“Top Five Things to Learn from the Greggs vs Google Twitter Debacle” plus 1 more

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Top Five Things to Learn from the Greggs vs Google Twitter Debacle Posted: 16 Oct 2014 09:47 AM PDT This is a guest contribution from Mark Potter. Greggs is the UK's largest bakery chain, famed for its sausage rolls and steak bakes. They have always enjoyed a strong social media presence, winning a Digital Impact Award in 2013 for a 'Sandwich Maker' Facebook app. As a relatively low-budget food chain, they are a popular target for online abuse. As a result, they have already developed a robust strategy for dealing with complaints and controversy: Things turned particularly sour in August, when the Google algorithm accidentally replaced the official Greggs logo with a highly offensive fake version. The gaffe spread like wildfire across the internet, and the Greggs Twitter account was rapidly inundated with tweets. However, the social media team kept their cool, and handled the crisis with aplomb. Almost 300 tweets and a new hashtag later, the correct logo was restored – and Greggs had emerged as a Twitter champion. Here are some tips on handling a crisis on Twitter, as demonstrated by the social media team at Greggs: Rise Above It The whole internet is teeming with trolls, but Twitter is a particularly virile breeding ground. Although many people sympathised with the situation, Greggs was also subjected to a fair amount of abuse. When Twitter catastrophe strikes, never stray from the Golden Rule – DON'T FEED THE TROLLS. Hitting back with an angry retort can only ever backfire, making a bad situation worse. Make like Greggs by responding in a polite, classy manner – or simply don't reply at all. Crack a Joke Twitter partly revolves around competitive comedy – the accounts with the funniest tweets often have more followers. Therefore, humour can be one of the best ways to divert a Twitter crisis. However, before making light of a disaster, you should always use discretion. In some situations, comedy is inappropriate – as many brands soon discovered during Hurricane Sandy. Hire an Expert Twitter disasters are occasionally brought about by the company itself – as with McDonald's ill-conceived #McDStories. However, as Greggs discovered, crises can also be caused by external forces. These unpredictable situations are perhaps the most dangerous, as many companies don't have the resources in place to deal with them. If social media forms a large part of your marketing plan, you should hire a professional social media consultant to manage your online image. As many people noted during the Greggs debacle, they're worth their weight in gold when disaster strikes. A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words Ellen's infamous Oscars selfie is currently the most retweeted message in the history of Twitter. This highlights the importance of imagery on social media. Pictures are far more likely to be shared by followers, and are therefore invaluable to social media marketing campaigns. As Greggs demonstrated, pictures can also prove helpful during a disaster. This simple shot cost next to nothing, yet received an incredible 83 retweets and 589 favourites – making it one of the most successful tweets Greggs has ever posted. A follow-up tweet, posted when the correct logo had been restored, garnered a similar number of favourites and retweets: Monitor for Mentions It goes without saying that you should reply to direct questions and comments on Twitter. Throughout the crisis, the official Greggs account was inundated with questions and comments – and each one was met with an appropriate response. However, not every tweet about the situation was directed at Greggs. The social media team was forced to go a step further, proactively 'butting in' to other people's conversations about the debacle. If you have an online presence, sign up for a monitoring service such as Google Analytics or Topsy. These automatically scour the web for brand mentions, notifying you when people are discussing your company online. If you see a comment – whether defamatory or positive – about your business, you will be poised to reply and set the record straight. No two Twitter debacles are the same. However, by studying the reactions of different companies to their own crises, you will be able to respond effectively when disaster comes knocking at your own door. This article was written by Mark Potter of Namecheap.com, a leading ICANN accredited domain registrar and web host. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Top Five Things to Learn from the Greggs vs Google Twitter Debacle

