3 Ways to Create Highly Valuable Blog Content Do you struggle coming up with content ideas for your blog? Or maybe you create plenty of blog posts, but they get few views and even less engagement? If you find that creating engaging content is challenging, keep reading. This article will identify some of the best tips, tools and tactics for creating blog content that helps grow your business. #1: Be the resource your customers really need What’s your ideal customer’s biggest problem? If you want to attract and engage your prospects and lead them down the sales funnel, you need to focus on them and their problems. The more you create content that helps your prospects succeed, the more engaged they’ll become with your blog. So how do you know what your audience is struggling with? Ask. If you’ve been in business for a while, chances are you already know a lot of what your customers are struggling with. Extract the “keywords” that drive the questions. Maybe it’s “public speaking,” or “college admissions” or “dating advice.” Email Comment Sections
6 Tips for Creating Content That Spreads Naturally We’ve all been there -- you hit publish on a blog post and expect the social shares, page views, and agreeable comments to start rolling in. But sometimes you get pure silence -- crickets, even -- in response. Using social media and content to market your business isn't a new concept, so just doing the bare minimum won't cut it. I mean, think about how often content is shared across the web -- there are one billion Facebook users, and according to Twitter itself, there are about one billion tweets sent every two and a half days. That means there's a lot of content ... and also, a ton of noise. So it takes more effort than simply publishing content and doing your typical marketing to reach your audience and generate leads. If you're interested in learning more about these concepts, join the author for a webinar with HubSpot, How to Improve Lead Generation Using the Social Media Advancements from 2012, December 10th at 2PM EST. 1) Don't try something new. Wait. Seriously. 2) Surprise people.
10 Best Pinterest Practices In the world of social media there are few mediums that go untouched, but there are those that are significantly more prominent than the others. Facebook and Twitter being the reigning kings and others trailing behind with users unsure of what to do. However, Pinterest is proving to be an extremely useful tool for businesses to engage in. So why should you be be interested in Pinterest. Its referral traffic grew by 43.7% from June to July and grew again by 33.33% from July to August. It is a visual niche social network that is proving to be a driver of significant traffic driver for image rich eCommerce sites. Here are some tips from ZOG Digital when it comes to Pinterest and your business: 1. Create a content strategy that is centered around the lifestyle of your target audience. 2. Define your goals. 3. Position your brand to align with popular, timely and topical conversations; i.e. if you are a shoe company, pin trendy shoes. 4. Google LOVES Pinterest! 5. 6. Sort your boards well. 7.
5 Companies With Inbound Marketing Strategies That Work David Klein is the co-founder of Orange Line, Australia’s leading strategic inbound marketing consultancy. Read more about David and the team on the Orange Line blog. Follow him @davidaklein or on Google+. Some companies seem to have an innate sense of just what it takes to attract a market. Or, perhaps it only appears that way. For most companies, it's more likely that they learn through trial and error, research, and testing until they get it right. The following five companies have each developed inbound marketing strategies that truly work. 1. According to Kieran Flanagan, inbound marketing manager for Salesforce.com, "The new B2B purchase journey is search-initiated, social powered, and buyer-controlled." The Salesforce strategy has been able to generate leads by building — and effectively promoting, through multiple channels — a "content-rich micro-site" valued by the target market. The result? 2. 3. 4. 5.
