Can scientific method improve my blogging? That's the hook that got me interested in a content marketing campaign promoting a webinar.
I’m always learning. Always looking for content that can teach me something I didn’t know about blogging. So I couldn’t resist reading 4 Scientific Tips that Help You Get More Blog Comments on Copyblogger.
First let me list three points that make this post a must read:
- It’s a list. (Although lists of odd number points seem to get more reads)
- The title promises information I can use. (Sure I would like to get more comments on my blog.)
- Using the word “scientific” gives adds credibility to the promise in the second point. (Yeah. Real data.)
Second, this was familiar to me. I mean I read some of these points in other posts before. Also, this data-driven approach was used in a post I read on ProBlogger – When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?.
Sure enough. Dan Zarrella wrote both posts as a guest blogger at both sites. Each post also had essentially the same bio for Zarella:
About the Author: Dan Zarrella is HubSpot’s social media scientist. This post contains data from his upcoming webinar The Science of Blogging, taking place on December 9th.
I did a quick search and found two more posts by Zarrella:
- 4 Great Tips to Build More Links to Your Blog Posts…Based on Scientific Analysis
- New Data: Gender Differences in Blog Reading Behavior
The second post on gender differences is on HubSpot’s web site. I also found a post by Jason Falls in SocialMediaExplorer.com using Zarrella’s data. But the other three are guest posts on independent sites.
Here’s what’s going on:
- Zarrella and HubSpot are giving posts and data (aka content) to well-read sites to build awareness of a webinar.
- The content focuses on helping a specific audience (bloggers).
- The sites publishing the content and webinar have the same target audience.
- By promising a scientific approach to blogging, it promises a certain credibility to the content. This is not touchy-feely inspirational content. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that it’s easy to find. Scientific is different.
- The content helps bloggers solve problems:
- How to get more comments
- When is the best time to publish blog posts?
- How to get more links to blogs
- How to get more people to read blogs
This is the kind of content strategy that attracts audiences. It works:
- I noticed the webinar.
- I registered for the webinar (remember I’m all about learning more).
- I’m writing about it (thus raising awareness a smidge).
Yes it’s free. But HubSpot has my e-mail address. And I expect to see some sort of pitch for HubSpots services and products.
Takeaway
This is how you use content to draw audiences to your business. Divide what you know into focused chunks and distribute the content to outlets beyond your site.
