Writing good content on a regular basis is tough, especially if you’re trying to attract potential customers. If I could write about anything I wanted on Polaris B without considering prospects, the job would be a lot easier.

Here are some tips I’ve used to help me write lead generating content. (I’ll leave it up to you to decide if the content is incredible, or not.)

1. Solve customer problems

Think about your customers. What do they want to know that only you are qualified to answer? Do they have a common set of problems that prompt them to seek you out?

Spend some time chatting with your colleagues. Ask them to come to the table with the questions they hear most often when they’re talking to customers and prospects. Then create a list of blog topics that answer these questions.

2. Bring a different perspective to the topic

There’s a lot of content available on the web, making content creation even more difficult. Ask yourself: What insight do I have on the topic that’s different from my competitors? Try to look at the topic in a new way to make it as compelling as possible.

3. Create a catchy headline and lead

Draw your readers in with an interesting headline. The first sentence (also called the lead in media and PR circles) better be good, too. Readers will judge you in the first 10 seconds so if you don’t grab them immediately, they won’t hang around for very long.

4. Incorporate interesting visuals and design elements

I’ve heard it said that if  “content is king, design is the queen.” I believe it. Images break up your copy and give your readers’ eyes a bit of a break.

In addition to images, use an easy-to-read font that’s not too small. You should also avoid white type on a black background or an italicized font—they’re both very difficult to read.

5. Use lists and numbers

Readers like lists and numbers. Just take a look at the content of popular magazines:

• 986+ sexy styles to suit YOU!
• 5 foods you must NOT eat
• 6 moves to resize your thighs

You’re likely to get your readers’ attention if you give them a numbered list.

6. Avoid long paragraphs and sentences

You’ll definitely want to avoid run-on sentences and dense paragraphs. If you have a paragraph that’s getting a bit long, break it into two at an appropriate spot.

7. Include hyperlinks so readers can check out supporting data

You don’t need to clutter your copy with background stats. If you’re quoting a research study, just use a hyperlink to direct your readers to the source.

8. Avoid glaring errors

Glaring grammatical errors and spelling mistakes are unprofessional and should be avoided. If you’re a bad speller, write your blog in Word and run a spell-check before posting. If your grammar is weak, check into Grammar Girl once in a while to learn the important rules.

However, if you’re writing blog posts 3 or 4 times a week I’ll definitely cut you some slack on this one.  I don’t care about a couple of mistakes in a few of your posts, as long as the content is interesting.

9. Sell it from the roof tops (or at least from Twitter)

Once you’ve written and posted your content, you need to promote it. I wrote about some ways to get more action on the social sharing scene last week.

10. Write a little bit everyday

If you want to write incredible content, you have to write (obvious, no?). Writing experts advise that you write every single day for at least an hour. Even if you struggle with writer’s block, write anyway. Force yourself to churn out 250 words on a daily basis, even if it’s crap. You can go back and fix it later. If you write regularly, your writing will definitely improve.

YOUR TURN

What secrets can you share to help others create incredible content?

If you’re looking for some media training—either for yourself or one of your company’s executives—read on for some key points to help you select an effective trainer.

Experience as a journalist

If the trainer lacks a journalism background, they won’t completely understand the pressures the media are under–and won’t give you a realistic sense of how these pressures affect you.

A former journalist can explain to you why:

• Media need a news hook
• It’s a better story if it includes a good guy and a bad guy
• A dramatic grabber makes for a better story

Spokesperson experience

This kind of experience is a little harder to come by in the media training world. But just as journalism experience is critical, someone who formerly sat in the hot seat as a corporate spokesperson will empathize with your challenges and coach you accordingly.

Role playing

Any media training session worth its salt must include simulated interviews, typically recorded and then reviewed so you can literally see your strengths and weaknesses. It can be painful (no one likes to watch themselves in action) but you will be surprised at how quickly your spokesperson skills improve.

Media theory

In addition to role-playing, your media training session should include a little bit of theory on how media view the world. As a spokesperson, it’s important to understand the pressure media are under to deliver interesting stories. Making their lives easier will score you lots of brownie points and keep the media coming back for more.

