One of the most common SEO strategies is link building. It is therefore important to learn the quality of a link and what makes a link to be considered a “good link”.

In a Link Evaluation Survey by SEO Gadget from 500 individual participants shows that SEO professionals look for the following in a link partner:

• a. Domain Rank
• b. Page Rank
• c. Website Relevance and Domain Location
• d. Suitable and Unsuitable Links
• e. Likeness to Link and Social Metrics

Quality Link Infographic

Those are just some of the most common metrics being used by SEO practioners when determining whether a link is a “good link“. What about you, what factors do you consider to determine whether a link is good or not?

I also strongly believe that guest blogging forces you to develop your blogging skills faster than just blogging for your own personal or company blog. We all know that we’re a lot easier on ourselves in terms of deadlines, topics, and review process than another blog owner would be. Do you like it cushy and comfortable, or do you want to grow, both in terms of blogging skills and your business??

So, let’s assume that you’re now anxious to look at guest blogging. There are guest blogging tutorials and classes out there, but what if you’re ready now? How do you find guest blogging opportunities? Let’s discuss, shall we?

First a little strategy…

Your strategy should be to land guest posts on blogs that are bigger than your own, but that are in a similar or adjacent industry (so their readers will also match your potential readers or customers). You may want to practice on a couple of blogs that are slightly larger in size than yours just to get comfortable with the process. Then, you can go for much bigger blogs which will usually provide much bigger benefits to you. Don’t forget that you always want to deliver a very high quality post no matter who you write for.

9 Ways To Find Guest Posting Opportunities

Do You Know Any Blog or Website Owners?

One of the easiest sells is to ask someone who you already know or are working with. For example, my first guest post was for Examiner.com where I asked a joint venture partner if I could write a post for her column. That was an easy sell and a great experience! Think about it – who do you know that has a blog or website that is read by the right kind of readers?

Blogs That You Like and Read Already (and possibly comment on)

If you already regularly read a blog and, better yet, comment on it, consider that as an option. Do you notice whether or not they have guest bloggers? Can you write blog posts that meet that blog’s quality standards? Are there gaps in their content that you could fill? This equals a possible guest blogging opportunity.

Sites Actively Seeking Guest Bloggers

Sometimes you’ll see articles shared in social media that have the words “guest post” attached to them.

Take a look at those blogs because they obviously accept guest posts. Also, for other sites that you visit or read, start to look for telltale signs of openness to guest blogging. Check the bylines – are they written by staff writers or do they have guest bloggers (see what site or company they list in their byline). Look at the top menu or the bottom of the page. Do they have any menu items like “write for us”, “contribute” or “guest posting”?

Guest Blogging Matchup Platforms

There are certain tools or groups that focus on matching those seeking guest posts with those that are interested in writing them. Here are a few:

• My Blog Guest
• Blogger LinkUp
• Triberr.com’s Guest Blogging bonfire
• Blog Zone’s Guest Blogging sub-group (search for the Blog Zone Group in LinkedIn)

Lists of Guest Blog Sites

Search in Google for “list of guest blog sites” and you’ll find web sites that have compiled lists of sites and they will also often sort them by industry or by Google Page Rank. Here are a couple of examples:

• http://blogsuccess.com/quality-guest-blogging-sites-the-pretty-big-list-for-2012/
• http://www.webuildlink.com/guest-post-sites-list.html

Use AllTop.com

AllTop.com lists blogs categorized by industry.

Find the category for your industry, click on the ones that have interesting blog posts and see if they use guest bloggers by looking at the bylines or by looking for the “guest posts” or “write for us” type of options. You can also ask someone who doesn’t seem to have any guest posts if they’re open to accepting a post (and give them some proposed topics).

Search on Google for “guest post” and your industry

Go to Google and type in (without quotes), “guest post travel” or “guest post by travel“. Use this search to find different travel blogs that have accepted guest posts.

