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Blogging to Encourage, Empower, and Enrich Audiences

Blogging that Brings Out the Best

Positivity in blogging is more important than ever. Making an audience feel at home entices them to read a post – even those running at the recommended 300 words – to the end. Successful blogs encourage, empower, and enrich their readership with pertinent content, lively photography and videos, and succinct content. Below are three examples of how women are blogging personally and professionally with thoughtfulness and elegant style.

Positivity in blogging increases readers’ engagement by encouraging, empowering, and educating the audience.

Blogs Encourage Discovery

The blog may be for personal exploration/discovery, such as the travelogue, Exploring the World, does. My friend, Mary Jane Koenig, encourages travel for active seniors at http://maryjanekoenig.blogspot.com/ As a retiree, she and her husband explores Florida and places that cruise ships take them.

Blogs Empower Change

Blogs may be artistic and soul-expanding like the one my friend, Suzi Baum Banks, crafts. As an artist, actress, author, and workshop leader, she holds a unique set of credentials to offer perspective on deep growth and change for mothers and other women in search of a more fulfilling life. She post her empowering words at http://www.suzibanksbaum.com/blog/

Blogs Enrich Opportunities

Or, a blog may be business-minded, as the one that my friend, Debbie Peterson, writes at Getting to Clarity. Here she enriches mid-life women’s own narratives to be their best advocates for professional change. This change begins from within their thinking patterns. She applies her experiences as public speaker and business coach to write a blog that focuses on nurturing an optimistic mindset for success. Find her at  http://gettingtoclarity.com/blog/

Blogging that Makes a Difference

While some sensitive subjects may arise, these authors make their points with a good dose of compassion, advice, and goodwill. And in doing so, they enliven the dialogue between themselves and their readers to encourage all women to live more passionately creative lives. Recently, Debbie Peterson shared Maryanne Williamson’s poem, “Our Deepest Fears” with me. It speaks on the subject of transformation to give a fresh reminder that blogging about potential has ripple effects for those we know – and even those we have yet to meet.

 

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The Power of Three Behind a Social Media Calendar

Anchor Social Media with Calendar for Success

Social media calendars help to plan for a company's ongoing success.
Social media calendars help to plan for a company’s ongoing success.

Everyone wants to get the biggest bang for their advertising buck. The quickest way to align the company’s ad campaign threads to different media sites – and stay within budget – is to create a social media calendar. With so many options of where to post offers, information, sales, tutorials and the like, where does one start? Implement the Power of Three to align the calendar. Choose three – and only three- of the most popular social media sites available to promote a product or service. These sites include YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Twitter and Instagram among many others.

Consider which sites would create the most buzz regarding the company’s target audience in relationship to the company’s product(s) or service(s). For example, if the product is a headset that comes in a number of colors and is geared toward teens, then look at the visual and auditory impact that Instagram, Pintrest and YouTube can offer.

Next, pull out the work calendar and see when deadlines typically fall. Plan social media needs ahead of and around the steadfast dates like staff meetings, inventories, and peak customer hours if the company has retail space(s). Pull up an online calendar, or a physical desk calendar, and begin to fill in the site names. Some people like to mix the media days so they appear random in appearance to the audience. For example, in a four week calendar, Weeks 1 and 4 use: Twitter on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; LinkedIn on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; and YouTube on Sunday. Weeks 2 and 3 concentrates Monday through Friday on multiple Twitter posts, YouTube posts on Saturday, and Linked posts on Sunday.  Others have success with a steady streaming of repeated patterns throughout the month. A sample 6-Day pattern may designate the following: Monday and Thursday, Pintrest; Tuesday and Friday, Facebook; Wednesday and Saturday, YouTube.

Plan media calendars in three month blocks. Each quarter assess the success of the impact on the target market. Tweak it as needed. Having a plan – even one that appears random to the casual viewer – is the best way to ensure ongoing success with social media.

If you like what you have read here, please share it with others!

 

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Refresh About/Bio Page to Increase Traffic

Planned Maintenance Wins Visitors
Refresh the About/Bio Page for Greater Traffic

Want to woo new business prospects? Keep previous visitors coming back for more? Planned updates of the About/Bio page of a business websites is a guaranteed way to keep content fresh. The necessity of planned maintenance of About/Bio pages is often overlooked by small business owners, who are preoccupied by all of the other facets of their businesses. Yet, in the hierarchy of marketing needs, the About/Bio page needs to be placed solidly at the base. Why? It supports the rest of the site. In doing so, customers can quickly assess whether or not they will do business – or repeat business – with a given company.

And while a company may be showing success, trends in About/Bio Page presentation show that lackluster content can hurt web traffic. So says, Jakob Nielsen of the Neilsen Nelson Group. In his article, “‘About Us’ Information on Websites,” he notes that “studies show a steady, slow increase of About Us usability, including the company’s location, contact information, and purpose.”

However, when it came to the subjective area of user expectations, a downward trend was detected. Nielsen explains: “How can satisfaction go down when overall success rates are up? Because user expectations for usable websites have grown even higher in recent years….An About Us area that users may have accepted in the past will no longer satisfy them.”

