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According to the recently released "Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends" report from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 28 percent of B2B marketers don't measure the ROI of their content marketing. Failing to do so is a mistake, because tracking metrics — the right ones — enables you to concentrate on the content marketing activities that most benefit your bottom line. To prove your content marketing effectiveness and see which content initiatives are worth your time and money, focus on these metrics....
Facebook's dialing-down of organic brand content has been a hot topic for months. And according to recent research, paid ads on social networks do have better conversion rates than organic content.
For the most part, though, social media is not the last or only touch for consumers on the path to purchase. According to Convertro’s figures, 87% of interactions with social content were a middle touch, while just over one interaction in 10 was either the last or only touchpoint.
Still, some social venues are more geared toward conversion than others. YouTube stood out in Convertro and AOL’s research as the most likely social media property by far to turn a prospect immediately into a customer—likely because video content like that hosted on YouTube can provide 100% of the information an online shopper needs to make a purchase decision.
The distance between a social touchpoint and a conversion also depended on the type of product being purchased. The research found that more impulsive purchases—such as subscriptions to services like Birchbox or Dollar Shave Club, personal care items and local services—were more likely to appear as social ads and lead immediately to a conversion, as the last or only touchpoint on a consumer’s journey....
Instagram is becoming a core platform for brands to engage with consumers since it registers consumer engagement 18 times that of Facebook and 48 times that of Twitter, according to the latest report from L2 Think Tank.
The "Intelligence Report: Social Platforms" found that the visual component of Instagram has helped the platform grow to 100 million users with the average luxury brand having 100,000 followers. Other visual platforms such as Vine, Pinterest and YouTube have grown significantly and continue to be platforms for brands to deeply engage with consumers.
"For all the mindshare that it occupies, social media ultimately drives very little ecommerce, less than 0.25 percent, and site traffic, less than 3 percent, for prestige brands," said Danielle Bailey, research lead L2 Think Tank, New York....
There are several people asking the same question: “How Long Does It Take for Content Marketing to Work?” In today’s video, Arnie Kuenn answers the question in several ways... ...What’s it really going to take to get that payoff? Well, this slide here shows you that both business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies with 100 to 200 pages will generate 2.5 times as many leads compared to those who have 50 pages or fewer. It gives you an idea of where you are with your website. If you’re far exceeding that, you have thousands of pages, well then you’re in a different league. But basically for small businesses, this is the target you want to have. Companies that blog more than 15 times per month, we used to tell our clients that they really need to be looking at trying to blog or post new content on their website 3 to 4 times a week. This pretty much right there, 15 times a month for some new content. If you do that, you’re looking at generating five times as much traffic to your website compared to people who aren’t blogging or aren’t generating any kind of new content at all. That’s significant. That’s five times as much traffic....
Web analytics and general knowledge of digital marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) have come a long way since the days when people were measuring “hits” on a site. Tools like Google Analytics, Omniture, and proprietary systems within companies have made digital marketing reporting more simple and accessible for the average marketing professional. These days, you’re nowhere in marketing if you don’t understand your basic web KPIs, including customer engagement and conversion rates.
However, as content marketing takes the forefront in digital marketing tactics — especially for B2B and SEO marketing — marketers are still stuck in the stone age as it relates to measuring the effectiveness and impact of various forms of content. For example, consider white papers (or any page turn publication) — they are a common lead generation tactic within content marketing, yet most marketers fail to measure anything beyond “downloads.” The question remains: What can a marketer do to better understand the effectiveness of this type of content?...
On average, only 6% of a brand's Facebook fans engage with its Facebook Page content. It looks as though Facebook might not be the effective customer engagement engine so many business owners have thought it to be. On average, only 6% of a brand's Facebook fans actually engage with the brand's Facebook Page via likes, comments, and answers to poll questions (among other ways), according to a new study by Facebook app developer Napkin Labs. The study found over the course of a month, the average Facebook fan will engage with a brand's page less than once. It turns out, this is usually the company's fault. Riley Gibson, the CEO and co-founder of Napkin Labs, said that most companies simply focus on growing their number of page likes via contests and sweepstakes. But these "like grab" tactics do little to foster lasting, consistent customer engagement. "It all starts with content," he said. "Like count is becoming less and less relevant. ... Engagement is about creating great content relevant to your customers--content that's helpful and useful to them."... [Are you a Facebook fathead? This infographic will smarten you up! ~ Jeff]
Analyze your sales funnel to find customer touchpoints where content marketing and social media can be used to assist the sales process. You’ve probably heard the term “content marketing.” You’ve certainly heard of social media. How do these two trends fit together in your sales and marketing plan? Here’s a method you can use to determine where content and social media fit into your online sales strategy. Let’s start with your good ol’ sales funnel. These vary somewhat by company, but here’s a typical B2B sales funnel showing the steps a customer typically experiences...