Search on Twitter for “guest post” and industry

This search is great because it provides very recent guest posts by industry. Many people, when they share content, reference whether it’s by the blog owner or by a guest poster. Searching for “guest post industry” (no quotes) on Twitter is a great way to find active blogs in an industry that are currently accepting guest posts.

Industry associations, software providers and other non-competing organizations

Often industry associations or companies that provide supporting tools to an industry are interested in having more content for their websites and blogs. For example, the local real estate association may appreciate a good real estate marketing article. Or, in the online marketing industry, the email marketing software companies or webinar software companies often accept guest posts that teach people how to better use their tools or provide case studies.

Ready to start?

I hope you’ve found these resources helpful. One closing note. Many blog owners are actively seeking content, so realize that you’re helping them by providing valuable information in exchange for some publicity for yourself. So, don’t be afraid to approach them with your proposal and blog post ideas (you can get blog post ideas here).

But please be respectful of the blog owners, follow through with your commitments, and bring your ‘A’ game if you do land a guest post spot!

Let me know if you’ve started guest posting yet. Why or why not?

If you’re guest posting now, what are your favorite ways for finding new opportunities?

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The first thing that a blogger should do is check to see if his/her content is being copied in the first place. Although Google does have rules set in place about scraped, or copied, content, it is in the best interest of the blogger to find this content and get it taken care of as quickly as possible. You can do this through a few different methods:

• Copyscape – This is a service that allows you to type in the URL of your content and then find the websites where it has been copied. They have a free and premium version.
• Google Alerts – This works best if you don’t post new content very often. You can type in the title of your post in quotations, and then you will get an alert email if that title ever shows up on Google again.
• Webmaster Tools – This will help give you a list of websites that have links to pages on your site. If you see that one website is linking back to your site an unusually high amount (more than three or four times), you could have a content scraper on your hands. Learn more about using webmaster tools.

Once you have discovered if someone is scraping your content, you can take measures to make sure that that website removes the content. In many cases, simply finding the contact information of the website owner and asking them to take it down is enough. In other cases, you may have to go through Google and file a complaint. This is done by going to the Google DMCA page, answering a few questions to describe your situation, and then giving the URL to the original content and the scraped content.

How to Make Sure Your Content Doesn’t Get Scraped

Discovering if your content has been copied and then reporting the copied content is important, but most bloggers can actually stop the majority of content copying in the first place. If you take extra measures, you can make it much harder for a website to steal your hours of hard work. Consider some of the tips below:

1. CAPTCHA – Oftentimes content is copied not by a person, but by a computer. A CAPTCHA will help make sure that your content cannot be scraped and it will help reduce the amount of spam found on your site. A CAPCHA usually asks someone to type in a few jumbled letters and numbers such as the example below. This will ensure that a person is on your site and not a bot. Although this won’t stop people from scraping your content, you would be surprised at how many less issues you have.

2. Pinging – You can actually let search engines know that your content has been uploaded before including it in an RSS feed. You can do this by using a Ping service, or a service that notifies a server that content has been uploaded. You can learn more about setting up this service here.

3. Canonical Links – You can add in the rel=”canonical” tag to help make sure that your website gets credit for all content scraped. Although it doesn’t stop the scrapers, it will at least help give you the credit you deserve. Google is also able to see this tag, so the site that is scraping content could get penalized. You can learn how to insert the tag here.

It is important to remember that content scraping isn’t always bad. If a website is giving you credit, this could actually help drive traffic to your website and help you gain visibility. Your content is being put in front of a new audience, and that audience may want to visit your site to read similar articles. Many websites even strike up a business proposal that is centered around republishing content. However, content scraping without proper attribution is something no blog owner wants to see. The first steps should be trying to avoid it in the first place by installing a CAPTCHA, pinging, or using canonical links.

What do you do to prevent content scraping? Have you found that this is a common problem for most blogs?

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Creating a blog is fairly easy these days. Writing your first blog posts is fun. You have a lot to say and your own blog is a perfect playground.

After a few weeks though, you find out about Google analytics and you realize that no one but your family and friends is reading your posts. And why is nobody commenting anyway?

So, you throw yourself a pity party and then you start asking yourself questions like: How did other blogs get their immensely large following? Which steps did they take in order to get to the place they’re at now? Is there a secret to being noticed?

You start doing research and begin to grasp the dimensions of online marketing. You start to be active in other forums on your niche, you start to leave comments on other blogs in the hopes of gaining a few new readers. The results are not as promised and expected. More research.

One message, one call to action stands out to you: Guest Blogging.

Great, that’s what you’re going to do. But where and how?

Once again, there is an enormous amount of information available. You find out that you should have submitted your most brilliant work to other blogs from the beginning instead of wasting it on your own, tiny platform. You read about pitching to a blogger, hear that your guest blog must be outstanding, find out which blogs accept guest entries. You start to feel rather uneasy, overwhelmed even. But with the end goal of reaching more readers in mind, you move on.

Finally, after spending hours on the web doing even more research, you find the perfect blog for your first guest post.

You read the requirements, the tips and the range of topics you could cover. You sit down, topic in mind and start to write.

Your First Guest Blog

Or though you thought. Nothing happens. No words come to mind, no coherent message, no exceptional firework of creativity—nothing like the brilliance that is required for your first guest blog.

Your mind starts playing tricks on you. You can’t do it. This is out of your league. You can blog for yourself, but surely, no other bloggers could ever appreciate what you are doing.

Will I embarrass myself? Is my take on this story even worth bringing to a bigger audience? Maybe my style of writing is too colloquial. Which style do they want anyway?

You read guest posts others have submitted. You start to get a feel for what is being wished for. So, you sit down one more time. Again, your doubts stand in your way. You can’t make it work.

Why can others produce guest blogs and why do I fail?

Because it is too early. I strongly believe that, even though everybody is raving on about guest blogging early on in your blogging career, it is not the smartest move.

When you first start your blog, do you find your very own writing style right away? Rarely. Unless you are a journalist or writer, but most of us start blogging as a layperson.

Do you produce your best work right from the get go? I doubt it—again, journalists and writers aside. Every more experienced blogger will tell you that they can tell how much they have evolved by looking at their archives.

Will you improve over the weeks, months and years of producing blog posts? Yes, absolutely. Like many say, writing is a craft and you can learn it by practicing.

Will you refine your message and how you present it to your readers? Yes. After writing for a while, you start noticing a theme, something that weaves itself like a red cord through your posts. You will begin to find new and exciting ways of expressing the way you see the world. Everything will happen with more ease.

So, would it not be strategically counterproductive to start pursuing guest blogging from the get-go? Should we not rather focus on mastering our craft and building our confidence in what it is we can do?

Shouldn’t the more experienced bloggers tell the newer additions to the blogging world to have patience and to embrace this anonymity?

There is a huge and exciting opportunity in being a bit lonely on the web. Just think of all the things you can try without having the world peering over your shoulder reprimanding you for taking chances.

All the experimental posts you can write. All the different approaches you can take. All the times you can fail without the world watching and criticizing. Should we not try to become excellent before we put more eyes on our work?

Build up a routine

I know that it is frustrating to hardly receive any response, comments or other validations from the outside. But is blogging not more about us? Is it not a creative outlet in the first place? Should we not first try to focus on ourselves and play with the possibilities that are given to us? Should we not first test if this blogging thing is something for the long haul? Something we will enjoy doing in a year from now? Should we not first build up a routine to see how we work best?

I strongly believe that blogging is an amazing way to unleash your creativity, something very personal. Receiving rejections can crush your spirit at the beginning. As bloggers, we are often very attached to our work  because we put our heart and mind into the posts. Receiving too much negative feedback from more experienced bloggers can hurt your creative potential.

The readers will come when the blogger is ready!

Word spreads fast in the blogosphere and having an excellent reputation is key. So, think twice before you take this next big step.

Additionally, you should give yourself time to build your landing pages and work on producing great content.

