Is Blogging Really Dead? Ashley Mason Debunks the Myth!

Oh, yeah.

So I feel like a little piece of meat dies every time someone says blogging is dead.

Because I feel like that couldn't be farther from the truth.

And I'm probably biased because I got into marketing because I was a blogger and built up a successful blog.

Mmm, that's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

And I'm your host, Brett Dyser.

You can please subscribe to.

This podcast really does help and let me know how I'm doing.

But this week we're talking about social media, content marketing.

You know, all the fun stuff that everybody's talking about.

But we're going to talk about it too, because it's just as important to talk about it.

But with me, I have Ashley Matson with me and she's the founder of Dash Social content marketing agency specializing in social media management, blog content, email marketing, and works closely with their clients.

Ashley and her team help small businesses and tech startups craft and execute value driven marketing strategies designed to establish thought leadership, grow online communities and drive brand awareness.

But welcome to the show, Ashley.

Thank you so much for having me, Brett.

Yes.

The first question I ask all my guests is, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

Coffee, for sure.

Do you have any, like, specific ones you like or are you just the type of person that's like whatever you've got?

I just need.

Because I just need to wake up pretty much that.

I do tend to defer to hot coffee in the morning and then if I do have a second coffee later in the day, that's when I'll switch to ice.

Ice.

Not cold brew, just ice.

Cause there is differences.

Exactly.

I got you and I gave a brief summary of your expertise.

Can you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?

Of course.

So My company is Dash of Social, which I started back in September 2016.

We specialize in supporting small businesses and tech startups with content marketing.

Primarily what I like to refer to the trifecta of content marketing.

So that's social media, email marketing and blog content, and also supporting overall marketing strategy.

We work with our clients either directly, so perhaps with the business owner themselves, or for the bigger companies that might be the startups or a corporation being able to support their internal marketing and communications teams.

Gotcha.

And so, I mean, what have you seen in this current year about the trends in content marketing?

I would say that a lot of it relies on not putting all of your eggs in one basket.

I think for a long time people were kind of going all in on Instagram or going all in on one marketing channel or whatever it might be, but kind of neglecting the others.

And I think with the news of TikTok potentially getting banned and algorithms kind of not showing people content as frequently as it was, it's kind of validified the importance of making sure that your strategy is diverse.

So I would say that.

And then I feel like this has been a trend for the past several years, but including video is always really important and that's what really helps to build a relationship and trust with your audience.

It seems like more high quality video in YouTube, I think I read that they're eventually going to put in their TV app the actual YouTubers video.

And so you almost have to make sure that you have 4k quality just to get it into like more, I guess, awareness.

Exactly.

And that, and in addition to that, also being able to edit video so that it still makes sense if someone's watching, if the sound isn't on.

I mean, especially on social media, if people's default audio setting is set to starting to play a video with the sound turned off, you want to make sure that they can still understand what's happening in that video without necessarily being needing to listen to it.

So a lot of different apps like descript or Cap Cut or really any other video video editing app is crucial for being able to add subtitles and of course for accessibility.

But being able to edit your videos in a way that makes it easy for people to understand what you're saying or what you're talking about without requiring that sound.

Does that apply for the, for the subtitles that apply for long form videos putting in the animated subtitles or just does it really apply for just the shorts and the shorter form content?

I would say both.

So.

So a form of subtitles would be like that, closed captioning.

So there are several tools out there that automatically transcrib for you.

My favorite is descript, which I mentioned earlier.

But there's so many tools that can just automatically transcribe and add the words to the video.

So that way people can easily read and understand what's happening without needing to listen.

I would like to note as well, the thing we're recording on squadcast is also owned by descript as well.

So you have, through this subscription right now, you can get both what I'm using right now plus description in one subscription.

Yeah.

Which is amazing.

Yeah.

So are we going to see like, because you said trifecta, what about like blogging?

Because blogging is like the old school way of doing it.

It's pre or it's when the Internet was new and you really couldn't upload videos because it would take hours upon hours, or probably days, months, depending on what you were uploading.

But is that still relevant for a lot of businesses or are they shying more away from that to like the podcast, the video, and everything else?

Oh, yeah.

So I feel like a little piece of meat dies every time says blogging is dead.