How Blogging In College Got Me My First Job Posted: 15 Oct 2014 05:07 PM PDT This is a guest contribution from PR specialist Caitlin Dodds. I remember sitting alone in the airport with three hours to kill before my flight to Madrid. Squirming on the hard plastic chairs at my boarding gate with my laptop perched on my knees, I typed my first post on my new study abroad blog. You know the saying, "the rest is history"? Well, that cold January day is a big part of where I am today because my little study abroad blog helped determine my career and land my first job. Here's how I did it. Getting Started with my Travel Blog All my friends that had spent time in Europe kept blogs that were updated every few weeks with a snapshot of their crazy jet-setter lifestyle. But as their semesters progressed, updates got shorter and less frequent. I loved writing, and I jumped at the chance to blog about something exciting. I set up my WordPress blog, customized the layout, learned how to use widgets, set up category pages and everything else that mattered. I obsessed over themes, the tagline for the blog, and the 'about me' page. I didn't know how much time I would have to write but week after week while my friends' updates became few and far between, I stayed up late writing detailed recaps of life in Spain, the trips I took, the people I met, the food I ate, etc. I was obsessed with editing, picking the perfect pictures, writing, rewriting, and editing posts to perfection. When I discovered WordPress built-in analytics, "stats," I was hooked. I loved seeing where my readers were coming from (all over the world!) and what brought them to my blog. All these things got me thinking – I was studying for a marketing degree, but hadn't figured out what to do yet. I had friends that worked in web development and SEO and I was sort of interested in Internet marketing. I loved managing my blog, so why shouldn't I try to blog (or at least write) full time? Turning My Blog Into a Resume Piece When I returned to Grove City College for my senior year, my Content Marketing professor encouraged me to use my blog for the final project. He had me expand the blog and turn it into a travel resource for students trying to study abroad on the cheap. He challenged me to find ways to monetize what I loved and apply SEO strategies to it. In the Spring I was taking a class in SEO and job searching for digital marketing jobs that would allow me to write for a living. Through a friend of a friend, I found a position in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at Web Talent Marketing, a digital marketing agency. I applied for the position and to prove my experience – I sent the hiring manager a link to my blog with a short snapshot of it's stats, growth, and success. Within hours I had a voicemail asking me for a phone interview. When I went to visit the company and interview, I was able to use my blog for specific examples of things I had done, the knowledge I had of content marketing, and my writing ability. I was able to talk about the type of promotion I did for it, how I tweaked blog posts to perform better, and how I used analytics to determine the content my audience liked best. I had a job offer within three days. If you're blogging full-time, or maybe just part-time, and in the market for another job, don't underestimate how you can leverage your blogging experience to land that job! Here's how my personal blog made me more marketable: 1. It helped me stand out in a competitive job market of college grads because I could market it as "real life experience." 2. I could showcase my writing ability in a fun and engaging way. 3. I gained experience in the number one CMS platform, WordPress, and proved I could implement technical changes on a blog for SEO. 4. It demonstrated my ability to analyze content through statistics and use that data to improve my content for increased visits, dwell time, and engagement. I've used my blogging experience to help my clients maintain better blogs and succeed in content marketing. I even became one of the first members of our PR team and have helped grow Web Talent's SEO blog by being a top contributor every month. I'm not blogging for myself on a regular basis anymore, and I'm nowhere near monetizing my efforts. Still, I know that having that blog during my time in Spain is the reason I have my job and career, and who knows? Maybe someday I’ll have the opportunity to monetize my personal blog. Caitlin Dodds is an Online PR Specialist for Web Talent Marketing with a focus on content marketing and social media. She enjoys blogging in her spare time and tweeting at @caitlinjdodds.    Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger How Blogging In College Got Me My First Job

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What’s in Words: The Power of Blogging - DailyBlogTips