When you start guest blogging too early and you receive a good amount of traffic, people won’t stick because you won’t have enough gripping posts on your site. After all, you want to give the many newcomers value when they come visit your blog, don’t you?

Have patience! The readers will come when the blogger is ready.

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You see, when it comes down to it, we’re all selling something. Whether your company helps businesses develop an online presence or you’re a blogger who sells someone else’s products, the basic underlying principles of business can be applied to help you build a massive blogging empire.

Here are four important business principles you need to know.

Principle #1: Always start with a great product

You MUST start with a great product.

Of course, you probably already know that, right? If you’re a blogger, the real question is, what is your product?

In most cases, you’ll likely make money in one (or both) of the following ways:

1. You sell other people’s products (affiliate marketing or ads)
2. You funnel people to your products

In either scenario, like any entrepreneur, you need to make sure that the products you’re selling work great for both you and your clients.

Here are a few key characteristics of great products:

1. Valuable - A great product is one that delivers a good deal of value to your customers. Of course, what people value can differ depending on who you are selling to. This means that you’ll have to get to know your audience and will need to only sell them products that offer to solve their specific problems.
2. Reliable - Let’s face it, people buy things from people they trust. Just because you sell someone else’s products doesn’t mean you are off the hook after they’ve made the purchase. If things go south between your blog reader and the products you are pushing, you may end up losing a blog reader. Be sure to do your homework before selling someone else’s products to make sure that they are reliable.
3. Profitable and Financially Stable - As an entrepreneur, you need to consider whether or not this product you are selling is a wise financial move. As your blogging empire grows, what’s considered a “wise financial move” may change. You may discover that you can make a higher profit margin by making one time sells. However, in almost every case, it’s a wise move to have at least 60% of your income come from recurring revenue. This will give you a solid foundation to build your blogging empire from and will keep you in business during periods of drought.

Principle #2: Master marketing and sales

I tell this to business owners all the time; if you want to continually and predictably make money, you need to build a marketing and sales process and then continually optimize that process.

As bloggers, you are, essentially, acting as marketers. So in all reality this should be your bread and butter.

Whether you sell directly to consumers or to other businesses, here are a few important things to keep in mind:

1. Understand your target market - Before you can sell something to someone, you need to have a good understanding of who they are. This starts with market research and then continues to evolve as you grow your business.
2. Identify the product life cycle objectives - It’s important to remember that a product won’t last forever. This means that you’ll need to identify the product life cycle objectives and then appropriately adjust your marketing strategy to best accomplish those objectives.
3. Crunch the numbers - Business is a numbers game. As a marketer, it’s important to keep in mind the basics such as customer acquisition costs and customer lifetime value.

Principle #3: Be obsessed with customer service

Unless you have a large marketing budget, you’ll need to be a bit creative in order to generate prospective customers.

One of the best ways to get new customers is through your current customer base. In most cases, customers that are referred to you by a current customer are cheaper to acquire and will likely stay a client for a longer period of time.

So how do you get customers to tell their friends? ….by providing excellent customer service and making it easy for them to share.

Let’s say you’re a blogger and you’re trying to sell an ebook to your readers. How would you go about providing great customer service to readers who purchased your ebook?

Here are a few thoughts that you may want to consider before launching your ebook program:

• Pre-purchase experience - Great customer service isn’t just about keeping clients happy. It’s also about keeping potential clients happy. Before you launch your ebook program, make sure that your marketing and sales process will ensure that each lead has a good experience. Also, you may want to consider testing your landing pages and such to ensure that users can easily make the purchase decisions they are trying to make.
• Post-purchase experience - Once someone has purchased your ebook, you need to consider two scenarios; someone who is happy with their purchase and someone who is not. Before you sell even one ebook, make sure that you know what you are going to do in both scenarios. Consider how you can leverage the moment when someone emails you and tells you how great your ebook is. What will you do to get that person to tell others?

Principle #4: Leverage technology, people, and success

Once your business starts to gain momentum, you’ll find that you have less and less time available to get things done.