Key message development

Relevant key messages are at the heart of every successful media interview. Your training should include instruction on how to craft messages so you’re equipped to prepare your own messages (with a bit of panache, of course!) when an interview opportunity crops up.

There are two ways to attack the training—either go into the training with prepared messages you want to rehearse or walk in cold and develop messages as part of the session. I recommend the former approach if you have little to no experience as a spokesperson while the latter works well if you’ve already got media interview experience.

Media protocol

What does your company do when media come calling?

When media call, are they put through to your corporate communications department? Or if you work for a small or medium sized business, are they routed through your administrative assistant? If it’s the latter, does your assistant have a list of questions to help the process move forward smoothly without antagonizing the media?

If your media trainer doesn’t offer up an easy-to-use media protocol as part of your session, ask them to provide one as a follow-up piece.

Coaching summary

At the end of your session you’ll want a summary of your strengths and, most importantly, your weaknesses. The document should include suggestions on ways to address some of the more sensitive questions or situations in which you may find yourself.

YOUR TURN

What do you think makes a good media trainer—and a good media training session?

Is your blog languishing on the social sharing scene?

Read on for 5 tips to pump up its popularity.

Social sharing buttons on your blog

You’ve got social sharing buttons on your blog, right?

I know it sounds like an obvious point but according to research from BrightEdge Technologies, over 46% of the top 10,000 sites do not have a single social sharing button on their home page.

With so many social platforms I admit it can be a bit confusing to differentiate between which social buttons to use for what purpose. If you’re wondering if you should add like, share, tweet or +1 buttons, here’s a short guide to the key ones you need on your blog for each of the four main social media platforms.

Twitter

Tweet

This button lets your blog visitors easily share your content with their networks on Twitter. You can customize this button here with specific text and URL. It’s optional to add an @mention, but it’s recommended if you want to increase the reach of your account.

Facebook

When your blog visitors click on your Facebook Like button, a story appears in their profile and in their friends’ news feeds with a link back to your blog. You can customize this button here and also get the code.

LinkedIn

The LinkedIn share button lets your readers share your post with their connections on LinkedIn. You can create and install this button here.

Google+

This button is similar to Facebook’s Like button. It’s an easy way for your blog visitors to endorse your content, recommend it in search results and share it with their Google+ Circles. You can customize the button here and get the embed code.

Write really remarkable content

This point should really be number one. Writing really remarkable content is critical to your blogging success and key to the social sharing scene.

But writing remarkable content is definitely easier said than done. And while one person may think your content is remarkable, another person may consider it completely unremarkable.

If you’re writing a business blog, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What questions do they ask about your services? What problems do they want you to solve? Approached in this fashion, an hour long brainstorming with your sales folks will likely generate more than 50 blog ideas that your customers find remarkable.

Tweet your own horn

Are you tweeting your posts? If not, listen up: Blog posts shared on Twitter get 113% more inbound links than those not shared on social media at all. So if you’re not tweeting your posts, you’re definitely missing out on an opportunity to promote your blog.

Of course, you can’t just promote your own stuff all day long. You need to find the right balance between self-promotion, sharing information from others and striking up conversations.

Do unto others

Social sharing is, well, social sharing. You can’t expect others to share your content if you’re not sharing theirs once in a while or helping them out on the social sharing scene in other ways.

When you’re planning your tweets every day, make sure you’re retweeting interesting content from a number of sources. Strike up conversations with the folks you’re following on Twitter. Comment on other’s blog posts, and they’ll likely return the favour by commenting on yours.

Where’s your blog?

If you want more social sharing action, you need to make it easy for people to find your blog and subscribe to it. Is there an obvious link to it on your home page? Once people land on your blog, is there an RSS subscription button? An opt-in form so they can subscribe via email? And are all those subscription options near the top of your blog, above the fold?

YOUR TURN

What suggestions do you have for getting more action on the social sharing scene?

Measuring ROI has always been a challenge for PR practitioners and the marketers who hire them.

Here are a few approaches we recommend:

Compare results before and after specific initiatives

Did you notice any difference in business results or in how prospects were responding to you after your public relations campaign launched?

