Tag Archives: social media

The Power Blog: Going beyond Words to Building a Following

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Expedition Leader

Being an effective blogger is like being an expedition leader. You will be introducing your readers to new vistas in their world while building trust. These followers will always want more and often become your best customers.

By:  Andrew Johnson, Ph.D.

Whether you are listening to the radio, catching up with the news of the day, reading your favorite blog or even conversations at work, the terms ‘Content Marketing’ and ‘Social media’ seem to pop-up ubiquitously .  We have written on both topics here as well. (Content Marketing: Are You Using This Key Tactic to Win the Startup Arms Race?, Avoid the Siren Song of ‘Going Viral’: The Most Powerful SEO is Great Content).  As topical as all this may be, it is important to understand the benefits and costs (Time, effort, patience) that embarking on a Content Media campaign are before committing to this.  As we have previously discussed, in our ‘Content Marketing’ piece, regardless of the tactics you select for your own campaign (e.g. blog posts, hosting topical forums, podcasting, videos & webinars, Facebook pages, websites etc.) the key element is to create and share quality content.  Writing and publishing effective blogs is the most content rich (and potentially time consuming) tactic you could choose.  However, when this is done well, the benefits (eventually) will far outweigh the time and effort that you put into this.

Why bother…
Hosting and maintaining a successful blog is not a trivial effort.  It also takes time and patience before the rewards of your efforts become apparent.  Here are a few reasons to give this important tactic a second look.

  • Become an authority:  New customers are more likely to buy from a trusted source.  If you share what you know on a regular basis with a blog, you will begin to become known as a trusted and knowledgeable resource for them.  Even in the early days, being able to refer new leads to ‘articles’ that you or your company have written can have a very positive impact on the sales cycle.
  • Rise from obscurity: Even before your first offering is ready to be sold, you can start to build your brand with a good blog.  It takes time to build a customer base.  Hosting a great blog allows you to start the process by building awareness and brand way before your launch so that you will not have to start from scratch on launch day.
  • Recycling:  The content in each blog post can be reused.  Take copy from some of your more successful posts to help you create better website content, brochures, trade journal articles, press releases and more.
  • Escape the glacial pace of academic journal publication:  For Life Science and Biotech companies, the greatest validation of their products can come when some of their customers publish using their offering.  This can take a long time.  Remembering that this is an ‘Ad-Free Zone’, asking your best customers to guest blog on their work (applications) can be a great way to get influential articles in the public realm faster. 
  • Build more powerful connections:  Everyone has a business card to hand out to new connections.  Sharing a link to a relevant post article or two can be a powerful way to distinguish yourself (either when you meet or in your follow-up).   Your new connection will have a chance to further evaluate how you communicate and how you think.  The combination of an in-person meeting with a ‘content rich’ follow-up using this tactic can lead to a stronger (and more valuable) relationship.

A few fundamentals
There are a huge number of resources and opinions about how to write a successful blog that will really light up the literary world and have current and future customers and readers clamoring for more.  (We share a few of these resources at the end of this post).  One thing you will discover early on is that there are as many opinions on the rules that must be followed to create blog content as there are blogs and posts.  The following guidelines (not rules) are based on what the author has found (and validated with clients) to be the most effective way to create content that works.