While growing a business is certainly a good thing, if you don’t manage this transition carefully you could end up damaging your business credibility.

In general, there are basically two ways you can go about this:

1. Leverage technology - When you first start out, consider what free technologies exists that you can use to help speed up your business operations. As you grow, start to research different technologies that will make your life easier.
2. Outsource - Another way to get things done is to have someone else do them. Of course, this will cost you money. As you start to accomplish things, consider how you can leverage that success to get people to help you do the things you have to get done. For example, as a blogger, you need great content to continually generate traffic. As your blogging empire grows, show off your site’s growth and try to attract guest bloggers to contribute to your blog.

In most cases, I would typically recommend a mixture of both. The main point, however, is that you’re going to need help if you want to continually grow your business.

Make sure that you lay out your IT strategic plan ahead of time and consider how it may evolve with your business over time.

Conclusion

You see, building a blogging business requires the same fundamental business principles as any business.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. As with anything, it’s important you continually grow and develop your skills over time. There are certainly many more business principles that can be applied to blogging and, as an entrepreneur, you should be focused on perfecting your craft.

What are some additional business principles that you’ve applied to blogging?

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It was strange and new and it’s often still strange to me six years down the road.

But that is what makes this post so useful to you.

I’m not a social media expert and I’m not a Twitter rockstar. I’m not going to tell you that if you “engage and be helpful“, everything will turn out okay.

Nope. I’m the guy that learned social media the hard way, has alienated large groups of his followers just to test new strategies, and still makes mistakes every day.

Think of the following 7 lessons as hard-won social media lessons passed down from a grizzled old veteran.

1. No Really, Numbers Don’t Matter

You’ve probably heard it before, but it needs repeating: follower numbers don’t matter.

Over the years I’ve tested every method out there to boost followers on Twitter and Facebook and the only thing I learned is that a higher number of subscribers can just as easily mean more people not listening to you.

There was a time when I had Twitter followers into the tens of thousands, but once I stopped auto-following SPAMBots my numbers steadily dropped as marketers started to see me as dead weight. And with every passing years I’ve lost more as Twitter deleted those SPAM accounts by the handfulls.

So I can say with supreme confidence that while I may have significantly fewer followers on Twitter than I used to, those that I have are a much better, more responsive group of people.

2. Content Is So NOT King

If there’s one common trend I’ve encountered in every social media info course I’ve gone through, and it’s been more than a few, it’s that you should constantly feed your followers links to new content.

Just to go to Google Reader, they say, find articles related your to keywords and schedule them using HootSuite or Buffer. Ever wondered why Twitter seemed to be mostly populated by people sharing random junk? You now have your answer.

If you’ve gone through one of those Guru courses and are currently shotgunning random links out to your social media followers, stop it now.

Your followers don’t want content. They don’t want to just see random links.

Everything you share is an extension of you and your brand, so don’t share junk. Share what’s great, even if it means sharing less often.

3. It’s Not About You

Unless you are a celebrity, no one cares about following you on Twitter or Facebook.

No, seriously.

No one cares that you’re a “social media expert” or a “personal development coach.”

And yet this is the predominant strategy entrepreneurs use to market on social media. They try to build a following around themselves, never getting that it’s not the people we care about, but the causes they stand up for.

Look at the thought leaders in your market that you follow on social media. Did you start following them because they said they were experts, or because they said what you wish you had said?

We don’t rally around people, we rally around the ideas that they represent. A leader is simply someone willing to stand up and say with courage what the rest of us are too afraid to.

4. You Just Plan The Parties

The most common perception of social media fame is that you’re like being the Pied Piper – you sound the call and your followers, well, they follow. And this is the most inaccurate image I can imagine.

You’re more like a party coordinator.

You have to bring them in, give them what they want, care for their needs, make sure everybody mingles and meets who they need to meet.

You aren’t the center of attention, but in the end everyone gets something different out of the experience and you take the ultimate credit for throwing a great party.