Instagram’s community quietly passed the 80 million member mark with almost 4 billion photos shared while its owner Facebook has 300 million photos uploaded daily. Despite it’s relative youth and size compared to social media heavyweights like Facebook and Twitter, there’s research related to Instagram to give marketers insight into the platform’s importance and how to use it.... From a brand perspective, the investment doesn’t seem high relative to other forms of social media. About two out of five businesses have an Instagram profile and have posted at least one image.... [An excellent research resource for Instagram data and social media proof points - JD]
Are you wondering how your peers are using social media?Wondering if you should focus on Google+ or Pinterest? In our fourth annual social media study, more than 3800 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, how much time they invest and what the rewards are.... [Essential reading for PR 2.0 & content marketing pros - JD]
Discover how to use Google Analytics data, technical tweaks, website audits, keyword research, fresh content, social media activities and more for SEO success. SEO remains the most cost-effective way to drive website traffic. B2B websites often receive anywhere from 30%-60% from organic search, with 50% or more sometimes coming from Google alone. But SEO is changing. Directory links are worth less, social links worth more, site performance is increasing in importance, site age is decreasing…how is a digital marketer to keep up?...
Content creation (23%), is the most time consuming task for community managers, beating out Facebook engagement (19%) and customer service (13%), according to a survey... ...released in January 2012 by Social Fresh. Another content-related task, managing an editorial calendar, came in fourth on the list, on par with comment moderation and Twitter engagement (all at 10%). Community engagement (5%) and analytics/reporting (3%) also appeared on the list, but were voted the most time consuming task by a much smaller proportion....
New study puts numbers to the effect social media marketing has on brand advocates' purchase intent and likelihood to recommend CPG brands. In a study by BzzAgent, the long-term effects of social media marketing were put into metrics that the numbers-hungry executives are sure to notice. At least, we hope they notice — and listen. According to the study, social media marketing campaigns generate an immediate boost in the likelihood that consumer packaged goods brand advocates would recommend a brand to other people. Purchase intent also gets an immediate bump among brand advocates after exposure to a social media campaign.... [Worth reading for the proof points - JD]
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The internet has given marketers many things, one of which is more ways to reach potential customers directly. But with this comes further challenges, most notably, how do you work out whether all that online activity is having any real impact on sales?
Tweeting, posting, uploading videos; that’s the easy part. Working out whether your efforts are having a genuine impact is often the place where lots of marketers and businesses come unstuck.
Why? Because genuinely meaningful measurement can be tricky. It’s easy to measure how many followers you have or how many likes you’ve got on your last Facebook post but that doesn’t really tell you anything.
As content marketing emerges as the leader in digital marketing the way many marketers measure efficiency and the impact seems to be ancient
....as content marketing is gradually emerging as the leader in digital marketing, primarily in SEO and B2B marketing, the way many marketers measure efficiency and the impact of the content seems to be ancient. For instance, consider e-books which are a prevalent lead generation strategy. Many marketers make the mistake of failing to measure anything more than the number of downloads.
Is there another way to measure how effective this content has been? Here is a comprehensive guide to those unavoidable Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that should be measured for any content marketing initiatives...
When STOCK Restaurant opened in early 2012, they set up basic Facebook and Twitter profiles looking to establish a strong online presence. But with no clear social strategy or framework to analyze the success of their social efforts, STOCK’s social media presence had minimal activity and growth.
STOCK wanted to drive new customers through the doors of their brand new restaurant and recognized they needed help in building a strong and effective social presence. They turned to Tent Social for their expertise on social media and marketing....