Because I feel like that couldn't be farther from the truth.

And I'm probably biased because I got into marketing because I was a blogger and built up a successful blog.

But blogging is amazing for a variety of reasons.

I mean, first and foremost, it drives website traffic.

So by being able to help with SEO, search engine optimization, and being able to help ensure you show up hopefully farther up on any search engine results, it can help drive people to your website.

But it also establishes a sense of credibility and trust.

Most people tend to use blog posts and blog content as a way to educate and inform their audience.

So being able to share how to types of posts or tutorials or case studies that demonstrate their work in terms of the success of the product or service, and so that kind of really helps to validate the company's legitimacy and can really help to convert people from just being interested in your products or services to now becoming a paying client or customer because of the content that you've provided.

And so does it matter the length anymore?

Because it used to be there was like a specific, like word count that made it more relevant than the.

Than the last word count.

Or does it matter anymore?

Or should you just write to what I guess completes the blog post?

Yeah, honestly, I feel like I'm deferring to that writing to whatever completes the blog post.

I mean, as a personal rule for myself, I just kind of tend to prefer that the blog posts I write tend to be at least 500 words, but really the length can vary.

I mean, I've written blog posts for my.

For my own website that have been 500 words, and I've written blog posts that have also been almost 3,000 words.

So I think it greatly depends on the topic and what it is you're explaining, but exactly like you said, Brett, making sure that you're very clearly articulating and explaining the topic that you're writing about.

And should you vary between your own website and LinkedIn, let's say, or even X, because X does actually have blog articles now if you have the premium account.

Yeah, so I usually start by Having a blog post on my own website first.

I don't know necessarily if this will harm SEO, but I know that having duplicate content isn't always the best.

So I usually don't use to, like, post anything to my own LinkedIn.

I kind of view my LinkedIn as a great way to be a little bit more personal with blog content.

But I would say you ultimately want to have everything live on your website because that's where people will find out about your products or services.

And that's what really matters most most with driving that website traffic.

So it's almost like mix it up, like, maybe have a Strategy for just LinkedIn that's not the same thing as what you put on your website.

Maybe it be like whatever you're trying to be an expert in, you just write about that on your LinkedIn just so you can get top voice, I guess, is probably the best way of saying it.

Exactly.

And you can also, instead of using the blog post feature on LinkedIn or the article feature, you can promote your blog post as just a regular post in your LinkedIn profile that lives on your website.

How do, how.

Where do podcasts sit with, like, businesses and startups today?

Because I know they're.

They're popular now, but they weren't always popular.

I mean, they've been around since 2005, I think is the first one that I know of that was that the person coined the term podcast as well.

Where does it sit with businesses?

Do they actually care more than they have previously?

Because that's all part of the content, I guess.

Map, I guess.

Best way of saying it.

Yeah.

So I feel like podcasts for the past few years, especially during the pandemic, I read a lot of stats about how podcast listenership increased during that time.

I feel like it's become a more like, must have, must do type of strategy for businesses where they're like, oh my gosh, I have to have a podcast because my competitor has a podcast or something.

And I think it's really easy to fall into that trap.

But honestly, I feel like being a guest on podcasts and not always having your own is just as important or just as effective.

So I think it really comes down to as.

As, you know, being a host, ensuring that you have the time, the capacity, the resources to consistently produce a valuable podcast.

And so if you feel like you can't necessarily commit to that, or if you feel like you can't necessarily produce a podcast that's different than what others in your industry are already doing, then it might Be best to kind of take a step back and table that idea until you're sure that you're able.

To move forward and probably research it and see what they're actually doing.

Maybe listen to a few episodes and be like, well, they're not really doing that great in the pod.

They're creating it, but it doesn't seem like it's doing that well type of thing.

Exactly.

And this can relate to podcasts, but honestly, it can relate to everything.

In marketing, you also have to think about what mediums your ideal clients or customers are using to find you.

So if your ideal client isn't going to find someone like yourself by listening to a podcast, you might not necessarily want to take that time to produce a podcast if it's not going to bring you the results that you're looking for.

I know for me personally, the majority of our clients come from referrals and networking.

So that's where I dedicate most of my time and most of my energy is just building relationships and being able to find strategic partnerships.

