Learn About The Blogger’s Mindset With Mike Allton

 Mike Allton is a Content Marketing Practitioner at the Social Media Hat, and an award-winning Blogger and Author, who lives in St. Louis. He is also the Chief Marketing Officer at SiteSell – a company, which helps solopreneurs online. When talking about himself, Mike says: “My goal is to ensure that businesses are able to leverage the power and connectivity of the Internet to promote and grow their business.”
Mike has been working with websites and the Internet since the early ’90’s. Mike teaches a holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blog content, social media and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. He is also active on all of the major social networks.
In his MDMC18 session called “The Blogger’s Mindset – Find Topics, Write Faster, And Reach More People”, Mike will share his techniques and insider tips that have propelled his own blog and brand to the top. Mike will showcase how he promotes his content to get the maximum amount of exposure, increase the reach and drive more traffic to the blog. He will provide an insight into his strategic approach to blogging that ensures each piece of content is created for a purpose that fits long-term business goals.
Here are Mike’s answers from the Q&A session before the conference.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
M.A. The biggest mistake that I see far too many businesses & bloggers repeat over and over is to make their social profiles all about themselves. They treat social networks and posts as a broadcasting medium when, in reality, they should be working to create relationships. That means sharing thoughts & ideas that promote discussions, and working to find ways to integrate their audiences into the posts themselves.
Q.2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
M.A. We’re watching Live Video become such a game changer for digital marketing.
Right now, it’s mostly businesses broadcasting and consumers, well, consuming. As the platforms evolve and consumer confidence and competence grow, they’ll begin to play a larger role in the creation of video. For instance, right now, the easiest way to broadcast live video to Facebook with guests is to use 3rd party tools like BeLive. That precludes audience members from joining the video. Yet the ability to allow audience members to “come in” was one the great features of Blab. As that, and other barriers, ease, businesses & consumers will be able to collaborate on video.
Q.3. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
M.A. I really enjoyed “Vlog Like A Boss” by Amy Schmittauer. And interestingly, I am *not* a vlogger and have no intention of doing that much video. I love to write! But, video is important, and I’m often a guest on videos or host other people in video interviews, and Amy’s book contained brilliant insights and clever ideas that even a rare video creator like me could appreciate and learn from.
Q.4. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
M.A. One of the most effective practices that I’ve adopted over the years is to create two documents for every campaign: a rollout or campaign overview doc, and a retrospective.
The rollout doc contains all of the campaign details, tasks, and sometimes even the copy that’s going to be used. Whether that’s landing pages, social media, email or blog posts, this single place is where you can plan out and fill out all of that information. The more complex the campaign, the more essential this document becomes, particularly if you’re managing a team.
And the retrospective is a simple review of everything that you did and what the results were. How many sales. How much traffic. What emails were sent, when, and what the results were.
Taking the time to document all of those things not only helps you run a current campaign smoothly, but also gives you a starting place for future campaigns! Whether that’s to duplicate & edit the rollout doc, or refer to the retrospective to see what worked and what didn’t the last time around.
Q.5. Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
M.A. Agorapulse, Tailwind, Canva
Q.6. Who are three people you respect when it comes to digital marketing?
M.A. Peg Fitzpatrick, Rebekah Radice, Jeff Sieh
Q.7. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
M.A. Authenticity – not because being authentic is bad, but because more often than not, it’s used in a way that results in the opposite of what’s intended. Instead of someone being themselves, they try too hard to be “authentic” and end up stressing aspects of their personality that normally would not be so strong. Like someone trying to be the life of the party when, in reality, they’re much more laid back.