Reasons Every Startup Should Blog
A blog is a great way to open up the dialogue between your startup and the online community. It is something we (Cahoots) have been doing for a few months now while we refine our concept and product. Our blog has been a fantastic tool, asset, and outlet for us. We are attracting a growing audience to engage with on a regular basis. As it turns out the biggest advantage isn’t the traffic, it’s the thought, research, feedback, and encouragement that blogging gives us. Therefore, we recommend blogging as a cornerstone to any startup. Here’s why:
1. The Edge: As of December 2012, there are over 634 million websites (Pingdom). There are an average of 150,000 new websites and 7.3 million pages added to the internet everyday. A blog is just one more way to get an edge and stand out from the competition. Research has found that companies who blog generate 67 percent more leads than those that don’t (Kanguro).
2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Blogging will dramatically increase your Google Rank. Blog entries are indexed by Google every day. When you write about topics that are likely to be searched by your target audience you gain a lot of visibility.
3. Credibility: Blogging is a great way to share expertise. In addition, committing to blogging regularly demonstrates that you are committed to your startup and persistent. This will make both investors and the online community take you more seriously.
4. Validation: A blog is a great way to obtain the validation that your startup is solving a problem in a way that is congruent with your customer’s needs. Allowing comments on your blog keeps the conversation on your website, though it is good to have them on social media channels too.
5. Encouragement: Doing a tech startup involves spending a lot of long hours at the computer, often in solitude. Sometimes this can get a little lonely. Watching your content go viral is very reinforcing and fuels the entrepreneurial fire.
6. Communication Skills: Writing is a great way to develop your communication skills. Blogging about your startup or topics relevant to your business is a great way to get used to communicating ideas to complete strangers in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner.
7. Learning: Writing articles designed to be of use to your audience (such as this one) makes you research a topic, get your facts straight, and organize the information. By taking these steps for your readers you are also organizing the information for yourself and learning along the way.
8. Attracting Talent: We’ve had a few super talented people approach us about our startup via our blog and social media channels. A lot of the most talented professionals out there are very up-to-date, and part of staying current is reading relevant blogs and being on the lookout for trends. Blogging is a fantastic way to capture the attention of talent.
9. Inexpensive: A blog can quickly and easily be set up for free. The biggest cost of blogging is the time consumption, but we think it is very worthwhile.
When we say you should blog about your startup we really do mean you (yourself, your co-founders, or other involved parties), not hiring someone else to write on your behalf. In the early stages of your business it is very important to be deeply involved with every aspect of its inception. You’re building an identity, a brand, and a presence. In addition, the identity of early stage startups is usually somewhat unclear and you will end up spending just as much time communicating your vision to third parties as you would writing it yourself. However, getting blog posts edited by others, guest bloggers, and having content that is not related to your company written by other writers is okay- just be sure to read it before it is published.
Thanks for Reading,
Cah{o,o}ts
How to Create Viral Content
What makes content go viral?
The answer is cats of course. Funny cat pictures are the secret to viral content. Just kidding (sort of…).
If there was a simple, surefire way to make your content go viral everyone would be doing it. Having something go viral to the same degree as the YouTube video ‘Gangnam Style’ is rare and impossible to plan, but there are some things you can do to create virus worthy content and trigger the infection.
Viral content always has one or more of the following characteristics:
- Evokes an emotion
- Shock value/Controversial
- Universal appeal
- Novelty
- Extremely cute, funny, or beautiful
- Useful
- Famous
- Actionable
- Creates bonds when shared
Cats fit three of the above: humor, cuteness, and universal appeal (people all over the world keep cats as pets).
The YouTube hit ‘Gangnam Style‘ features the Korean pop singer, Psy, dancing in various locations in the Gangnam district of Seoul, South Korea- an area known for being high-class and luxurious. Therefore, dancing around Gangnam like a horse was surprising, humorous, and novel. Psy was already famous in South Korea, which helped trigger the viral wave that sent the music video all around the world. The most powerful characteristic of the music video is the dance, which resembles riding a horse. The dance has universal appeal that transcends language barriers, is very actionable, and allows people to bond over it. The video has had over 1.5 billion views. Of course Psy and the producers of the video were not expecting or planning the level of international success that ‘Gangnam Style’ has attained, but it does have many of the attributes of viral content mentioned. Psy has acknowledged that it is unlikely that he will ever be able to repeat that level of success with other videos- which points to the elements of luck, randomness, and spontaneity that contribute to virality.
The French have a saying for this intangible quality: ’Je ne sais quoi’ (which translates to ‘I don’t know what’). We can’t help you find out what your magic ingredient is, but we can offer some advice on crafting contagious content:
- Be Positive: In general, optimistic content gets shared more than negative content. People want to be inspired and uplifted- if you can do that you will be rewarded.
- Be Useful: Help people solve a problem or grasp a concept. The people sharing your content will feel as though they have been useful by doing so.
- Be Original: Coming across something novel gives people a sense of discovery. Be the not-so hidden gem. After something has become popularized we often see a series of copy cat attempts at leveraging it’s success. It’s better to be the trendsetter than the copy cat. See 7 Strategies for Creating Original Content>>
- Be Emotional: Arousing people’s emotions is very powerful. Incite anger, instill a sense of awe, play off of fear, or catch your readers by surprise.
Once you have checked your content to see that it has one or more of the attributes of viral content, it is time to edit. It is easy for simple flaws to decrease content virality, such as an obvious spelling mitsake, broken link, or missing picture. Pay some attention to the packaging before you ship it.
Last but not least you must pull the trigger and share the content. Remember to share your content through more than one channel, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Reddit. This increases the probability that your content will find the right audience who will circulate it for you. If you find that no one is sharing your content after all your efforts it may be time to acknowledge that this particular piece of content just didn’t have the ‘it’ factor or was poorly timed (Did someone else beat you to the topic? Is someone delivering the same idea in a more clever manner than you?). After some reflection it is time to get up and try again.
Best of luck!
Cah{o,o}ts
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10 Interesting Stats About Moms and Social Media
Cartoon by Dave Coverly of speedbump.com
Today’s moms are more connected than ever, acting as leaders and early adopters in social media and technology. Moms are 20 percent more likely to use social media than the general population (BabyCenter). Women are bigger multitaskers than most men, and women with children are constantly juggling their personal aspirations, parenting, and social lives. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that moms are embracing social media, using it to manage their busy lives, connecting on the go, seeking information and recommendations, and accessing it on a variety of devices. In celebration of Mother’s Day 2013, here are 10 amazing statistics on social mommies:
1. Approximately 1 in 3 bloggers are moms. (Hubspot)
2. Nearly 40 percent of mothers worldwide say they write a blog. (Forbes)
3. Over three-quarters of American moms use Facebook. (Nielsen)
4. Moms are more likely to visit blogs: they are 27 percent more likely to visit Blogger and 26 more likely to visit WordPress. (Nielsen)
5. Moms are 61 percent more likely to visit Pinterest than the average American. (Nielsen)
6. Among mothers, those with children aged 0-3 are the heaviest social media users and those with children aged 4-12 use it the least. (MarketingCharts)
7. Moms are 58 percent more likely to use a mobile device for shopping. (BabyCenter)
8. In 2014, a projected 63 percent of all online moms will read blogs at least once a month (NextWeb)
9. 89 percent of online moms use their smartphones to check social media. (CommPro)
10. 70 percent of moms claim that technology helps them be better moms. (Forbes)
Why do moms love social media? Here are some of the most commons reasons moms go social:
- Sharing moments/pictures with family and friends.
- Online shopping saves time.
- Organizing events and get togethers.
- Seeking and writing reviews and recommendations.
- Finding fast answers and asking questions.
- Source of support and community.
- Easy to access on the go (mobile phones).
- They can socialize online while supervising their children/being at home.
Don’t forget to tweet, Facebook, pin, or blog some praise for your mom this Mother’s Day!
Thanks for Reading,
Cah{o,o}ts
Top 10 Reasons You Don’t Get Retweeted
Have you ever hit the ‘tweet’ button expecting to send ripples through the twitterverse and had nothing happen? There are a variety of reasons people may not be sharing your tweets and you should consider experimenting to find your ideal tweeting style. Here are ten common reasons your tweets aren’t getting retweeted:
1. Different Audience: Many people will not be retweeting you simply because your tweets aren’t relevant to their audience. For example, if you’re tweeting about SEO and one of your followers is a bakery, their followers are likely expecting tweets about baked goods. Even if the bakery finds your article about SEO useful, they probably won’t retweet it.
2. Your Tweet is Too Long: If you’re hoping to get retweeted, leave some room! As a general rule, it is best to leave a minimum of 15 characters for people to add their own piece to your message.
3. You’re Asking Them to Retweet You: Publicly asking for retweets comes across as very desperate and no one likes to be told what to do.
4. Your Tweet is Boring: Maybe your tweet just isn’t that interesting. Perhaps you were too factual in your delivery or used a dull headline.
5. Poor or Unshareable Content: Ok so you have a great headline, that doesn’t mean your content lives up to it. If your content gets a lot of views but people are hesitant to share it maybe it isn’t interesting or is too opinionated, controversial, or embarrassing to share with their followers. For example, your well-written article about the best pregnancy tests available at the drugstore may be helpful to many women, but not necessarily something they are going to plaster their social media channels with.
6. Your Timing is Off: If you are tweeting while your followers are sleeping it may be a prime reason you aren’t seeing retweets. The best time of day to tweet is generally the late afternoon through early evening, followed by lunch hours, mornings, and late evenings. The day of the week matters as well. For example, if you’re tweeting an article like ‘Six ways to make more room in your office’ on a Saturday, where the majority of people are happy to have the day off, it likely won’t be received as well as it would if it was a weekday. Some social media management dashboards, such as Hootsuite, can autoschedule your tweets so they are sent out at the optimal time of day.
7. You’re Not Linking to Your Own Content: If you are tweeting a lot of links to other people’s content your followers will most likely credit the original source rather than retweet you, at best you can expect a mention.
8. You’re a Loner: If you don’t have many followers, it may be hard to get your tweet seen and retweeted- especially by someone with a lot of followers. Make some friends and find an audience before you start expecting retweets. Also, be sure your avatar is not an egg- that screams newb.
9. Not Using the Right Hashtags: If your tweet didn’t have any hashtags it makes it harder for people to find and categorize. If you use irrelevant hashtags your tweet will likely be ignored. Here is a post that hashes out hash tags: How to Use Hashtags Effectively>>
10. Poor Twittiquette: Yes- twitter has its own unique etiquette. If your using ALL CAPS, coarse language, are offensive, being obnoxious, or spamming don’t expect a retweet and please read ‘Twittiquette 101′>>
We hope this article has helped you out!
Cah{o,o}ts
Ideal Blog Post Length
The quality of your blog posts will always be more important than the length, and the ideal length varies from topic to topic. However, if you’re looking for a concrete standard we would say the ideal blog post length is 500 words +/- 200. Size does matter: the average person that comes across your content via search engines doesn’t have time to read thousands of words and is looking for answers. Here are some guidelines for finding the ideal length for your content:
300 Words
Your blog posts should be at least 300 words for SEO purposes. 500 words is commonly said to be the ideal length as it is long enough to build a story around a topic but not too long for readers to digest. If you only have one or two short points to make consider tweeting them or creating a fun visual and pinning it on Pinterest.
Avoid Redundancy
No matter what length your blog posts end up being, it had better not be repetitive. Only use the words and examples that are necessary to get your point across, overdo it and your readers will likely lose interest.
Watch Out for Wordiness
A great way to trim the length of your blog posts is to delete and rearrange wordy sentences. No one wants to read an extemporaneous article. Decreasing wordiness will help you achieve greater content clarity.
Break it Up
If your blog post on a particular topic is going to be long (greater than 1000 words), consider breaking it up into a series of posts. This makes the information easier to digest and also builds anticipation if you don’t release them all at once. In addition, search engines will rank you more favorably if you publish shorter posts more often rather than longer posts less frequently. For example, if you were writing about the very broad topic of ’How to Use Social Media’, it would be best to break it up into a series of posts covering different social networks or aspects of social media use.
Quality Over Quantity
As we stated at the beginning of this article, quality is key. If someone arrives at your blog looking for information and come across a poorly written post it won’t matter how long or short it is, they won’t be satisfied and will be unlikely to return. When in doubt, act in the favor of putting forth quality content over length or frequency.
FYI this post is 414 words.
Thanks for reading!
