Our guest this week is Sarah Curcio. Sarah is a marketing manager to coaches and a coach to virtual assistants. Her business is called Sarah’s Social Strategy. She’s been very passionate about helping consultants write compelling content and market it through different social media channels. She believes that working with different social media platforms requires different strategies to be more effective.
“Everyone wants to land on the first page”, she said. However, according to her, it takes time and a lot of work. Choosing the right set of words to use and optimize plays a big part in this. Research on what your target audience is using to search your niche, and then work out those keywords in your blog. Contrary to what some people say about keywords, she recommends not using a focus keyword repeatedly.
Sarah’s website: https://www.sarahsocialstrategy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcurcio/
Katie Brinkley 0:02
Hi friends. I’m Katie Brinkley and you’re listening to Rocky Mountain marketing. This podcast is all about helping Colorado based small business owners, entrepreneurs, realtors and professionals discover the strategies and systems that take their marketing to all new heights. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Welcome back to Rocky Mountain marketing. My guest today is Sarah Kersey. Oh, her business is called Sarah’s social strategy. She’s a marketing manager to coaches and a coach to virtual assistants. She also has been featured in Amazon as a best selling author for monetize your message, Journal of gluten sensitivity, mom’s a business and thrive global. Sara, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Sarah Curcio 0:49
Thank you for having me, Katie. I really appreciate it. And thanks for the wonderful intro.
Katie Brinkley 0:54
Yeah, I’m really excited to have I love it when I get other social media people on the show, because then I can really sort of geek out over what I do. And I think that this is such an important thing that a lot of businesses might kind of think, Oh, well, you know, yeah, I have a social media account. But there’s so much strategy that does go into social media and your online presence. So I’m so glad that you could join me on the show today.
Sarah Curcio 1:17
Oh, definitely. A lot of people think, oh, I’ll just post a few things here and there. But there really is a specific unique strategy to each platform that you’re working on. Yes, I us. ticularly can talk about Facebook, LinkedIn, and even cloud packs. Actually, I know that’s
Katie Brinkley 1:36
where you and I met Sarah and I feel like on the show here, are are coming from clubhouse and guys if you’re not on clubhouse yet, I mean, I’ve recently had people on the show talking about networking and different experts in in their field and I feel like clubhouse if it’s like networking on steroids, so if you’re not on clubhouse yet, definitely give it a look, because that’s where I’m finding a lot of my great guests. Well, sir, before we dive into the social media, strategy, blogging and all that you do, tell us a little bit about yourself, where did you grow up and what was like growing up for you?
Sarah Curcio 2:09
Sure. I’m actually a Jersey Shore girl. And which is kind of ironic, because I don’t enjoy the beach. And I grown up here since I’m around eight years old. And I basically stayed in the area. I love it. I’m a pet parents, I love dogs and cats. And I love reading and showing like for those are like my hobbies and a little bit of a personal realm about me. Yeah, and,
Katie Brinkley 2:37
you know, tell us a little bit about your career journey. I mean, it’s one of the words where I, you know, for social media, you know, when I was going to college, it wasn’t around, like having a job in social media wasn’t the thing. So what led you to where you are today, actually, it
Sarah Curcio 2:53
was kind of funny, because I started social media, for my support group that I run, I run a food allergy support group. And I just decided to start getting on to promote that. So a lot of the things that I’ve learned over the years were self taught. And then I realized as time went on, I could do this for more than just the same price, basically, and to help spread education. On celiac, I decided I can turn this into a career and start helping other entrepreneurs grow their business, because I always it’s kind of funny, because when I was younger, I hated business. And then as I got older, I found I loved marketing. It just inspires me, I get my passion gets ignited when I’m working on on strategy with my clients. So it kind of started like that it was kind of by accident. And then over the years, I’ve taken some business coaching programs to expand my knowledge. And this summer, I’m actually signed up for a online digital marketing certificate. So I just I always feel that I want to keep learning because social media is a beast that is constantly changing. So it’s always good to expand your knowledge.
Katie Brinkley 4:19
Yes, yes. I feel like every time I have something planned out and mastered, that’s when you know, Instagram decides to open up Instagram live before people or you know, clubhouse decides that they want to open up to Android users. I mean, it is ever changing. It is always something to continue to learn about. So I want to talk a little bit today with you about blogging, and I know that you are a social strategist. So we will get into the social strategy to but really, blogging has so much to do with your social media. And can you just talk to us a little bit about what is a blog and how is it different than like an online article.
Sarah Curcio 5:01
Oh, definitely that that is essential because a lot of people don’t realize the difference. So to define an article, it would be more than 600 words, for starters. And you have to have a lot of facts in an article, you have to have references, and different things of that nature. Whereas a blog can be anywhere from 300 to 600 words. And it doesn’t have to be as professional, you can even write it in like a diary form, so that you’re speaking directly to your target audience. And also, the SEO component of blogging is so essential, because if you don’t write an accurate SEO, title, focus, keyword and meta description, it’s really not going to help you at all. And now, I want
Katie Brinkley 5:57
to stop you right there. Because I think a lot of people might say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, a what? A key a meta description of what oh, sorry, no, no. And I want to just make sure that we break this down for all of the listeners so that they understand what these things are, and why they are important for your SEO, I think that a lot of people might not understand exactly how impactful blogging is. And it’s what you just said right there with a meta description. It helps all of your SEO. So tell us a little bit more about those three things.
Sarah Curcio 6:30
Of course, I’m sorry, I got on my soapbox and just started ranting without explaining. So the SEO title and focus keyword and the meta description are essential to help you with your google ranking. And everyone wants to be on the first page, Google when people go to search them. And that’s what those three components will help with. Now, for example, if you are using WordPress, which I would recommend to anyone who’s going to start blogging, that is the easiest, I’ll say content management system to use for blogs, because it has, you can have the plugin Yoast, that’s what it’s called, to help you to tell you if you’re doing the SEO title, meta description and focus keyword correctly because it gives you light. It gives you a red light, an orange light or green light. So this way, you know if you’re doing it correctly, and the SEO title and the meta description is what pops up on Google. Like, if you whatever you type into the search engine. The SEO title is the clickable part. And the meta description is literally a description that will pop up like the first two sentences on Google’s front page when you’re searching stuff. Does that make it a little bit clearer? Katie?
Katie Brinkley 7:53
Yes, yes, that is a perfect, and I think you know, getting on the first page of Google. You mean, blogging can really help with that. And I would love for you to dive in a little bit more about how the blog will help you rank higher in Google searches.
Sarah Curcio 8:11
Yes, definitely. I mean, of course, when you’re first starting out, you’re not going to land on the first page, everybody wants it. But it does take some time to land on the first page. And not only does the blogging content, help it but the website, your written content can help you with that, too. So let me give an example. Say you’re a health coach, and you’re trying to find people who need help with their nutrition. Specifically, you’ll want to write on blog topics that contain, say clean eating, or maybe gluten free, or allergen friendly or low fat and different topics like that to attract your target market, whoever needs help with something like that. So all those words that I just said, could be your focus keyword. And the key word is the center focus of a blog. And from that one keyword, that’s how you can branch out and write an appropriate SEO title and meta description. That’s like the best example I can give because I love working with health oriented clients. So that’s the first thing that popped into my head. No, I
Katie Brinkley 9:22
love it. And I think that too, one of the things that you were you gave us a couple of great ideas for different blog titles. And that’s where writing blogs on different things that you can help people with helps you with the search ranking. Now, how would someone even think of different titles to write a blog about
Sarah Curcio 9:44
so if they are, say a business coach or a business consultant, for example, they might want to write on topics to help their clients on strategy. So they might be discussing different things like business operations. working with clients one on one or in group coaching and different things like that. So with that in mind, I would actually recommend writing a blog post on their experience in group coaching, for example, and say, how they go about doing it, how they answer their questions and different things like that within the blog post itself. And then from there, you might want to use a focus keyword such as business strategy, or just strategic as an example. And another thing that is beneficial, and it might be a little bit difficult sounding when I say this, but it’s best to not use the same focus key word over and over again.
Katie Brinkley 10:49
So don’t use like strategy, strategy, strategy strategy if you’re a business strategist.
Sarah Curcio 10:56
So they could use strategy, business strategy, strategic play, on the words a little bit like that, in order to have Google rank it. But if you keep using the same key word like that, it’s not going to help you get the green light for the SEO in WordPress.
Katie Brinkley 11:17
Gotcha, gotcha. Now, what is the perfect blog length? I mean, is it 500 words? Is it 1500 words? Is it 5000 words? If someone says, Okay, I’m going to start blogging? How one How long should it be? What’s the perfect length? And two? How often? Should I do it? Should I do it once a month, once a week, once a day? What is the ideal blogging strategy?
Sarah Curcio 11:40
Well, as I mentioned before, the length that’s perfect is between 306 100 words, if you are a startup company, I would recommend blogging twice a week. However, if you’re more if you’re a more experienced company, and you’re more established, you can get away with want to be most definitely. So that would be my recommendation as to how often and then definitely, definitely share it on your social media platforms. Without doubt. If you’re writing one blog post a week, share it on your social media once a week like that.
Katie Brinkley 12:17
That was literally my next question. And I so I am all you know, I’m all about social media strategies here. And I’m all about working smarter and not harder. So if you have a blog that you have put this time, effort and money into sharing it to your social media is just makes common sense. It’s just common sense. But how can you take that one blog? Sarah, what would you recommend? How do you repurpose a blog on social media channels,
Sarah Curcio 12:47
if you’re doing it on Facebook, what I would recommend is there specific times for specific audiences. So first of all, on your page, check your insights to see when your audience has mostly visited your page. And that will give you the key timeframe to post and get the optimal engagement that you need. That’s what I recommend for Facebook, and then LinkedIn, LinkedIn, it’s more important to engage. But you do want to post your stuff as well. So you need to make sure that you are engaging with your target markets content, this way. They’ll interact with you, they’ll check out your profile and your activity, and then they’ll start liking and commenting on your post. So that’s the strategy for LinkedIn. And then for clubhouse, you kind of have to make your own funnel because they don’t have DMS, or anything clickable. So if you have your Instagram connected to your clubhouse, when you have you only have one link available on Instagram. So you can do one of two things. Either use a link tree, which some people are 5050 on I personally like it.
Katie Brinkley 14:00
I like it too. Yeah, I
Sarah Curcio 14:03
just I don’t see what the issue is with it. But some people feel a lot of
Katie Brinkley 14:08
there’s a lot of people on the fence over it because then you’re directing your website traffic to link trees website instead of your own. However, if you have like for me, I have a podcast, I have a blog. I also have a free workshop. And then I have this upcoming I’m going to be speaking at some summits, so different events that I’m speaking at I will include a link to that so people can sign up and join the summit. So I’m sending people a lot of different places it makes sense for me to do it and it’s a lot faster than just creating a page on my website and having to go in on the backend and update the buttons and everything link tree is really really fast. So I’m on Team link tree also Sarah,
Sarah Curcio 14:48
I couldn’t agree with you more everything that you just said that it is so much easier to update link tree than to have to do it on your own website, especially a link that is hidden in the back got published on your specific website? If you’re just directing them to, like you say, a published what hidden page? I should should refer
Katie Brinkley 15:08
to it badly? Yes, no,
Sarah Curcio 15:11
I would definitely consider using that this way. I’m sorry, I just wanted to say I would definitely recommend doing that with clubhouse using link tree and then connecting them. You can even put your blog on there as well, because you’re creating your own, quote unquote, sales funnel.
Katie Brinkley 15:25
Exactly, exactly. Now, Sarah, you know, I would love to know what you think some of the biggest mistakes businesses make, when they get started with their blogging strategy.