If we’re talking media relations (the aspect that’s thought of most often when PR is mentioned), the best way to measure results is by tracking top-of-mind and aided awareness pre- and post-campaigns. It’s generally accepted that the higher your top-of-mind awareness, the greater your market-share.

Top-of-mind awareness is defined as the percent of respondents who name a specific brand without prompting. Aided awareness is measured by asking them if they’ve ever heard of a specific brand.

Of course, this approach only works if PR is your only marketing tactic. If you’ve got a media buy and a promotional campaign happening simultaneously, it’s difficult to tell what’s moving the needle.

The other challenge with tracking awareness over time is the cost. Usually this kind of research is more expensive than the actual public relations campaign, a fact that rightly causes most marketers to shy away from it.

Here are some lower cost alternatives to track your PR results:

Track mentions with Google alerts

Google alerts are a good (and free!) way to track mentions of your brand in traditional media, as well as in blogs and social media. Granted, just knowing how much coverage you received doesn’t tell you the ROI of your program, but it is a good starting point.

Quality over quantity

Everyone wants to know how much coverage they received but it’s more important to secure meaningful coverage. Ask yourself: Did the media outlets most important to our organization cover us? How much feature coverage did we receive? Was our brand mentioned in the coverage? Was the tone of the coverage positive, negative or neutral?

Compare your company with competitors

Measure how your company is doing against competitive brands. You may have received a lot of positive, meaningful coverage but they may be overshadowing your efforts if they got a lot more.

Evaluate your speaking engagements

How many leads and customers did you get from speaking engagements?

Count your award wins

How many awards did you win? More importantly, did these wins lead to media coverage or strategic, new hires?

Analyze your website traffic

Use Google Analytics to find out how people find you online. Are they visiting from an online media site that mentioned your company, from a conference at which you spoke or from an awards program you entered? If they are, are those visitors turning into leads and customers?

Ask customers how they found you

Understand how customers and prospects initially found out about you by asking them. Simple, no?

YOUR TURN

How are you evaluating and measuring your public relations efforts?

Interested in learning more about building your business with traditional PR and social media? Download our FREE eBook here:

While social media is making it easier for businesses to connect with stakeholders, it can’t totally replace face-to-face communication.

Securing speaking engagements for your company’s executives at conferences and events is a great way to connect in person with potential and current customers.

Speeches also have the additional benefit of positioning your company as a thought leader in its field.

Here are eight-steps to help you secure speaking opportunities that build business results:

1. Start developing your speaking strategy by identifying your speaking topics.

2. Define and prioritize your target audiences.

3. Establish measurable objectives that will define success such as number of appearances and number of leads generated at each speaking opportunity.

4. Research local industry events including trade shows, conferences and seminars. Establish a system to evaluate each opportunity. Contact the venues to find out about submission guidelines. Once your speaker has a solid track record, expand to higher-level conferences and summits.

5. Once a speaker is confirmed, use social media channels to publicize your speaker’s presentation. Share the news on Twitter, LinkedIn and on your Facebook page.

6. Write an article for your blog. Even if people can’t attend the event, reading about it will demonstrate your commitment to thought leadership.

7. Create a corporate SlideShare account and let people at the event know it will be uploaded afterwards. Collect business cards so you can add contacts to your database and reach out to them with the link to SlideShare.

8. When preparing for a speaking engagement, include ways for audience members to connect with you through social media. Provide your Twitter handle, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile and Google+ page.

YOUR TURN

What steps does your company take to secure speaking engagements for senior executives?

Keywords are those all-important words or phrases someone uses to find information in a search engine or on a social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Why are keywords important?

Keywords are an important part of any Internet marketing strategy since more people are finding businesses online through search engines. And guess what? They’re using keywords to find these businesses.

You can take advantage of this trend by optimizing your website around the keywords relevant to your business. This approach increases your chance of getting found by people who are searching with those keywords, driving more and better quality traffic to your site.

So how do you create a keyword strategy?

1. Look at your Google Analytics

If you’ve had your website for a while, check out your Google Analytics to see what words people are using to find your site now. It’s easier to improve rank for these keywords (and related ones) than it is to dominate new ones.