Cah{o,o}ts
Unfollowing: 10 Reasons You May Be Losing Followers On Twitter
Minor fluctuations in the number of Twitter followers you have are normal, but if you have a hard time keeping followers it may be a result of something you’re tweeting. Here are ten common reasons for losing followers on Twitter:
1. Inconsistency: If your twitter description says you’re going to be tweeting about basketball and then you’re constantly tweeting about other topics, you may lose the followers who really just want to hear about basketball. The occasional unrelated tweet is acceptable, though you generally want to stick to a theme.
2. Advertising: If you are constantly promoting yourself or your products on twitter you’re sure to deter potential followers. Tweeting your store inventory isn’t very interesting. If you are going to tweet about your products or services, do it sparingly and in an engaging manner.
3. Retweeter Robot: If all you do is retweet the tweets of others, people might as well follow the original tweeter rather than you. There are some exceptions, such as accounts that retweet particular hashtags or are curated to a particular type of content. Retweeting can be a great way to interact and share content, just don’t overdo it.
4. Language: Whether it’s typos, grammar, or coarse language, using language poorly will lose you followers on Twitter. There are only 140 characters and they must carefully chosen.
5. Flooding: If you tweet too much and fill your followers twitter feed with back-to-back tweets then you are likely going to lose people who are overwhelmed by your activity. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool, when you have a lot to say use your blog or a forum.
6. You Don’t Tweet: If you don’t tweet often enough or haven’t been active for a month your following will dwindle.
7. Irrelevance: When you @mention someone or send them a direct message, make sure it is relevant and engaging. If you are sending them content that is unlikely to be of interest to them it comes across as inconsiderate and spammy and they may unfollow you. Packaging and delivering one tweet to the right person is far more powerful than sending out a hundred tweets to people who don’t care.
8. CAPSLOCK: Using all caps will not make your tweet more interesting, it will make you annoying.
9. Redundant: If you tweet the latest and greatest articles from Forbes, Mashable, and CNN and nothing of your own there is no incentive to follow you. Unless you’re one of the first to deliver new content published through popular channels, you will likely come across as redundant and unoriginal. If you are tweeting your own content over and over again in a repetitive manner that may be redundant as well.
10. Too Personal/Not Personal Enough: Being too robotic or tweeting intimate personal information are equally unappealing for your followers. A balance must be achieved that demonstrates that you are both human and have your emotions under control. This balance varies depending on what you are using Twitter for (business, customer service, marketing, personal etc.).
We hope this info was useful. You can follow and unfollow us @cahootstweets
Thanks For Reading
Cah{o,o}ts
15 Important Quotes For Entrepreneurs and Startups
Quotes are loved by pretty much everyone, including us at Cah{o,o}ts. They are meaningful, memorable, and tweetable. There are thousands of them out there, but everyone has their own favorites that resonate with them. We thought we’d share a few of our personal favorites as a start up:
On Starting Up…
“You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible.” – Paul Graham
“No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life – and your own skin – every day of the week.” – Spencer Fry, Carbonmade
“Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permissions to do them.” – Tom Preston-Werner, Github
“Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” – Jeffrey Zeldman, A List Apart
“A product needs to be sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking to alienate the user.” – Reid Hoffman, Linkedin
On Pushing Forward…
“The world hates change, yet is is the only thing that has brought progress.” – Charles F. Kettering, Inventor
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki
“Don’t try to solve the entire problem on day one.” – Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
“You cannot be afraid to fail, so do not wait too long to pull the trigger with a product launch.” – Matt Brezina
“You have to be ready for hard work and frugal spending to get the idea off the ground.” – Garrett Camp, Stumbleupon
On Success and Failure…
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” -Bill Cosby
“The only thing worse than starting something and failing…is not starting something.” – Seth Godin
“Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone, Twitter
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”- Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for Reading
Cah{o,o}ts
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Reasons Every Startup Should Blog
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How to Create Viral Content
What makes content go viral? The answer is cats of course. Funny cat pictures are the secret to viral content. Just kidding (sort of…).…
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Today’s moms are more connected than ever, acting as leaders and early adopters in social media and technology. Moms are 20 percent more likely to…
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Top 10 Reasons You Don’t Get Retweeted
Have you ever hit the ‘tweet’ button expecting to send ripples through the twitterverse and had nothing happen? There are a variety of reasons people…
