to book a table.
Be kind, be supportive and be remembered for the right reason.
(Video Duration 6 mins) Do you have a project or idea that never seems quite ready, then this will help.
Video Transcript Below
This is not advice about marketing as such it is about how you apply yourself to your business, projects and passions. A friend of mine Thad Cox shared a post on his Facebook Group recently and he was talking about the problems of being a perfectionist. If you’re a perfectionist, you tend to not get things done or you have projects that just stick around for ages because they are never quite ready.
It is a bit like if you take on anything new, you have to make sure you buy all the right equipment, all the right software and read all the right books before you even start it. Then ironically all these things can mean you never actually start at all!
I have never really been that kind of person, my approach has been I have an idea and when I am about 50 to 60% ready and I launch it. I just go for it, even though it’s not quite ready (sometimes nowhere near ready). I just launch into it, this is because I have always felt that the best ideas come once a project or an idea are actually running. It is also when you start to see what doesn’t work. You start to see things from a different perspective and you start to adapt and come up with things that you would never do otherwise. If it was still in the kind of laboratory stage, or you were still writing your business plan you may not see these new ideas or a way ahead.
But the reason I’m saying all this is that I have noticed that I’ve changed.
When I read Thad’s post it made me realise that I have got a couple of projects that really should be further down the line than they actually are. Basically I have been copying them over from my weekly to-do list from one week to the next. I might make a note that it has to be launched by Friday, and then I cross it off at the end of the week and on Monday write it in again! As I said this is very unlike me, so why is this?
The reason is that when I look back at when I started my business or whatever projects I have done in my life, I have basically just used my gut feeling and maybe touched base with one or two people. I have then just thought, that’s enough info and I move to the next stage of implementation or launch.
So what is different?
Now I have access to the whole world via the internet.
I have access to unlimited voices via social media from Twitter to Facebook, to LinkedIn, to YouTube, whatever my concern is, I can type that concern into a search box and what will return will be 1000s of pages, videos and posts of people’s opinions and experience on what they think.
So then I have to go through all of this data and media thinking should I listen to that person or follow that path, do this or do that. There will be some people saying it will not work or has been done before even though each answer it actually not 100% relevant to what you are trying to do. The result can be a feeling of being overwhelmed and as a result, you put off doing anything and park your idea yet again.
The problem with perfectionism is that we now don’t have the confidence in our own gut feeling because we feel that whatever we’re going to do we need to check with others before we do anything. It could be something as simple as watching a film on Netflix. Instead of just thinking, well, that looks good, we Google it to see what other people think. Then we read a few reviews and then see that only seven out of ten people rated the film. So worry if it worth watching it?
So if we that over watching a film, what happens when it is something bigger like a project that’s going to have financial implications attached to it?. We can have worries about what people may think and keep collecting more data carrying out more searches until our perfectionism just says let’s look at this again next week.
So this made me think on this one particular project I have been putting off for a while. I sat and did my best to think of all the variables and started to go down another rabbit hole and still could not see a way forward.
There was only one solution, something I would have always done before – I just launched it and stepped back.
What happened Next
And as soon as I launched it, literally within two minutes, the answer to the problem appeared. This was because I could see it in a live instance and straight away I could see what I needed to do.
As humans, we are like a ship that has been launched. It’s too late to go back to port for a complete refit. However, we can fix and tweak things as we carry on with our journey. This is your journey of life, your projects and your passions. Even when you tweak things along this journey, it’s not going to be perfect. Each tweak will either push you forward or you may slide back, and then you’ll see a different way and you’ll go forward again.
The real problem in being a perfectionist is you are trying to control every outcome and imagine every possible variable. This is impossible. Once your idea has wings it is time to fly. It may feel scary but that is where the real creative opportunities are.
“A situation only becomes favourable when one adapts to it”
In May 2004 we started our own business in Cornwall.
When we started we saw our initial business plan collapse within weeks and we had to quickly pivot to ensure we did not lose our business and our house. This taught us a lot and gave us the tools and skills to adapt quickly to change.
With Covid-19 appearing, we thought we were facing a similar dilemma.
However, a phrase that worked back then also worked this time around.
“A situation only becomes favourable when one adapts to it” ( I Ching)
Now as we head towards our anniversary date we are thankful to our current clients for their support and happy to say we are now expanding the business globally with new clients, ideas and services.
NB: Although Genius Loci Media is our main business name, as well as the Digital Agency it also includes Classical Strings Weddings, Sue Aston Music, Now Spinning and Yoga at Work.
One day we will write our story to help others who may be thinking of starting their own business.
Phil Aston
Genius Loci Media | Digital Marketing Support | +44(0)1736 719342
Ideas are easy; it is the execution and implementation that is harder.
It is the same when creating content for your website and social media. You might type your thoughts into a Facebook or Linkedin post, but when it comes to your website, I see many people just put this off.
This approach results in a mixed message where your website seems to be behind your other online activities and can be confusing to your customers
One of our clients said “I have the ideas, but I don’t have the time to think about the SEO elements, source or resize images or worry about layout.”
We take your ideas, publish them on your website (and social media), look after the SEO, layout, and can even suggest subjects for you to write about if you need them!
Our approach is to take away the worry so you can be creative, look after your customers while we look after your online world.
Please give me a call to see how we can help you and your business.
I have been working from home since 2004. In this interview with Timothy Hughes, I talk about my approach, self-discipline and the equipment I use to create our online content and video.
Don’t Build Your Empire on Rented Land
I work with a lot of clients who have started out on several platforms and then through seeing initial success ended up putting all their efforts into one.
This is never a good idea, algorithms can change, the rules can change and the audience may go elsewhere.
It is very important to spread your content and energy across several platforms and most importantly keep your website at the centre of operations.
I am currently working with a client who has nearly 100% of their business on Instagram and has had their account blocked for a few days due to using a 3rd party App. Their engagement had dropped considerably due to changes within Instagram already and now they need to build their brand elsewhere and really focus on SEO and getting a more professional website in place.
Putting all your marketing eggs in one basket is not a good idea
The point to remember is if you lose your presence on a social media platform you lose all your content, connections and history. Remember Google Plus!
Your website should always be where your content is shared from or at least also available.
From experience, many social media posts could easily be tweaked to be Blog posts.
I took this photo on Sunday evening before we went to The Cutty Sark in Marazion for a lovely roast.
As many of you know, I advise and help businesses with their marketing, especially on Social Media.
If you look at the photo you can see all the gulls getting ready to take flight as the wave heads towards them.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will also notice that one gull seems to have left it a bit late to take action.
This reminded me of the number of businesses that still think that ‘cold calling’ is the way forward while their competitors are taking flight and riding the wave of change with Social Media.
Used correctly, Social Media can help create inbound enquires from people who already know and trust your brand.
Here are my top 5 Tips for successful social media posts.
People need to be curious to read more.
It should answer a need or question
It should add value and help
It should encourage engagement
Or raise questions …such as “what the hell is that?”
Remember, people are using social media more now when looking for a product or a service to buy. If you are not on social media or posting you will not be found.