  • Keep it short (sometimes):  You can find various recommendations on how many words your post should be.  350 – 700 seems to be a rough rule of thumb.  However, this ‘rule’ should not be what defines the length of your writing.  (UpStart Life Sciences routinely violates this dictum.)  A good post should be just long enough to discuss (or cover) one topic.  If you find that you have written a piece that contains several concepts in it, you can divide it into separate posts during your editing.
  • Follow the WEE principle: Trying to write the world’s best blog post the first time out can lead you directly to ‘writers-block’ or worse (giving up).  I have found that once I have found a topic of interest that I will just go ahead and write it out as quickly as I can (spelling errors, awkward sentences, meaningless digressions and all).  After a day or so, you can read and edit the piece with fresh eyes.  You will likely find that it is ‘not as bad’ as you thought at first.  Be sure to give it one more round of editing before publishing it.  The Write (W), Edit (E) and Edit (E) again principle will free you to be your creative best and routinely produce interesting, informative and polished pieces.
  • Spice it up: Use pictures, diagrams, videos, podcasts and links to tell your story.  Each of these things offers a different way to communicate with your audience.  Just make sure that they really do contribute to your piece and are not just thrown in as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) gimmicks.  Sometimes the best way to punch up your writing is to use paragraph headings and bullet points (allows your readers to skim to what interests them in your longer writings).
  • 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 … Launch: When are you ready to go public?  When helping our clients with this, we recommend that they have at least 10 posts ready to go on the first day of ‘publishing’.  It takes time for your audience to discover you, so you would like to keep them coming once they do.  Having 10 pieces prepared will also test your own commitment to this effort.  If this seems a little too much, consider trying this out by offering to be a guest writer for another well-established blog first.  Having a body of work already available when each of your readers finds you will go a long way to retaining them and encouraging them to come back for more.
  • Delight your audience not the world:  This is especially important to keep in mind if you would like some of your audience members to eventually reach out to you to become your customers.  Constantly worrying about what length or words or clever titles you should use to enhance the SEO of your piece will lead to mediocre content.  If someone thinks your posts are too long, or boring, you can be sure that there is someone else out there that is glad that you took the time and effort to write a good piece.  In time, if you focus on delivering value, your readership will grow and it is these fans that are most likely to reach out to you to do a little business.  Remember, there was a day when nobody had ever heard of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King.  They produced great content that nobody read in the early days.  However it was this great content that ultimately got them recognized and has built them each a huge following (there are still many people that don’t care for their work but I am sure that this does not keep either of them up at night).
  • Save your company news for the Press Release:  It is important to remember that your content rich blog articles help you garner trust and support amongst your target audience.  They are not Press Releases.  Press Releases generally announce goings on at your firm.  They do nothing else, especially in the unsolicited online world.  At worst, when applied to your blog they actually make you look like a less than savvy communicator online.  Save those releases for other mediums or for a separate place on your webpage.
  • Focus on ‘Content’ not ‘Marketing’:  I have mentioned this before but it warrants repeating.  If your main focus is producing high quality content, everything else will take care of itself.  Write the blog posts that you would like to read.

Want to learn more about blogging and how it can impact your business?  Get additional insights and tips from this podcast on this topic with the author on the No Boundaries Radio Hour Podcast hosted and produced by Scott Graves (Blogging Fundamentals Podcast)

Selected Resources:

Picture Credit:  filip.farag via photopin cc

Avoid the Siren Song of ‘Going Viral’: The Most Powerful SEO is Great Content

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Pencil, Pen and Ink Pen

Great writing is the best way to attract a great audience and great customers!

By:  Andrew Johnson, Ph.D.

The promise of the ‘viral potential’ of electronic media is very attractive but ultimately is a lost cause if what you have to say is not compelling.  Whether you are setting up your company website, kicking off a blog, launching a Facebook page or using any of the other avenues for communication that are available today,  the most important question to answer is: “Who would want to read this and why?”

It can seem overwhelming and there are firms that will promise that with just the right Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that your message will soon be in front of millions of potential customers.  Even if this were true, remember that although it just took a mouse click to visit your site that it takes the same amount of effort to click away from it.  Your goal is to attract the attention of people that will actually find what you are saying to be valuable to them.  Whether this is a blog post, or a section of your website, an interested visitor is more likely to further explore more of your content and in time may even include a request for more information, ask for a quote or even make a purchase from your e-commerce site.

The secret to making this work is to provide only quality content. You will be much better received by the viewing public by offering an insight or a new perspective on the latest trends in your field than an ad for your product or service masquerading as an interesting article.

Writing great content is easier said than done.  In the end whether it is great or not is something your readers will determine.    Here are a few tips to help you get started:

For Blog Posts, Newsletters, White Papers and Application Notes

  • Write down a list of ten article titles that are interesting to you. (If you find it difficult to do this at one sitting, consider a different topic area.  If the area you plan to write about is truly aligned with your interests and passions this should be easy to do)
  • Over the next month, start writing the articles for each of these titles.  Don’t worry if the English isn’t right or if they seem a little bit rough at the beginning.   Remember, this is a first draft
  • Allow a day or two before revisiting your first drafts.  Those that are good but need work will be easily distinguished from those that should be discarded with the clearer perspective you will have by reviewing them after a day or so
  • Consider adding  pictures, tables and/or figures to increase the visual interest and clarity of your pieces
  • For blogs, consider keeping them to one topic per post.  If when writing your post you find that there are several topics in it, split it up afterwards.  (This allows you to increase the focus and relevance of each piece for the widest possible audience)
  • Once you have 10 to 15 of these articles prepared and edited to final form, you are ready to publish them.

For Websites and Facebook Pages

  • Be sure to check the site statistics from time to time to see which of your pages and/or content are most interesting to your visitors.  Use the site analytics data to help you to improve your content over time by providing more of the things that you audience has shown an interest
  • Edit your drafts with an emphasis on ways to make things more concise if possible. (Less is more here)
  • Consider using bullet points and short descriptions rather than full sentences and paragraphs where possible
  • Take advantage of illustrations, pictures and short videos to tell your story and/or explain your technology
  • Consider using bolded or otherwise highlighted lines to head each paragraph of a multi-paragraph piece.  This allows site visitors to quickly scan your material and focus on those areas that they find most interesting and relevant to them.  Not everyone will want to read your entire piece

Creating quality content is a big job and requires significant time, effort and commitment to keep delivering the fresh and original materials that will engage your audience and advance your commercial goals.  However, the extra effort you spend here will provide for far better outcomes than any SEO gimmicks and other tricks.