So it's really important for anything with marketing to just hone in on where people are going to find you rather than kind of facing that shiny object syndrome and doing something that might actually hinder your growth rather than pushing you forward.

Well, people say, like, it's easy to start a podcast.

And I go, well, yeah, it's easy to start up a lot of things.

It's just hard to maintain the thing.

Yeah, exactly.

And especially because, I mean, with podcasts, you have to end up, like, finding your guests if you're.

If you aren't getting guests naturally, having to do that cold outreach and.

And whatnot, it can definitely be challenging.

And as with anything in marketing, I think it's important to be consistent rather than frequent.

There's kind of a difference between the two.

So overall, whatever the cadence is for whatever marketing tactic you're employing, it's crucial to make sure that you're showing up on a consistent basis.

And could be just generational, too, because usually it's the millennials, the Gen Z, and I'll probably lump in Alpha right now.

Just mostly listen to the podcast.

Mostly, those three generations are more tuned to listen to podcasts than, let's say, Gen X and Boomers.

Yes, exactly.

So, I mean, let's say you do have an older audience.

Like, what's the best way of doing it?

Because content marketing, it still seems like it's a more younger thing to do.

Do you think.

Do you think boomers actually, like, still respond to the Digital stuff or is it more old school way of communicating with them?

Yeah, I would say it depends.

So I would say LinkedIn for sure, if you're in a B2B space being because a lot of people use that in a professional sense and so that's great for being able to connect with people, but honestly I found for an older generation that what's really worked the best for me is being able to take those connections offline.

So I think that that's something that people often forget about your online marketing.

But then you also have your offline marketing and that's the things like going for coffee or lunch with someone to meet them, or attending networking events or registering for a conference or some other type of event.

Being able to kind of marry those two forms of marketing together is really crucial for ensuring that you're reaching the right audience at the right time.

So I might meet someone in person, but I also make sure to bring that that connection online by following them on social media, perhaps seeing if they'd want to join my email list if they opt in for that, being able to share resources on my blog or on my website that might interest them and kind of keeping that relationship going and nurtured.

And so for a lot of businesses, as you mentioned, just email marketing, is it good to funnel them into the email marketing thing?

Because I feel like it's the best way of getting all your content to them without trying to go follow me.

On social media, you may actually get my content, you may not.

Like I can't control that.

Right.

You hit the nail on the head.

So there really isn't an algorithm with inboxes.

I mean, you might have spam filters, but you're not kind of fighting against all of these different social media posts and all these different messages that are coming from the floodgates of all these different platforms.

And that's another thing that people often say is not as successful is email marketing.

But really, I agree with you, Brett.

It's crucial.

So being able to offer some type of lead magnet or free resource that people can sign up for and get value from, but also join your email list in exchange is a great way to send those consistent newsletters.

Just sharing any updates within your company, anything that you have happening and being able to keep that relationship going.

Could you start off with the LinkedIn newsletter and try to like get people to go over or should you just like focus on your own?

I usually focus on my own because I feel like it's such a contradiction when I say this because I Live and breathe social media and I love it.

But you don't own and control your social media accounts.

So I always prefer to prioritize your email marketing software, whether it's mailchimp or Klaviyo, constant contacts, whatever it might be that you use, because then you have full control over your list.

And if you're constantly exporting that list, then you're always going to have access to those subscribers.

Compared to if your LinkedIn account gets hacked or gets shut down, do you still have access to those people?

So I kind of defer to having an actual email list that way and perhaps segmenting it or augmenting it with the LinkedIn newsletter, but not necessarily focusing only on LinkedIn.

And what is your take on the new media?

Let's say like the Apple Vision Pro.

I mean, we've.

I just saw announcements of blackmagic and another company releasing cameras for it.

Do you see, do you see this as the next frontier for content marketing?

Because it is a different visual experience than just a flat screen.

You're.

It's more, I guess, 3D in a way.

Yeah.

I think it could be a good opportunity for people to test, but I also think that it's likely going to lead to almost like analysis paralysis.

I think businesses are constantly getting hit with all of these shiny new objects all the time, all these new products, all these new social media platforms, and it can feel really overwhelming to understand and identify which ones you should actually pursue.

And so I think being presented with too many options can actually do more harm than good rather than kind of sticking to what you know and what you know is going to work for you.