Carefully planned maintenance of the About/Bio page can help overcome customer scrutiny. While some advocate annual overhaul, a move to quarterly updates allows for fresh information to flow into the site.  This new information can include new products and services that are available or new hires within the company. Furthermore, additional updates can be made on the About/Bio page that include human-interest aspects of the business. Multiple forms of media, including voice-over clips, can increase hits. Nielsen observed an influx of multi-media as a trend to yield more visitors. “One definite trend is higher user interest in video, especially when it shows interesting or complex products, reports on corporate events, or showcases the CEO or key staff members.”

Fresh  copy can breathe life into a website. It can meet and exceed customer expectations through regular About/Bio page quarterly updates.

Customers will appreciate it.

And so will the company’s bottom line.

 

 

 

 

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Letters Lend Integrity: How Gratitude Paves Way to Success

Letters and notes that thank, congratulate or compliment pave the way to future success.
Letters and notes that thank, congratulate or compliment pave the way to future success.

Letters that Lead with the Heart

Letters and notes that thank, congratulate, or compliment are powerful.  After all, who doesn’t love them? We all want to hear that the actions we take – whether the scale be small or grand – are noticed and appreciated. And while it may be tempting to send off a quick text or email, it is well worth the effort and postage to send a handwritten letter or note. This correspondence sets the sender apart from the masses who rely on e-greetings to stand in for old-school ink and paper. Taking the time to write in cursive or to neatly print a sentiment is a thoughtful way to demonstrate value in a relationship. And, the payoffs can be immediate and life changing.

One of the earliest jobs I had out of college was for a DOD contractor. After the third and final round of interviews, I won the writing position with the company. Why? The president later told me that I was the only interviewee who had written a thank you note. What had seemed like an obvious part of the interview process to me was overlooked by dozens of other candidates. That got me thinking – was it really old-fashioned to say “thank you” anymore? I don’t think so. Gratitude never goes out of style. Indeed, some of the greatest minds in history point out the necessity of gratitude in the advancement of our professional and personal lives. In one of his best selling books, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” the late motivational leader, Dale Carnegie, stated, “Give honest and sincere appreciation.” It may be a whole page or just a few lines, but make the words your own.

Writing a letter or a note to congratulate a business colleague, friend or acquaintance can move one forward, too. The rationale of this practice is simple. Sharing sincere praise is the way to heighten a situation from good to great. And when the cup runs over the brim, who will benefit? You guessed it: the person paying the compliment in the first place. Don’t wait for the PhD to be awarded to praise a recipient. Take action on any advancement that the individual makes. For example, if a person is featured in a business section of a newspaper or magazine, take the time to clip the article to send inside of a card or letter. People are so busy that they can often miss this type of press.

The final note or letter to send off is the compliment. While reserved mostly as a verbal nicety in American culture, a sincerely written compliment can have lasting impact on the recipient. Avoid vague compliments that are dependent upon physical features. Be specific with compliments that feature an action, an event or an example of work that the person has completed. Place value on the effort that the person exhibited to complete a given task. Again, it adds value to a relationship to document a wonderful situation that a person has created.

By being proactive and putting words to thank, congratulate, or compliment into a letter or a note, a win-win situation occurs. All it takes is a notecard or stationary, a pen in black or blue ink, and a FOREVER stamp to make a lasting impression.

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Three Things Every Resume Needs

Resumes Done Right!

Resumes, like people, stand out when they are polished. To have a resume that makes its way through a stack from the bottom to the top, it needs three basics items to be carefully considered. Turning the keys of precision, clarity and white space sets a resume apart from the competition.

The first way to make a resume noticeable is precision. Take a current resume and cross out every single word, phrase, or clause not absolutely necessary to fulfill the position’s requirements. Eliminate technical jargon, extraneous adjectives and adverbs, and any detail that does not heighten the candidate’s credentials or credibility.

Businesswoman Conducting An Employment Interview With Young Female Applicant
Businesswoman Conducting An Employment Interview With Young Female Applicant

The second thing a winning resume will have is exact dates of previous employment, internships and educational references. While many argue in favor of the months or years on a job, there is a whole new level of integrity when a potential hire knows the exact dates of when work and internships began and ended, scholarships or awards were earned, and degrees were issued. Managers can readily note potential hires are honest and operating from a high level of integrity if their credentials are tailored by date.

Finally, our society is shifting from using words to icons, like the Twitter bird or the Instragram camera.  The text becomes more iconic when negative space is strictly observed. While the resume has been edited to use exact language and exact dates, make sure there is an abundance of  white space on all four margins and between sections to make for quick reading. Many applicants choose narrow margins to elaborate on their work. Leave the expanded description of the research project for the interview. Think of the resume as a synopsis of one’s work rather than giving a detailed story.

By using editorial precision, detail to dates, and liberal white space in the margins, a resume is polished. And a polished resume is what gets an interview!