Her blogs are http://b-brand.blogspot.com.au/ and http://crapmamma.com/ and she can be found on Twitter at @BBRANDjac and @CRAPMamma .
Jacqui compared for us the conversion-to-sales power of the 'I've put so much work into this book, it's fantastic, buy it!' approach to the 'this is the situation in my life that I was struggling with that caused me to write this book to help my son' approach. The back story to the book sells far more copies, and the beauty of social media is that it gives us the ability to share the background to our stories and why you wrote them.
Your first aim is to grow your online readers. Your second aim is to sell your product.
Successful social media use includes blogging, and requires work on both strategy (technical) and community (speaking to people online).
Technical things are like defining your audience, setting objectives and doing search engine optimization (SEO).
Community things are like engaging, responding, commenting, sharing and connecting.
Why blog?
To connect with your audience
To maintain an ongoing connection
To keep relevant
To have an online presence
To promote a brand
To give credibility to your work
To personalise your stuff, your product
To engage a sense of loyalty
It is very important to respond to comments and to comment on other blogs.
What will you blog about?
The community that you want to tap into probably already exists. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do. Remember, blogging is not about you, it is about them.
Your content has to be of value to your audience.
Does it motivate?
Does it educate?
Does it inspire?
Is it authentic?
Is it helpful?
Does it provide solutions?
Does it elicit emotion? (If it does, it will provoke more likes and shares)
As long as you are doing that with most of your content, you can filter in some of your promotional stuff.
At the end of your blog post you need a call to action.
Before you hit 'publish', take a moment to consider whether this blog post will work towards your strategy and community objectives. If the answer is 'Yes' hit that button, if 'No' then some re-writing and re-thinking is required first.
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