How to Use Social Media for Customer Research Looking for a low-cost way to conduct consumer research? Social media can provide a free treasure trove of data about your customers. With the right social media tools, you can learn what questions your customers have and which types of content they’re sharing. This information will help you answer their questions, solve their problems and define your social media and content strategies. In this post, you’ll learn how to quickly conduct research on social media and put it into action. Find Out What Questions Your Customers Are Asking Hearing the questions your prospective customers are asking and problems they’re facing can help you find new customers, support existing ones and outline a content strategy that will appeal to both. The best products solve problems. Here are three places to easily find which types of questions are being asked. Twitter Search Twitter Search is the perfect place to start looking for customer questions. For example, searches for “Facebook marketing ?” Quora Twitter
The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started With B2B Content Marketing | Make It Happen 12 December 2012 The world of B2B marketing is changing – and at the heart of this transformation lies content marketing. But the meteoric rise of content marketing to its position at the top of the B2B priority list has left many organisations questioning the basics of this influential marketing trend – namely, the what, the why, the where and the how. So we decided it was time to step in and answer these key questions – in doing so, we’ve created the ultimate guide to getting started with B2B content marketing. Enjoy! What is content marketing? Content marketing refers to the creation and distribution of content with the aim of driving action from prospects and/or customers. Crucially, B2B content marketing involves the development and delivery of targeted content that is relevant to a prospect or customer at their particular stage in the B2B buying cycle. Why is content marketing so important for B2B companies? Today’s B2B buyers are an internet-savvy bunch. The Content Question…
5 Ways Your Business Should Use Twitter Hashtags This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Assuming you already have a Twitter account dedicated to your small business, you should also be investing in hashtags as part of your social media strategy. But let's back up a bit, in case you're unsure what a hashtag even is in the first place. Designated by a number sign (#), the hashtag is paired with a word or phrase to perform a variety of functions. Twitter users attach hashtags to tweets as search mechanisms, categorizing tools and marketing tactics. In your business' case, you may choose to attach a hashtag, such as #smallbiz, or even your brand's name itself, as #nike might do. Now that you're familiar with the basic hashtag concept, let's apply principles specific to small businesses. 1. If you use Twitter for nothing else, use it to learn from others. 2. 3. Finally, get creative. 4. 5.
12 Simple Ways Marketers Can Humanize Their Brand Companies are not people. Boom. How's that for a controversial opening line? For the sake of harmony (and the point of this blog post), let's try to remove the political implications from that statement, and consider what it means for us as marketers. How would most people describe their relationship with your company? The fact is, people do business with people they like and trust, and it's really, really hard to trust a company. 1) Write an 'About Us' page that's actually good. The 'About Us' page is one of the most frequently flubbed up pages on the internet. So, who do you want to be? First, I recommend you check out SEOmoz. The other example of a killer 'About Us' Page I highly recommend is Andrew Reifman of Andrew Reifman Graphic Design. 2) Kill the business babble. Just. Hint: 'About Us' pages are often one of the biggest business babble offenders! 3) Inject a sense of humor into your content. It's easy for B2C companies to create hilarious content -- and you certainly should!
Introducing Industry Pages: Compete.com For Content Marketing Intelligence 13inShareinShare13 We’re debuting a free level of competitive intelligence for content marketing, and we think it addresses a serious shift in digital marketing that’s only become clear in the second half of 2012, the shift to content marketing: Pure conversations are no longer the primary kind of online interaction. Facebook dominates the social graph, and its activity is mostly focused on content (photos, videos, status updates and links). The Network Effect says that once a critical mass of people are in a network, such as Twitter, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or even telephones, it becomes useful. Each tribe likes certain types of content. Friends don’t always share the same interests. Based on the data, we of InfiniGraph believe that content, and how people respond to it, is the most important thing in marketing- much more important than person-to-person relationships. How do you reach the right people and persuade them to buy? Which brings us to our Industry Pages debut.
7 content marketing trends to watch for 2013 | Articles | Social Media My company certainly wasn't the only one to proclaim 2012 would be the year of content and content strategy, but it's always nice to see your predictions confirmed. So, what are the emerging trends for the rest of 2012 and the upcoming year? 1. We are already seeing organizations hiring for more specialized marketing positions, such as content marketers. Moving forward, there will be a surge in even more specialized jobs within content marketing itself, such as video producers, infographic specialists, researchers, and bloggers, to name a few. 2. Creating fresh, high-caliber content is key, but that doesn't mean all of it has to be original. Curating content can be a big job, so it's no surprise there has been a significant emergence of curation tools such as Scoop.it, Scribit and Bundlr. 3. In 2013, we are certain to see more cross-departmental collaboration when it comes to creating content. In the last quarter alone, 17 employees wrote one or more blog posts. 4. 5. 6. 7.
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