Numbers are double-edged swords — they’re just as powerful as they are confusing and potentially damaging. Position your stats as a power tool. It starts with storytelling.

“Just like you wouldn’t expect an author to write a book without a plot, or an entrepreneur to launch a new venture without a business plan, you can’t expect to march blindly into creating a report or article using data without knowing what you want to say,” wrote Myles Harrison for his blog, Everyday Analytics.

Here are the building blocks to guide your approach:

1. Audience Connection

Math is no different from sports — some people like it, and some people don’t. Some people are Olympians, and others would prefer to ‘just get by.’ Some think of a math as a hobby, and others are full-time statisticians. When writing about numbers, you need to prioritize your audience.

“Understanding exactly what information is important for your audience and presenting it in a way that is meaningful can greatly affect the understanding of the intended message,” explained Rachel Barron-Simpson in a presentation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Numbers are subjective, and as a blogger, writer, or marketer, it’s up to you to forge that bond.

2. Humanization

Numbers are far from friendly to the human-eye. Especially when you get into  fractions and decimal points, you risk causing unnecessary confusion for your viewers and readers.

Why mention that something grew by 345% when you can say that your success rates ‘more than tripled’ instead? Choose your numbers wisely. Always seek to transcribe quantitative concepts into straightforward and handpicked words.

3.  Bias Illumination

Numbers aren’t science — they’re an art. Every data set comes with its own biases. That’s because a range of decisions and judgment calls influence quantitative analyses — your sampling design, statistical techniques, and observations are all a power of the human eye.

“Data and data sets are not objective; they are creations of human design,” wrote Kate Crawford for the Harvard Business Review Blog. “We give numbers their voice, draw inferences from them, and define their meaning through our interpretations.”

If you try to find data without bias, you’ll be chasing your tail. As a writer, blogger, or marketer, what you should do instead is call out these short biases. Describe the analyst’s sample, and play devil’s advocate. Never accept numbers at face value.

4. Forethought

What’s key to storytelling through data is how you select your numbers. Your judgment plays an equally important role to the numbers themselves.

“One key role we play in the process is choosing which data to look at,” wrote Justin Fox for HBR.

Every number, percentage, decimal, data point, chart, or graph deserves a critical eye. Use your smarts and better judgment.

Images courtesy of dvanzuijlekom/flickr, Paul Lowry/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

A good rule of thumb can be to look at the best practices of the sites you read every day, but even the best publishers adopt sketchy tricks to milk extra page views and ad dollars.

As a brand publisher, your primary measure of success probably isn’t page views and ad revenue, so you don’t have to copy publisher tricks that can hurt your user experience and reputation.

Here are 5 to look out for:

1. Article pagination

Article pagination hurts the reader experience, and should never be copied by brand publishers.

Have you ever finished the first 7 paragraphs or so of a long piece before being asked to click to page 2? Isn’t that annoying? Wouldn’t you much prefer to just keep scrolling and reading.

When a site forces you to click through multiple pages to read a piece, it’s not because the entire piece couldn’t fit on one page. It’s because the publisher wants extra page views and ad impressions. Article pagination hurts the reader experience, and should never be copied by brand publishers.

2. Unnecessary slideshows

Slideshows often ruin pieces by making them unintelligible.

Oh, the slideshow. Sites like HuffPo and Bleacher Report have long embraced the slideshow as page-view Viagra. After all, why get one click when you can get 22? Well, because all that clicking frustrates readers, and slideshows often ruin pieces by making them unintelligible.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, as a great breakdown of how a slideshow can have a toxic effect on a piece.

3. Autoplay video ads

Avoid auto play video ads; it’s the equivalent of yelling at shoppers with a bullhorn.

If you’re a brand publisher, you’ve likely heard these words in an office meeting: “We can subsidize the publishing costs with video ads!”

Indeed, video ads are a shining beacon to publishers worn down by plummeting display ad CPMs. But instead of waiting for readers to watch videos, some publishers take it upon themselves to guarantee those ad impressions by auto-playing video ads as soon as you land on their site. It can be truly startling when you head to a magazine’s site and the audio for State Farm’s “Mayhem” commercial starts blasting out of nowhere.

As a brand publisher, your main goal isn’t video ad revenue. Avoid auto play video ads; it’s the equivalent of yelling at shoppers with a bullhorn.

4. Unpaid labor

This strategy fails to elicit much good will.