Picture Credit:  © Luisfico | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Customer Engagement: A Startup Secret Weapon

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man with coffee, customer engagement

Never underestimate the power of sharing a cup of coffee!

By Andrew Johnson, Ph.D.

Why now
Although this may seem counterintuitive, it is vital to begin customer engagement activities long before you have a product to sell to them.  This is especially true when you have an innovative new concept and will potentially be first to market.  Failure to engage with your customers early will more often than not lead to, at best, wasting a lot of time and effort working on features that are unimportant to your customers and at worst, launching the wrong product.

The value of a good relationship with your future customers
Customer engagement is not marketing.  It is any activity that fosters two-way communication with your customers.  This is where you will find out exactly what features of your product will be most important and also who most values them (customer segmentation).   The reason that it is critical to begin doing this early is that the insights you gain from your future customers will allow you to more accurately determine the critical product specifications that will delight your customers when you launch.

Some Customer Engagement Tactics:

    • Face-to-face meetings
      This is the best way to confirm that your product and its feature set is right for your customer.  You get the most information this way and non-verbal reactions to your product or feature set proposals are worth the time and effort that this method requires
    • Phone feedback
      Follow-up phone conversations with customers that you have already met face-to-face.  This can be a good way to validate any changes to your product concept that you made based on the feedback you received from your prior prototype
  • Social media
    Start and maintain a blog to get additional and ongoing feedback.  (Be sure that you allow commenting and respond to those comments – remember this is a conversation).

    Share your concepts on a short YouTube video (2 – 3 minutes max.) and end with a question, your website and e-mail contact info.

    Consider setting up a Facebook page for the business and initially use it to drive traffic to your website and blog.

    Use Twitter to stay ‘in-the- know’ of late breaking changes in your industry by following Key Opinion Leaders.  Don’t just lurk, ask questions.

    Use LinkedIn to find new people to connect with that could become customers for you.  Once you think you know who your customer is, use LinkedIn to help you connect with them and then schedule a time for a face-to-face or phone conversation.

Get started now
Ideally, you will begin engaging with your customers prior to any alpha testing.  Start now because the earlier you start the better you will limit the costs and delays of rework.    The company leadership should be conducting these and ideally the Founder/President is part of this effort as well.

Picture Credit:  © Surkov_vladimir | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Building Buzz while Avoiding the Buzz Saw: Public Relations and the Life Science Start Up

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Honeybee on a flower

Get the PR buzz you want, avoid getting stung by bad press

By Andrew Johnson, Ph.D.

You have a ton of things to do to get ready for your product launch at the upcoming trade show.  You have got your website in great shape, you have product on the shelf, trained your sales team and/or partners and have a great booth.  You have even spent some valuable marketing dollars to promote your product.  Public relations is often neglected and mainly because it is often confused with marketing.  In its starkest definition, marketing looks to build a positive image and its products to a target audience though advertising and other paid means.  Good public relations looks to do this in an unpaid and perhaps more organic matter.

Public Relations is…
A good PR strategy will include interviews with reporters (both in trade journals and potentially in the mass media as well), speaking engagements, arranging to be on influential panels at scientific meetings and, if appropriate, on state and local panels when your products could have an impact with the general public like a new diagnostic or therapeutic offering.

Why You Want a Professional for This
This is often an effort that is best delegated to a professional.  A good PR consultant will often have a ready contact list of key people that will get you the interviews, articles and speaking engagements that will not only help to increase your visibility to potential customers but will also generate the valuable but hard to grasp concept of ‘buzz’.  A PR firm or consultant can also help to resolve any bad press or negative reactions in the media and on the web should that occur (that’s the buzz saw, in case you were keeping track).

Quick Tips:

  • Do develop a PR strategy with a PR Firm or experienced consultant
    Unless someone on your team is an experienced PR person with all of the contacts you need, include this in your business plan budget as part of your commercialization plan.
  • Do Make sure your website is up and running and contains compelling content
    When your PR activities generate ‘buzz’, you want interested parties to have ready access to additional high quality content.
  • Do prepare a ‘Media Kit’ to better manage your brand and image.
    Put a tab on your website that contains high quality images, logos and other resources that journalists and other media folks can use when they write about your company.  This gives you better (not absolute) control of how your logo and products are conveyed and helps to generate the positive impressions you hope to foster.

Picture Credit:  © Vojtechvlk | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos