 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Content marketing is creating information that your target audience wants and making it accessible to them. Let us now look at some definitions.
...OK, content marketing is popular. But why is it important for business owners and marketers?
In the last six years, the number of searches for various terms on Google alone doubled to 120 billion in 2012 from less than 60 billion in 2008. Based on these numbers, we can definitely say that people now look for information online much more than they did earlier....
Interruptive marketing—where businesses bombard potential customers with ads and promotions—is out, and content marketing—where businesses publish relevant content and media—is in. As such, businesses and brands have gone to great lengths to improve their content marketing game in the last year, and many companies have completely revamped their content marketing strategy.
In fact successful companies’ online marketing practices are now entirely customer-centric, focused on presenting content that is interesting and informative and appropriately timed rather than sales-oriented material foisted on customers. Here’s a look at six companies with the best content strategies of 2014 and what you can learn from them....
...Content marketing has revolutionized what it means to showcase your business to the world. With social channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter, it's quick and easy to get the word out about your goods and services. Now, content marketing has evolved into an art – every marketing team is attempting to create the next unique, wildly successful campaign to propel their company to the top.
As marketers find new ways to reach their target audiences and technology continues to evolve, the future of content marketing continues to get brighter. Here are 10 shocking facts about this revolutionary marketing strategy that shapes the way we make purchases, evaluate services, and use the Internet each day....
Distributing information about your business in a way that viewers will find valuable — helpful and relevant to their business — is the definition of content marketing.
The goal is to create relationships by building trust in your company, boosting your credibility and enhancing your “go-to expert” status. There are numerous ways to distribute content: digitally, in print and in-person.
The methods or media you choose will depend on your audience (what channels they access), your budget (the time and money resources available), and your inclination (it’s not an easy undertaking but, done well, can be extremely successful)...
Are you getting the value you should from your content marketing? Learn 5 best practices your business needs to follow to get the results you deserve.
... ‘If we only talk about ourselves, we’ll never reach customers’ says the always entertaining Joe Pulizzi in his packed-room presentation at Social Media Marketing World 2014.
The answer to this pathological content hoarding problem is content marketing, or at least it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, many businesses are not following important content marketing best practices and are seeing disappointing results because of it. According to research from Content Marketing Institute, 90% of businesses today are engaging in content marketing, but only 45% report it to be effective.
Here are 5 essential content marketing best practices businesses need to follow if they want to get the ROI that’s missing from their content marketing:...
Here are the best practices and frameworks for creating a content marketing strategy, along with critical elements to include and pitfalls to avoid.
Content marketing is a hot topic, primarily in the B2B world but increasingly in consumer marketing as well. The number of Google searches for the phrase have increased 400% since January 2011. And as noted here yesterday, 93% of B2B marketers are now using content marketing, with more than half calling it their biggest priority this year.T
he first step toward content marketing success begins with (or at least should begin with) creation of a content marketing strategy. But where does one begin? What are the best practices and frameworks for creating such a strategy? What are the critical elements to include, and pitfalls to avoid, in developing a strategy?
Discover the answers to those questions are more here in 18 of the best guides to crafting a content marketing strategy of the past year....
Content - How do you know which pieces of content are working well for your business? The following infographic by Brandpoint walks marketers through the process of measuring their content marketing...
You're a content marketing whirlwind. Blog posts, short videos, infographics, articles, Pinterest boards... You do everything, but is everything worth doing? How do you know which pieces of content are working well for your business?
The following infographic by Brandpoint walks marketers through the process of measuring their content marketing and explains why each step is necessary.The first step is awareness. Say you've created a blog post. Is it generating awareness for your business?
One way to measure content success is to see whether your business gets a higher ranking in search engine results pages, whether your website steadily gains first-time visitors, and how many Likes, tweets, and other social shares you have received....
A few weeks back, I sat through a “content marketing” presentation, where the presenter showed a number of case studies and talked about how the brands were leveraging the power of content marketing to grow their businesses.