You're right.

Because there has been research on too many options and people don't decide, they just walk away.

They're like, exactly.

I don't know what to pick anymore.

Right.

So I mean, with that, I mean, how, how do you prioritize that?

Because that's the biggest thing.

How do you prioritize which one's which do you.

Do you test out and figure out which one's the best one?

Do you just go, you know what?

This seems to be the best goal for me to actually do right now and then test it out then maybe because it seems like everything's a test, but then test out, then re.

Reassess.

Is that, is that the main thing is just like test out where you think your customers are and then figure it out?

Yeah.

So I'd say that's always a good start.

I know if you're, if you're focusing on social media, Specifically social media schedulers such as hootsuite and Buffer HubSpot, they usually produce yearly reports.

So to say that kind of analyze the demographics of every single social media platform and they might say the majority of the users of this platform are between the ages of 35 to 44, and it might be 64% male and 36% female, and they'll kind of break it down for you.

And so if you're not necessarily sure where to start, those reports and those findings are a great place to begin because you're able to kind of get an understanding of the demographics of each social media platform and see which ones align with your ideal client demographics and target Personas and what have you and kind of start from there.

And then I also think it's important for marketing overall to closely analyze and refine as time goes on.

One thing I do each quarter and especially each year is actually take a look back at all of my leads and all of the people who became clients and identify where they came from.

If I see that the majority of clients came from one person who's constantly referring, empowering me, I'm gonna go put in a lot more effort into that one person to kind of continue nurturing that relationship and continue getting new client opportunities.

The same with marketing.

If I see that I get a lot of leads from a specific social media platform, like if most of my clients come from LinkedIn, then I'm going to end up putting a lot more emphasis and energy into LinkedIn because I know that's where my people are hanging out.

And what is your take on AI?

Because we're going to have to obviously talk about it because it's.

That's basically the talk of the town for the next four or five years.

Yes.

So I feel like it's something that you.

That should support you, but that you should not rely on.

I mean, especially when it comes to content writing specifically.

Maybe it's just because I'm in the industry and you probably see this too, but I can instantly tell when I read a social media post or see a blog post and know that it's been written by ChatGPT.

And so I think that that's something that can really turn people off when they kind of can tell that the language is inflated.

Doesn't really sound like the business owner is a little bit too cutesy, I guess is the best way to put it.

And so I wouldn't ever recommend using Chat GPT to actually write something in full.

But I think AI is a Great way to generate ideas and do some brainstorming and do some light researching.

I mean, if you use the platform to say, what are 10 social media post topics that I can write about for as an estate planning attorney?

It might give you all of these ideas and you can use those ideas to then actually go ahead and write your own social media posts.

And I think that's an example of working smarter, not harder, kind of supplementing these tools that are available to you to help with the overall idea generation and planning process.

But ultimately your content should be coming from you.

So it's great for being able to automate stuff, but I think it's really important to still include that human aspect in what you do with your marketing.

And what about like splitting up video content?

Because there are, besides the script, there are other ones.

There's Opus, there's Manuvo, there's a ton of them that actually do the video splitting for you.

Do you recommend doing that as well?

Because it will do the transcriptions as well.

Yeah, so I like doing that because before it was available to me, it would take me hours to transcribe a video by hand.

And I mean, that's not something that is going to be bad.

I think that's an example of automating something and helping you to work smarter, not harder.

And so I think when those tools are available, you definitely want to take advantage of them because then you're getting time back into your day that you can focus on revenue generating activities.

And so I mean, maybe for those marketers that haven't really dipped their toes in like where do you recommend to actually maybe they need to their boss or their clients, like we need to be on video.

We need to be on video.

Like what tools do you recommend for them to get started with that?

Because it's more mostly the getting started and figuring it all out is the hardest part for marketers.

Absolutely.

So I recommend finding a tool that can work for you.

I mean, I record most of my videos honestly through zoom and then use something like Descript to just like edit it, add the transcriptions, add some fun captions and visuals and make it a little bit more engaging.

But you can really use the tools that you likely already have.

I also think that starting small is important.

A lot of the times when people say that they're ready to get started on video, they're like, oh, I have to produce multiple videos a month and they kind of just jump right in and kind of skip this baby steps.

