Welcome to Not Another Marketing Podcast where I’m talking to Lyndsi Edgar the founder & director of eLuminate Marketing. This week we’re talking blogging strategy and is the traditional blog dead?
Episode 170
Is traditional blogging dead? What I mean traditional is that weekly churn of having to throw something up on the company blog just because. Has blogging become much more? Should we treat it more seriously?
This weeks chat is crammed full of amazing strategy ideas from Lyndsi Edgar the founder & director of eLuminate Marketing. We talk about video, evergreen content, repurposing content, social media strategy and a whole lot more.
This is a must listen for all content marketers.
You can find Lyndsi on the eLuminate Marketing website and don’t forget to connect on LinkedIn.
Transcript (Created by Ai & edited for clarity)
Lyndsi
I wouldn’t say that traditional blogging is dead. I think that’s a pretty strong word. However, I do believe that people are seeking new ways to learn information. And blogging is definitely a great way to provide that information. And for me, you know, over the course of 10 plus years that I’ve been in the digital marketing space, we’ve seen a transition from just written words to now videos, infographics, illustrations, downloadables.
So number one, you know, video, I’m heavily focused on developing educational videos with my clients, typically one minute short and sweet, we start with common questions that their customers are asking them. And I will utilise those videos and put them inside a blog to provide further information. And people tend to lean more toward watching the video than then reading.
And then downloadables this is something where a person could download it and save it for a later date. So white papers, they’re a little bit more time-consuming. But if you put the time into them there, they’re definitely great to provide that education and value lists as well. I just recently did a downloadable where it lists out common social media content pillars that our agency uses for our clients. And so this is a really great way to visually provide a downloadable for somebody, and then kind of brings me to the last, you know, to back to visually educating somebody infographics. So we are a very visual world. And so explaining a complex topic. And I don’t want to say dumbing it down, but taking that complex topic and putting it in a way that allows somebody to better understand that concept is another great way to enhance a blog.
Jon
So you’re kind of thinking of a blog as being some sort of multimedia experience really? Because when I think of blog, I think of like 1996. blogging and kind of like teenagers in the basement.
I suppose that word blog, do you think that blog word is old-fashioned? Should we get rid of it and call it something else call our blog and magazine or something?
Lyndsi
I don’t know, if we necessarily should lose it, because blogs still do hold their value. When I do look at my clients Google analytics, I see blogs as one of the most popular pages on the website.
So they’re going to the main page, but then I’ll see, there might be a blog that was written that just really provides a lot of education and value. And that is how they’re getting to somebody’s page is through that blog. So I don’t necessarily want to say, hey, get rid of it altogether, because I see the analytics behind that value. And it’s also a really great way to provide information. And you know, quote, unquote, sell your company without coming across as selling.
I’m a really big believer in providing value online. And blogging is a great way of doing so. But you know, as I said before, certainly enhancing our blogs by adding video, downloadables and infographics, that’s a really great way to further enhance what you’re providing.
Jon Tromans
How do you kind of direct people from the blog page? Because if they search for something, they find the blog page? How do you tend to divert people to the lead generation stuff?
Lyndsi
That’s a great question. So a lot of times within the blog, we’ll link it to perhaps other information. If there’s a topic that they want to learn more about, there’ll be a link over to another blog, or simply at the end, we always have a call to action to learn more, or contact and we’ll provide a link to the contact page or phone number email.
Jon Tromans
Also, if you’re selling products and services, you could write an awful lot about it and you couldn’t fit that on one sales page because it’d be 10,000 words. Yeah.
Lyndsi
Yeah. So we can use the blog.
Jon Tromans
Do you use blogs as kind of like, little clusters of topics?
Lyndsi
Absolutely. So blogs can come in any form, you can certainly have a rather lengthy blog that provides a lot of information. You know, Social Media Examiner is a really great example. They have a very active blog that I that I go on, and some are short and sweet that provide the value and then others are very lengthy, but they’re, they’re worth it, because they are giving some great content out there. So it’s really just a matter of looking at what you are trying to accomplish with this particular piece of content? And then providing that value?
Jon Tromans
Yeah, I’ve seen that blog. And some of those articles are pretty long. I suppose you read them, because they’re actually offering something useful.
Lyndsi
Correct. And I would say, you know, don’t just blog just to say you did it and you know, knock it off your list. It’s blogging is certainly something that provides value for your company, but you also have to do it, you have to write it from the standpoint of your customers, are you providing something for them that’s going to help them and navigate them through their buying journey?
Jon Tromans
What do you think about the kind of posts that we feel we ought to put up on our blog, but are probably worthless things like we’ve won an award, and generally nobody really cares? Or Dave has been promoted to senior accountant. And it’s like, Well, that’s good for Dave, but I don’t really care. How do you feel about that sort of content?
