I spent my morning at the Nashville Geek Breakfast, a monthly meetup for local social media & tech geeks.
While there I met up with my friend Lizzie Keiper, and also met Nathan Ketsdever - a Nashville based Social Media Link Building specialist.
I talked Nathan into a quick interview, and he shared some insightful tips on content strategy, blogging and link-building...
When it comes to Internet Marketing, the plan has to be strategically customized for each individual business model. Nathan explains how he consults with companies to determine their objective, and then creates a content development and linking strategy to achieve specific goals.
Since Nathan works offline with local business owners, I asked him if he felt it was beneficial to integrate a blog into a traditional brochure-type or ecommerce website. His answer: "Absolutely. Without question."
"A blog allows you to integrate content and conversations into your website that will appeal to your target market. It gives you an opportunity to add content other than basic product descriptions or company information."
I loved Nathan's idea of creating a story around your product, or around the features and benefits of your product. He goes on to say that blogging allows business owners to engage the growing Social Media audience that they couldnt otherwise reach with their products & services.
"Blogging is a means of humanizing your brand."
Next we talked about link-building, and I particularly liked his definition of links as being relationships with other websites. He mentioned using content such as videos or interviews, or other platforms, to get quality links pointing back to your main site.
Take note, because the video above and the blog post you are reading right now are both excellent examples of that very point 😉 .
While this video is only 3 1/2 minutes long, Nathan gives creative advice for anyone marketing online, and some thought-provoking concepts for local or ecommerce type business owners that want to enter the Social Media space.
Be sure to check out his site at Creative Fusion Media for even more tips, and follow Nathan on Twitter at @DCmusicfusion.
Best,
About Lynn Terry
Thanks for the interview. Great talking.
Hope your webinar event went well!
Wow what a fun breakfast. I am glad you had a great time. And thanks for the great interview.
Excellent interview Lynn, good job you two 🙂
Thank you both! I'm getting more and more comfortable whipping out my pocket video cam and shooting random videos & interviews.
It's so fun to share some of the cool people I meet with you guys, so you can get an idea of what's going on at these meet-ups & events I've been attending lately.
I have met some awesome people, set up some very cool JVs and made a lot of new like-minded friends.
This coming week I am meeting Michelle MacPhearson in Orlando for Ed Dale's OTE2 event, and plan to get some exclusive vids with her. Should be tons of fun!
If we ever meet, I'll remember my banana nose and glasses 😉
The MM video should be awesome 🙂
Btw, when you get a chance, please click my link and leave your opinion...after recent posts, I know you know!
Link building is so much more than it used to be. I agree that it's more of a relationship where both parties can have a mutually beneficial arrangement that actually adds value instead of a random pointer to a website.
Content and links, that's the big secret to Internet Marketing. The hard part is creating the right content and getting the right links.
I like the idea about creating a story around your products. Have been thinking about setting up a blog for some time but saw the idea of talking about your products as a negative. This has given me some ideas thanks.
I love that "blogging is a means of humanizing your brand" well said!
I was speaking to a client today who was struggling to see and understand the efficacy of blogging...well wish I had seen these words before!
Thanks lynn!
If you're blogging for your company, you should make sure your posts sound natural, personal while bringing something useful to the table. If your blog is too spammy looking or just features posts promoting your products, they probably won't attract readers. However, if you act as the face of the company, giving it a human feel, you might attract followers and most likely more sales.
Hello Lynn, I'm just interested to know how did you manage to create a signiture like that and put it on your blog? Did you use photoshop to create it?
thanks
Hi Lynn
I thought I would search Google to see what my Myspace friends were upto these days. Good to see you come up on the first page for a popular keyword.
Love the look and great information here.
Hope alls well...
Wayne
Great video !I learn some good tips for my social media link-building strategy.I hope it will all work out for me.Thank you!
Of course, blog has absolutely changed how people see things on the net. People used to market their products only by producing the so-called one-page-lengthy-sales-pitch which is so boring to be read. Blogs have extra feature; a funny feeling where you think it is more human-like.
Hi Lynn,
Just wanted to say that I've started reading your blog. I'm wondering if you have heard about the book, "What Men Don't Tell Women About Business". I heard the guy (Chris Flett) on the Today Show and thought you probably have already heard of him. I'm wondering what your thoughts were. He seems to be really taking on the 'Old Boys Club". I just emailed him, but haven't heard back.
Anyway, keep up the great writing.
Best,
Bihter.
making me hungy thinking of that breakfast,
Thanks for the interview. Great talking.
"Blogging humanizes your brand online" - pretty important insight! Blogging as a way of increasing credibility and trust - that is a nice trick for those companies with somewhat stiff appearance.
And thanks for the tip on video and interviews as a way of creating backlink.
Short and to the piont - that's how I like it.
Nice lunch and discussuon on seo tips?
Amazing combination..
thanks for sharing 🙂
I think that the observation that blogging humanizes the brand is a very insightful comment. I enjoyed your post!
There are some social networks which will help your PR because they have not made the links on their sites nofollow. Linked In Q&A articles, Yahoo Answers and You Tube frequently show up in Google's SERP's so it is worth the time to develop company profiles on Linked In and You Tube. Facebook is questionable depending on your target demographic.
I loved the quote too: “Blogging is a means of humanizing your brand" Brilliant!
I think a lot of people hesitate to talk about their products, or really market themselves (or their site). I am not sure why that is the case, since that is the purpose of being an entrepreneur, but I notice it a lot.
It's time to break out of that! People search online because they want to know about your product or service. Confidence shows. A strong call-to-action is actually appreciated as it gives them solid direction on what to do next, etc.
You know what? This is such a great topic all in itself that I think I'll just whip out a whole new blog post on it... Watch for it 😉
Hi Bihter,
I hadnt heard of it no, but I just looked it up on Amazon. Looks interesting! There are some related books on the same topic too. I think I'll order a few and give them a read. I'll be sure to post an update & review here at ClickNewz of course. Should go well with the current "gender war" topic -heh!
Update: I just ordered the book you suggested:
http://www.clicknewz.com/1748/breaking-into-the-boys-club/
Thanks 🙂
Hey Lynn,
I have a couple of puppy sites that I run. I kind of got into the dog business by accident and became worried about the proliferation of puppy mills. That's how I started my first website.
Today, my dog website is page one of Google for more than a few terms, and my visitors always compliment me on how informative my site is.
By the way - its always nice to read material written by an attractive woman - especially when the content is useful. Thanks for the idea - "Humanizing Content" or Humanizing the product. I think I am going to switch a couple of my sites over to WordPress Blogs. Of course I have puppy dog sites that sort of have a life of their own. I think these already touch people's hearts, and that's why they work without Blogging.
Anyhow, sorry for the long post -
Great interview with Nathan. he's saying things that makes a lot of sense. I think strategizing and understanding the client's business model is very important as to what kind of strategy they should be applying.
Your post got me thinking and I think I have a good advice an a topic for you. Why don't you do a series of posts on link building. I think this is an area of many mysteries and myths. I do link building myself and sometimes I am successful and sometimes I'm not. However, I still haven't found the formula for building links.