Unfortunately, none of the examples were actually content marketing.CMI’s Chief Strategist Robert Rose calls these so-called examples “clever advertising.” In short, many still view content marketing as the Old Spice-style viral campaigns that are fueled by traditional media.
What content marketing really is...
By far, the most popular post we have ever published at the Content Marketing Institute is 10 Must-Have Templates for Content Marketers. Though this post is almost two years old, our readers still seem to clamor for this type of information and advice.
To that end, we wanted to provide a refresher on the most popular templates and checklists shared by the CMI team and our guest contributors. Some of these are “oldies but goodies” that we included in the first list, and others are new. All are intended to simplify some part of the content marketing process — and all can be customized to your particular needs....
While a wide variety of professionals will define content marketing in different ways, no one who actually gets it would deny the central idea is to provide valuable insights and answers.
While a wide variety of professionals will define content marketing in different ways, no one who actually gets it would deny the central idea is to provide valuable insights and answers. Therefore when the conversation becomes about finding powerful content ideas and the drill-down process begins, more often than not, you’ll hear: • Identify your customers’ pain pointsand/or… • Answer the questions potential customers have.
You’ll get no argument from me. This is indeed the formula for success. How do you discover what questions to answer?...
Content Marketing is the New SEO. Having a Content Marketing strategy for your online business is key to SEO success in 2013. However, Content Marketing should be done correctly by following certain guidelines. Below is an infographic which shows the Do’s and Dont’s of Content Marketing....
How long should your video be? People all over the internet have been asking this for ages! For a long time, the idea was that shorter was better, but recent evidence suggests that long-form videos are now proving more popular, and even YouTube and Vimeo are prioritizing this video content in their search rankings.
However, Tout and Vine are looking to move the trend back to short video. And when I say short, I mean short. Tout offers 15-second video posts, while Vine (from Twitter) offers 6 seconds. The concept of the platforms is to allow only “clips” or video snapshots, rather than long-winded or over-produced content. It’s an interesting direction for video, but it could be the perfect synergy of video and the short attention spans of social networking....
As a content marketer, there are always questions you need to ask yourself and your clients in order to maximize your content. Ross Simmonds shares his. One of the ways I’ve helped clients achieve success is by really getting into the weeds of their work. I try to immerse myself into what they’re doing and what people think of them so I can identify what content is actually going to move the needle.
Here are three of the questions I always ask...
|
The evolving digital world as we know it is allowing writers we didn’t know existed to become visible and reveal their genius. It is providing a platform for writers to grow their skills and also receive feedback that makes them better artists. Attention on the web is more about learning and feedback than narcissism.
Content creation can involve bland blog posts and content that puts you to sleep. But there is much to be read that delights, surprises and entertains.Content marketing facts in 2014Here are some of the stats that is the moving feast of facts that is content marketing....
This list of 50+ tools is meant to help you find, sift and organize, then share – what’s relevant to your readers and audience.
It’s Friday the 13th, last night was the full moon, Mercury’s in retrograde…I’m scared.
Be wary, friends. There are some crazy rhythms in the universe right now. And I don’t just mean at your local drum circle. Not that I’m superstitious or anything. But I AM a firm believer in being aware of potential pitfalls and staying prepared—just in case that worst case scenario rears it’s ugly head. Not that it will. (Knock on wood.) Truth is, this isn’t just a planetary thing. There’s been some pretty scary mojo hanging about the content marketing world, too.
Don’t believe me? Here are 13 statistics that indicate some serious problems arising in B2B organizations. And, in the spirit of preparedness, we’ve included tips to help you avoid being on the dark side of these stats....
Via Ally Greer
The challenge with content marketing is the competition for eyeballs. Content marketing programs need more than blogs, infographics, and videos to take off.
Marketers are making significant investments in content marketing, and rightfully so. According to Rishi Dave, chief marketing officer at Dun & Bradstreet, today’s consumers are entirely self-directed in their buying journeys. Content helps empower these audiences to make educated and informed decisions.
