When done properly, blogging is probably one of the best things you can do to engage customers and prospects, positon yourself and your company as a thought leader in your respective industry, and increase the SEO of your web site. But timing matters. Depending upon the goals you’ve associated with your blog, the timing of your posts can go a long way in helping you to achieve your objective. 

Let’s say that you want to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Getting traffic to your posts is very important in reaching this goal. Based on the data and analysis  from Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella) and HubSpot, you may want to make sure that you’re posts are live on Monday.

If you’re looking to drive engagement with your customers and prospect, the number of comments you  receive on your posts is one way to measure this. Surprisingly, posting on the weekend may help to drive comments. According to this data, posts done on Saturdays receive the most comments. Clearly, your content has to resonate with your target audience at some level, but if you’re goal is around engagement, why not try posting on the weekend and see if your comments increase?

And if SEO is your focus inbound links are like treasured gold.  To drive more inbound links try posting on Mondays or Thursdays seems to drive the most inbound links according to this data.

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Tags: blogging, Cisco partner marketing, Dan Zarrella, HubSpot, Science of Timing, social media, social media marketing

On an everyday basis, Greg has demonstrated exemplary blogging skills, but his contributions to award-winning projects that innovatively used social media to connect with fans are not to be overlooked.

A 12-year veteran at Cisco, Greg Smith is a Marketing Manager for Cisco’s Service Provider (SP) Routing & Switching platform. He mainly focuses on the SP Carrier Grade IPv6 solutions (CGv6) and worldwide marketing of Cisco’s Edge solution portfolio, which includes products such as the ASR family of routers.

Greg’s Unique Blogging Talent

Being his team’s lead for global communication efforts, this SME is involved with much of the blog-writing and editing on the SP360 Blog (check out Greg’s Cisco blogger profile). Many of these blog posts have been featured as Cisco’s top 5 blog posts (based on number of number of hits) due to Greg’s attractive writing style which easily captures readers’ attention. Particularly notable is his gift for writing intriguing headlines and connecting technological topics to life analogies as is exemplified with his blog article relating Internet gaming to 100 GB technology and this one showcasing his video on how the network is relevant to NOOAs mission to protect the environment. 

As successful as Greg has been with his blogging practice, the highlight of his social achievements have been comprised of his contributions to two exceptional projects—Cisco myPlanNet Game and the ASR 9000 “Robot Arm” demo—for  which he acted as the concept designer and promoter. What’s more, both projects were selected as winners of the B2B Marketing Awards in two subsequent years!

The Fun, Educational, and Relevant myPlanNet Simulation Game Read More »

Tags: best practices, blogging, Cisco myPlanNet simulation game, lessons learned, meet our SMEs, Meet Our SMEs blog series, Robot Arm video, Service Provider, SME, SP, subject matter expert

With over 180 blog posts under his belt, Omar shares secrets to his Twitter and blogging successes as well as his main motives for utilizing these platforms for his work.  

Having been at Cisco for nearly 13 years, Omar has spent his most recent working years as a Data Center (DC) Senior Marketing Manager, focusing on Networking DC Architectures and Emerging Technologies. As a long-time user of popular social channels blogs and Twitter, we interviewed Omar to learn some of his social best practices and tips.

How and why do you use Twitter for your work?

“I use Twitter for a couple of reasons. It’s a really great way to gather real-time information, and I like to keep an updated pulse on what’s going on in the industry, what topics are at top of mind for customers. Also, our team leverages Twitter to update our fans with relevant information about new product launches, campaigns, events and more and then see whether or not our corporate messages are getting traction. If our message is misunderstood, we step in very quickly and take corrective action to shape it in a way that’s effectively communicated to our audience.

I use my personal Twitter handle to post my personal perspective on matters and any interesting content that I find from time to time. I also help contribute to the DC Twitter account to not only amplify the team’s messages but also be a source of useful information that’s all-things DC-related. It’s important for us to act as a general resource of high-quality DC information and not simply as a conduit of Cisco messaging.”

Tell us about your blogging practice. Read More »

Tags: best practices, blogging, data center, lessons learned, meet our SMEs, Meet Our SMEs blog series, SMEs, subject matter experts, twitter

An IT Architect with over 15 years of experience within Data Center, Doug practices AND preaches a number of different blogging best practices.

Doug’s blog posts are interesting, customer-centric, and boast wide readership. Perhaps due to his background in Journalism, he knows how to hook his reader’s attention from the start. Through his Cisco Blog website, he shares his Data Center expertise and real-world experiences from the Cisco IT organization with an informal and personal tone of voice. 

Doug’s blog posts are exceptional in the sense that he uses innovative methods to share content and displays advanced blogging skills. Moreover, Cisco Blogs Manager Lindsay Hamilton has praised his practice of using tags. For example, he always adds the same tag for all posts in a particular series; consequently, he can easily promote his blog and organize it on the blogging platform since WordPress creates a unique URL for each tag.

Data Deconstructed Blog Series

Perhaps one of Doug’s most commendable social activities includes creating the “forum-like” blog series “Data Center Deconstructed,” through which he has shared useful information about Data Centers since March 2011. This series encourages readers to ask any questions related to Data Center, and then Doug answers them with video blogs containing self-recorded videos. With his frequent and creative blog posts, he has helped generate excitement and drive visits to the Inside Cisco IT Blog on which he publishes his blog posts.

Watch this short video in which Doug introduces the Data Center Deconstructed blog series:

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Tags: best practices, blogging, data center, Data Center Deconstructed blog series, lessons learned, meet our SMEs, Meet Our SMEs blog series, SME, subject matter expert

Based in the Glasgow Cisco Scotland office, Stephen is a distinguished blogger from the Data Center and Cloud team in Cisco Services.  Stephen joined Cisco in the year 2000 via the Atlantech Technologies acquisition and was Senior Manager within Product Management in Cisco’s Network Management R&D team, and he focused on IP/MPLS service provider network management. 

During this time, he brought to market the unique Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert product, taking it from (literally) a corridor conversation through definition to launch, and on to win multiple industry awards.   He has over 20 years of industry experience in IT, Data Center, and Service Provider Network Management which he shares with the world through his writing. By keeping customers’ new technology adoption challenges at the forefront of his mind and weaving novelty into his blogging best practices, Stephen has gained the popularity of many of his readers and established himself as a role model for many other Cisco bloggers.

Stephen’s Customer-Centric Vision

Blogging is no one-way conversation for Stephen. He has the customer in mind at all times and is always conscious of their careabouts. Prior to writing, he interviews customers and partners to better understand their viewpoints and present a more well-rounded perspective.

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Tags: best practices, blogger, blogging, Cisco Services, cloud, customer focus, data center, innovative practices, lessons learned, meet our SMEs, SME, social media, subject matter expert, tips