Social Media Audit Neil Scaffer Welcome to 2013! Now that you’ve read all of the “best of 2012″ and “predictions for 2013″ posts, it’s time to take a fresh look at your social media operations and optimize for the new year. A social media audit is part of any social media strategy consulting that I do, but to give you some simple advice as to what you should do to further improve on your social media presence, ask yourself the following 10 questions: Social Media Platforms 1) Are your activities on the various social media websites aligned with where your target customers are spending their time? 2) Are you seeing positive ROI from the time spent on the platforms in which you are invested? Social Media Content 1) Does your content continue to resonate with your social media following? 2) Is your content aligned with your business goals? Social Media Strategy 1) Does your organization have clear objectives as to what you are trying to achieve through your social media efforts? Social Media Organization
5 Critical Content Marketing Mistakes That You Must Avoid Content marketing i.e. creating and distributing content is one of the most effective ways to promote a business online. Businesses and marketers all over the world are using content to attract new customers. However, creating quality content regularly, takes valuable time and resources. In this article we take a look at five common content marketing mistakes that should not be left unchecked. 1. When I first started blogging a few years ago, my content was aimed more at marketers, designers and SEO specialists as opposed to businesses. One of the main purposes of starting a blog for me was to generate leads and sales from my Web design and Internet marketing business. 2. Compelling headlines or titles are vital to the success of your content whether it is a blog post, an eBook or a report. A great headline should: Grab the attention of ReadersGenerate interest and compel users to read the rest of your contentShould be clear and concise and easy to understandShould include keywords 3.
Six content marketing trends to watch this year The importance of Content Marketing across business sectors and organizations of all sizes continues to grow year over year. When we surveyed marketers in October in association with Outbrain we found 90% of respondents believing that it will become more important over the next 12 months. Here are six content marketing trends to watch in the next 12 months... Newsjacking Popularized by a best-selling author on PR and marketing strategies named David Meerman Scott, “newsjacking” is “injecting your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.” To me, this means paying attention to Google search trends and news of the day for your industry so that you can join in on any online conversations happening across social media and direct people to your product or specialty if appropriate. Some other companies take this concept a heck of a lot further however. Now serving: Influencers It started with Klout. Curation and aggregation
The Ultimate Content Marketing Plan Outline Content, marketing, SEO — it’s all the same to me. And that’s exactly how you should approach your content marketing strategy. Every good project start has a great exploration phase before the strategy can be put together. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but a fantastic start to touching every part of a business so you have the data you need. Whether you’re in-house, at an agency or a consultant, and whether you’re brainstorming with your team or discussing these questions with the expert, the research process is key. Benchmark Where the Business Is Today Get an understanding of how the business is performing online today to get a baseline. What’s worked in the past as far as content creation? Get to Know the Business and Its Goals You should always align your strategy with business goals. What are the top three business goals over the next year? Understand the Competitors Knowing what your competition is up to is very insightful. Who are the market competitors?
Content Marketing: Superheroes Teach the Art of Storytelling - inShare12 Last week, I visited ComicCon Austin with my 7 year old son. The people in costumes, the famous actors and characters were not what caught my attention. What fascinated me is the engagement that people had with these characters many of whom have been around for more than 50 years. That is the value of great content. I caught up with Shane Gibson, Chief Social Officer for WizardWorld and ComicCon to discuss the power of these iconic brands and to discuss social media marketing with these audiences. Effective content marketing is about mastering the art of storytelling. Great content marketing planning follows the structure of a powerful story; using an inciting incident that compels you into the narrative arc, strong characters including a hero (protagonist) and an enemy (antagonist), and a sense of conflict & resolution. The main characters include your brand and your customers. When you know and understand personas, you can begin to discover why your customers do what they do:
Content marketing strategy: an A-Z guide to success Content marketing is currently battling ‘big data’ and ‘responsive design’ for the hottest digital marketing phrase of the year. Yet the truth is that while the label has grown in popularity, the notion that content marketing is new is something of a curve ball. Many brands have been producing regular content for many years, and already appreciate the value of blogs, surveys, whitepapers and videos. They understand the power of content and understand how it can attract the right kind of attention. But what is new is that content marketing roles are being created, and teams are being restructured. I see content marketing is a kind of umbrella term for five disciplines: editorial, marketing, PR, SEO and social. In this article I’m aiming to outline the various factors behind a successful content marketing strategy, partly for our own benefit (we hired our first content marketer last summer), and partly as a thinking out loud exercise so that you can tell me what I’ve missed. Audience Focus
Everything You Need to Know About Content Marketing (Charts) Content marketing is white hot! As a core element of inbound marketing, content marketing fuels social media, supports search optimization, and drives lead generation and sales. 2012 was content marketing’s breakout year and it continues to be at the top of marketers’ plans this year. It’s no surprise since content provides jargon-free information that answers prospects, influencers, buyers, fans and the public’s questions related to your business, products and brands. Even more critical from a marketing perspective, it starts working during the zero moment of truth (aka ZMOT) when potential customers are seeking information without giving any hint of being in the market. As part of our 1,000th post celebration, we’re gathered all of our content marketing related information to help you get your strategy on track. Underlying content marketing research Content marketing explodes. Content consumption habits. 4 Moments of marketing truth. Multi-screen content consumption.