The challenge with content marketing, however, is exactly what makes it awesome. The competition for eyeballs is fierce. Not to mention, human attention spans are getting shorter.
According to one Web use study, the average attention span in 2012 was eight seconds. Even goldfish are easier to engage. Their attention spans? Nine seconds....
For years I was a bit confused on exactly how to run an individual content marketing campaign. I would create an e-book and simply rely on social and email to promote it out, with mixed results.Turns out I'm not alone. There are many marketers who are shooting in the dark with their content marketing campaigns. Over the last few years I have been working to get clarity on the subject and have found an effective template to follow.After reading this article you will have a very clear process for running a successful content marketing campaign....
Are you looking to create content marketing that rocks? Check out this ebook featuring speakers from Content Marketing World for tips and practical advice.
Around the world — in North America, the UK, Asia Pacific — approximately nine in 10 organizations produce content like media companies do to attract and retain customers. That's correct: Everybody's doing it.But that doesn't mean companies are doing it well. Far from it.Let's be honest. The majority of content produced by brands through blog posts, enewsletters, social media posts, print magazines and webinars is flat out awful. In many cases, the content is self-serving, not useful and, maybe the worst, pointless. Even when you ask marketers themselves, just one in three believe that the content they develop is effective.....
Each year, CMI honors the individual content marketers who inspire us to achieve more. These notable content experts caught our eye in 2013.
Content Marketing Institute's 7 finalists are definitely worth following regularly...
...So even if you don’t “do” Pinterest or Instagram, your content needs to have some kind of visual element if it’s going to rack up likes and shares. This is, of course, great news if you’re naturally creative with visuals…
But if you’re like me, it means you’re likely to be stuck with stock photography. As Seinfeld would say, “not that there’s anything wrong with that,” but when you pull up “happy-woman-at-computer.jpg” for the umpteetnth time, you start looking around for something with a little more pizazz.
Enter the meme. If you’ve never heard of memes (pronounced meemz), I guarantee you’ve seen at least one. They’re those funny images you see all over Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere on the inter-tubes with different messaging embedded. One of my favorites is the Boromir ”One Does Not Simply …” image from Lord of the Rings that I’ve included above. Look familiar?
The good news is that you don’t need Photoshop to create and share your very own memes—just an Internet connection. There are several (free) meme creation websites out there; I’m partial to memegenerator.net, which is super-easy to use...
“Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.” —Mark Fletcher, Founder of Bloglines.com.
One of the benefits of my work is that I get to travel around the world to meet with fascinating people who have amazing ideas. Much of my speeches and my writings on content marketing are filled with the thoughts of others. Here are eight of my favorite content ideas that I’ve stolen. I’m sharing them with you in the hopes that they will help you as much as they’ve helped me....
... comes pre-populated with over 200,000 news sources, blogs, and social media accounts. You can set filters, and import your own feeds, including the Twitter handles you follow (I recommend @SocialMktgFella for really good news on San Francisco tech trends), as well. All this makes for a singular place to quickly survey relevant news and content, to be editorialized and curated for distribution through your blog, email, or preferred social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.
The platform just got better today, as ContentGems and HootSuite announced a new integration. The new app brings powerful content curation capability to what's become the leading social media management(SMM platform. And like the way Hootsuite has a free tier service so social media novices and light users can enjoy the tool, ContentGems now offers the same....
It’s so easy to get caught up in content envy. Big companies worldwide are gaining attention, fans and customers for quality content efforts. Remember when Oreo tweeted a humorous custom image during the Super Bowl blackout in January, revealing they had a Photoshop-savvy employee armed and waiting?
Being able to engage your customers with content that’s perfectly attuned to the times is how marketing should be done. It’s no secret that that Oreo has a major budgetary advantage over your average small business. That being said, relevant content is within reach for your small business strategy....
|
content marketing