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...No. It’s no longer good enough to force the customer to rationalize with their inner self why they’re friends with a laundry detergent. You have to give them another reason to like you, to be an online resource in their daily (or weekly) life, and to serve a need that is above and beyond your actual product benefit. In a word: content. Content marketing is the key to building not only links, but enduring popularity. While some may say that content marketing has been forced upon SEO’ers by Google’s recent updates, it simply flies in the face of human nature NOT to focus on quality content. Which is exactly why Google updated their algorithm in the first place - to get people what they really want....
As we wave goodbye to 2012 and say hello to 2013, there’s a good chance, you, like many other people, have been working to put together a content marketing strategy for the new year. No doubt you’ll have the objectives in place, created a well thought out strategy and work plan as long as your arm. It’s that last element I want to help you with in this blog post, by sharing a clutch of tools and services which will save you time, improve your results and give you the freedom to work on the creative aspects of your campaign....
Via Stefano Principato, massimo facchinetti
One in eight (12%) consumers in the UK have stopped using or buying a brand due to negative comments on social media, according to research from SAP UK & Ireland.
The survey of 1,000 UK online shoppers highlighted the need for brands to engage with customers online. Twenty-two percent of consumers have bought from a specific brand or retailer based on a recommendation they have seen on a social network....
These days, finding freelance (or even full-time) work without an established and thoughtful web presence is next to impossible. It’s important to have an online presence that’s “Google-ready,” with a smart-looking website that shows off your professional work in a formal yet stylish setting, to lure publications into your professional brand and show them your best work.
But it’s hard to quickly put together a professional portfolio website with a dearth of disposable skills and time, and not many freelancers have the extra budget to hire a web designer.Thankfully, there are some fast, simple and stunning portfolio-building websites that will not only put your work online but also do it with the right amount of flair. Here are three standouts, with their ease and good looks, that can give you a great portfolio website without breaking the bank....
Too many Internet retailers rely too heavily on Google to reach their audience. For example, one of our clients faced sinking sales with the recent changes to Google’s algorithms. His strategy over 15 years of selling products online centered completely on search engine optimization, and he neglected integrating social media, with disastrous results.
If you are a retailer who is facing a similar problem, you may be tempted to close down or give up. Before you do that, I recommend that you take a closer look at how social media can become a major driver of customers to your site. By integrating social media into your marketing efforts, you will likely see an abrupt turnaround in your traffic and sales....
[Marketing advice worth exploring ~ Jeff]
You’ve listened to the hype. You’ve read case study after case study. You’ve seen that little bird logo everywhere. And your brand could certainly use a little push. So, excitedly, you sign up for a Twitter profile for your business. And wait. And wait. And wait. And nothing happens. Does this sound familiar?... [Terrific Twitter tips to transform your business ~ Jeff ]
Pinterest is booming. The site grew to 26.7 million unique visitors last month. This rapid growth has drawn businesses, especially retailers, to expand their presence on the site. Pinterest has just announced Pinterest pages for business. My, those folks over at Pinterest have been busy! In the space of a few short weeks, users have been surprised by 3 new rollouts – verification of Pinterest accounts, the introduction of secret boards and now, the ability to create business pages.
So what does this new update mean for business owners? After all, it was not too long ago that Pinterest was warning us about self-promotion and commercial usage was downright prohibited.
Nevertheless, thousands of businesses have flocked to Pinterest since its inception in 2009 to create accounts and drive brand awareness in the hope of boosting sales.
Perhaps Pinterest has finally acknowledged that it’s time to woo the business community right before the crucial holiday season? Or maybe it’s testing the water for its monetization plans?...
[This is a positive development for marketers with one caveat. Watch for the terms of reference. Pinterest owns all material posted; not always the right situation for every business. ~ Jeff]
When Coca-Cola’s ad agencies ran out of ideas for a marketing brief, the company decided to turn to an online community to crowdsource some ideas. By using co-creation Coca-Cola was able to generate thousands of new ideas from a global community of creative individuals, giving it a huge amount of content to inspire future marketing activities. And the drinks brand isn’t the only major business using co-creation. BMW has a minisite that allows people to contribute to its current projects. So to find out more about why Coca-Cola moved away from the traditional agency model and its on-going work with co-creation community eYeka, I spoke to the Asia Pacific regional director for sparkling and activation platforms Leonardo O’Grady... [A good crowdsourcing exercise that led to valuable content ~ Jeff]
Facebook cover photos give brand a great opportunity to express their unique style and brand messages and these are 50 of the best designed pages... [Lots of content marketing inspiration here ~ Jeff]
Content marketing is a way of engaging and attracting existing and potential customers through content creation and online distribution. In short order, this rapidly emerging discipline is defining which businesses will succeed with online marketing and how they’ll do it.
As I’ve come to introduce this new idea to senior management and decision makers in different kinds of businesses, the reaction has been interesting. I offer this summary to those who question where online marketing is headed and why every business must now become a publisher of content that will provide utilitarian value to customers and prospects....
