VERSION 2.

0, September 2014
Creating Content
on Blurbi
Written by Tyler Handley
CEO, Blurbi Inc.
Table of Contents
I. What is Blurbing/Blurbi?
II. Using the Blurbi Platform
III. Content Curation
IV. Producing Successful Blurbs
V. Finding the Perfect Hashtags

VI. Monitoring for Stolen Content
VII. What not to do
VIII. More Tools
I. What is Blurbing?
Everyones heard the word blurb before. Its one of those rare terms thats
used regularly but whose definition tends to escape common understanding.
So what is a blurb?
Youre probably most familiar with Blurbs as the promotional statements on
movie posters and album releases.
A blurb taken to its only logical conclusion:
Humour is truth. Blurbs are easy to poke-fun at because they inherently leave
a bad taste in your mouth.
Theyre In your face They treat you - the audience - as ignorant consumers.
No one actually pays attention to these Blurbs. I know they suck, you know
they suck, we all know they suck. Blurbs suck.
I digress. Lets break down the characteristics of a traditionally sucky blurb.
Theyre:
Short
Catchy
Selling focused
Assertive, bordering on pushy
Attributed to a well known source
A Blurb for the social era
Marketing used to be a one way medium, akin to yelling at an audience through
a megaphone. Customers were lumped into target categories and then shown
ads based on those categories. With the rise of the social web marketing shifted
to a focus on targeting customers socially. What we now call outbound mar-
keting still exists in large numbers, but new socially-focused inbound market-
ing techniques have taken a large chunk of the proverbial pie.
Inbound marketing consists of creating and sharing highly relevant content to
help attract fans, nurture them, and then turn them into both customers and
promoters. Social Media and Blogs have shifted marketing towards a conversa-
tion, not a pronouncement. Its a two way street where potential customers are
not treated as numbers, but as friends. Friends share content with each other -
content which theyre both interested in - content of value other than the value
of the companys product or service.
You can see how a Blurb like best action movie of the summer wouldnt bode
well on a movies Twitter feed. The new Blurb for the social era takes into ac-
count that fans wont share a pushy pronouncement of no external value,
and sharing is KEY.
Posting shareable Blurbs to a social media page increases the chance that fans
will re-share, comment on, or favourite that content. This is a big deal because
the more actions that are taken on a blurb, the more likely it is that the Blurb
will be seen by more people. Marketers use terms like Reach, Exposure, In-
fluence, and Virality to describe this phenomenon. On Blurbi we define and
measure this phenomenon with FameRate - a measurement of reach and en-
gagement using 26 different parameters.
Another aspect of the re-defined blurb is regularity. Sharing content constantly
exposes a brand image to its fans. A traditional Blurb was a one off attributed
to a well known source. New blurbs adhere to a consistency that creates social
validation in its own right. How many companies create a Twitter profile just
for legitimacy?
Lastly, blurbs are now about honesty and positivity. Theres nowhere to hide
on Social Media. Whats said is said, no take-backs. Positivity in most cases
lends itself to transparency, which is informed by honesty. Theres a reason
theres no dislike button on Facebook. Theres very few instances where neg-
ativity breeds positive exposure.
The Blurb re-defined
A short and shareable piece of social media content that provides value to
fans

Usually short (140 characters or less)
Always engaging and shareable
Friendship focused
As passively promotional as possible
Consistent with brand voice

Often focused on the value added aside from the value of the prod
uct/service itself
Positive
What is Blurbi?
If youre reading this manual you should probably know this already. Never-
theless, this is how we proposition Blurbi in our pitches and presentations:
The Problem
We are tackling two problems:
1. Social marketing is impossible without great content, but many brands are
dissatisfied with the performance of their social media content when it doesnt
drive the type of engagement that can be seen in their bottom line.
2. Some brands simply cant produce enough social media content to drive en-
gagement, so they outsource their content to marketing agencies.
The Solution
1. Blurbi is a web platform for sourcing social media content from a roster of
top marketing pros. Blurbi focuses on offering the highest quality short form
content blurbs for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest,
with a focus on visual representation.
Blurbi uses trade-secret analytics, called FameRate, to measure the success of
each blurb. This helps both the brands and marketers refine their blurbs for
higher engagement rates. Content continues to get better over time.
Blurbi currently integrates with popular Social Media Marketing Platforms like
Hootsuite and Buffer. Soon it will also offer integrations with Hubspot, Buddy
Media, Lithium, Sendible and Kapost.
2. Blurbi offers an Agency account for marketing agencies to acquire social me-
dia content for multiple clients.
Value Proposition/s
Blurbis data-backed content drives more engagement for brands looking to up
their social media game. It takes away both the time commitment of producing
social media content and the confusion associated with lackluster social media
engagement.
In this section Im going to run you through a step-by-step example of how cre-
ating content for clients on Blurbi works.
Step 1
Fill out a profile for yourself. This includes adding the industries you have ex-
perience creating content for and linking your personal social profiles. We use
this to match you with relevant clients.
Step 2
Read matched clients profile and browse their social channels. Get a feel for
their voice and the type of content they share.