2. Start from scratch with a short list of keywords

You need to think like a customer who is searching for your product on a search engine in order to create a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. Start with a list of five keywords. And remember, they’re not your brand name.

There are a number of different tools, such as the Google Keyword Tool and Word Tracker, you can use to dig deeper on your five initial keywords.

I use Hubspot’s keyword tool that’s included in their inbound marketing software:

3. Choose keywords based on difficulty and search volume

The keywords you choose should be based on a combination of difficulty and search volume. A difficult keyword with little volume isn’t worth targeting.  It’s all about finding the sweet spot between keywords with decent volume that are in the middle-ground for difficulty.

In the Hubspot example above, I’ve used the tool to generate a number of long-tail variations for “inbound marketing” such as “inbound marketing solutions” and “inbound marketing services.”  These long-tail keywords get fewer searches than “inbound marketing” so it’s generally easier to rank well for these terms.

The Hubspot tool also lists the number of global monthly searches for the exact match of each term, how difficult it is to rank for each keyword on a scale of 1-100 and the approximate cost per click if I were using this term in a Google Adwords campaign.

4. Don’t forget about relevance

The other important consideration when picking keywords is their relevance to your business. Obscure terms might be easy to rank for, but they won’t drive quality traffic to your site.

5. Optimize your site around your keywords

Once you have your keywords, incorporate them into your website with on-page search engine optimization. I’ll write more about this topic in a future blog post.

YOUR TURN

How have you developed your keyword strategy?

It still surprises me how many businesses don’t have a blog.

The most prevalent rationale I hear for NOT taking the plunge is: We don’t have the resources to start a blog and keep it going.

While I agree the prospect of blogging can seem intimidating, there are many compelling reasons why blogging makes sense.

So if your business doesn’t have a blog, read on for my top 9 reasons to start.

1. Blogs help you generate more web traffic and leads

According to HubSpot studies companies that blog generate 55% more web traffic and 70% more leads than those that do not.

Those numbers are pretty impressive. So if your boss or CEO is hesitant to start a blog, just show them the stats.

In addition to its bottom line benefits, a company blog is useful for many other reasons.

2. Media relations

A company blog has great search engine optimization benefits—and if you’re ranking high in Google you’ll get spotted by more than customers. Media and bloggers are looking for story ideas. Your articles could pop up as a result of a Google search a journalist conducts to find sources. We call this approach “inbound media relations.”

3. Profile company updates and achievements

Is your CEO speaking at an industry event? Did you recently win a business award? Use your blog to share company achievements and get the word out about what you’re up to. Just maintain some humility when talking about yourself.

4. Demonstrate your company’s personality

Did your company recently hold a holiday party or a baseball tournament? Write about it on your blog or create a corporate Flickr account and upload pictures from the event. Consider embedding a slideshow into your blog post—people love to learn about a company’s culture.

5. Communicate product launches

Did you recently launch a new product or update an existing service? Tell your customers, prospects and fans with a blog article.

6. Build your team

Encourage a number of employees to contribute to your company blog. Many will enjoy the creative outlet it provides. Their input will make posting every week less arduous and help ensure your blog maintains an interesting voice.

7. Meet great people

You’ll definitely meet some new people when you start a blog (on the flip side they’ll also get an introduction to your products and services). Folks will stop by to comment, and depending on your industry, they may also reach out to you to guest blog.

8. Sharpen your mind

Muddled writing is often a sign of muddled thinking. You’ll be surprised at how much writing a blog will clarify your thoughts and opinions. This clarity will help you in other aspects of your business, including customer conversations and new business presentations.

9. Find interesting opportunities in real life

A blog can also lead to invitations to speak at industry events or to participate in panel discussions.

YOUR TURN

Why do you think companies should start a blog?

I read a lot. I grew up with literary fiction and I seem to stick to that genre out of habit.

A couple of years ago I joined a book club. The reading list included history, biography, humour and historical fiction, forcing me to branch out into unknown literary territory.

And you know what? I really enjoyed each and every one of those books.

Still, the one kind of book that’s still missing (at least to any great extent) on my iPad is the business book. So I’ve set myself a business book challenge.

Over the next six months I’m going to read a business book each month. I’ll report back on my progress and give you a bit of a recap on what I’ve read.