Sarah Curcio 15:38
Some of the mistakes they make definitely is the length because sometimes you will see a blog with only 200 words, or they’ll go the other extreme, and they will write 1000 word blog, and then you have the TLR comment where it’s too long to read, you know, and then some of the other mistakes that individuals will make is not using bullet points, or sub headings within a blog, because a lot of people will tend to skim. So you want to make sure that they’re getting the proper bullet points, and the proper facts taken away from your blog. Because not everybody is going to sit there and read. And you also want to have hyperlinks to say, your social media page or other pages on your website. So people will click it and check out other aspects of your business as well. And I feel that a lot of people forget those points and neglect them a lot.
Katie Brinkley 16:38
Yeah, you know, I’m glad that you brought up the skimmable aspect of a blog, because you’re right, a lot of people don’t just, then most people are not going to go to your website and find it and sit down to read an art like a book, they’re going to skim it and find something that pop out pops out on the page that they are there for. So having those subheadings having it, you know, bullets segmenting out the blog, so someone can skim it and then stop the scroll, and then start reading it and maybe back up and be like, Okay, so that’s what this article is about, you know, I think that’s so important. And that’s why you see a lot of blogs, like the top five reasons to blank in blank or whatever. And it’s to help make it more skimmable. Am I right?
Sarah Curcio 17:27
Exactly, completely, because a lot of people nowadays are just using their phone. They’re really not on their laptops as often. So if they keep scrolling and scrolling, and it’s a never ending blog, so to speak, they just gonna go away from your website. I mean, you have like 30 seconds to make an impression on someone. So you need to make sure that you have it, have the blog structured accordingly. Because then they’re going to stay on your page for a few minutes. And they might even share your page on social media, share your posts. And that’s exactly what you want to happen from your visitors.
Katie Brinkley 18:11
Exactly, exactly. I’m, I’m so glad that we’re having this conversation about blogging because I think that it’s something that people might sometimes forget about, there’s so many different things that you need to do online as a business owner. And so Okay, well, I’m posting on Facebook. Wait, you, you’re saying I need to post on this page, too. Oh, and I need the blog. And I need to have an email strategy. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of things to do online, but all of them exist for a reason. And yes, you have all of them going. That’s what’s really going to help you move the needle.
Sarah Curcio 18:46
Yes, exactly. I couldn’t agree more. And writing is so important. When you have a business because you’re writing content on your website, you’re writing content on your blog, your email campaigns, your social media platforms, I mean, even clubhouse you have to structure your bio and write it out accordingly. There’s writing no matter what platform you’re on, you just can’t get away with it.
Katie Brinkley 19:12
It’s it is true. Writing is one of those things where I think a lot of us might sometimes kind of shove it aside. But if you are a good writer, it really does make a difference. And that’s where I think some hiring someone like you to do blogging and email campaigns and really just does it makes it a lot easier for them to focus on the other parts of their business. I mean, Sir, you and I, I mean, again, not everyone enjoys posting on social media. There’s a reason that we both have jobs, but that’s where hiring it out and contracting out. A good writer really can help you focus on the other aspects of your business so that you can continue to grow. So if someone is listening right now and they’re like, man, you know, I would love to get in touch with Sarah and just learn more about her blogging and emails. How what’s the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Sarah Curcio 20:00
Short, Katy, and thank you so much for bringing that up. I appreciate it. So my website is actually Sarah, social strategy.com, you can go on there and either reach me through the contact form. Or if you want to click one of the buttons on the homepage to schedule a free discovery call to speak with me, that will take you directly to my calendar li link, and we can go from there. Or if you happen to connect with me on Facebook or LinkedIn, just feel free to DM me I’m very active on both and I will definitely get back to you that way.
Katie Brinkley 20:40
Sir, this has been such a great conversation. Is there anything I didn’t ask you about during today’s discussion that you think is important to share with our listeners?
Sarah Curcio 20:47
No, you actually asked me about all my top specialties because social media, email campaigns and and blogging and SEO are my favorite. So that that’s my specific niche. And I feel that’s how I can best help people. So you covered all bases. Thank you.
Katie Brinkley 21:05
Sure. Thanks, sir. Thank you again so much for coming on the show today,
Sarah Curcio 21:09
then thank you for having me.
Katie Brinkley 21:13
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can visit my website at www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com with me on LinkedIn or check me out on Instagram. Let’s keep taking your marketing to new heights.