#there's also a pretty nice article written by two researches from USP (one of the best universities in LatAm) called Biologicamente cultural

[itsamebutnotmario]

Also neuroplasticity is a thing for the love of god!!!! Brain differences can be culturally constructed!!!! Stop treating brains like this unchangeable static entity that dictates the reality of "human nature" when one of the characteristics that pushed us through natural selection is adapting to our cultural contexts!!!!! If we're social beings so are our brains!!!!!

"men and women are so different and can never understand each other" this is the bane of my existence as a non binary person.

Hearing it from cis perisex people is like "lol okay" but hearing it from trans people?? that's nasty vibes yall. We gotta stop that. Men and women are literally the same thing.

[michaelandy101-blog]

Are Blogs Lifeless in 2021? We Requested 10 Advertising and marketing Consultants

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/are-blogs-dead-in-2021-we-asked-10-marketing-experts/

Are Blogs Lifeless in 2021? We Requested 10 Advertising and marketing Consultants

It appears all of us have an obsession with killing issues off.

Each couple of years, we revisit one thing and place it on the chopping block. Within the new millennium, we had the Y2K computer scare. In 2012, we feared the world would end and we might all simply poof. When expertise took a extra essential function in our lives, we assumed all print publications would go bankrupt. Now, with the rise of video and podcasts, it is running a blog’s flip to really feel the warmth.

I reached out to entrepreneurs with backgrounds in product marketing, web optimization, YouTube, podcasting, and extra and requested them, “Are Blogs useless? ” Here is what they stated.

Are blogs useless?

In response to entrepreneurs, not even shut. Blogs proceed to be extraordinarily useful for lead era, model consciousness, and web optimization. And so they’re nonetheless fashionable amongst customers. A 2020 HubSpot research discovered that 60% of individuals learn a weblog at the least as soon as per week. So, blogs will not be out of entrepreneurs’ toolbox anytime quickly.

In all equity, this query surrounding blogs will not be with out cause. Google Developments exhibits that within the final 5 years, the curiosity in blogs has steadily declined worldwide.

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Within the U.S. inside the identical five-year span, podcasts have risen in reputation and surpassed blogs in searches.

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Nevertheless, entrepreneurs nonetheless contemplate running a blog a high marketing channel. Ross Simmonds, a B2B marketer and the founding father of the content material marketing company Basis, says running a blog has helped his purchasers triple their visitors and speed up their gross sales shut charges.

“At Foundation, blogging with intent has helped us generate millions of dollars in the pipeline for both us and our clients,” says Simmonds. “It’s also armed us with the ability to elevate our brand’s position in the market and, most importantly, truly help others in our industry learn and unlock new opportunities.”

With that stated, the running a blog panorama has modified over time. Lisa Toner, director of content material at HubSpot, says it is not sufficient to simply have a weblog these days.

“You need to consistently create content that is more valuable than your competition’s content. You need to be an SEO expert to get your articles ranking on page one of Google, and you need a distribution strategy to promote your content across all the channels your audience likes to consume content on,” says Toner. “It’s a lot more complex to win at blogging now, but if you can master it, it’s worth the investment.”

Transparency is an even bigger duty, particularly as social justice turns into more important to consumers.

“You need to think about how people see your brand compared to your competition. Everyone has their own unique selling position (USP) and what they want to put forward, but what users do is compare,” says Sandra Mpouma, head of digital marketing at RationalFX. “So, in terms of business strategy, create loyalty, trust, [and] be transparent and competitive, which is very important nowadays.”

Blogs vs. Different Advertising and marketing Channels

Now that different content material marketing channels – particularly video and podcasting – have surpassed blogs, will blogs quickly change into redundant? Effectively, all of it relies on the person personas you are focusing on. However at the same time as different platforms develop, blogs nonetheless provide many benefits.

“Podcasting is not without its own set of limitations. There are plenty of discoverability and audience growth challenges. At this point, blogs have a pretty well-dusted playbook for scaling. That’s not true for podcasts,” says Matthew Brown, senior podcast producer at HubSpot. “A company can use its likely limited resources to invest in a blog that will basically give consistent, easily measurable, and reliable performance. Blogs also have a direct line to the company’s bottom dollar, podcasts do not.”

Nelson Chacon, principal marketing supervisor for YouTube at HubSpot, highlights that there isn’t any cause to decide on between two platforms in case your workforce has the bandwidth to deal with each. If it aligns along with your person personas, you possibly can have interaction your viewers from a number of angles.