Lyndsi
So there’s, you know, there is a lot of noise out there, there’s a lot of content being put out from our friends or families and businesses. And so for content like that, I would rather keep it as a social media post that you can highlight, because people do love to work with others that they know, like, and trust. And so when they see that Dave got a promotion, or that we’re celebrating an anniversary, it’s really nice to see the people behind the company. And we could certainly highlight that on social media. But perhaps if you wanted to create a blog, you could do a highlight of, you know, Dave, one, you know, happy anniversary to him, and then links over to maybe a fun video series of an interview with Dave or, or just a Q&A, fun Q&A with Dave, so then people can really see who is Dave and what he’s all about in the people behind the brand. So it’s definitely an opportunity to do, it’s interesting.
Jon Tromans
You mentioned social media put in those types of things on social media, because those kinds of types of articles and posts, those are a little bit more social.
Lyndsi
Absolutely. And the great thing about social this, there’s you have, you can post as many times as you want, as long as you are providing value. So it definitely the bar is a little bit lower in regards to what to be posting on social verses on your website.
Jon Tromans
So talk me through kind of your process of creating a piece of, of blog content of an article for a website, what’s your process? How do you work?
Lyndsi
Absolutely. So before we even start any work with a client, we hold an initial strategy session. And this is typically a little over an hour long, where we really do a deep dive of the company and get a clear understanding of their goals, their brand, their voice, it’s very important to lay that groundwork before you even get started. From there, we develop a digital marketing strategy. And in that strategy includes those goals and mission, we develop brand guidelines, content pillars, Blog Topic Ideas, video topic ideas, to ensure that those video topics are matching up with the goals they’re trying to reach and the market that they’re trying to get in front of. Once the digital marketing is shown to the client, then we move on to the next step on actually creating that content. And this could be a social media post video. For the videos, we storyboard them out ahead of time and develop all the topics ahead of time, and then film them. And then we have a video editing team in place that edits those videos for the blog topics. They’re really chosen based on strategy. So it could be a combination of okay, what target market are you looking to go after? So for example, one of my target markets for a client is they want to go after young mothers, so we’re looking up keywords that they’re that they’re looking at Pinterest is a very popular Avenue. So what are some common pins?
Within that target market, and so then we’re developing topics around that. For, you know, for them, it’s toddler activities, and, you know, parenting advice. And so developing topics around that. And then with social media, if there’s very robust concepts that a client wants to educate to a target market, we tend to use visuals quite often, as I mentioned before, infographics and illustrations are a really great way to provide education as well.
Jon Tromans
Yeah, we forget about Pinterest. And it’s so powerful, but we always forget about it. Why? Why don’t we care about it?
Lyndsi
I don’t know why, yeah, absolutely. It’s a very, it’s a great platform that we use, you know, for certain clientele. And then the last step I did for forget to mention that we certainly do, I would say, step four of your initial strategy, developing the strategy, creating the content, but then we review it, we look at the metrics, and we want to see did it work? You know, how many clicks? Are we getting to what kind of keywords are people looking up to get us over to the site, because that does allow us to be able to grow and do better and better over time?
Jon Tromans
You mentioned kind of like learning the client’s voice. Do you find when you go to folks that they know their voice?
Lyndsi
I wish that they all they all did, but sometimes they don’t and that can be a struggle. And that’s, you know, part of hiring us we help them find that voice. So we’ve worked with companies that are, you know, more developed, and they have brand guidelines set, and they have very clear, you know, voice and tone. And then we work with startups that they’re still trying to discover that and we help with both?
Jon Tromans
Yeah, do you find the voice and tone is sometimes completely different to the people who are actually running the business?
Lyndsi
It can be? Yes, absolutely. And and sometimes we’ve discovered that we think we know the voice and tone, and then we reach out to the target market and we look at the metrics, and we look at what’s working, and then we might have to pivot a little bit. And, and that’s okay. That’s the beauty of digital marketing is that it does allow you to be able to look at what’s working and what’s not, and pivot accordingly.
Jon Tromans
What do you tend to do when you find a piece of content that isn’t working? Do you rewrite it? Or do you delete it? What do you do?
Lyndsi
Sometimes we’ll rewrite it, sometimes we’ll you know, we’ll update it. And then other times, we kind of let it be there and let it exist, and then move on to you know, develop new content that hopefully does much better.
Jon Tromans
Yeah. Have you found stuff, because I know I have that like two years later, it suddenly started generating traffic. Do you find that?
Lyndsi
Absolutely. You know, it’s funny how we all look at clients pages, unfortunately, you know, we’re very fortunate to have worked with clients for many years. And so I’ll look at their analytics, and I’ll see a blog that we had written for them four or five years ago that’s still bringing a lot of traffic. And so I don’t necessarily say delete it, and less the information that’s provided is obsolete. But you never know, you know, sometimes that content will resurface and help get people to the to the clients website.
Jon Tromans
Yeah. I mean, if you do find a piece of content that’s working really, really well do to kind of like, avoid messing with it, because it’s kind of working.
Lyndsi
Yes. I have that mentality sometimes. Absolutely. Let’s not wake the bear?
Jon Tromans
Yeah, yeah. Do you always build a social strategy in with each post? Or do you kind of like, have an overall social media strategy?