Many publishers — HuffPo and Bleacher Report are again the most notorious offenders — rely on armies of unpaid interns and contributors to fill their site with a flood of content that maximizes page views.

This strategy fails to elicit much good will, and if a brand publisher was exposed taking advantage of young writers desperate for clips and experience, the fallout would be extremely harmful.

5. Pageview-based pay

Pageviews aren’t the be-all and end-all of your success metrics.

Performance pay is an intriguing possibility for brand publishers, but brand publishers should never adopt a pure pageview-based pay system.

Pageviews aren’t the be-all and end-all of your success metrics. As a brand publisher, you’re probably interested in things like view-through sales conversions and brand engagement, and you also have different concerns than most publishers in terms of how your brand comes across.

If your pay system inherently encourages your writers to write racy, off-brand content in hopes of earning more page views, you’re in for a world of trouble.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

He took a chance and decided to make podcasting his full-time gig. That’s how EntrepreneurOnFire was born.

“Having been in real estate, I was often in my car a lot and became a huge fan of podcasting. I just knew there were people like me who were spending a lot of time in these situations where they could only be consuming audio content,” says Dumas.

EntrepreneurOnFire is downloaded over 120,000 unique times every month in over 100 countries, with Dumas signing up 30 to 40 new subscribers per day. Recent interviewees have included Barbara Corcoran from TV’s “Shark Tank,” as well as social media gurus Gary Vaynerchuck and Seth Godin.

“With podcasting, people are not looking for the morning shock-jock sound or even a radio voice. In fact, they are likely trying to get away from that.”

Think your content would work well in audio form, too? Launching a successful podcast is a commitment, but it’s not as difficult as you’d think. Here’s why and how to get started:

Why podcasting?

While you might not want to commit to podcasting five times per week, since it’s still a relatively untapped source of content, it’s worth a shot, says Dumas.

“Literally just five years ago, no one saw YouTube as a search engine; now it’s the number two search engine in the world,” he says. “iTunes is on that same trajectory. People are going there to search free [podcast] content. You need to be there.”

In fact, many media companies and publishers from ESPN and The New York Times to Martha Stewart and Random House have incorporated podcasts into their media mix. While brands outside of the publishing space have been a little slower to adapt, companies like Etsy, NASCAR, Vanguard, and — yes – Apple, offer how-to and informational podcast content for their customers.

For those representing a lesser-known brand or who want to promote a new book or product, podcasting is a fairly low-cost way to spread some awareness and build an audience, without having to compete with big name brands right out of the gate.

Getting started

With user-friendly technologies available, the barrier to producing a podcast is low, Dumas says. “You literally can start by using the microphone in your computer,” he says. Better still is investing in an inexpensive USB or stand-alone microphone that you can speak into (good ones will run you less than $50).

Then you can record and edit your podcast using programs like GarageBand on Mac or Audacity on PC. All that’s left to do is upload your file, and submit the RSS feed to a host (iTunes being the most popular option). Dumas’ podcast spent eight weeks as the number one ranked podcast in iTunes “New and Noteworthy ” section when he started out, which turned out to be a great launching pad for him.

Here’s what’s great: “It’s an even playing field, whether you are podcasting for a brand, or a mom who wants to talk about how she makes cookies while her kids are in school,” says Dumas.

“You want to make getting into the iTunes store a top priority,” agrees Ray Ortega, founder of The Podcasters’ Studio, a site offering advice and services for podcasters. Other important places your podcast should be submitted include Windows Phone (formally Zune Marketplace), Miro, BlackBerry, and Stitcher, he says. “Start with the biggest ‘podcatchers’ listed here, and then move on to others as you grow.”

“You want to make getting into the iTunes store a top priority.”

Another option is to join a host site that handles all of the technology for you, as Laurie Leiker does on her BlogTalkRadio.com podcast.

“There are several websites that will not only provide all the technology you need, but will also walk you through the process with very easy-to-use instructions,” says Leiker, also known as the Lonely Gourmet, and host of the Friday Radio Feast podcast. “It’s free, each show is automatically uploaded to iTunes and is also archived on the BTR site,” she says.

The elements of a great podcast

While there’s no secret formula for creating a successful podcast, it really comes down to two major elements:

Your voice
Yes, your voice, the one that you hate the sound of. “With podcasting, people are not looking for the morning shock-jock sound or even a radio voice,” assures Ortega. “In fact, they are likely trying to get away from that. People are not so much listening to your voice as they are listening to what you have to say.”