“Creating a blog constructed of articles around the benefits of your product will be helpful. Having a video showcasing its use or how to install it would be beneficial for your audience,” says Chacon. “Home Depot has carried out a incredible job of doing this. Whereas they inform and educate their prospects on their merchandise, additionally they add a fast ‘how-to’ for the extra educated one that simply wants a brief reply defined in a video.”

As for social media, Annabelle Nyst, a senior content material strategist who focuses on social media initiatives at HubSpot, says it is onerous to match it to blogs as every platform serves totally different functions.

“Social content doesn’t always have the shelf life or the discoverability of blog posts,” says Nyst. “It’s more about consistently meeting your audience where they are, in the right moments, engaging with them one-on-one, and establishing trust via community building.”

She provides that social media may be an effective way to amplify your weblog posts. And vice versa, weblog posts can function inspiration for social content material. If utilizing each, Nyst recommends pulling probably the most compelling factors out of your weblog posts, creating social-first content material, and utilizing it to drive visitors again to your weblog.

With all that stated, blogs do not come with out their disadvantages. AJ Beltis, a content material and acquisition supervisor at HubSpot, mentions the excessive drop-off charges typically seen in weblog posts.

“Blogs lack the interactivity that many crave due to its nature as written content,” says Beltis. “This challenges blog writers to hook their readers in a few short sentences without having the benefit of special effects or audio engineers available to their video and podcast creating counterparts.”

What it typically comes all the way down to is your model targets and which channels will enable you meet them. Podcasts, for instance, are higher for branding whereas blogs serve higher for top-of-the-funnel engagement.

“Blog posts are an acquisition juggernaut. There’s a clear path that any seasoned marketer can follow. Podcasts, however, best serve as a brand opportunity,” says Brown. “You wouldn’t measure a series of blog posts on their brand uplift ability, just like you wouldn’t measure a podcast show’s lead generation. That is unless you like gray hairs and a serious lack of sleep.”

Why Blogs are Nonetheless Impactful

From an funding perspective, blogs could also be a greater long-term funding for lead era.

“I could spend $200K to hire a full-time writer, SEO expert, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) specialist to work on my blog. By combining those skill sets, I’m going to be able to create a blog that drives organic traffic to my website and converts it into leads for my business all year long,” says Toner. “Or, I could put the same $200K into an advertising campaign and maybe get a couple thousand leads over the course of the ad campaign. But once the campaign ends, so does my lead flow.”

Toner provides that almost all of HubSpot’s blog-generated leads come from older weblog posts. Which means running a blog is usually a nice lead supply lengthy after posts are printed. Aja Frost, who leads the English web optimization workforce at HubSpot, echoes this sentiment.

“Organic traffic is more important than ever. Unlike paid traffic, which stops coming in the second your budget runs out, organic traffic is mostly self-sustaining after you’ve put in the time and effort to create a blog post,” she says.

She provides that almost all content material administration programs (CMS) have web optimization instruments built-in into their platforms, which makes it simpler to optimize your posts.

Running a blog may also be useful in shaping a model’s product positioning.

“Blogs are still one of the best channels we have to create narratives around our product,” says HubSpot Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor Alex Girard. “They offer us the opportunity to address trends we see in the market, how those trends impact the reader, and how our product might be able to help them meet that trend successfully. They’re also great for telling customer success stories.”

He provides that when utilizing your weblog to market your product, the content material would not must be promotional. If you set up your self as a thought chief and acquire belief out of your viewers, they may organically look into your services and products.

With that stated, it should take greater than good content material to have a profitable weblog.

“Growth without a goal isn’t going to help your business – if 10,000 people are reading your blog, but none of them fit your persona, that’s not going to do anything for your company,” says HubSpot’s Senior Weblog Supervisor Karla Cook. “Focus on something attainable, like generating new contacts, and make sure every post you’re putting out has that goal in mind.”

She provides that one of many largest errors manufacturers make is creating content material just for folks on the decision-making stage. With so many levels between studying a weblog and making a purchase order, entrepreneurs ought to have posts geared at customers in each stage with corresponding presents. Be taught extra about that by means of HubSpot’s business blogging course.

From an web optimization perspective, manufacturers may additionally wrestle with producing visitors as a result of they’re considering weblog first, hyperlink constructing second.

“What I often notice is that marketers see ‘blogging’ and ‘link building’ as two different disciplines. First, they write the blog posts, then they think about how to earn backlinks to them,” says Irina Nica, a senior marketing supervisor at HubSpot who works on product consciousness by means of outreach initiatives. “Instead, they should include linkable assets into their regular content calendar, alongside other types of articles that are maybe designed for generating organic or social media traffic.”

Regardless of the numerous advantages we have gone over, running a blog is not at all times one of the best technique for each model. Why? Effectively, what in case your very best person persona would not learn blogs? What if they like emails as an alternative?