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What’s in Words: The Power of Blogging Posted: 15 Oct 2014 04:12 AM PDT Seemingly, everyone has a blog these days. Barney Stinson. My mother. And pretty much, every company out there. And really, this should be a good thing — but all too often, it seems as though bloggers lose sight of their initial vision and land in a place with little readership and little to offer. There are plenty of reasons to blog — really, every company should have a blog — but to make that blog successful and relevant, it needs to stay the course and tie back to the reasons blogging is important. Build Your Brand Every company has a brand — and if it hasn't been strategically created, it's been created for you. That brand leads to how consumers — or purchasing companies — perceive your organization. It's what makes you interesting or funny or quirky or likeable. It is your company's personality. That said, a blog is a powerful tool toward establishing that brand and identity. Through words, you have a direct line of access to your purchasers. Sure, you can use it to inform them of your products or services — but if you do just that, odds are you won't have a high returning readership. Instead, use it as an opportunity to discuss industry-relevant items with them. That could mean a hot news story, a new software or technology, new study — as long as it's relevant and/or newsworthy, it's fair game. Take that story and run with it, staying "in character" to build your brand and corporate personality while also connecting with your target audience. Increase Visibility Beyond building your brand, your company needs to find — or continue to gain — its foothold in the industry. That's the thing about business, after all — your work is never done. Blogging is a great way to gain visibility for your organization and to position it — and its leaders — as true leaders and thought leaders in the space. From Fortune 500 blogs that gain nearly automatic followings to the new-to-town blogger posting fun finds and tips through fresh eyes, every blogger has a shot to gain visibility and earn a following. It's what you do with that opportunity — and how you use the floor — that makes a difference. Be original. Take an opinion — it may not be popular, but that will likely only contribute to the discussion. Look at blogging as a way to take a stance, announce — and discuss — the latest and greatest, and to position your leadership and talent as leaders. Discoverability You've likely heard about SEO (short for search engine optimization). If not, do a quick Google (wait for it … you'll get the pun in a minute). More or less, each company needs a way to be found. With 90 percent of Internet experiences these days starting with search, it stands to reason that winning a first-page placement in Google's search results will help with earning you Web traffic and — ultimately — clients. There are hundreds of factors (could be thousands … the algorithms are a constantly changing mystery) that determine what shows up in search results and in which order — and while we'll likely never know exactly what they are at any given moment, we do know that relevancy and timeliness count. Every time that you post a blog, you are publishing new content to the Web — that content is time stamped, temporarily getting a little boost in the search rankings for being new. If you're blogging, odds are that you are posting regularly (and hopefully often) — this turns that temporary boost from that one post into an ongoing traffic boost that keeps on giving. Additionally, since you're posting content relevant to what you do, and likely including links to external sites as well as to relevant pages on your own site, you get some organic backlink points. Not to mention that the relevancy means that your content likely matches up to what people are searching for — this is something that Google is really working to hone — so when your content naturally matches and is found as truly relevant, it spells good things for your search rank. All of these things contribute to your SEO rank — or, in laymen's terms, your company's discoverability. 1 More Revenue Stream Blogging is a great way to earn revenue — and while there is likely a bit of a split between most corporate blogs and hobby blogs, the potential is still there. For self-contained, highly branded corporate blogs, the revenue opportunity lives through your blog as a way to direct traffic to your service and product pages. For hobby bloggers, once you are established, you are eligible to participate in Google Ads or a variety of other monetary-earning ad programs, or even sell your own ad space. There are tons of benefits to blogging — from getting a creative outlet and way to communicate to establishing a brand, building your reputation as an innovator and thought leader to even earning revenue. That said, to truly capitalize on the opportunity, you need to do three things: 1. Be relevant to what you offer. If you blog on behalf of a technology company, stay away from politics, gossip, etc. — do what you do. 2. Be dependable. If you only post once a week, that's OK — your readers will get that. But don't post every day for a month and randomly drop to once a week without warning. Need help maintaining that regularity? Consider using a professional blogging service, such as Beezcontent.com — you'll get the benefits of regular blog posts written by professionals, while still keeping your own time. 3. Be someone. Don't lose your voice in an effort to be completely corporate or professional. People read blogs because they like the bloggers — they want to know what you have to say … so say it. Vincent is an account manager at BeezContent.com. Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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