5. They Can Smell A Rat

I have spent the last six years testing my social media lists backwards and forwards and one thing I’ve learned is that followers can smell disingenuousness from a mile away – and they. Do. Not. Like it.

On multiple occasions I’ve tried fully automating my list by scheduling shared links ahead of time and what I found was very interesting.

My engagement went up, while my followers went down.

Followers loved the content I was sharing, but hated feeling like they were getting it from a robot.

I discovered that to maximize ReTweets and Likes, I had to share the best possible content AND do it in a personal way.

6. Social Media Is The Worst Sales Platform Ever

If you send out a Tweet with an offer and make 100 sales, it isn’t because Twitter is a magic selling machine. It’s because those 100 buyers knew and trusted you from weeks, months, or years of following your updates.

Going into social media with the notion that you’ll send a few Tweets and make a few sales is beyond nonsense.

But that’s not bad news because, in fact, social media is something much better: a permission platform.

Twitter allows you to gain contact permission from potential customers and nurture your relationships with them by slowly gaining greater and greater permissions. No, these might not be the people that buy from you, but there is plenty of non-monetary benefits to be had from a responsive audience.

7. The Medium Truly Doesn’t Matter

Is Twitter better than Facebook? Is Facebook better than LinkedIn?

It couldn’t matter less.

Would the Beatles have produced better songs by recording to digital than they did on Reel-to-Reel? Clearer? Sure. Better? Not a chance.

It truly doesn’t matter if you choose Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or a megaphone, so long as you’re not doing it poorly.  I tell from experience that success or failure in any social medium doesn’t occur because of the tools you choose.

Parting Shots

Think for a second about your blog.

Would you post just anything on it? Would you link out blindly just to have something to say? I hope not.

I hope you create and choose your blog content carefully because you know what your readers like and why they keep coming back.

The principal is the same for social media and yet thousands of entrepreneurs forget that and flood their followers with terrible sales pitches and crappy content.

If that’s you, don’t beat yourself up, I’m certainly proof that social media growing pains aren’t a nail in your coffin and users are usually pretty forgiving.

But now it’s time for me to turn it over to your war stories. What social media scars can you show?

Leave a comment below and tell us all about your hard-learned social media lessons

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Don’t follow the crowd – Stick to what suits you best

It is very important for a web marketing company to focus on tracking social media analytics that suit a particular social media optimization campaign the best. In fact, the businesses should be aware enough not to spend too much money on social media analytics that might not be of much significance to them, instead of blindly falling for what their online marketing firm tells them to do. For the majority of small businesses, rather than getting sidetracked for all of the popular social media tracking options, relying on simple but highly useful metrics is much better, such as:

Conversation rate – taking into account aspects like number of comments, their replies, or simple brand mentions

Amplification rate – shares, tweets, retweets, and clicks are used to measure that

Applause rate – it gets measured by counting the number of likes, favorite clicks, and +1s

Economic value – different factors like the rate of traffic referred to your webpage/content by different social media optimization channels, how social media visitors interact on your site (content consumption and visitor loyalty), as well as the number of social media visitors on a page who complete a specific task (like buying, subscribing, participating in a survey)

Prioritize free options for social media monitoring

The size and scope of a business really matters in this regard. Unless a business enjoys the status of corporate giants, it is much better to go for free social media monitoring alternatives available on the internet. This not only helps small businesses and startups in achieving social media monitoring necessary for them, but it helps them save some real money.

In fact, various popular social media channels provide various free social media monitoring options to users by themselves, such as YouTube Analytics and Facebook Insights.

However, some people argue that one has to cobble up information from a variety of sources, which needs a lot of time and effort. The fact of the matter is that doing it a few times enables a person to get fluent in picking up the information they need. For saving it endows to businesses in running a multidimensional web marketing campaign; a little extra effort is no harm in any way.

Conclusion

Though the exclusiveness and comprehensiveness of paid options is always an extra assistance for businesses in strengthening their online marketing campaigns, but for majority of small business, tips mentioned above prove much more helpful, productive, as well as cost effective; so you better choose what your business really needs and affords.

