Blogging a Huge Part of Social Media

Part of a series for getting
the most reach out of your Twitter

By Columnist Reneé Groskreutz
November 2012

Believe it or not blogging is a huge part of Social Media. In my opinion it is also the best SEO source out there but it should be used in conjunction with traditional forms of Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even Google +. Otherwise people will not know that it exists.

Authors often question if they should have a blog but if you have a done a book pitch recently you will quickly realize that the answer is yes. One of the first questions that agents often ask is about your platform and platform means Blog and Social Media.

A blog is not something that should just be started but rather it is something that should be planned. I would encourage you to go through these three exercises below and give them some serious thought before you just dive right in.

Categories:

You guys should brain storm and come up with about 5 categories that you will blog under. Once you have that established it will keep you focused and you will be able to properly SEO your blogs.

It is tempting for authors to either blog entirely about their book or the process of writing but I would strongly suggest that you stay away from only blogging about those two topics. I am confident that if you spend some time thinking about your genre related topics or categories will flood your thoughts.

Titles:

The blog title is the most important part of a blog. A title draws them in and the first 4 sentences keep them there. I always recommend to my new blogging clients that they come up with 10 working titles before they write a single blog post. If you can do this it ensures that you are on the right path.

Frequency:

Determine how often you feel confident in blogging. In other words you should not release your first 10 post in 2 weeks and not blog again. So if you can only blog twice a month, blog twice a month but make it on the same days each month. I recommend blogging at least once a week though.

Two more tips:

Blog Length:

People have short attention spans these days so a blog post should only be 400-650 words. This is good news because if you have a lot to say you can make a series out of the topic. Feel free to do Part 1 –3 on any given subject. If the first one is well done people will be excited to read the next 3.

Images:

It is vital that each blog post have a picture associated with it. Videos can take the place of pictures if you have one that you have made to go with the post, this is a great idea to work in from time to time. However, I want to point out that is extremely important that you get your pictures legally. I just got off of the phone with a client who had to pay Getty Images $1600 for using one of their pictures without purchase. He did not realize that he was doing something wrong but regardless the fee was steep. Personally I have an account with PhotoXpress.com to purchase all of my blog images. There are free places as well such as and wiki images and flickr but it is vital to read licenses and always er on the side of caution.

The last thing that I would like to say about blogging is that it is in your best interest to treat your business like the real business that it is and buy your own custom url. If you do this now then you will not have to worry about moving your blog later. Start off looking like the professional that you are.

As co-owner of FunCitySocialMedia, she often speaks on the topic: “The 90-Day Social Media Marketing Plan for Small Business.” Contact Reneé at Renee@FunCitySocialMedia.com for more information.