I’ve selected books that friends have mentioned or that I discovered on marketing blogs and podcasts. I don’t know if this list represents essential business books or not, but I figure it’s a pretty good start.

Here’s the list:

Cluetrain Manifesto: The end of business as usual by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger

The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more by Chris Anderson

Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t by Jim Collins

Inbound marketing: Get found using Google, social media and blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

The new rules of marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

The end of marketing as we know it by Sergio Zyman

YOUR TURN

What business books do you recommend?

I’ve written in the past about how to find a public relations agency and how to tell if you’re talking to a PR rock star.

This week’s topic is how to brief an agency once you’ve found them.

First, put it in writing.

I can’t stress how important a written brief is. You’d be surprised at how many companies rely on a verbal briefing or simply book a meeting and have the PR firm ask questions.

When you know your business, it really doesn’t take long to draft a briefing document. It will help you focus on the challenges that matter and, more importantly, help ensure the recommended PR strategy addresses them.

Here are the key sections of the PR brief:

Background

Start the brief with two or three short paragraphs that provide some context about your company. Outline what your company does and other relevant details including history, your organization’s position in the market, key competitors, your URL and whether your market and business are growing or declining.

Finish this section by describing the challenges you’re facing that prompted the need for a PR program. What is the opportunity? What are the issues? What impact have these issues had on performance, reputation, image or business results?

Goals

What are your objectives? Make sure they’re measurable and that they focus on outcomes, not outputs. Don’t just tell your PR firm you want lots of media coverage. Stick to the business goals of the organization.

And don’t be afraid to state financial goals. If you’re talking to a PR rock star, they’ll get it.

Insight

Provide more details about your organization. Identify the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving your objectives.

Use the SWOT formula: What are your strengths? Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats?

Target audiences

Make a list of your primary and secondary audiences. Who are the important decision-makers? Who are the influencers? What other stakeholders are important?

Tell the PR firm as much about these audiences as you can such as key characteristics, needs, preferences, demographics and psychographics.

If you operate in Canada, specify if you want a national program that includes Québec.

Budget

I don’t know why but many clients are coy about their budget. Don’t be. Tell your PR firm how much you want to spend. Include your fiscal year or the time period to which the dollars have been allocated.

Proposal

If you’re trying to decide between two firms, include a proposal outline in the brief. Ask the firms to provide an outline of their capabilities and for case studies on organizations that faced a similar challenge.

Timing

When do you need to see the proposal in order to make a timely decision?

YOUR TURN

What other details are important in a PR brief?

If you’re blogging regularly, tweeting and sharing on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, it’s easy to spend hours online.

But it is possible to streamline your efforts.

Here are a few tricks I’ve picked up that help me work efficiently.

Tools of the trade

1. Use an application like HootSuite or Buffer to schedule tweets, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn updates throughout the day.
2. Identify blogs and other online content that interest you and add them to your RSS reader. Use your favourite feeds as content for Twitter and other social media platforms.
3. Create Twitter lists for key customers and competitors then use HootSuite to follow them.
4. Add the WordPress app to LinkedIn so your blog automatically posts on your profile.

Plan your blog

5. Set a blogging schedule and stick to it. It’s much easier to meet deadlines if you’re committed to blogging every Tuesday and Thursday.
6. Establish an editorial calendar for the next six weeks. The calendar will help ensure you’re not talking about the same topic every week. It also makes it easier to stay focused on writing your blog, instead of constantly wondering what you should be writing about.

Share the load

7. Find other people in your organization to share the blogging responsibility. Or invite others to write a guest post.

Set a schedule

8. Establish a tweeting schedule—say five tweets per day—and post them to HootSuite or Buffer either every morning or at the end of the day.
9. Check Twitter twice daily, at lunchtime and the end of the day to share other’s content, respond to @replies, Direct Messages and to thank others for their retweets.

Repurpose your tweets

10. Pick a tweet every day to share on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.

I won’t kid you–social media is time consuming. But you can cut it down to about a half hour per day plus another hour every week if you write a weekly blog.

YOUR TURN

What tips do you have that help you save time engaging on social media?