Quality content
“Always value your listener’s time,” advised Dumas. Your goal with every podcast, just as it is with every blog post, is to make your content extremely valuable and direct.

Dumas aims for 25-35 minute-long podcasts because his typical listener is tuning in during their commute or during a workout at the gym. But, he points out, many popular podcasts are just five minutes long for listeners who like to pick up a quick tip and get out. The key is to go just long enough to get your message out and keep your listeners engaged.

So, what are you waiting for? Get a good microphone, choose to use your own domain or another media host, properly set up your RSS feed, and you’re on your way to putting your audio content online to a worldwide audience.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The Pew Center also found that many of those surveyed are cell-only and do not access the Internet through desktops and laptops.

“Most do so for convenience, but for some their phone is the only option for online access,” wrote Aaron Smith in a report.

Content marketers need to be prepared for small-screen phones and tablets. One of the biggest challenges for marketers and bloggers is to create a positive user experience (UX) for mobile devices. Is the mobile website design streamlined and easy to navigate? Are calls to action clear? Is text concise and browse-able or wordy and tough to read?

When writing for a mobile audience, here are the top content marketing musts.

1. Avoid Content Overload

“A lot of the time, people are trying to access your site on slow cellular data connections,” wrote Shane Ketterman in a Copyblogger post.” And despite attempts by providers to increase capacity, it still feels ‘slow,’ since the more they add, the more we consume.”

Content developers need to avoid content overload, and this process means paying attention to technology. Thinking of embedding a rich media collage? Before jumping ahead to launch this feature, two conversations need to happen first: (1) one with the analytics team to quantify how many mobile visitors are coming to the site and (2) one with the technical team to make sure that the content works well with small screens.

Don’t launch without understanding the technology first.

2. Give Audiences Control

“Always give the user control over multimedia content by not auto-starting video or sound, by allowing the user to skip or stop multimedia content, and be being mindful of the bandwidth it takes off,” wrote Lyndon Gerejo in a blog post for Smashing Magazine.

People have limited data plans and would much prefer to save bandwidth to stream audio or video than watch a promotional ad. People know what their mobile devices can handle.

Content marketers can improve mobile UX by allowing visitors to pick and choose the content that they ultimately see.

3. Build Trust

Privacy is a major concern for people on their smartphones, according to Gerejo. Content marketers should be wary of this trend and make privacy policies available for mobile visitors to access.

“Make it easy for users to control how their personal information is shared in a mobile app by asking before collecting their location data and by allowing them to opt out of targeted advertising,” Gerejo wrote.

4. Write Less to Simplify Mechanics

Nobody enjoys scrolling and zooming through paragraphs of absurdly tiny font.

“You will lose most customers with all of the hassle this creates, especially if you are asking for them to fill out a survey or extended form field,” wrote Duffy-Marie Arnoult in a KISSmetrics guest blog post.

Content marketers should focus on writing less to make every single pixel counts. Human eyesight and fingers are all different, so text needs to be as big as possible.

“Always keep in mind you are making a page where visitors will be using their fingers instead of a mouse arrow,” Arnoult wrote.

5. Don’t Make Assumptions

One common misconception is that all mobile users are on-the-go.

“But today’s mobile user is so much more than that, with the rise in tablet usage further contributing to the growth and variety of their needs,” Laura Hamptom wrote in UX Magazine.

Data is key for understanding where an audience is coming from and what their needs are. Are people shopping from a couch, or are they reading through magazine content during their lunch breaks?

Make content applicable to any and every situation

Image courtesy of Cienpies Design/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Shove pages and pages of advertisements and coupons in peoples’ faces, and they’ll love it, right? Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Naturally, this horrible marketing practice found a new home online. Email advertising became synonymous with junk. Spam folders grew bigger than inboxes, inspiring content marketers to redirect their efforts to more consumer friendly channels like blogs and social media.

But email marketing isn’t all bad. In fact, newsletters are some of the most user friendly and valuable channels for reaching potential customers. People actually want this stuff — kind of like a free magazine subscription (to continue to the snail mail analogy).

Here are strategies for building truly exceptional newsletter campaigns.

Content + Trust = Priority 1

For inspiration, consult Glamour Magazine’s newsletter. On a regular basis, they send subscribers handcrafted newsletters with makeup, fashion, and health advice.

