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...more often than not, we don’t write content with the reader in mind. For the professional writer you hire, it could just be a means to an end, i.e., a paycheck. When that’s the case, the core content marketing mantras, things like “this piece of content should address a problem or help the reader out,” seem to fly out the proverbial window.
Articles are mostly used as filler and that’s the reason the ROI of content marketing is often much less than expected.
Want a solid ROI for your content marketing efforts and ultimately be able to use your content to improve your conversion rates?
In this article, I will be talking about what needs to change for that to happen and how to effect those changes....
I also really enjoy all the best-of lists that tend to accompany the end of a year. Browsing through them, I realize how many things I’ve missed throughout the course of the year. It’s great to have a chance to catch up!If you’re afraid that any of Buffer’s most useful social media marketing blog posts might have slipped by you, maybe this will help. These are our top 1o most-read posts of 2014. It’s been a privilege learning with you this year!...
Forrester scored companies according to various factors, including the appeal of their website content and use of video. The companies had the potential to score a perfect 30, or obtain a passing score of 20 or above. Only four companies successfully passed Forrester’s test; the average score was 12.8. Forrester did not reveal the names of the four companies that passed its test.
“The biggest problem is that the majority of content talks about the company, what its products and services do and how many awards they’ve won, but doesn’t speak to the issues their prospective buyers are trying to solve,” said Laura Ramos, Forrester analyst, according to Ad Age.
Telling stories, writing in narrative and shooting video were identified as key ways that companies can help their messages stand out among the rest....
Here are 25 of the questions I’ve been asking to B2B companies about content marketing. Maybe some of these will make you think about your own content marketing program and opportunities to expand, enhance, and optimize it. I sprinkled throughout some of the tools we often use and recommend. I’ll work on a full tools blog post for early next year.
These are listed alphabetically, but I’d love to know which of these are most interesting and relevant to you, so please vote up the ones you like best on this Listly
So what are social media’s biggest questions?
To find out, we asked.
We solicited feedback and questions from our list of 40,000 email subscribers, asking each of you to ask us anything. And you did! We received hundreds of questions in response, each of which we’re eager to research and reply to. For starters, we grabbed 17 frequent asked questions about social media marketing. Come see how we might answer them....
Even the most data-driven marketers can find themselves grappling with what to integrate next. The cost of creating video or infographic content can seem overwhelming. It’s hard to make the leap if there’s little proof in your content market metrics that a new tactic will work.
Understand that you’re definitely not alone. While most of us realize we should significantly expand the repertoire of our content marketing strategy, making decisions about precisely what to do next can be challenging.
Well, you’re in luck. We’ve combed studies and surveys to compile 8 data-backed tactics that will drive results in 2015:....
If you are a marketer, be prepared to step up your game for 2015. Why?
Because 2015 is going to separate the wolves from the sheep.
Learn How To Stand Out
With the abundance of information out there, marketers must know how to work every angle so that they can stay relevant to their customers and the industry.
In today’s post we will outline how to capture attention and turn it into results so you can plan to be one of the successful marketers in the upcoming year....
At its foundation, social media is simple: if you share good stuff, people will reshare it, and you’ll get more interaction and more followers. Everything else is optimization (or delusion). This article (an edited excerpt from our new book) explains what it takes to create perfect posts that will add value to the lives of your followers, build your platform, and spread your story. We advocate the most aggressive sharing practices on social media, so buckle your seat belt, and put on your helmet.
Be valuable. What do we mean by “share good stuff”? Your social media posts should come in four forms
Content marketing, SEO, and social media should work together synergistically. Each should be its own instrument, working together to create a perfect harmony.
But you're wondering just how to integrate the three to produce great business results, right? You're curious about how each compliments the other. Well, I wrote this article to show you the steps you need to be taking right away.
For startups, distribution channels are where they find new users for products and services. You are familiar with “The Big Three” distribution channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The problem is that the Big Three are charging for access to your potential audience which disqualifies most businesses from using them.
