To Blog and/or to Microblog? That Is the Entrepreneur’s Question

A witty tweet gets all the attention you need. However, staying relevant (and witty) in a vast sea of tweets that keep popping in the feed is a somewhat daunting task. Believe it or not, there are 500 million tweets posted daily. So sometimes coming up with an effective tweet takes as much time as it would take you to write a full article. But while micro content is easily sharable and gives your brand that much needed exposure, regular blogs help you cover topics in depth, and are great for conversions. Not only that, but they also help your brand in multiple other ways.

So what’s the solution? Should you blog or microblog? The answer is – both. And here is how to do it effectively.

General Rules & Guidelines

There is a general rule of thumb that you will need to implement in order to keep your subscribers, grow your network and engage your readers. Both short and somewhat longer content that you are publishing have to be business oriented, useful and personal at the same time. While one in every three posts that you put out should be strictly business oriented, the remaining two are just as important for your brand awareness and for your network growth.

Providing your readers with useful tips and personalizing every third post that you publish will not only encourage your audience to share your posts, but also increase their trust in you and your brand.

Don’t be afraid of personalization. Brands are important for business, but faces create trust. People simply trust people.

On that note, have you thought about your tone of voice recently? You are probably aware of who your model audience is, but have you defined the tone of voice suitable for this particular persona? Here is a thorough tutorial on that topic, which will help you reach your audience and engage your readers. If you are well aware that your post was viewed by a certain number of people, but you are nevertheless left with very little to zero engagement – this is a good indicator that you have to redefine your tone of voice. Or tweak some other stuff, which we will cover next.

Twitter Kingdom

While there are many other platforms that you can use for microblogging (like Tumblr, which is very popular, and even essential in certain markets). The rest of us (the great majority of us) will find our happiness on Twitter. Eventually. But first, let’s set up your microblogging platform and tweak it for success.

1.     Your images

Every opportunity for sending a message should be an opportunity seized. On your Twitter account, you have a total of two photos that you can share on your profile. A generic background should be avoided at all costs, and if you need any inspiration on how to tell a story in two images, here are some examples.

2.     More Images!

While you are limited to 140 characters total per post, a picture, on the other hand, is worth a thousand words. Sharing interactive content and images via your Twitter account will definitely help your audience engage with you. After all, how many times have you divided your tweets into segments (1/2 and 2/2) just so that you could send a message that hardly anyone will pick up?

3.     Your posting schedule

While you can use various apps to schedule your tweets, if you want to reach your particular audience, you will probably need to engage in some extra investigative work in order to find out when and which type of posts draw the most attention. No group is the same, no matter how broad your target audience is. Set up a schedule and try to stick to it, but feel free to deviate from it every now and then just to surprise your followers.

4.     Utilizing your micro posts

Since twitter became such a powerful CRM tool very fast, we are witnessing a rise of numerous applications developed solely for the purpose of keeping you engaged with your followers. In some industries, you probably don’t have to move away from Twitter to email correspondence, make a deal or respond to your customers. Because of this, your community manager (or yourself) should get familiar with ways to utilize Twitter through various apps and management tools.

Content Empire

While the majority of businesses consider content marketing a necessary expense, and not an investment, the truth is that employing content marketers increases your chances of generating positive ROI. Especially if you are working within a business to business market, having a blog is essential, and updating it is crucial if you want to generate leads. One more telling statistic: in this type of industry, 67% more leads are gained through interesting, well written content.

On the other hand, publishing regular and useful content is also beneficial for your domain authority and your rankings. If you are targeting a particular keyword, publishing entries of this sort will certainly help your SEO and ultimately increase the number of your visitors. Once you start producing content worth sharing, you will also gain backlinks to your website, which is another SEO factor that will influence your overall popularity, your traffic and your brand awareness.

The best thing about your blog is that it rarely costs you anything. If you are an entrepreneur and a one-man marketing/sales team, simply set aside an afternoon and write engaging content. Analyze your work publicly, especially if you have some nice results to share. Ask your audience to engage, encourage them to comment and ask questions. Ultimately, you will want to have case studies and whitepapers, and once your company expands, this whole game of content marketing will move to another level.

Until that time comes, you should leverage both your micro and your somewhat longer content platforms. Share your blog content through your social media profiles, tweak and edit old posts that keep generating traffic, and measure your ROI in order to keep yourself motivated. It might inspire you to write more.