Hey friends, happy Thursday!
Today is going to be one happy day because we’re putting on BizCom Summit, a one day conference covering topics such as influencer marketing, SEO hacks, social media strategies, legal, and more.
We’ve been putting on monthly workshops at our construction2style office covering all the things we know and do at c2s to help you guys DIY your marketing side. Sign up for our newsletter, and you will get alerted to these workshops.
This month we wanted to take it up a notch so tonight we’ll be hanging at Mercury Mosaics and bringing in all the experts we love and adore.
And I’m even more excited because alongside my bestie, Jen from Paisley & Sparrow, we’re going to be leading one of the breakout sessions and walking you through how to create a successful influencer blog strategy.
Jen and I follow the same strategy and what I love most about my girl is that like us, she is an open book. We are constantly bouncing ideas off of one another, and when one of us figures out a new strategy or hack, we immediately send it to one another to do it too. We want to help one another succeed and lift each other up, always.
There’s a lot that goes into creating an overall influencer marketing strategy. And there’s a lot of work that goes into being a blogger. There are definitely different kinds of influencer’s/bloggers and a ton of different strategies out there. Some people do it for fun while others do it for their legit money-making business. Jen and I are definitely doing it to make some money, and we follow the same strategy and want to share all we do with you.
5 Steps on How to Create a Successful Influencer Strategy
- Create Content Regularly
- Collaborate
- Know your Numbers
- Pitch Yo-Self!
- Use Social Media to leverage your platform
Create Content Regularly
- Push out 2-3 blog posts per week
- Create a content calendar
- Learn from your top performing content
Create Content Regularly: You need to create content regularly to get page-views regularly which then turns into trusted relationships. That is why brands want to leverage your platform. If your readers trust you, then brands will pay you to push their products. So to push their products and get paid for it you have to have consistent content and a loyal community.
Have a Content Calendar: Having a detailed content calendar is key to keeping organized, preventing writer’s block and being able to pitch brands.
Jen and I are both lifestyle bloggers, but we also have our little niche. Jen blogs about fashion, home decor and all things “lifestyle,” she then uses different colored post-it notes in her paper calendar. That way she can ensure she’s hitting all of my pillars and not just hitting her readers with five fashion related posts in a row and missing the chance to talk to readers who keep coming back for home decor or mom posts.
I’m also a total calendar freak. However, I have a few. I do digital and paper. I have a digital planner to plan out ideas throughout a full calendar year. Then, I use a paper calendar for my monthly goals and ideas. There’s just something about crossing things off and checking off a box when you achieve those goals. I also do a 50/30/20 rule. 50% we share all client work, 30% we do tutorials, and 20% we do family.
Learn from your Top Performing Posts: Use your free Google and social media analytics to see the behavior of your readers and figure out which content is performing best. And then make more content from that!
To find out what your viewers are interested in within your Google Analytics, log into your account and go to > Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages to view metrics associated with your site’s entry pages. The URLs will then be sorted by page views. Whatever is working, do more of that.
For example, one of our top performing posts is a project when we first got started on a subway tile backsplash. We had taken the worst photos and talked about how we updated this bathroom and the price point. But something about it clicked. Knowing that was a top performing post, we created more content around tile.
Pinterest is a huge platform for us. So we always monitor our Pinterest views and what imagery is performing best. All industries are different, but for home improvement, when Googling any search, you usually land on an image. And we want to create imagery that people will find and then, in turn, come to our website.
We use a lot of different tools beyond our free analytics to see what is or isn’t working.
Google Trends is also a great tool we use to determine what people are searching for so that you can make content from it.
Enter one or several search terms to compare search trends. Set date, geographic or category constraints depending on the nature of your search. With Google Trends you can compare trends of specific keywords or categories to incorporate growing terms into your site content. You can also identify emerging terms that have shown a significant increase in activity in the given time period. And lastly, you can easily see localized trends by geographic location if enough data is available.
Google Search Autocomplete is another tool we use 100% of the time that we’re making blog post titles. It’s a predictive search functionality of the Google Search bar. As you begin typing, Google will attempt to finish your search query based on your search history and the search behaviors of other users.
This is a great tool for finding long-tail content ideas. If I’m doing a post about painting kitchen cabinets, I might initially think of titling it, “DIY Kitchen Cabinets.” But then as soon as I see what everyone is searching for that might not be my best option. It’s also a great tool for when you get into a writing funk.
And always make sure to open up a private browsing window to exclude your own search history. Then start typing a question or phrase based on a topic of your niche or thought of a blog post. Then you can use all of those ideas to come up with your writing topics.
Type your target keywords into Google Search and audit the top results. Because these web pages rank extremely well, they likely have good on-page optimization, depth of content and quality backlinks. You can then use the MozBar tool to help you out even more.
As you audit the top-performing content for your own also try to think about word count, use of imagery and video, social networks and what drives the best results and why. Was it Pinterest and did you create an infographic? Was it the text you used, and you made it raw and personal?
Collaborate
Step two is all about collaborating, our favorite. Jen and I are both collaborators at heart, and this one has truly been the key to both of our successes. Head on over to Jen’s post –> HERE <– to see all of what we have to say about the key to collaborating.
Know your Numbers
This is critical to be a successful influencer if you want to make money through your blog. You need to know your numbers as in stats, but you also want to be careful not to get caught up in that. I usually overanalyze all content and then check my stats quarterly.
Your numbers should be your Google Analytics page views, bounce rate, and all of your social media impressions. I also continuously look at our engagement rate, but this isn’t one I share with brands.
And please don’t get caught up in your follower count or compare your numbers to others. Just because you might be a ton lower than your friend doesn’t mean you’re not going to lock in a good deal. Know your value and remind yourself of that.
Overall if you look at one number it’s important to know the total number of impressions you have- that’s what brands want to see.
How much of an influence you have with your community. How much engagement you have with your community. Because if you have a strong relationship with them, when you come to tell them about an awesome product that you love, they will buy. And that’s ultimately what brands want. For consumers to buy their products.
And then take all of those numbers and put it into a media kit. HAVE A MEDIA KITA!
Here’s an example of ours:
Pitch Yo-Self!
Once you know your numbers and the value that you have for brands, it’s time to pitch yourself. Don’t sit and think that brands are just going to flock to you, they might, but if you want to make serious money, you need to be pitching yourself regularly to the brands that best represent you. Head on over to Paisley & Sparrow to read up more on this.
Use Social Media to Leverage your Platform
And lastly, use social media to leverage your platforms. NOT as your sole source of content creation.
Paisley + Sparrow and construction2style are on the following platforms. We also strongly urge you to be on all platforms even if you don’t have time to use them all. You don’t ever want anyone else taking your brand name handle.
Social Platforms:
This is a loaded topic, so we wanted to break it up so you can soak up this information and start with a fresh mind tomorrow. So check back to Paisley & Sparrow and construction2style tomorrow, and we’ll be dishing out all the dirt behind our social media strategies.
For all of you who came today. We so love and appreciate every one of you. For those who live far away, thank you for reading.
XO,
Morgan
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