This means your post is reaching a sliver of your targeted audience. There are a few more interesting tactics to maximize your reach on Facebook for example. But it’s time for you to look for new places to distribute your content....
Imagine you were compiling a course curriculum for a class on online marketing. What would be your go-to resources?
In digging through my bookmarks and starred articles, I noticed a growing list of awesome stories and helpful links. If I threw them all together, it’d make for quite the collection!
I’d love to share with you what I’ve got so far, and it’d be awesome if you’d consider adding any personal favorites in the comments. Here is what I’ve bookmarked as my must-read social media articles and content marketing resources."...
About a year ago, I started to rethink my views regarding the role and value of third-party content in the marketing efforts of B2B companies. I had always believed that most of the marketing content used by a company should be developed internally or with the help of outside professional content developers. In either case, the “authorship” of the content is attributed to the company or to a company executive or internal subject matter expert. With third-party content, an external person or firm creates the content and is identified as the author.
My preference for “vendor-branded” content was based on the idea that a primary objective of content marketing is to communicate your company’s expertise to potential buyers and thus cause those buyers to view your company as a trusted resource for valuable insights and as a capable business partner. Logically, branded content seemed to be the most direct way to accomplish this objective.
Because of three recent research studies, I now have a different view on this issue....
Ask a marketer or business owner what they’d like most in the world, and they’ll probably tell you “more customers.” What often comes after customers on a business’ wish list? More traffic to their site. There are many ways you can increase traffic on your website, and in today’s post, we’re going to look at some of them....
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The "if you build it, they will come" plan won’t get your business seen in 2015. The fact is, 50 percent of companies plan to increase marketing spend in 2015. So what will you do to get exposure and grow your business this year?
If you don’t have the budget to assemble a top-tier marketing team, you’ll need some great tools to take your marketing to the next level. To help you reach your marketing goals this year, I’ve put together a list of 15 must-have tools to get you started....
Have you ever heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? It’s a useful concept for sales and marketing to create better connections and relationships with prospects and clients. Abraham Maslow wrote a paper in 1943, “A Theory of Human Motivation” and subsequent book, Motivation and Personality, where he summarized the 5 needs most people search for. The more basic needs are represented at the bottom of the pyramid.
Contently has applied this concept to content marketing which you can read below. It’s a more strategic approach to creating your content to better connect with readers. I think for each layer, we can add other elements depending on your target market. How are you or will you incorporate Maslow’s Hierarch of Needs into your content?
A new study of marketers in the United Kingdom has rated Twitter as the most effective social media platform for content marketing.
In the third annual Trends report, Axonn Media found that 89 percent of UK marketers used Twitter to distribute content and 75 percent said that they found it to be the most effective channel. This placed Twitter first ahead of LinkedIn which, while in use by 96 percent of marketers, was only cited as effective by 61 percent.
Facebook was given the thumbs up by just 29 percent of respondents.
Overall, social media finished third behind in-person events and blogs for effectiveness....
Among the key findings of the survey: - Blogs and newsletters are most valued by B2B buyers early in the sales cycle, when they are starting to learn about a topic and evaluate products/vendors.
- Whitepapers are most valued in the beginning and middle parts of the sales cycle, when buyers are attempting to understand a problem.
- Videos, webinars, and detailed tech guides are most useful toward the end of the cycle, when buyers are considering specific vendors and finalizing selection.
- 80% of buyers want to continue to receive content after a sale is completed...
Whether it’s movies, amusement parks, or cruise ship itineraries, everything Disney touches seems to turn to gold and their social media strategies are no different.
To connect with audiences around the world, Disney manages over 1,000 social media accounts. How do they do it? A whole lot of work and a little bit of magic.
In fact, having a documented strategy is critical, as it’s one core element that separates effective content marketers from their less effective peers.