II. Using the Blurbi Platform
Step 3
Have a look at the clients editorial calendar and the messages theyve sent to
you. Theyll let you know exactly what theyre looking for at exactly what times.
Step 4
Pitch blurbs for them to use on their social channels, based on their profile, edi-
torial calendar, and messages. Use their voice and add relevant hashtags. You
might share a link to something their fans would be interested in, or you might
suggest a custom image to be designed for the blurb. Suggest this custom image
in (brackets) at the end of the blurb.
Step 5
The client might just accept your blurb outright, but usually theyll give you
feedback. You can find feedback in the feedback section.

Creating a blurb
What the client sees
You see their feedback in red
Step 6
Use feedback to refine the blurb. This feedback might be the go ahead to create
a custom image. Click the little pencil button on a feedback blurb to re-fine the
text and add an image if required.
What a completed blurb may look like to the client
What the client sees
You see their feedback in red
Payment
We track the amount of blurbs that clients accept from you and use for their
social profiles. At the end of each month we compile the amount and pay you
$15 for every one.
Linking
Make sure you post the full un-shortened link, or the link will break. We
shorten it for you once its posted. The Twitter counter at the bottom of your
blurbi-field takes this into account.
FameRateTM
The foundation on which Blurbi stands is supported by two pillars: Great con-
tent and showing why that content is great. The FameRate score is what allows
both you and the client to track the success of content. Its a very high-level
score indicating the social success of a blurb. We track 26 different parameters,
primarily the accumulation of engagements taken on a blurb (likes, comments,
shares) and the reach/influence of the users conducting those engagements.
The higher the better. Go to the social section of a brands profile to find the
blurbs youve written for them and their FameRates.
III. Curating Content
Sometimes youll need to find some amazing content to pitch to a client, so
youre going to need a bunch of places to find the best content around. In this
section Ill share with you some great resources and methods for content dis-
covery, broken down into 5 categories.
RSS Feeds
With these youll want to organize themed lists of content feeds. This helps
you conform to a consistent brand image, because youre attaching that image
to the image of your regular content sources. If these are the right sources (i.e.
the ones your clients audience wants) then your content will show coherence.
Feedly*
Digg Reader
BundlePost
The Old Reader
Keyword Curation
These are good when youre struggling with finding content from other sources.
Just type in a relevant keyword and these tools will surface relevant content.
Most of these surface content that is already being actively shared, but most
also cost money. Pagemodos content section is free, so naturally we recom-
mend it.
Pagemodo
ContentDJ
BuzzSumo
Curata
Scoop.it
Hootsuite
Buffer
Klout
Trendr
Twitter Lists
These are a great for curating content being shared by Top Influencers in com-
munities. The benefit of curating from Influencers is that this content will likely
be on the bleeding edge of an industry, thus lending your content a progressive
and trendy vibe. Have a google for Twitter lists and youll be directed to some
of the best industry lists around, to which you can subscribe (found on the left
hand side of a list page). If youre familiar with a particular industry its ideal
that you start creating your own Twitter lists as well. To manage lists we sug-
gest you use a free account on a platform like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.
Heres a great list of lists you can subscribe to.
Other Sources
List.ly
PostPlanner
Goodreads Quotes
Storify
More to come...
*On the Blurbi writers Facebook group youll find a regularly updated .OPML
RSS feed list, broken into interest categories. Load the list into any free RSS
reader and youll have plenty of content. For Feedly (which we recommend)
follow this link to upload the file: http://feedly.com/index.html#opml
IV. Producing Successful Blurbs
Images
Images always win. Posts with images receive a 39% higher engagement rate
than those without. Though you dont always have to suggest an image with a
blurb, youll increase your chances of a client accepting your post if they know
a great accompanying image is coming.