It’s like getting a free mini-magazine as a refreshing mental health break — remember that Glamour’s paper version is something that people pay for. Spam is nowhere in sight.

“Remember, the success of any email marketing program depends on genuinely compelling content,” Sonia Simone wrote in a Copyblogger post. “You want your readers to dig through spam filters, complain to their email providers, and do anything they can to make sure they’re getting your content.”

So give people something that they genuinely want to get — rock star content.

Become Needed by Simplifying Information

As a case study, check out Contently’s Freelance Strategist Blog. Every week, the editors send a newsletter roundup of quality content worth checking out.

The value proposition is two-fold: (1) freelance writers are frequently busy and lack the time to read about writing and (2) freelance writers need a consistent collection of business information to improve their workflow.

For self-employed people, wasted time can be brutal. The Freelance Strategist fills a much needed information gap to help writers make more with their time.

“Understanding the emotional and logical mental process of your readers is the best way to take your email signups to the next level,” according to The Blog Tyrant in a post for Copyblogger.

Give Subscribers Offers that They Can’t Refuse

Udemy is one of the Internet’s biggest learning communities. Using the platform, people can create, host, and sign up for courses on topics ranging from programming to web design and entrepreneurship.

Its marketing goals are simple and direct: Get people to sign up for more classes.

Udemy leverages email as a channel to encourage more signups. Rather than sending mass blasts,  the company sends custom messages based on subscribers’ interests.

With subject headings like “You’ve Been Saying You Want to Learn jQuery for Months,” Udemy’s newsletters are powerful sales tools that connect audiences with products that care about.

“Selling existing customers add-on or complementary products and services pays off,” wrote Hubspot’s Lindsey Kirchoff in a blog post about email marketing.

Connect the Dots With Social

Question-and-answer discussion community Quora has integrated email with its social media platform. Every so often, the website sends subscribers questions that they might find enjoyable.

The newsletter design is straightforward and heavily focused around the conversation that Quora is featuring. It’s not about driving clicks, visits, or sales. Rather, for Quora, email marketing inspires community dialogue.

“Another great way to cross-pollinate email marketing and social media is to highlight a particular tweet in your email campaign,” wrote DJ Waldow in a Social Media Examiner Blog Post.

Who says that email needs to be an isolating experience? Leverage email to build a customer community.

Final Thoughts: Learn More from Unsubscribes

No matter how awesome a newsletter turns out, unsubscribes are inevitable. It’s the perfect opportunity to find out what’s wrong and to carve out an action plan for improvement.

“When a reader unsubscribes, ask why and get their feedback,” wrote Zach Bulygo in the KISSmetrics blog. “If it’s because you email too often, it may be a hint that you should give readers an option to receive email a little less frequently … This could help you from losing them as a subscriber.”

Content marketing is about open dialogue — the same goes for newsletters.

Image courtesy of FuzzBones/Shutterstock, Angela Waye/Shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Creative experimentation is a must but not at the expense of limited marking dollars. But still, companies make the same rookie mistakes — over and over. The end result: rotten tomatoes, relentless ridicule, and a whole lot of wasted money.

Run (as fast as possible) and hid e (as far underground as possible) from the following over-the-top marketing #fails. Here are some examples of content gone horribly wrong.

Example 1: Fake Advocates

This summer, fast food chain Chick-fil-A offended more than a few people after president Dan Cathy  voiced the company’s “advocacy of traditional marriage based on biblical principles,” according to Steven Kurlander in the Huffington Post.

Naturally, consumers slammed Chick-fil-A’s official Facebook page with comments. Coming to the big brand’s defense was teenager Abby Farle, who stood up against angry comments.

A fellow commentator pointed out, however, that Farle’s profile was only eight hours old, and her photo? A generic stock image.

As one Facebook user eloquently puts it, “Busted.”

Example 2: Disregard for Context

With content marketing, context is everything. Otherwise, advertisements for pork sandwiches end up on The Jerusalem Post and promos for violent video games show on articles about infants. Somebody is going to be offended.

Content marketers need to make sure that they’re focusing on connecting the dots to form the big picture. Great writing needs a beautiful home, and advertisements need to be relevant.

“Your words might be brilliant enough to make unicorns weep, but if you put them into an ugly, amateurish, or cluttered design, your readers won’t come back for a second date,” wrote Sonia Simone for Copyblogger.