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In this post I shall provide you with some insights on engaging your fans and to squeeze out the most benefit from your Facebook Fan Page.

Do not purchase Fans

Avoid purchasing fans at any cost. Even if you are sold fans at the most cheapest price ignore the deal as the purchasing of fans will prove futile. Purchased fans are responsible, in most of the cases, for not engaging over fan pages. One of the proven facts is that purchased fans are a sham. Fake account’s function is to like a page after which it undergoes hibernation.

Contents which get engaged

Not all posts are commented upon and shared by your fans. But you will notice that some contents are shared and commented in huge numbers while others are just ignored. Watch the theme of the contents that are shared and commented the most as you will need them to engage your fans now and again, do not fret if some of your contents are ignored.

Just remember it’s hard to please everyone. Placing contents that engage readers once in a while should be enough.

Talk to your fans

Fan pages should not be just a heap of links to blogs or website. Though you are trying to gain readers for your content do not forget to have a personal talk. If your fan page is related to health and fitness then ask a question related to it. Post a picture of your sculpted ab and tell them how you did it. Encourage your fans to come up by asking few questions.

Throw a contest on Facebook

Everyone is attracted to a contest. Some of the most successful firms throw in a contest once in every month while some others come up every week. At least two winners must be chosen with a reasonable prize. When the winner of the contest is announced over fan pages it will not only attract more contestants but will increase your fan base.

Time of posting contents on Facebook

Unless you have a fan base from only a single territory you need to fix on a time for posting your contents. Again, this is possible through analyzing the previous content posted over your fan page.

For at least a week, post various contents at various time zones and analyze as to which attracts the most attention. You will find that a certain time zone has more engagement than the other. Use this time zone to post the most important content from your site.

Facebook Fan Page Design

Finally we come to the design part. The design of your fan page should be alluring making your fans explore your fan page. Use various programming languages to build an attractive fan base as impressing your fans can go a long way.

Apart from the above tips, an extra boost might be necessary. Here are some tips to enhance your fan base:

1. When posting personal questions over your fan page reduce the use of smiley/emoticons.
2. Do not post one line message.
3. Give your fans the content which will be of importance to them.
4. Don’t be too hard with your vocabulary. Remember your fans are looking for information not for how good you are at vocabulary.
5. Treat your fans as real customers.

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What business marketers must understand is that if they can create valuable content, they can cost-effectively gain significant competitive advantage and market share over their laggard competitors. Marketers need to determine what constitutes great content, and how such content can be procured for an affordable price.

Content Writing

First, try creating content of your own. Take some time to write a few creative articles related to your particular industry or field, and see how it goes. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that most blog readers don’t want to read promotional puff pieces about your company. Instead of trying to lay a hard close on your readers, write content that they will genuinely find interesting, educational, or provocative.

If you’ve given content writing a shot, and determined that you are not a direct descendant of Ernest Hemingway, don’t give up. There are still options. A popular trick employed by marketers is to pore over content they have written in the past, and see if there is a tie-in to their current vocation. Review your old college essays or dissertations, and see if there is an opportunity to update it to become relevant. Maybe you wrote an economics paper about opportunity cost and a paper about saving the whales. Try something like combining the two to outline how the current public policy could be better directed towards environmental concerns.

Crowdsourcing

Regardless of how your personal writing mission is going, it can be valuable to invite employees from all departments into the content writing game. Not only can this save money, but asking your staff for help will be empowering, educational, and will help you gain respect by showing it.

Content Sharing

Finally, make your content shareable. A sound content marketing strategy will identify content as the best way to get a brand’s message across and build a loyal base of followers.

While some people will go to great lengths to post an interesting link on Facebook, some will quickly give up if they don’t immediately find share buttons. See to it that your sharing links are highly visible so that they don’t go unnoticed.

The major search engine ranking algorithms readily incorporate data gathered from social media networks into their computations. Savvy marketers will encourage their readers to share their blog posts, videos, and articles, thus boosting their search rankings.

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