The answer is because writing blogs or articles are the secret to everything that you want to achieve for your business in social media.
On social media, people are attracted to some posts and avoid others. Most people think, if I post "buy my widget," that everyone on Facebook™ will suddenly just buy it. While some will, you have to get in front of a lot of eyeballs to find the lucky few and that comes at a price.
Why Write Articles?
Most businesses are cash flow sensitive so you will want to avoid wasting money on ads. A billboard-style post is the fastest way to do this – they are too salesy and people avoid them. Tell a story, solve a problem, give of yourself and your knowledge. Blogs or articles are the best way to do that. Be social on social media.
Firstly, you want to attract people to your business not chase them. People share, comment and tag their friends into blogs or articles they like so they travel further for free. Plus Facebook increases your organic reach by 20% if your paid content is hot. [LINK TO ARTICLE]
Secondly, we have the technology to collect everyone who reads them. This is the most clever thing that Facebook have produced and it's free to have. So if you write articles that really appeal to your perfect customer, you now have the ability to collect anyone who touches your blog article or website and create a marketing list. And the most awesome part? You don't even need them to opt in via email.
This is the basic 2 step recipe that every business in every industry should be doing at a minimum:
1. Attract people with great content, and
2. Remarket to everyone who reads it.
I have even included options for people who don't like writing.
Why Do 5?
Because you have no idea which piece of content the market is going to love the most. If you want your article to travel further for cheaper you'll need to know which one is the hero.
By doing 5 articles we can split test them and watch the actions people take when they appear in their feeds. Facebook becomes something of a focus group and we'll use that information to reduce costs.
What Do I Need To Do?
– If you don't have a blog section to your website, make one.
– If you don't have your Facebook Pixel inserted on your website, install the plugin.
– If you don't have 5 blogs posts that tell stories or solve problems, write them (more below).
– Send the URL's for them to AdChief and we'll create a focus group and find the hero.
How Do I Find 5 Things To Write About?
I like to follow a basic recipe for one type of article. The one that converts the best, generally is
- I was out and about ….. (set the scene of your story)
- And I saw this problem …..
- So what I did was ….. (or what I would do is)
- What we can learn from this ….
I find this is a great way of saying I'm really good at what I do without actually saying it. Try thinking of a scenario where you weren't at work or in your business, but actually just in normal life, and you saw a problem that was interesting.
Here's some examples of articles that worked really well using this formula:
Business Coach
Quantity Surveyor
Make sure your headline is specifically targeting your market. You don't want to collect people who aren't really into you.
Other Options For Article Inspiration
If the thought of writing makes your headache, there are plenty of blog writing services. I recommend Contentation for great value.
If you can kind of write, but just need some structure, I recommend my good friends at writally.com. They will give you a tailored bunch of recipes to follow every month. Just fill in the blanks.
We also really like this infographic from Cate Scolnik called (INFOGRAPHIC) A FAIL-PROOF FORMULA FOR WRITING POPULAR POSTS. If you really can't be bothered writing though, Cate can also research and write your article. Check out https://catescolnik.com/
Check out Answer The Public. This is a free and clever resource that reverse engineers google search to find out what problems people are looking for answers on. As a general guide to the search keywords to use for it, I recommend thinking about who you are going to target when you advertise and use interests they have. For example.
I had a client who sells pillow cushion covers. They might target people who are interested in Home Decor. I would type Home Decor into Answer the Public and it will give a bunch of questions about who, are, where, which, how, why, when, and what. Some are double ups, but there are lots of articles to write and people actually want to know the answer to them.
Answer to the Public response to Home Decor
So for a pillow cushion selling company, I'd see the question (headline) What's New In Home Decor, and write 800 words on why my product is the answer.
Here's an article that I wrote about an article I found that I think is pretty perfect and why.
How Much Will It Cost To Find A Hero Article?
It can cost as low as 6 cents per click to send somebody to a blog article on your website, which if you have the pixel installed, will also collect them for re-marketing. I like to keep going, putting out new blog articles until I find a hero article that costs less than 20 cents per click. That's the one you can use to show to more people to collect more prospects. There are many factors affecting price of course, but if you're finding it hard to get below $1 per prospect, you might need to hire a professional copywriter to help.
When you send your articles to AdChief, we'll apply a $10 budget on them per day unless you specify otherwise. It only takes 2 days for an audience to see your article so budget $20 per blog.
Who Does AdChief Send the Articles To?
We like to send the article out in two stages. First, we want to apply some social proof to it like comments, post likes and shares, which usually comes more freely from Client Lists, Website Visitors, or Page Fans. We like to have at least 500 people to run it past so let us know which of these you'd like. We'll run each article to them for 2 days until they've seen them all.
We like to keep the first stage as consistent as possible, so the only thing that will change is the content itself. This way if people react more to one article over another, we know that article is the reason.
After all the articles have been seen by your best audience, one will emerge as the best of the bunch and we'll use it to send out to collect cold prospects (and warm them up a little). Having social proof on the article will give them permission to also share, comment, like etc and you'll enjoy plenty of extra exposure.
What If I Want To Do More Or Less Articles?
Nothing is written in stone of course. You only need one to get started and then you've got 2 days before we need another.
Similarly, you really should never stop finding the hero. Ads decay, maybe you've got a better one in you. Once you're in the habit and you can see the benefits, writing about your stuff might even become something of a passion.
Hopefully, that's enough detail to get you started. If you're still struggling to write, let us know and we'll work out a solution to get you going.