Example 3: Headlines with No Substance

Consider the following headline: ”Utah Poison Control Center Reminds Everyone Not to Take Poison.”

No kidding?

“No reason to read any farther,” Newt Barrett wrote in Content Marketing Today. “It states the obvious and doesn’t suggest that we would learn anything more in the article.”

Give people a reason to read, or they just won’t care.

Business is about people, and content is about customer acquisition. Shortcuts to mediocre quality might generate a good laugh, but they’ll ultimately waste money.

Image courtesy of A1Stock/Shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Programs like Mindjet MindManager and MindMeister will assist content makers, writes Business 2 Community’s Marcela De Vivo. These platforms visualize the mind map, sorting information into categories.

“As a blog owners, your goal is to be the absolute number one source of information on your particular niche,” she says. “By working out your content in this mind map fashion, you essentially guarantee that you are going to cover all of the topics in your niche.”

De Vivo also suggests adding a timeline to flesh out the content planning process.

“Add expected dates of completion to the individual blog posts on your mindmap to give yourself a posting schedule,” she says. ”This is going to help you keep putting out content on a regular schedule AND in a way that readers can really relate to. Now you’ll have a lot of content coming out just like before, but it will be organized and follow a logical flow for your readers, creating a much better user experience.”

Finding the organizational tools for ideas and planning out blog posts is just one of the few steps in creating content. Finding ideas can be the hardest part.

According to Performancing’s Loren Baker, ideas can be found on social media sites, in clustered keywords, and through commonly asked questions on the topic a content creator is writing about.

As Loren says, creating content is important for many reasons.

“The more content you have, the more opportunities you have to be seen by the search engines and by your readers,” she says. ”That will give you a base flow of traffic. The more base traffic you have, the more likely it is that you will get links to your site. The more links you have, the better you will rank on the search engines. Starting and maintaining this continuous cycle is one of the most effective ways that you can improve your site’s success.”

Image courtesy of marekuliasz/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

This is the crucial window of time when marketers need to convince them that the service is worth their time and attention.

Leveraging the welcome emails and getting new subscribers on board initially is key to running successful marketing and sales campaigns, writes ClickZ’s Jeanne Jennings. She describes this as a “drip campaign.”

“Named for drip irrigation, the idea is to slowly present and build on your message over time, rather than doing a one-time ‘soaking’ and hoping for the best,” she says. ”We’re not talking about sending the same message over and over again (that would be a ‘resend’) – we’re talking about a series of different messages that each work on their own but that create synergy when two or more are viewed by the same person.”

The best strategy is to present new subscribers with content and ads in order to get them hooked and promote sales.

“The best welcome series are a mix of editorial (read: non-promotional) and promotional content.,” says Jennings. “Think of it as the ‘magazine’ model; you buy a magazine for the articles, but within that there is advertising that gets you to buy.” Instead of focusing on the logistics of the welcome series, content should be the main focus.

Backing up Jennings’ findings about the importance of the welcome email is Skyline Technologies, which concluded that the normal open rate of these messages is 50 to 60 percent. HubSpot Blog’s Corey Eridon suggests adding links to confirm that the subscriber did indeed sign up, a thank you, a request to be marked as a safe sender, and information about future emails.

In addition, companies should give subscribers a voice, and send out a survey about what type of content they would like to receive. A call to action to join the Facebook fan page or check out the company blog should also be included.

As ClickZ’s Matthew Hayes points out, “Post-acquisition represents your most critical time. New subscribers are more likely to respond to email and present a huge opportunity for engagement, data collection, and conversion.”

Image courtesy of rambergmedia.com/flickr

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

A recent infographic by Mogreet revealed that 98 percent of all SMS and MMS messages sent are opened.

In addition, Gene Sigalov of Content Marketing Institute says that within three minutes of being sent, 90 percent of all text messages are read by the recipient.

Texting a call to action

Content marketer Patricia Redsicker pointed to a study from Morgan Stanley that found 91 percent of people with cellphones keep them within arm’s reach at all time.

“If all those people always have their phone right next to them at any time, day or night, what an opportunity to reach them if you’re doing mobile marketing,” she said.

Redsicker said SMS marketing messages should include a keyword that is easy to remember along with a short code and a call to action. For example, a text might read, “Text LOL to 34567 to Win Free iPod.”

“Then, give them a confirmation text that makes them feel good and important,” Redsicker said. ”[It could say] ‘Awesome, you rock.’”