And that's what leads to that overwhelm as we were talking about earlier.

And that's what just leads people to actually like taking a step back and giving it up all, all together.

So if you kind of start at a smaller scale, like maybe committing to one or two short form content videos per month, and then as you get into a process and feel more comfortable with it, then you can increase the frequency that you're creating and producing and publishing these videos and it'll be much easier to kind of scale from a smaller point and move up than it will be to start really high and then try to work your way down.

So I think it's really important to take it easy and give yourself some grace.

But you'll see with the results that you get that it'll kind of motivate you and inspire you to keep going.

You could also batch them too.

Just do like several videos.

If you're doing short form as you recommend, you could do in like an hour to just do several of them and then edit them out or have AI edit them out for you.

Exactly.

So where is this all going for beyond the next five years?

Are we going to see more AI content that will be better?

I think Jet Garden, ChatGPT4O or whatever it's called now, I think it's actually a lot better than it was before.

Are we going to see more of that inflection points?

Are we still going to see a lot of people going, yeah, I don't really like this very much.

I'm going to rewrite this or tweak it as probably is the best way of doing it.

But tweaking the writing if they need to.

Are we're going to see more of that?

Like how are we going to harness AI and also deal with AI at the same time?

Yeah, I feel like it's definitely going to get more refined as time goes on.

I mean, especially speaking of tech startups specifically, there's so many new software products that are being built because of the power of AI.

And so I think rather than using it as a crutch, you just kind of need to look at it as a supplement.

Something that can supplement the work that you're doing and not kind of rely on the work that you're doing.

But there's going to be so many tools at our disposal that can help us free up the time that we spend doing tedious tasks or tasks that we genuinely don't enjoy so that we have that time to focus on the things that we really love.

I forget the exact quote that I saw, so I'M definitely going to butcher this, but I saw a quote the other day that said something like, AI isn't going to take away the opportunity for us to produce art.

It's going to take away the things that prevent us from doing art so that we can focus more on it.

Meaning that the idea of it's not going to take away the ability to have that creative freedom.

It's going to kind of free up your time and free up your schedule of doing the things that you don't like so that you have more time to do the things that you love and really enjoy doing.

And what is your hope for just content marketing in general?

And what do you hope to see dies in the next few years?

So honestly, I really hope that with content marketing that people see the value in, in having a diverse content marketing strategy.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people put all of their eggs in the social media basket and completely ignore blogging, email marketing, and all of the important things that go with it.

And I think that you get the best results when you diversify and be able to kind of have a presence in every single place.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of TikTok.

I don't even have an account and I would not be impacted at all if TikTok went away, especially because my clients don't use the platform.

It doesn't make sense for their industry or for their business.

So that's something that I might be controversial, but might be something that I feel like wouldn't impact me or wouldn't really affect me if it kind of went away.

To be honest, I have one and it's only.

I only look at on my computer or my iPad and I don't even look at it unless I'm looking at the stats or who's commenting on my stuff.

That's the only way I use it because I know podcasting, it does work.

So I only use it because of podcasting.

Yeah, exactly.

Other than that, it's like, if it's not something that makes sense for you, I use it.

I go on go to my profile and I don't because it's annoying when I go into it and it's like, here's a video.

I'm like, I just want to look at my profile.

Stop auto playing.

Right?

Just let me go to the place where I want to be.

So people are listening to this podcast, are wondering, where can they find you online to learn more?

Absolutely.

They can head to my website@dashofsocial.com you can find me on LinkedIn at Ashley Mason and you can also find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Or I should say X at dash of social.

Yeah, I know we always say Twitter slash X because I mean it's hard to say X when it's.

Twitter was such a better name.

Exactly.

I can't agree with you more.

And any final thoughts for listeners?

I would say just to start when it comes to your marketing, I mean I think as we've chatted about a few times now, people tend to face that analysis paralysis and they get so caught up in doing all the things and thinking they need to do several things a day.

But really just starting small, being consistent and working your way up will make a really big difference overall.

All right, thank you Ashley for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and sharing your knowledge on content marketing email marketing.

Thanks for having me Brett and thank you for listening.

As always.

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All right guys, stay safe, get to understanding your content marketing email marketing needs and see you next week.

Later.