“Some brands have great email communication and workflows where they provide people with downloadable offers where they don’t have to go somewhere else to get the information, it’s just in their inbox straight away,” says Mpouma. “You don’t necessarily need a blog as long as you’re offering something in exchange. I think the blog has always been that: Offer something for free in exchange for that user interaction.”

So, in that case, blogs would not precisely be useless, extra so irrelevant.

Why Advertising and marketing Is not Lifeless

issues from a broader perspective, blogs are simply an extension of marketing. Some have recommended that marketing is useless, which makes entrepreneurs like me surprise if there’s one thing we do not know.

Primarily based on current knowledge, marketing continues to be influential. And that applies to each conventional methods and digital initiatives. Statista reported that in 2019, content material marketing generated over $42 billion in income worldwide.

“There’s a reason why Nike and McDonalds continue to invest millions every month in marketing even though they’re already household names. There’s a reason why the top musicians and artists still do promotion prior to their latest album release,” says Simmonds. “Marketing isn’t to be seen as just an expense. It’s an investment. And if you make an investment that is rooted in a strategic plan — that investment should return dividends for years (maybe decades) to come.”

The important thing takeaway is that whereas not all marketing techniques work for each model, it is unlikely that blogs will cease being useful to manufacturers within the foreseeable future. So for now, blogs, you possibly can relaxation and step off the chopping block.