Pinterest announced that they're now offering their users access to a rich set of statistics for their pins and pin activity. Called simply Pinterest Analytics, it is available to any user with a verified website (not just "business" accounts). This is a much-needed asset for business owners and bloggers as it will help you see not only how your pins have performed, but what content other people have pinned from your website and how those pins have performed. The analytics includes how many people pinned content from your site, how many people saw those pins, and how many people visited your site from those pins (clicked through). You will also be able to see your most popular pins, the ones that have been repinned and clicked the most, as well as most recent pins. Businesses can use Pinterest Analytics to evaluate the value and ROI of a Pinterest presence. At 10.5 million users and rising, Pinterest definitely provides a rich and growing audience for business owners, and these new analytics will show off just how much traffic and interest the site is generating in your brand....
In what seems to be a solid survey from a least likely source, Bacardi released some interesting findings about social media. The survey, called the Bacardi Together Index, asked 5,000 adults (ages 21+) more than 146 questions to provide a glimpse of online and offline social connections. But before getting into the release of the study and why you never heard about it, it might be worthwhile to take a look at the findings. Some are surprising; others reinforce what we already know. It was released just just prior to Thanksgiving.... In the end, somehow the whole thing was produced as a social media page with no defined audience or purpose and then announced via a traditional newswire blast with no intended audience beyond everybody. So what happened? Pretty much nothing, despite some relatively decent findings that have been ignored. All those varied ideas didn't mix. Either that or someone spent too much time sampling the product.... [Rich Decker takes a look at what media coverage might have been achieved with a Bacardi survey if it had been handled better. ~ Jeff]
Business Blogging Case Study: Learn how Block Imaging's focus on content marketing through their blog increased sales and traffic. Jason Crawford, president of the Parts and Service division of Block Imaging, was upstaged by his six-year-old daughter. In her ponytailed debut on the Block Blog, Crawford asked her, “Madeleine, do you know how to fix a laser aimer?”, to which she confidently replied, “Yes!” The pair then demonstrated with charming aplomb a simple troubleshooting tidbit for Block’s medical imaging equipment customers....
Biz, Ev and Jason were the founding team behind Twitter and it looks like they are back. The Obvious Corporation is their new venture that has a small portfolio of companies all looking at a new vision for how we can publish content. Why should we care? Well when the team that launched blogger which helped bring blogging to the masses and then Twitter which has gripped the whole world do something, then you need to sit up and take notice. Most of the companies have just the most basic of sites outlining their vision but you can enter your details requesting access to the beta versions when they are ready to let you. I would recommend all PR professionals to do this as I am a real believer that you need to understand these new tools and their potential value for clients as soon as possible. There is nothing worse than being in a meeting and the client asking you what you think of X and not being able to at least offer the most basic of opinions. Of the new projects they are involved with the following three are the ones that I feel communications professionals need to take a look at. 1. Medium
2. Branch
3. Lift...
American Express's head of social media marketing for the company outlined how the brand got to where it is now. American Express went from virtually zero social media presence in 2009 to being hailed by Advertising Age as the “real winner” at South By Southwest this year. How did AmEx do it? Leslie Berland, SVP of digital partnerships and development at the company, attempted to retrace the brand’s steps during a talk at Mashable Connect, and then dispensed a few social media tips on Friday....
I Blog for Content, Not for Comments. Surprised? I don’t know if that title surprised you, but I thought the time had come to face the fact that this blog gets very few comments when compared to other blogs with similar or even less website visitors. I see a lot of bloggers trying to get more comments for their blogs to the point that they enlist in “tribes” to comment on each other’s blogs, a tactic introduced in a famous blog post by a famous blogger some time ago. In fact, some bloggers go so far as to install WordPress plugins for comments that actually inflate comment numbers to include ReTweets of your blog post. To me, and I speak for myself and not the other bloggers that are contributing on this site, getting few comments really doesn’t bother me....
I love early adopters. They're like the American settlers who came West looking for gold. ...Again, I love early adopters and I really do appreciate this effort. I have no desire to disparage. Someone has to be a settler and brave the arrows, but this is fools gold, in my opinion.... [Caution suggested for early adopters - JD]
Niche social sites are growing in popularity for brands, as they seek to find new ways to reach their consumers outside of the increasingly noisy 'big... There is a very difficult, fine line for brands using social media and where you decide to focus your efforts. You want to avoid opening up a brand account on every single social platform just because you can, but then you also want to focus on the niche sites where you will have to fight less hard to be heard amongst the noise and where you can reach people on a more targeted basis....
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Measure up or else!