[Good reminder of how to prepare to sell social media to senior management. ~ Jeff]
As you begin planning your strategies for next year, recent content marketing research points up 5 ways you should adapt for 2013. Here are the essentials. In the next few weeks, companies will be working on their marketing plans for 2013 and, for many of them, content marketing will play a part in those plans. If you are involved in planning those content marketing efforts, you will likely need to consider a few important changes in online consumer behavior. Research agency InSites Consulting, data and sampling partner SSI, and translation agency No Problem! recently conducted a global consumer survey to better understand the consumer. Based on this research, we were able to draw five key conclusions that content marketers should take into account as they start to plan for 2013....
...In a world where your competitors have all shown up on the various social networks, and where your target market is having trouble keeping up (there’s actually a lot of writing now about “social media fatigue”), how will you stand out? In “The Impact Equation,” Julien Smith and I recommend that you learn how to stand out from others, or Contrast. The equation is “Impact= Contrast x (Reach + Exposure + Articulation + Trust + Echo). The following idea is a mix of Contrast plus Exposure. One way that companies are earning new customers is by content that checks two of the three boxes * interesting * helpful... [Chris Brogan talks about the secret of winning the attention war which includes being more personable than your competitors ~ Jeff]
Pinterest burst onto the social media scene and has managed to steal the limelight in this ever growing genre of websites. In just two years they've grown so fast that they now rank as the number 3 social network. What’s the attraction you might ask? Visuals. The site has tapped into the rapidly growing trend for images and videos. There are no blog posts or articles, just attractive, poignant, funny or touching images. It’s fun, effective and hugely popular with over users to date. If you are considering adding Pinterest to your digital public relations toolkit take a look at how other brands are using the site. Learning from the pros can help you to avoid making mistakes and start achieving the benefits quickly.
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Why is a headline great? What content is viewed most? The Scoop.it Cool Content Curation Report answers these questions to improve your content marketing. Scoop.it’s analytics are excellent though manual (unless I missed the export to Excel option, which is very possible). After a little over a year of Scooping content, I wanted to answer three questions: What type of content generated the most views? What keyword triggers formed the most successful headlines? What is the value of cherished Internet marketing notions?
* The move to a more visual web as expressed in a sea of infographics.
* Have we reached a point of diminishing returns on infographics?
* Is storytelling as hot as it seems?
* What about Social, Local and Mobile: Are they as hot as they seem?...
With so many fantastic video campaigns released throughout the year, now is as good as any to take a look back at the campaigns and viral videos that made 2012 such a memorable year. From flash mobs to kamikaze cats, there's something for everyone... With the new year just hours away, it’s as good a time as any to reflect upon what has been a memorable year. With more than 72 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute, it’s takes something truly special to stand out. Since the quality of videos has risen this year, the problem that emerged was that there were so many good examples, we could have easily made a list containing 150, which would have defeated the purpose. So in no particular order, here are our top fifty viral campaigns from the past year....
With 9 out of 10 B2B marketers counting on content marketing tactics in their mix, it’s no wonder content marketing is getting so much attention on blogs, in traditional media and on the social web.
Along with the increased popularity of content, opportunists have begun aligning themselves with the topic of “content marketing”, even though their offering is only remotely related. As it was with websites in the 1990′s, SEO in the early 2000′s, social media over the past 5 years, so-called experts have begun pontificating advice based on thin air, obscure experiences and self interest.
To help our readers distill the signal from the noise, here are 3 myths about content marketing and how they are busted to give companies a clearer picture of reality when it comes to effective content marketing....
Do you know why your content marketing campaign is going to fail? It’s not because you can’t write great content… it’s actually because you don’t know how to promote it.
You can learn how to write great content, but if no one reads your content and links to it, there’s no point in putting it out there....
Beyond fueling social media and search, the one reason content marketing works is that customers trust it; they don’t trust advertising. Additionally, content marketing is more cost effective than digital advertising. There is one caveat: You can’t dress your advertising up as content marketing and hope prospects won’t notice! They will. Consumers are smart and can see that fake content marketing is really an ad a mile away. Even worse, consumers don’t consider advertising credible. Content marketing must be authentic
While consumers like authentic, valuable content marketing, grounded in the principles of David Ogilvy in its editorial appearance and Leo Burnett in the integration of important brand attributes, they don’t like being tricked with fake information that interrupts and promotes. These sentiments are at the heart of social media participation. Marketers should follow the old writing adage: Always assume that your readers are at least as smart as you are.... [Heidi Cohen suggests you let transparency and authenticity guide your content marketing for results ~ Jeff]
The start-up world is build on a two-legged platform of technology and finance. If you don’t believe me, just watch Bravo’s "Start-ups: Silicon Valley," which does its best to tell a story about VCs raising capital and bootstrapping a new venture, together with the freaky and geeky world of engineers, programmers and developers. Only that story is incomplete. There’s actually a third leg, which you don’t get to hear about. Perhaps you’ll catch a fleeting glimpse of a throwaway “marketing” or “sales” reference, but for the most part, it’s conspicuously absent in this show, industry and market in general. I would argue — and I am a Madison Avenue guy who eats, sleeps and breathes brands — that the marketing leg is the most important part of the entire equation. Yet, it’s the one that is the most undervalued, underinvested, underutilized and misunderstood....
