Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, the 4G LTE broadband provider of Internet services, has identified professionalism, passion and content creation as critical to enhancing the capacity of bloggers in the West African region.
The company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Mrs. Alero Ladipo, made the remark during a presentation entitled, ‘How to promote your blog’, during the West Africa Blogger Conference 2015, held in Lagos recently.
Ladipo said that in as much as bloggers must ensure explicit, informative and clearly defined content delivered with passion and fun, they should not relent in applying professionalism in order to attract right business to monetise the enterprise.
She listed qualities that distinguished bloggers from others to include sticking to their already created niches built on professionalism, uniqueness, responding quickly to trends, investing in content design, while building on loyal audience, relationships and reaching out to experts.
She said that Smile Communications was already preparing grounds to collaborate with 10 bloggers to support them in lifting the platforms to greater heights.
“People think that blogging is a habit that anybody can just pick up and start practising. However, as we get more people entrenched in consistent growth, it becomes important we make it professional. Essentially, readers visit bloggers for a particular reason. By implication, a blog is not a dumping ground. Stick to the core reason you started the blog and adhere to your principles,” she said.
“There is a philosophy that you stick to certain principles even when many people are deviating; it is the same thing with blogs. When you maintain the professional competencies, people will collaborate with you.
“For instance, in the course of my presentation, I randomly asked participants to ‘sell me your blog’, which is simply to market the platform, but people fell flat on their faces. It is important you know what your blog is all about and you can sell it, and also present it appropriately.”
Ladipo added that for bloggers to attain their expected heights, they should improve on marketing and learn how to communicate.
“A lot of people do not know how to use the available tools. For instance, everybody talks about social media, but nobody talks about how they can grasp onto the social media. People need to know about target audience, segmentations, and how to retain the interest of people who continue to visit your blog; keeping people interested and understand that you are one amongst many.
“That is the strength you need to have, the tools of marketing and communication and it does not require long sessions of learning. It can be an hour session of going through the principles of marketing and communication at an introductory level, because you are not trying to go deeper on the subject, but how to use the tools. Truly, content is king, but you need to be smart about it. That is where marketing and communication aspects come in,” she said.
Explaining why Smile Communications chose to support the conference, Ladipo said, “We chose to support the conference due to the link between our service offering and what the bloggers do.
“During my presentation, I asked how many people had Internet connection in order to monitor what is happening now or what has happened in the last hour that could inspire your writing. For bloggers to keep tabs on trends, they must have internet connectivity.”
According to her, Internet connectivity is an utility that will soon be in the range of demands like water supply, electricity, among others.
She said, “I will take it further to say blogging, Internet provision and lifestyle are all connected. So, we partnered the organisers as a way of bridging the gap between life style and communication.”
On the drive to collaborate with some bloggers, Ladipo said, “The organisers will help in screening 10 bloggers that Smile Communications will partner.”
The Managing Director, Advert Strikers Limited, and convener of the conference, Mr. Ayodele Oyebade, thanked Smile Communications for supporting the conference where a new chain of professional bloggers will emerge.
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