Integrating a Blog into your Content Marketing Strategy

Blogging is a great way to build your brand and market your products to the masses. Writing a blog allows you to demonstrate your expertise through writing. Blogging helps to provide prospects and customers with valuable information. Providing valuable information helps to position you as an expert and a resource. (Content Creation)Popular blog posts formats are: How tos, book reviews, interviews, analysis of trends in your industry and best ofs. I was approached by many people as a result of my blog. Now you are asking the question, How did you get the idea to blog?I decided to write a blog while working on an assignment in the education field. This assignment required me get other people to work on their writing. One of the prompts I used asked the question, What do you know a lot about?Make a list of topics, choose one and write a research paper on this topic.This writing prompt made me think about the topics that I knew a lot about. The topics were Sales, Marketing, and Social Media. As a result, I decided to put my thoughts on these topics in writing. I launched Dan Galantes Sales and Marketing blog in November 2011.A blog is very easy to set up. The major blogging platforms areWordPress andtumblr. Both sites allow users to register for free. If you want to choose a custom domain name there is a fee. WordPress directly offers domain names for sale on their site. With tumblr, you will need to go to an outside provider and redirect the site to tumblr.The WordPress and tumblr platforms have many features of Facebook and Twitter. You can re-blog an article. Re-blogging is sharing someone elses content on your blog; similar to a retweet. Your fellow bloggers can also like your post and comment on it, similar to Facebook. These features are great for engagement. Articles can be tagged with relevant terms. You can then search out these terms to see all posts on that topic. This is similar to a hashtag on Twitter or SEO. (Content curation)WordPress and tumblr allows bloggers to share articles on various social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. You can use badges and plugins from your social networks to build a following and community. I have used this method to expand readership.Guest blogging and syndication is another way to share your content. Content Curation.Once you decide to start blogging, stick with it and publish quality content. Try to set up a writing schedule to maintain consistency. I shoot for once a week.Blogging is a great way to get your message out. This is how you can build your brand with a blog.Image by http://www.easistem.com/