QR (Quick Response) code marketing has caught the business world by storm with almost every modern-day company adopting it in some manner. The recent capability of existing smartphones to decipher such codes has only augmented theenthusiasm with millions of U.S. users per month. If your firm’s a late entrant and poised to join the QR code bandwagon, presented below are handy tips on the most favorable QR code opening gambit... [Don't about you, but I want to see some case studies and results ~ Jeff]
This benchmark survey of North American B2B marketers shows that the adoption of content marketing and the sharing of it using social media continues to grow. Every year the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs collaborate on a content marketing survey of B2B marketers. This year’s results are based on responses from 1,416 North American B2B marketers from all industries and all size companies. And just like last year, the adoption of content marketing and the sharing of it using social media continues to grow. We have selected some key data points from the survey and listed them for you below, complete with buttons to share on Twitter and LinkedIn. The complete study is embedded at the end of this post....
Twitter may be the newest battleground for big brands. While these duels appear to be all in good fun, one can’t help but notice how much attention both sides are getting because of a little friendly brawl. Ad Week highlights two conflicts between four very high profile brands. Oreo recently got dunked by AMC Theatres and Taco Bell mixed it up with Old Spice. Sometimes, Twitter is all about understanding your audience. Oreo asked its followers, “Ever bring your own Oreo cookies to the movie theater?” AMC Theatres replied @Oreo “NOT COOL, COOKIE.” This response was certainly not what Oreo had expected. However, maybe this little dose of creativity and engagement is why AMC Theatres has over 136,000 followers, while Oreo has about 53,000. Shane Adams, the voice of the AMC Theatres Twitter account, explains that these posts are not just about being clever. He says that Twitter is about trust and how a brand’s voice is defined. Once the audience knows the brand personality, they will be able to relate more to the brand. Oreo responded @AMCTheatres, “Fair enough, but don’t hate the player, hate the game.” No hard feelings here, just a little social media creativity....
Senior editor of Bulldog Reporter Richard Carufel talks to Heidi Sullivan, global vice president of media research at Cision, to discuss our products, influencers, and content marketing. “A lot of trend spotting you need to do at niche level with bloggers,” Sullivan says. “It’s not always about eyeballs and impressions.” According to the Content Marketing Institute, the biggest goals of content marketers are brand awareness, thought leadership and engagement with community. “That’s really at the heart of what PR does,” Sullivan says. “As we look at ways to amplify content, we need to go away from just the traditional press release and pitching the media and find ways to connect with our end users.”... [Heidi Sullivan looks at "story marketing." ~ Jeff]
Social Media - More than three-quarters (76%) of marketers say their brands are conducting social media marketing, and an additional 16% plan to begin doing so by the end of 2012, making for ... a potential social marketing contingent of 92%, according to Chief Marketer's 2012 Social Marketing Trends Survey. Those results track with two previous studies issued by Chief Marketer, in 2011 and 2010, when 73% and 64% of surveyed marketers, respectively, reported conducting social marketing. Not surprisingly, B2C brands are more heavily invested in social marketing.
Among pureplay B2C marketers, 79% say they conduct social media campaigns, compared with 68% of B2B marketers who say the same. However, another 16% of B2B marketers say they plan to begin social marketing by the end of 2012.
Below, additional findings from the 2012 Chief Marketer Social Marketing Trends Survey.... [Here's a very helpful look at top channels, features and trends in social marketing ~ Jeff]
In a recent survey, more than one third of respondents claimed that social content changed their minds about something they intended to buy. Recommendations from friends and consumer or expert reviews were only part of that equation. In a recent survey, more than one third of respondents claimed that social content changed their minds about something they intended to buy. Recommendations from friends and consumer or expert reviews were only part of that equation. Shoppers now expect a lot more help from brands while they’re shopping online. According to the social media agency Socialyse, 45 percent of customers feel like the internet lacks the personal experience of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. Part of this is how well an store’s online showroom can display what’s on the shelves: 27 percent of the survey respondents wanted to see videos that show a product in detail; 48 percent said they were inspired by images of products that others had shared on social media sites. Another element is customer service: 40 percent like brands to keep in touch after they make a purchase. You can read more in the infographic below, including a breakdown of men versus women in different age groups. [Valuable insight for marketers, PR and content pros ~ Jeff]
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![Tweet Smarter, Not Harder [INFOGRAPHIC] | AllTwitter | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/T4WNAuvBnU-uyHaZKyi9Gjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![Why Social Media Ads Don’t Work [Research] | Heidi Cohen | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/cYTkvpWCZzyY58d7q2ammjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![How Social Content Changes the Way People Shop [Infographic] - SocialTimes | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/SNwaOS-UvQ5-IuGGZjXAQjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Rod Holmes shares valuable secrets to content marketing success, including storytelling. A must-read for content marketing, PR and marketing pros.