B2B Content Marketing: Trends and Benchmarks for 2012 Content marketing is gaining in popularity: 83.5% of B2B marketers surveyed say they are stepping up their content marketing production over the next 12 months, up from the 71% who said so a year earlier, according to a report by Holger Schulze for Optify. Some 15.0% of surveyed B2B marketers expect content volume to stay flat in 2012, and only 1.5% are expecting a decrease. Below, additional findings from the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Trends Survey, based on a poll of 740 members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn. Content Marketing Goals B2B marketers use content marketing to achieve a variety of marketing goals and cite the following as their top 3: Lead generation: 68%Thought leadership/market education: 50% Brand awareness: 39% Top Content Tactics B2B marketers also use a wide variety of content marketing tactics to achieve their goals. By contrast, fewer B2B marketers are using tactics such as advertorials (11%), community threading (12%), and virtual events (18%).
Content Marketing Skills: 50 Things Every Content Marketer Should Know Fancy yourself a content marketer, or want to become one? Here’s a big fat content marketing skills list and tactics you should know before you apply for that content marketer job or update the title on your business cards. Help yourself by highlighting the right marketing skills needed for your resume. How to Implement Your Content Sharing Strategy for Higher Ed: Part I Date posted: July 11, 2013 The rapidly evolving fields of Content and Social Media converge in a very busy intersection of marketing objectives, strategy, tactics and tools. Even for those of us who work in this area every day, this intersection is noisy, confusing and frustrating, as we try to effectively manage all of these complex elements, while keeping up with the latest tools and practice. So for anybody and everybody who has this problem, here is a simple, how-to approach to help create and implement an effective content sharing plan. This approach looks something like this: Firstly, Understand your Content Marketing Goals Content marketing has two primary goals: To draw visitors to your website to access your great content and to ultimately become your customers (including students, donors, alumni, or any other community segments) To attract quality inbound links to your website, to produce increased search engine rankings which will draw more organic search visitors
Is This the Future of Content Marketing? Transmedia Storytelling Emerges As various technology platforms (e.g., social media, apps, tablets, smartphones, and TV) evolve to become more integrated with one another, more customizable, and more participatory, so are people's expectations around their everyday content experiences, according to a study by Latitude. However, developing interesting and relevant narratives across multiple platforms is a big challenge for content marketers. To explore this changing media landscape, Latitude asked leaders in the emerging transmedia space about the challenges and opportunities today's storytellers (or content creators) are encountering. Transmedia storytelling typically involves immersive media experiences, in which the elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making its own unique contribution to the whole. Below, key findings from Latitude's report titled "The Future of Storytelling, Phase 1." Content needs to be smarter Read the Full Article
Creating a B2B Marketing Plan [infographic] Many Business-to-business (B2B) companies are already successfully getting great results using digital marketing tactics like SEO, PPC, landing page creation, social media and email marketing linked to a CRM marketing automation or a simple email autoresponse system. But often, B2B organisations are not getting the most from today's marketing since they don't have a planned approach based on an integrated inbound marketing plan. To create an infographic showing the latest research on how companies are using inbound marketing, we've researched how B2B companies are using digital marketing. The results across different studies show that while many companies are delivering brilliant results, many could do more. Our updated infographic shows a planned approach based on our B2B marketing planning guide written by Rene Power and I.
Content Curation Syndication System 7 Reasons Content Marketing is Better Than Link Building Content marketing and link building both have their merits in the realm of search marketing. However, the tale of the tape reveals that content marketing has a distinct advantage over link building for marketers. Here are seven reasons why. 1. I often get asked by clients how much is a link worth? Alternatively, if you create a piece of content for a site, you will know how many links that content has generated, how many social votes it has, how many referral visits it’s got, how much organic search traffic it’s created and which search terms achieved rankings etc. And more importantly, how much revenue has that content generated you? 2. You are writing content and naturally generating links as a result of writing great content. Compare this with competitor analysis or submission based link building – there’s a common trend there which shows that these websites are not linking to you because they like you, they’re linking to you because you asked them to (or even paid them to). 3. 4. 5.