Lyndsi
So yes, and because our agency is heavily focused on social media marketing, that’s really what our bread and butter is, we tend to create the social media strategy first. And then we develop the content around that strategy. But overall, it pretty much goes hand in hand. But really, in order to have fantastic content that gets people to click and engage, you really have to start with that strategy. lay the foundation and that groundwork, and then start developing the content around that.
Jon Tromans
How are you seeing traffic arriving to general blog posts? Are you seeing a lot more coming from social or do you still see the bulk of it coming from a Google search, for example?
Lyndsi
I would say it’s shifted. So when you know, I first started, it was mostly Google, and then we’ve seen a huge uptick with Facebook. I’m very privy to LinkedIn. That’s a really popular social media platform that we use. So we’re seeing a lot of activity over on LinkedIn. For other clients that are more B2C, Tik Tok has been a funnel a for information. In fact, I read an article recently that people are shifting more toward Tik Tok for information gathering than Google. So you know, to learn something, they’re actually going towards TickTok and Instagram reels to learn how to do things. So it’s certainly something that people need to keep in mind as they build out their strategies that a blog is great, but you know, what, if you can teach them through a TikTok video, that might be even better?
Jon Tromans
Yeah, I’m terrified of TiK ToK, because I go on there and it’d be like your Dad’s on Tik Tok.
Lyndsi
Oh, you’re not ready to start doing a dance on Tik Tok yet?
Jon Tromans
I might start a Dad dance craze or something like that! But do you see this? This short form video social content? Like, like you mentioned reels and I suppose YouTube shorts. And all of that. Do you see this pulling in traffic to websites?
Lyndsi
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s actually It’s funny, you mentioned shorts. Because the truth is our attention spans are shorter and our lives are very busy. So the faster we can get to the answer that we need, the better. And when I create content, or do these, these videos for our clients, I always say, let’s keep it short and sweet under a minute. Because the truth is, if it gets too long, people don’t tend to watch it. So I do recommend trying to do short snippets of information rather than a lengthy 5 minute 10 minute videos.
Jon Tromans
Are you are you kind of like building your blog posts as well with mobile in mind, first of all, like mobile is how it’s going to be ready to sort of thing?
Lyndsi
Oh, yes, absolutely. More people are coming onto websites through mobile than they are desktop. So if your website is not mobile friendly, that should be your number one priority today is to go get that website, something that’s very easy for a person to navigate on their phones.
Jon Tromans
Yeah. So I’m fascinated with all of this. Do you see? Do you see the video angle of things changed? Because well, because we always used to record everything in landscape. You know, widescreen, but now it’s all portrait vertical video. I mean, I find that really confusing. Because I’ve find it really difficult to record that stuff. Because there’s so little, like so little space. So little width. How do you get over that?
Lyndsi
Yeah, so we tend to do it really well create different content, depending on where we’re posting it. So, of course, if we’re going to be posting on Instagram, or Tiktok, we’re developing special content around that platform that is, you know, more vertical, it’s short and sweet. It’s 30 seconds or less. It’s quick paced. And then I also heavily focused on LinkedIn marketing, where we do keep it horizontal, can be up to a minute, and it is a little bit more education based, doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, quick actions with music. So it just says, it certainly depends on the platform that you’re placing it on.
And therefore, before you develop, you know, before you film or record, make sure you have that strategy in place. It’s okay, where’s this going? Who is it for? And how are we going to provide that information?
Jon Tromans
Yeah. So suppose if you’ve if you’ve recorded something in normal standard widescreen, and you can throw it on YouTube shorts on somebody, it’s gonna look silly, really, isn’t it?
Lyndsi
Yeah, I’ve seen it done. I wouldn’t recommend it. If you could record it both ways that would be better.
Jon Tromans
Yeah, yeah, definitely. We kind of touched on it a little bit, but how often do you kind of like revisit the content? Do you have like a, I don’t know, a little calendar or something that says, go look at that page or that post in six months time?
Lyndsi
That’s a good question. I highly suggest making content evergreen, because if you’re gonna spend all this time writing the blog, researching it, uploading it to the website, filming videos, certainly it’s important to take that content, get it on there and then make it evergreen and how do I do this? So, for example, one of my clients we typically do themes every month. So the theme is let’s say their sales coaching company, and the theme is around sales agility. So we’ll do a video talking about sales agility, but then we’ll do a post that has a quote that came from the video, then we’ll do a blog that could provide further information around that topic, an infographic to further explain the sales concept. And then we can look for a newsworthy article around sales agility, and then include our opinion on that. So I’m taking one, you know, one video and turning it into a multitude of different types of content, therefore making it Evergreen. And then once I go through all of the videos that we’ve done, and we typically do about two videos a month, next year, all certainly I’m not going to say, Okay, well, those are done, and I’m never going to look at them again, I’ll certainly go back to them, and add them into the 2023 strategy in in a different light, you know, maybe highlighting it a different way, or even simply in case you missed it. Here’s a video on sales agility. So I would, I would definitely keep that in mind as you develop your 2023 Strategy, that just because you made all this content in 2022 doesn’t mean it’s done. Feel free to go back and, and use it again.