As we continue the LBFB Series, based on List Building For Bloggers by Phil Hollows, we get into Chapter Two – which deals mainly with basic Email Marketing terminology.

It’s important to have an understanding of all the points covered. Particularly “relevance”, which we’ll discuss more in the next post.

First, let’s focus on the “Hub & Spoke” system (see image) that Phil mentioned in the beginning of this section (page 9).

You may be familiar with this term as it relates to Link Wheels or SEO methods, but it also applies to blogging. Your blog is your primary hub, the one property you own and control, with the spokes being all of the channels & methods you use to reach out to your readership and bring targeted traffic into your blog…

Your Blog: Your Hub

Your blog or website is the one property that you own, and have complete control over. While Facebook may be hot, Google+ on the rise, and who knows what may come down the pike next… you do not own these properties, and you have very little control over those channels.

The spokes should each have a life of their own, but your main objective should always be to funnel traffic back to your blog – and ultimately onto your Mailing List where you can communicate with them in a more controlled way.

Your blog should always be your “core”, and the source for all of the content you share through your “spokes”. While this may seem like a no-brainer, I’ve seen plenty of people neglect their blog to build active Facebook Pages – or create a Facebook Page in place of a blog, even. Shocking, but true!

There are a number of reasons you should focus on your property above all the others, including:

• to build your mailing list
• because other properties are out of your control
  ie could get deleted, blocked, or lose mass appeal
• to get more visibility to ads & advertisers
• to improve traffic stats for higher ad rates
• because blog posts & pages rank long-term!
• to improve the overall value of your property

Basically, it should ALL start and end at your blog. Make sure you are investing at least as much time on your own property as you are across your social media channels and other “spokes”.

Note: Merchants, Sponsors and Advertisers will be analyzing engagement on your blog. While your “social media rank” will be important too, they are most interested in how engaged your readers are ON your blog.

The Spokes

The spokes are your social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+ – and even your RSS Feed and Mailing List.

They are each a means of reaching out to your market where they are or where they most prefer to get their content updates.

Note: It really doesn’t matter if you don’t like Twitter (or Facebook) and don’t *want* to use it. Go where the people are, go where your market is, and serve your market!

While your ultimate goal should always be to funnel traffic (fans, subscribers, followers, etc) back to your blog or website, you want to have strong engagement on each of your “spokes” as well. Strive for high response rates, ask leading questions, and build out strong properties that entice people to stay engaged with you.

Your “Social Media Rank” is very important to your overall marketing strategy, and even to the ranking of your blog/site’s pages and posts in the major search engines. So it shouldn’t be ignored by any means. Just keep in mind that your primary objective is to hook it into your main property.

How It All Works Together

I know it seems like a lot to manage. You write content, publish blog posts, share them on your social media channels, email your list, yada, yada, yada…

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with it all??

Honestly, it just *seems* like a lot. The overwhelm usually comes in when you go about trying to find ways to “automate” it. This plugin, that program, this option, etc. None of that is really necessary in my opinion.

There’s smart automation such as using Aweber’s Blog Broadcast feature to automatically send updates to your mailing list, but when it comes to my social media channels… I update them all manually.

It only takes a few seconds to post your new blog post to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, etc after it’s published. And updating manually gives you the opportunity to use appropriate @’s and hashtags and tags that will improve your reach on each of those channels.

I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you manage your blog, your social media channels, and your content distribution as a whole?

Where do you get frustrated, or feel most confused with the process?

Like I said, in the next post in this series we’ll discuss Relevance. Stay tuned, as this is a crucial element to your blog’s success!

Best,

p.s. If you don’t yet have a copy of List Building For Bloggers, and you want to follow along in the series this month, grab a copy here and use the coupon code “clicknewz” for $10 off. That makes it only $14.95!