As we’ve seen in the responses in our annual research, those with a documented content marketing strategy: - Are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing - Feel significantly less challenged with every aspect of content marketing - Generally consider themselves more effective in their use of all content marketing tactics and social media channels - Are able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing.
Here are a few common questions to help you start creating a content marketing strategy from scratch — or improving the one you may already have in place....
RadiumOne, the intelligent advertising software company, today released new research on Dark Social sharing which polled the opinions of 9,027 consumers in North America, the UK, Europe, Australia and France. The research, conducted by intelligence market researcher Tpoll, revealed that 59% of all online sharing activity in the US takes place via 'Dark Social' channels, compared to just 31% via Facebook and 10% on all other social channels combined. Additionally, 36% of 'Dark Social' sharing globally occurs via mobile devices illustrating their increasingly pivotal role in consumers' daily shopping and sharing habits.
'Dark Social' refers to any inbound web traffic coming from sources that web analytics are unable to track. It typically occurs when online content is shared by copying a URL and pasting it into messaging platforms such as email, forums, or instant message rather than sharing it via established social networks....
To show our appreciation for the dozens of business, personal, and creative resources that help us stay informed and do our jobs – and help us do the same for our readers – the Content Marketing Institute shares a few of the sources we rely on to support our own content marketing (and personal) missions.
This list is not exhaustive, but it offers a glimpse of the sources of our inspiration and is arranged by each contributor’s CMI function. Though our roles may dictate the types of resources we prefer and prioritize, we all agree that we couldn’t do our jobs without these influencers.
We hope our picks – as well as the additional resources we’ve listed at the end – will help guide you to greater content marketing success....
Today’s smart brands are putting their money where the return on investment (ROI) is, investing in the growth and development of real authors.
2015 brings a new set of standards, the art of producing real, genuine, authentic, and high-quality content coming from an accredited and trusted real person with a notable byline.
Fast and furious content days are over. Search and social experimental writing is history. It’s the dawn of authenticity where bots, fakes, and frauds can’t survive. We’ve entered the era of intelligent content that is laced with smart optimization and is penned by qualified writers who have a name, rank, and serial number of credentials and influence....
...The long tail and the fat tail are not entirely disconnected, of course. Rather, there are many touch points between their processes and, thus, between the tools. For example, when creating a fat tail content campaign of eBooks, videos, blog posts, emails, landing pages, etc., corresponding social posts need to be drafted and pushed into long tail tools for distribution. Kapost facilitates this functionality through integrations like this one with a growing list of long tail vendors.
Winning on All Points of the Content Curve
As modern marketers, we face an unprecedented challenge in distributing a huge array of different content types across a myriad of digital challenges. Our buyers are in control and only through well-produced and distributed content can we earn their attention, their trust, and their business.
The Content Curve provides a framework for understanding the continuum of different assets along the fat tail and the long tail, and the different processes involved for each. Marketers who quickly organize their operations around these elements of the curve will be those who win the digital battle to grow their business through content.
Could you describe the company you work for to a potential client in a hundred words? How many words would you have left if you deleted references to your company name, any of your brand names, and all the superlatives you’ve used? What remains is what I call independent content — a good story that’s authentic, focused, and relevant. It’s exactly what good content marketing should be. It’s easier said than done, of course. Legions of marketing and communication professionals had their training during the era of mass communication, resulting in the belief that the best way to attract attention is to talk long and hard about themselves. This approach is frowned upon in content marketing.
As Garret Moon says, “Using content marketing to sell without asking makes everything else look like begging. Begging doesn’t create movement; it usually has the opposite effect.”...
Do you want to know what the social media marketing pros are doing today?
Keeping up with the latest social media changes is not always easy, but here you’ll find ideas worth exploring.
We asked 18 social media pros to share the best marketing tactics worth doing today....
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George Mathew shows how to take a fresh approach to your content and simply get better marketing ROI. Very useful examples and tips.