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The concept was brewing for a while, but the pivotal moment came whilst I was waiting to get my haircut, I picked up a well-known golf magazine (it shall not be named). I was saddened by how poor the advice was, in a particular article, I decided there must be a market for high-quality, in-depth golf content.Golf Insider UK aims to build the world’s best resources for golfer wishing to get better. To date, it mainly offers written content, videos and some basic analysis tools, but I have grand plans for the future. I see the website as the hub and marketing channel for all that follows.The site started off with instructional content and a small amount of affiliate content, this covered the running costs for the first 2-3 months. The next key business goal was to grow to 25,000 sessions a month so I could apply to join MediaVine and earn advertising venue.How did you validate the idea?I produced 5 articles on Blogger to test if there was a demand for high-quality, in-depth golf content. The 4th or 5th article got shared on Reddit and received ~3,000 reads in a few hours. That was the time I decided to get my head down and build a proper website on Wordpress.Did you have any experience/expertise in the area?A lot of experience, knowledge of golf coaching and sport science, but zero experience in building websites and SEO. The Authority Hacker Podcast and content from Matt Diggity's blog helped a lot in understanding how to build a site and understanding the business models available for website to generate income. Both of these resources are two really useful for anyone wishing to build a website and business model similar to Golf Insider UK.How did you fund the project?I invested all of $150 to set up the business, buy hosting and a domain name. Based on my previous start-up experiences (covered later on) I was keen to bootstrap this project and keep it really lean. The aim was to see if this venture could become something worth pursuing by the time I finished my PhD. I also love the idea of keeping complete control of what I do and where I take the business. Besides my own time, the running costs for the business for the first 12 months were under $50/month. Discounting my own wage, I can still scale the business back to run on under $150/month if I need to.I know this flies in the face of Silicon Valley and the VC world, but my two aims are to:Build something unique, of great value to the golfing community.Maximise profitability.Because of this approach I’m not constrained like the larger golf publications and competitors to keep churning out content and blasting messages across social media. I can take different approaches and build interesting content and tools. I’m not saying this approach is perfect, but to date, I’ve been really surprised with how much I have been able to grow on such little funding and resources.Being different from your competitors doesn’t end with your branding and marketing pitch. Your usp should be leveraged across your business, from day-to-day decisions, to growth strategies.Who is your target demographic?Golfers, surprisingly. I initially thought it would be 1% of the golfing population, and predominantly advanced players, but I quickly realised the site reaches a far wider demographic. It is closely aligned to a psychographic that loves to understand how things work and also loves playing golf. It includes, beginners, golf coaches and every level of golfer in between.How do you drive visitors to your website?80% of the traffic has been from SEO, 20% via golfing forums and growing an email list. For the first 18-months I only had 10 - 15 hours a week to grow the business. For this reason I decided to focus on growing one traffic source and to do that really well. I think this focus on SEO was a key reason traffic grew so quickly.Currently I do feel too dependent on Google and their blackbox algorithm, a key aim in the next 12-months is diversify the traffic sources. Youtube and Pinterest are two I’m currently researching and planning.How long did it take you to monetize?Within a few weeks I began to see some incoming revenue, it was patchy, but really exciting. It took 8-months for the site to consistently make a few hundred dollars a month, this was when I started with display ads. That figure jumped to $1,000/month by month 13 with increased traffic and some new affiliate content, like guides for buying beginner golf clubs. Then it really took offer to mid-four figures 2-3 months later, with a combination of how-to content and more affiliate reviews.At the moment the the site is funding the end of my PhD, paying me a wage and I am still building up a sizable amount to reinvest back into the business. Last week I transitioned from 10- 15 hours a week at evenings and weekends, to dedicating 3-days a week on growing the business. I’m excited to see how far I can take it.Did you run any companies prior?I was previously a director for a start-up, building a golf coaching app. The company raised $450,000 and we built a really cool product, hired some great coaches, but there wasn’t a strong product - market fit for the paid golf coaching service. Ultimately, the business ran out of money soon after the launch date. A key learning from this venture was to be frugal with resources and having enough time to tweak and refine any products.Following this business I’ve worked with elite athletes, in and out of golf, applying sport coaching and sport science concepts; on a self-employed basis. I wouldn’t class this work as building a company, as it couldn’t scale, but the core concepts of Golf Insider UK are based on testing and tweaking concepts from these first two ventures.Golf Insider UK is based on the same concepts, but has been designed on a very different business model. Business models are something that really fascinate me. I would urge any founder who thinks they have something of value to an audience to scribble multiple models they could use to build a profitable business around their idea.It isn’t always the most obvious approach that succeeds.What motivated you to start your own business?I love the idea of building and developing things, whether it be businesses, content or improving elite athletes. I used to love playing games like Theme Park World and Sim City growing up. Start-ups are just like playing these games in the real-world.What were your family and friends first thoughts you creating your own your company?I’ve always been known as the ‘happy, weird one’. From golf coach, to lecturing at university, to starting a PhD in Biomedical Science - I’ve taken quite a strange path through life so far. I don’t think people are surprised I decided to build a site like this, but my Mum certainly doesn’t understand how it is a ‘job’. I think she thinks I’m secretly selling my organs to fund my lifestyle.Do you have any advice for someone just starting out?Set clear aims, and try to do 1-2 things really well. I feel most start-ups succeed because they get 1-2 things really right and provide value. This is far more valuable than setting off with every aspect being sound, but having no strengths.Test, re-test and tweak your product/service. Try to do it in a way that gives you a long runway to get the product/service and business model optimised.What is stopping you from being 3x the size you are now?Time - I’m delighted I’ve grown the site to reach 100,000 golfers a month and built a profitable business on 10 - 15 hours a week with minimal start-up capital. Next, I can invest more time and begin to outsource some tasks to graphic designers and videographers to up the level of content production.I could outsource a lot of the writing too and become a manager of systems, but I really enjoy producing content. The great thing about building a business is that you have control over what you build and what your days look like. I’m not trying to build the biggest business in my space, but I do want it to be known as the best.Which is your favorite article?This article on Golf Practice Routines - it is an old piece, I hate the way it looks, but it does exactly what great content marketing should do. It ranks number 1 in google for relevant queries, it gives readers great value and then up-sells my product - a Golf Performance Diary. This one piece of content has been really valuable for attracting new customers and converting them into loyal followers.What are the top apps your blog could not run without?Wordpress takes a little getting used to, but is a great content management platform. I’ve recently invested in Ahrefs, this is the swiss army knife for SEO. It saves me hours each week and gives me great data to build and grow the site.Lastly, a really nice notebook. I do like google drive, but I still scribble down ideas in a notebook whenever they come to me and plan out my key tasks every day. I re-read my notebook every 2 weeks, it is so useful to see my progress, grab missed ideas and keep on top of my workflow.My aim is to keep growing the site and the business. The next big milestone is reaching 250,000 unique golfers in one month.Are there any new features you’re working on?I’m currently planning an interactive tool for golfers to find practice games and drills. The idea is that they enter the area they want to improve (iron-play), currently ability (18 handicap) and practice aim (improve strike). Based on this data the site returns the optimum way for them to practice with videos, notes and training targets.I’ll hopefully have a draft version built by January 2020, before deciding if it is worth filming a lot of videos to fully deliver the idea.What is current revenue?The site generates mid-four figures a month, which is a pretty good for one person working 10 - 15 hours a week. I can see a pathway to increasing the monthly revenue by 2 - 3x . If I can get close to that in the next 18 months I will be happy to take a step back and consider what is next.Would you ever sell the company?I’ve had three offers in the past 3 months, but I don’t plan to sell any time soon, I aim to finish my PhD in the next 3 months, then move onto Golf Insider UK full time and see what I can achieve. I wouldn’t ever rule out selling a share or all of it, but that is a distant thought at the moment.If you enjoyed this interview, the original is here.