If the content you put out into the world isn't helping you, it's probably hurting you. Web and social media content are important tools. Do more than remind customers you’re there. Define your aesthetic, assert your personality, and create your tribe. Here’s why most companies are missing the mark.
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Why No One Will Read Your Design Blog Without These 5 Things
How do you get more people to read your blog? Your company's blog is a necessity for keeping your brand relevant, keeping your customers engaged, and ensuring your company's visibility. I've put together a list of the most critical elements of your design-world blog.
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Marni's Well-Designed Day in Highland Park for Apartment Therapy
How To Use Micro-Influencers To Increase Your Brand Awareness
The bigger the better, right? Well when it comes to influencer marketing - a strategy that uses key leaders to drive your brand’s message to a large market - that’s not necessarily true. AdAge’s recent article “Micro, Not Macro: Rethinking Influencer Marketing” hits on why it's so important to recognize quality over quantity for your influencer marketing - and just how a smaller influencer’s more authentic voice will actually net you more potential customers.
A few key takeaways.
First, influencer marketing is about real people, not celebrities:
They often have a more personal connection with their followers.
Typically, these influencers aren't celebrities. They are real people with a deep passion or subject-matter expertise. They are often more relatable than big-time influencers, and their content can feel more authentic and personal.
Bright Bazaar's influencer campaign for Ace Hotel New Orleans
Second, smaller audiences are often wrongly undervalued. Rather, these audiences actually provide more bang for your marketing buck:
Micro-influencers' content often performs better than macro-influencers' posts. According to recent research, engagement rates on Instagram drop as the number of followers increases [...] For advertisers trying to get the most bang for their buck, it's worth considering the most effective path to scale.
HomeyOhMy's influencer campaign for Lutron Electrics
Third, their audience more precisely aligns with your target following:
Many of the social media juggernauts have diverse fan bases. This can be a great thing, but for brands trying to target a particular type of customer, it's better to think narrow. Micro-influencers often cater to a specific, niche audience.
Instagram is a built-in audience of design-lovers. For design-forward brands, working with the right micro-influencers on Instagram allows you to cut through the clutter to skillfully and powerfully engage your target audience - at scale. On Instagram, the amount of followers you acquire can translate to real business leads and powerful publicity. To read more on why Instagram really matters for design + architecture pros, click here.
want to learn more about how influencer marketing can work for you?
Photo via Pexels
3 Critical Reasons Your Design Brand Needs A Blog
If you've ever kept a blog, there's probably been a time when you've stopped and asked yourself either: (1) Why am I doing this? or (2) Am I doing this right? Hell, maybe you've asked yourself both. I know someone has likely asked themselves one of those questions and failed to identify the answer every time I visit a website, click on the company's blog, and see that the latest post is from 6 months ago (or longer).
Your blog isn't simply a cool vanity project. A great company blog is a necessity for keeping your brand relevant, keeping your customers engaged, and ensuring your company's visibility. When I see brand that hasn't posted a blog in 6 months, I begin to wonder if that architecture firm is still in business, if that designer is still selling their line of housewares, or whether that cool, designer boutique hotel I heard about is actually worth all the hype. So back to those original two questions: why you're keeping a blog and are you doing it right - those answers are simple, particularly once you've done the work to identify who your target audience is. Who is your customer? What questions do they have? What do they want?
Once you achieve clarity around your customer, your blog can easily serve to:
#1. Develop your voice as design industry thought-leader
A company blog is a podium form which to launch yourself to the forefront of your industry. Developing think-pieces on industry topics and or creating content around news and trend helps to establish your company, and you, as a design, real estate, or hospitality industry thought-leader. I’ve received everything from partnerships with Modernism Week, speaking requests from the AIA, “thank you” emails from iconic Mid-Century architects, to job offers, and meeting requests as a direct result of posts I’ve written. Develop your blog and develop your status as an industry leader.
#2. Tell your brand's unique story
Content shows who you are - what principles you represent as a business in a concise and approachable way. If a visitor to your website is not able to understand what you do, or the value that your business offers them, they’ll never connect with you, let alone purchase your goods or services. Design and architecture tell a story... Who we are... How we live...And all of us connect with design--more than we know. Are you telling your story the way you want it to be told?
#3. Increase your visibility by boosting your website's SEO
SEO is often thought of as buying Google keywords so that your brand shows higher in Google search results. What SEO actually is, is maximizing the amount of visitors to your website from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” search. By definition then producing and sharing great content from your blog increases your amount of “free,” “organic,” AND “editorial” traffic. Buying Google keywords can only take your customers to you site. Smart, engaging content, however, will take them to your site and encourage them to convert.
A well rounded (SEO) approach should include content if you are to convert leads because thousands of people on your website is useless traffic if you fail to engage them and they bounce just as quickly as they as they arrived.
Learn how to create and maintain a blog that works for you as opposed to one that makes you work.