If youre attaching a link, always make sure theres a relevant image attached.
We automatically pull the thumbnail images from the website youre linking to.
You can see this when you paste the link into the blurb creation box. You can
then scroll through and choose the most suitable image. Make sure to choose
the widest image possible, as they appear much nicer on Facebook feeds.
Facebook scales uploaded images to various sizes depending on the original
size of the image. If you upload a landscape scaled photo then Facebook will
scale your image to a width of 504px, the same thing happens when you upload
a portrait scaled image, except Facebook scales it to 504px vertically, then adds
grey to the sides to fill it out to a width of 504px. If you want to make the best
use of space design images that are 504px by 504px. However, I personally
like when images are more around 504px wide to 300px high as theyre easier
to view in a feed.
You can find images from several sources, depending on the client. Some cli-
ents will upload their own images in messages for you to use. These will also
appear in their profile under design.
If youd like to add your own image, make sure its free to use. Here are some
good places to look:
One Dollar Photo Club - Huge selection of images that only cost $1 to use.
Flikr - They have a great creative commons section, with free to use images.
These all have a limited selection, but theyre high-quality and free to use:
Unsplash
Death To The Stock Photo
PicJumbo
Gratisography
IM Free
Our suggestion is to use Canva. Its a great place to not only buy images in
perfect Facebook size for $1, but also to overlay text on to any image.
IV. Tips for Producing Successful
Other Tips
If a clients competitors are talking about something, you should be too. Unless
its about them, of course.
The entire message of a blurb should be understandable within 3-5 seconds.
If youre commenting on a piece of content, the gist of the comment should
come in the first half of the sentence.
Put yourself in the shoes of the clients fans when blurbing. Would you truly
be interested in seeing this blurb on their Facebook or Twitter feed?
Keep blurbs short. Across every social network, shorter posts see more en-
gagement. Keeping a blurb under 140 characters is also ideal so that the client
can post it to Twitter. Make sure to make a mental note of which clients use
which social networks. You can view this in their profile, under their profile
picture. If a client doesnt use Twitter, your blurbs can regularly exceed 140
characters.
Including 1-3 relevant hashtags will increase exposure and result in higher
FR scores per blurb. Try not to use anymore than 3-4 or it will come across as
try-hard.
If something current is of interest to a clients fans, blurb about it.
Apply your clients preferred tone of voice to a blurb
Place a period at the beginning of your blurb if youre starting it with an @
reply. This makes sure that the tweet also appears on the clients page, not just
as a mention on the pages of the person who was mentioned.
Make You your most used word. The clients fan is the subject, not the cli-
ents brand.
Write naturally like you would talk.
Periodically asking fans to like/comment/share blurbs will increase FR scores.
This gets annoying if its done too often.
V. Finding the Perfect Hashtags
Like mentioned in the previous section, using hashtags will increase the chanc-
es of your blurb being shared on Twitter, and will consequently increase your
SI. In the future wed like to build a hashtag recommendation engine into your
side of the Blurbi platform, but in the meantime youll have to settle for finding
hashtags elsewhere.
We recommend you use Hashtagify.me
Its straightforward and effective. Just type in a hashtag youre familiar with in
the top right search bar and youll receive a relational graph of hashtags used
alongside the one searched for. On the right-hand side youll also get a list of
the top 10 tweets with that hashtag, from within the past few minutes.
There are two important stats to take away from the relational graph. A) the
shorter the distance between the centre hashtag (searched for) and the sur-
rounding hashtags correlates to how similar they are and B) the size of the
circle surrounding the hashtag correlates to how popular that hashtag is - the
bigger it is the more used that hashtag is.
Contrary to intuition, youll want to choose the hashtags in circles that are of
medium size. The hashtags in the largest circles will often go unnoticed as
theyll quickly disappear amongst all of the other tweets using that hashtag.
The hashtags in the smallest circles may not be used enough to be recognized
(this depends on the hashtag as well, as the smallest circles in some sets may
still be extremely popular). The medium circles are likely to garner the opti-
mum visibility - enough people are using that hashtag so that is popular, but
not enough people that yours will disappear immediately.
Two other options you can play around with are Topicurious and Ritetag.
VI. Monitoring for Stolen Blurbs
Many people ask us, if youre presenting the content before its paid-for whats
stopping the client from just stealing it? To combat this we have a Hootsuite
feed of all of the clients on the site that we use monitor for stolen blurbs.
You should ideally be following all of the clients you write for on a platform
like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. Its easy to create a Twitter List of your clients to
check they havent stolen any of your content. If you feel that theyve stolen or
too closely copied content they didnt pay for contact us. Well look into it. If
we feel theyve copied it well give them a warning. 3 warnings and theyre off
the site. Adios!

VII. What Not to Do
Even though your clients have full preview of blurbs before they share them
publicly, controversial and just plain bad blurbs reflect negatively on both you
and the platform. We give clients on the site the option of flagging you if they
think a blurb of yours is bad or controversial.
To keep yourself safe, heres a list of things you should never do.
Never:
Share items of no interest to your clients community
Trash talk a clients competitors or fans (though this can be done in good spirit.
Just make its funny and not vagrant.)
Make spelling or grammar errors (theres room for a small amount of internet
speak but dont overdo it)
Act racist, ignorant, misogynistic or mean spirited.
Add copyrighted images with the add image button.
Share content produced by your clients competitor.
Post a link that contains nudity
Swear
Submit one blurb to several clients that mentions something completely unique
to one of the clients
VIII. More Tools
Riffle - View a brands/individuals Twitter profile to see what hashtags and
URLS they use. Also good for seeing who they mention.
BlueNod - Discover influencers with a unique network graph.
Trends24 - The lastest top trending Twitter topics.
FreePik - Free graphics. Some great stuff but you have to hunt.
Facebook GraphSearch - Get creative and search for interesting connections
between brand pages and people.