Use mobile to build a customer contact list

Entrepreneur’s Gail Goodman suggests that shops use text message marketing in a way that benefits themselves and consumers.

“Customers entering into your retail establishment probably are carrying their cellphones on them,” she said. ”Build your contact list by inviting patrons to send a text message or scan a QR code. Put a sign at your cash register to encourage such activity while the shopping experience is still fresh.”

Offering a coupon or special offer for customers that do so can encourage people to sign up. “And you end up building your list without having to manually enter email addresses after deciphering handwriting on a sign-up sheet,” Goodman said.

Be everywhere

Shareef Defrawi of Zizinya Web Solutions said, “Mobile marketing is where it’s at, and where it’s at is wherever your customers happen to be. By optimizing and refining your mobile marketing campaign you can reach them at the moment they need you.”

Image courtesy of mama_mia/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

By including these features, content marketers and writers can best ensure that their blogs will find an audience and resonate with it.

1. Begin with knowing your purpose

Marcus Sheridan, marketer and president of The Sales Lion, says that every blog post should have a purpose.

“A post should always address a need or a problem that a customer has or will have. For me that’s where it starts,” he said. ”It’s based on the questions that customers ask.”

2. Make it useful

Along with answering inquiries, blog posts should teach readers something new.

Amy Izzo, marketing director at Marketri, says her company writes posts so that customers can “get the educational tidbits in small digestible form. The reader might not go out and buy an industry publication but they’ll Google [a topic] and read the post. Then they might end up visiting the company’s site.”

3. Start a conversation

Both marketers agree that blog posts should be conversational in nature.

Sam Peters of Remarkablogger points out that this can be accomplished by being personal, asking questions, and arguing for a cause.

Sheridan says this is one the most important parts of a blog post: “I think everyone should have an opinion [in a post]. The more black and white you can be the more successful it’ll be. The people that stand out in the industry actually have something to say. Too many people are afraid to have an opinion on anything.”

Izzo also doesn’t hesitate in letting her clients know that an opinion or an argument is a good idea.

“We tell our clients that it’ll be fine to be somewhat controversial and illicit comments to a degree,” she says. ”It’s also acceptable to give your opinion in a blog post, which is different than an article. Those are a little bit more objective, but blog posts are a way that you can show some personality. People want to read your blog post because they want some knowledge, but there needs to be a human touch as well.”

4. Interact with readers

The conversation can start on the blog, but it should continue in the comments section.

“When your readers see you responding back to comments, they get encouraged to share their thoughts,” according to Mustafa of Performance Marketing Insider. “Everybody wants to be heard, and acknowledged. People want to build a relationship with the blogger via commenting. So by intelligently responding back to comments, you’ll automatically get more readers to participate.”

5. Visualize it

In an increasingly visual world, images and videos should be inserted to optimize any blog post.

“Images give it more interest, and are more eye catching,” says Izzo.

“We have tried out making posts multimedia and given tutorials. It’s nice to have both the print there and something else to refer to, such as a video.”

6. No bragging

Companies should follow these guidelines, and beware of falling into common traps. Sheridan says that the worst thing a brand can do in a blog post is brag.

“Companies can’t just talk about how awesome they are the whole time,” he says. ”Nobody cares unless you teach them something that they needed to know.”

7. Write great headlines

Danny Iny of Make a Living Writing says to do the research and post something that hasn’t been covered. Also, a headline has to be eye catching.

Izzo concurs, “I think it’s important to have a headline that’s really going to grab peoples’ attention. If not, you’re going to lose half the audience. There needs to be something quantifiable for the headline so readers will know what they’ll come away with after reading your post.”

8. Promote, promote, promote

After all is said and done, a blog post cannot just sit there. It must be promoted so that it will actually be read.

Izzo says that packaging different blog posts into an e-newsletter is a great way to get readers to read more than one post from a brand. Sheridan is also an advocate of email marketing, but says it depends on the industry.

If the company’s industry is common, and the web is saturated with information on the same topic, SEO would not be the way to go. Instead, social media and e-newsletters should be the main focus. However, if content in a field is scarce, keywords and search algorithms should be taken into consideration.

Blog posts are a key to any content marketing plan. The formula for success is right in front of marketers, and should be utilized for the right purposes.

Image courtesy of Thinglass/shutterstock, Brian A Jackson/shutterstock, Diego Cervo/shutterstock, kexino.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently