X SEO

Inbound, content, social, mobile, converged, omni-channel, transmedia. The list of marketing channels and strategies vying for our budgetary attention goes on and on.

Where should companies invest to attract more attention and engage those that would influence or act on buying?

To answer that question, we could consider the promotional advantages of each discipline:

• Inbound Marketing – Inbound drives 54% more leads than outbound (HubSpot)
• Content Marketing - 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content and they are more likely to buy because of that (Custom Content Council)
• Social Media –  74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions (Salesforce Marketing Cloud)
• Mobile - 41% of smartphone owners have made a purchase from their mobile phones & US m-commerce sales will reach $31 billion by 2015 (Visual.ly infographic)
• Email Marketing - Email generates $39.40 for every dollar spent (DMA).

But of course there are advantages to each. The problem is that they are not universally applicable or true.  So you might ask, what is universally true? What thing can we invest in as businesses for the greatest return on marketing spend? In my opinion, it’s this:

The best investment you can make in marketing is the quality and experience of your “product”.

Whether you sell a tangible thing or a service, your “product” provides an experience and consumers are more empowered to share the stories of those experiences now than ever before.

Consistently delivering a  great experience amongst a community of customers empowered to create, consume, publish, interact and transact any where, any time inspires the most scalable and powerful “sales force” you could ever hope to advocate for your brand.

Just look at services like Uber that have forgone most traditional advertising and marketing and simply created a service that’s so useful that people are compelled to talk about it. They tell stories about their experience.

“Talking about it” in today’s digital world means creating and sharing content on the social web where a single positive moment can be shared and reach hundreds or thousands of people. Add up hundreds or more of those moments on a daily basis and you can see how those stories can spread.

A big part of what contributes to customer experience with products and services outside of the fact that they “deliver on the promise”, is how stories are discovered, where and how they are consumed and the means by which they are shared and acted on.

Yes, that means beyond creating a fantastic product (fantastic is defined by buyers) where there is some opportunity and necessity to optimize the discovery, consumption and actions taken as a result of those stories.   This is the promise most of the marketing channels and tactics I mentioned above make.

The effectiveness of any of those channels depends on the quality of the product experience and the meaningful stories that surround it. That means stories communicated, curated and promoted by the brand as well as the people who experience the product.

While you certainly know intuitively, the value of product or service quality, do you see it as a marketing investment? How does product or service quality and experience factor in to your marketing? What are the key stories about that experience being told through brand and by customers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
The Best Marketing Investment You’ll Ever Make | http://www.toprankblog.com

So you want your campaign to go viral…

Let’s keep in mind your business objectives, shall we? As these social marketing fails will show, campaigns may take off but go seriously sideways if companies place popularity above purpose.

Some companies can afford more risk and racier campaigns than others, yet risk in business must always be mitigated and justifiable based on the potential rewards. You might disagree with my opinion on the campaigns featured in this post, but I believe the risks should have been evident from the start and far outweighed the potential payoff.

These examples may cause you to shake your head, or enjoy a good belly laugh, but each is a fantastic learning opportunity for social media marketers.

Money Can’t Buy You Love – nor Common Sense

We’ll kick off with KFC’s #IatetheBones. Fried chicken execs are literally throwing everything they’ve got at their viral tagline, which they expect to be the next “Where’s the Beef?” Launched April 14^th, the campaign has invested in it an estimated $50 million budget, Interpublic’s DraftFCB agency and an Academy Award winning director for the ads. Considering this tagline is to take them boldly into their new position as a boneless chicken brand, the budget and scope are not all that surprising.

Why, then, did no one stop to consider the potential negative effects of associating a food brand with sexual innuendo and dead bodies? Worse still, did they consider it and decide it was worth rolling the dice? When you read the user-generated content on #IatetheBones, that a food brand would approve of the association puts KFC squarely in Quizno’s horrendous “2 Girls, 1 Sub” space.

As I’m writing this, one sentiment analysis tool puts the amount of positive buzz around #IatetheBones at just 51%. Compare that to 80% positive sentiment for the @kfc brand itself on Twitter. The hashtag sentiment analysis came from a sample of 50 tweets, so I tried another tool to compare, which analyzed in real-time and came up with 74% negativity around the #IatetheBones hashtag.

Apparently the hashtag did well in test markets and inspired people to go online and share videos and comments. Unfortunately, people are sharing memes of people choking on chicken bones, or Hannibal Lecter:

They’re resurfacing years-old animal rights videos and tagging them with #IatetheBones, making those videos appear in social search again with this new campaign. They’re blindly tweeting on the hashtag with no message at all, trying to make it trend. Is this convincing anyone to go buy boneless or think better of the brand? Probably not when they’re sharing tweets about how much fun they’re having with their chicken and dead girls:

Did no one on the entire team it took to put all of this together realize or even care that “bone” invites all kinds of not-even-subtle phallic and cannibalistic commentary?

“Where’s the Beef?” worked because it’s catchy, cute and relatable. Everyone has a beef at some point. We’re not all going to eat the bones. Ya dig?

Then, I could be completely wrong. Maybe this one really will take off and KFC will have ushered in a new pop culture catchphrase as the result of their clever marketing. I still think it seems far more likely the conversation is going to continue its downward spiral, finally crashing and burning at the precise point that reading the tweets on #IatetheBones would make Tommy Lee blush.

If You Want to Gamble on User-Generated Content, At Least Be Sure Customers Like You

Moving right along, another memorable social campaign fail also came from a fast food giant – THE fast food giant – by way of #McDStories. McDonalds’ campaign kicked off innocently enough, with two tweets sharing stories about their employees, food and suppliers.

The problem with viral marketing is that it takes users generating and sharing content to make it popular. As McDonald’s learned, you just never know what people are going to share. #McDStories tweets told tales of everything from throwing up Happy Meals to animal abuse to things I can’t even type as they make me a bit queasy.

Is that good branding? Is the gamble on a viral tagline worth potentially damaging your brand to the point people are still talking about the episode over a year later? I’m guessing in McDonald’s case, their sales didn’t suffer too terribly, though you have to wonder if their investment was money well spent. McDonald’s later admitted that “#mcdstories did not go as planned.” Fail.

A Reputation Takes Years to Build and One Stupid Social Campaign to Destroy

Next up:

Yes, friends, this actually happened. Some social media rocket scientist thought this was a good thing to post to Belvedere’s Facebook and Twitter pages.  Do I even need to elaborate? No, the portrayal of a rape scene is not a good endorsement for your alcoholic beverage. Spokespeople for the company were sorry. Unfortunately, this was so ill-conceived – and there were so many stops along the way someone should have thrown up a roadblock – that no one really cared how sorry they were.

Other dishonorable mentions for social media campaigns that should never have seemed a good idea, even at the time, go to:

• American Apparel for their completely classless Hurricane Sandy sale.
• Microsoft for asking Windows Phone Twitter followers to share horror stories about Android phones on the hashtag #DroidRage. Followers virtually ripped off Microsoft’s arms and verbally beat them with the stumps, leaving a bloody trail of Windows jabs in their wake.
• Kia for attempting to ride the coattails of the popular Cheezburger brand with a meme campaign that had one user tell the auto brand to “Get off of the internet.”

The moral of the story, marketers, is that you can probably pull off something wildly popular and crazy and risqué if you try hard enough and throw enough money at it… but do you really want to? Part of any campaign worth its salt is a critical evaluation of each element and any potential risks. Are those risks manageable? Is it really worth the risk when you can’t control your social audience?

Plan to Succeed and Never Appear in a Fail Blog

First, consider the purpose of your social marketing strategy. You may be trying to:

• gain insight into your community
• build brand visibility and authority
• influence buyers
• promote products and services
• drive traffic to your website
• increase search visibility

…or some combination thereof. Once you’ve established your goals, you’ll plan to employ specific tactics to help your brand achieve them. A social media marketing checklist like this one Lee Odden created and shared can help you get the right people and processes in place to execute your plan. As you implement, measure, and hopefully improve your social strategy, it’s important to remember your social presence is an extension of your business presence. You can’t get away with any more online than on television or radio; the same people are listening and they see everything you do online in an instant.

Whether all of your planning and social management takes place in-house or with the assistance of an agency, you must protect your brand. Work with professionals who value your reputation as much as you do. Choose agency partners that value performance, brand loyalty and measurable results over cutesy campaigns and “buzz.”

If you’re not sure, stop. Just stop. Calculated risk is one thing. Diving head first into issues you don’t understand (or have no real reason to talk about) simply because they’re popular or trending is an invitation for a social PR disaster – and we’ve seen plenty lately. Share the most memorable social fails you’ve seen in the comments!

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Brands Gone Wild: Social Media Marketing Fails & Lessons Learned | http://www.toprankblog.com

While I’ve been in New York this week for the B2B Content2Conversion conference, I’ve been reflecting on some of the most common issues I see with companies trying to leverage content for increasing leads and sales.

Many companies new to content marketing miss important steps and without checklists or processes, content marketing contribution to leads and sales can be unimpressive.

Of course, not all content needs to “sell” in terms of inquiries or transactions, but for content designed with lead generation in mind, there should be some accountability or you won’t have anything to count.

While deciding the creative on your next infographic, the viral hook of your next video or which awesome thought leaders will be in your next ebook, step back for a second and consider these basic and often overlooked considerations for aligning content with marketing objectives.

1. What’s the primary brand objective for this content? How will successful discovery and consumption of this information move the reader along in the sales funnel?

2. Who is the audience? What problem does this content help them solve? How does this content help them break free of the status quo?

3. What will be used as the hero? How will readers seem themselves in the content and how will it empathize with their situation and goals?

4. What is the unique selling proposition in the content? What’s different or more valuable than others? How is that story being told?

5. What’s the primary offer?  Secondary offer? What other actions are available to support all interest levels?

6. After the reader takes action (share, subscribe, register, download, inquiry), what happens next? How will you nurture communications for the reader to become a buyer, a customer and a referral to others?

Many companies getting into the content marketing game do not have the presence of mind to focus on producing content that aligns with the buyer journey. The experience of creating content is so new, the focus is often on quantity, vs. meaningful information that contributes to moving prospects along the sales cycle.

This is why you often hear things like, “We started blogging, creating videos and white papers, but we’re not getting any leads.”

Content Marketing means creating content and media around a certain topic for a particular audience that will inspire action. What many companies are doing is simply creating “more” content and calling it content marketing. That’s where the disconnect lies.

Are there other fundamental questions about content marketing planning that should be included in this list? How are you solving the disconnect between content quantity and content accountability?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
6 Simple Considerations For Boosting the Marketing Performance of Content | http://www.toprankblog.com

At some point, most of us have been lost. We know our ultimate destination, but either through a wrong turn or poor directions we find ourselves in the wrong place and likely very frustrated.

Without landing page optimization, your visitors may have this same lost feeling when they arrive on your website. Whether the content was written 10 days or 10 months ago, it’s easy to make assumptions about your website visitors and assume the directions (read: content and calls to action) you are providing make sense.

If anyone has ever given you directions based on landmarks (turn right at the gas station) you can understand this feeling. And ultimately you are unsure and have questions such as: what gas station, what if there is more than 1 and good grief why didn’t you just give me the street name?

As the Membership Director of MnSearch, I had the chance to attend a “Search Snippets” event on the importance of creating better directions for web visitors in search of solutions.

During that presentation we heard from 3 different speakers, each covering a different perspective on optimizing for the customer journey starting with an overview of Conversion Rate Optimization from Aaron Weiche (@AaronWeiche).

4 Steps To Get Started

Step 1  - Know Where You Are
Just like when you are lost, it’s best to pull over and figure out where you are. This is the wrong time to make assumptions, as you may end up further off course.

Before you implement any edits or changes, measure your current results from the page in question. Maybe the situation isn’t as bad as you perceive it to be.

Step 2 – Optimize The Funnel
Existing funnels can be optimized at every step. Start first by identifying which areas of the funnel are least effective.

As you look at optimizing your funnel, follow a structured approach. The approach Aaron recommended to the audience was READY:

• Relevant
• Engaging
• Authoritative
• Directional
• Yield Optimal Results

Step 3 – Know Your Recipe
Any good chef knows that you only change one ingredient at time, otherwise you don’t know what element made the dish more (or less) tasty.

It can be tempting to change multiple elements on a landing page, especially if you are misguided by assumptions about the page (see step 1).

To truly be effective, you have to remain disciplined and only test one page element at a time.

Step 4  - Matrix Your Factors    

Map out the types of factors you may want to adjust and what they accomplish. Start with the following, and make sure you have items in each category:

• Benefits
• Features
• Emotion
• Value

 Step 5 – Test & Maximize
Starting with a clear hypotheses, then you can A/B test for a champion.

To wrap up, Aaron overviewed the need to use Cohort Charts so you can start to see how data is related and what optimizations are having impact and pursue those items that are making a positive impact.

The Past, Present & Future of SEO Landing Pages

Next in the series of presenters was James Svoboda (@Realicity). He took the audience through the past, present and future of SEO landing pages.  What lessons were learned in the past?

Past Lesson #1 - Learn that every page is a landing page, it’s not just about the home page.

Since every page is an entry point to the site, it’s also important to understand that every page will have an entry point (such as search or social) and an exit point (to another page or leaving the site).

Past Lesson #2 - Analyze data to be informed and make recommendations.

Recommendations have been largely based on how visitors are behaving on the site. There was also a rise in the use of tools as more became available to track a variety of data. Think heatmaps, for example.

Past Lesson#3 – Continually seek information.

You’re reading this blog, so you’ve got this one covered.

Present Lessons Learned

Lessons we are learning in the present include identifying main conversion points on your site such as:

• Header
• Side bar (adjacent to content)
• In-content conversions (within the content – suggestion to the reader)
• Footer – (your last resort!)

As you outline the conversion points on the page, be sure to find the fold. Or the point where most visitors will have to scroll to see more information.  Once you understand the elements you have on the page, the next step is to build trust through content and visuals.

Some ways to build trust include associations, BBB logos, customer testimonials etc. The kind you use will depend on the type of business (B2B vs B2C), but don’t shy away from simple statements of credibility. Something like a 25^th, 50^th or 100^th anniversary can instill confidence for the visitor.

The next consideration CROs are currently integrating are social elements. If search is going to be social, then landing pages need social elements both for the visitor and the search engine to recognize the authority of the page.  Finally, current landing page optimization efforts are focused on tracking, testing and analyzing to spot patterns.

Test and analyze SEO results by segmenting analytics data. If you need to get started, here are ways to do so  by analyzing organic traffic:

• keywords
• locations
• devices
• bounces
• steps in visitor flow charts
• conversion type (leads, sales)

Future Lessons

James wrapped up by challenging the user to think of what the future holds for landing pages. One prediction he shared was to think of one url as your ultimate landing page going forward. As social signals influence search, imagine if all of the collective search and social equity was captured among a handful of pages where you invest the most time (vs 100’s of pages with less equity and therefore little to no visibility).

Use Psychology to Boost CRO Results

The final presenter was Josh Braaten (@JLBraaten) of Rasmussen College. He gave the audience a primer on using Psychology to boost CRO results.

Josh started by reminding the audience that when it comes to make decisions emotion beats logic. And the best website visits are emotional experiences, not rational encounters.

As noted in the book Brainfluence by Roger Dooley, campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well (31 vs 16%) as those that were rationale.  Additionally, campaigns that were purely emotional still did better than those that mixed emotional and rationale (31% vs 26%)

In order to achieve higher conversion levels we need to create hypotheses using psychological factors, then develop testing plans.

When considering conversion rate psychology, there are two factors:

1. Can do – factors that influences a visitors’ ability to complete a task
2. Will do – factors that influence a visitor’s willingness to complete a task

To get started, ask yourself what is preventing the visitor from taking action and what will make them want to take action?

What I find most interesting about this topic is the reminder that regardless of the company, product or service; at the end of the day we are still people communicating to people – if even through mechanisms that oftentimes remove the face-to-face interaction.

If we were to think about customer needs first and aligned our copy and calls to action to their need to learn and accomplish a goal, would our landing pages be different? I think the answer is Yes.  :)

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Are Bad Directions Leaving Web Visitors Stranded? Optimize For Outcomes to Improve Experience & Conversions | http://www.toprankblog.com

With 9 out of 10 B2B marketers using content marketing, competition for attention is more fierce  than ever. The constant battle with Google algorithm and indexing updates and the masking of useful data against which to optimize has caused many ambiguities when it comes to implementing traditional SEO advice.

That doesn’t mean search doesn’t warrant top priority. Search is core to finding answers in daily business life: Google handles 100 billion queries monthly and 16% of those queries have never been seen before. According to a recent DemandGen report, 81% of B2B buyers start their journey to finding solutions through search.

That means there are huge opportunities for continuous optimization of content performance in search to attract, engage and convert. Great SEO strategy also contributes to great user experience, so it should play an essential role in every digital marketing mix.

To get the most out of organic search optimization in a very social and content marketing focused world, I think it’s important to make the distinction that most SEO is based on anticipating demand. Alternatively, content marketing and social media have a very big hand in actually creating awareness and interest for B2B products and services through education and buzz.

The distinction will help companies get far more out of their online marketing strategies. How? By focusing SEO efforts on optimizing for what we know customers are actually looking for and also to get the most out of search discovery driven by paid, earned and owned media content.

Another way of looking at this is that a tactical SEO approach involves identification of popular keywords relevant to existing content and then implementing a mix of SEO copywriting, technical SEO audits, linking and social media promotion to create or improve signals for search engines.

Strategic SEO will consider the customer journey from Awareness to Purchase to Advocacy and the planned content, media, advertising, public relations, offline events and promotions that generate demand. A strategic approach to SEO then helps B2B companies get the most value out of their content and media investments by making them easy to find where ever relevant prospects are looking.

SEO That Optimizes for Demand:

For example, let’s say a marketing software company wants to increase inbound leads through search engines. They’ll do the relevant keyword research based on existing content and maybe competitors to identify which keywords are most in demand according to certain product features and problems solved for specific market segments.

Popular and relevant phrases are then used to create a keyword glossary that is mapped to existing website content for optimization through  copywriting, links and off site promotion (links and social shares). There’s more to SEO than that, but these are the basics most companies implement.

Content That Creates Demand:

Alternatively, let’s say a business services company is investing in a content marketing strategy to develop the kinds of information that will create awareness, interest and consideration in a specific market or channel. That content plan will also provide the kinds of information that directly influence inquiries and support the sales process.

A strategic initiative like this may be supported by advertising, offline events (speaking/sponsoring), social networking, visual media/interactive, media relations and email marketing.  The content and media involved in this example can be discovered in numerous ways outside of search. The focus on education and awareness vs. always on “buy now!” creates awareness early on in the sales cycle and helps position B2B brands gain preference critical to influencing buying decisions.

Best Case Scenario: Optimized  & Socialized Content

Planned content designed to provide useful information across the sales cycle is effective and represents the price of admission for the most fundamental of digital marketing initiatives. B2B buyers pull themselves through 70% of the buying cycle before ever talking to a sales rep, so it’s important to gain early awareness and engagement.

Applying search and social media optimization best practices for content to become known as “the best answer” wherever prospects are looking or engaging online is where a lot of companies fall down. Therefore, doing so is a competitive advantage.

With strategic content marketing, it’s important that B2B marketers make sure SEO is more than just a checklist item.  Include optimization of known demand keywords and topics as part of demand creation efforts through new content and digital assets, social media, advertising and PR. Extend the reach of earned, owned and paid media by including search optimization for those content types as well.

Think of optimization in terms of how the brand wants to be known and also in terms of the customer journey. How does your target audience discover information online? What are their preferences for content consumption? What kinds of information and will motivate them to take action and further themselves along the sales funnel? These are essential questions for more effective content marketing.

Where to Learn More:

I’ll be presenting on this very topic at the B2B Content2Conversion Conference in New York (sold out) this week . This event includes other awesome B2B marketers like Michael Brenner from SAP, Ann Handley from MarketingProfs, Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute, Ardath Albee from Marketing Interactions and many more.

My presentation is titled: “Content Optimization: How to Integrate Search, Social and Inbound to Drive Demand”.  If you’re registered, I hope to see you there on Tuesday.

Beyond that presentation, helping companies develop integrated content, social and search strategies is something we do every day at TopRank. Give us a call or email and if we’re booked or not a fit, we can certainly point you in the right direction whether it’s other consultants, tools or additional events for education.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Drive More Demand for Your B2B Business with Optimized & Socialized Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

Text messaging open rates are far superior to those on Facebook, email and even Twitter, according to this latest infographic from SlickText.com. In addition, SMS coupons are ten times more likely to be redeemed and shared than mail or newspaper coupons. Almost all text messages are read within the first five minutes, they claim, which makes sense as the average person checks their phone over 150 times per day. See more insights at SlickText.

Eric Schmidt Predicts “Entire World” Will be Online by 2020

Never mind that just 38% of the world’s population use the Internet today; within a decade, every person on the planet will be connected through the web. So said Google chairman Eric Schmidt recently in a public Google+ status update.(…)
Read the rest of Online Marketing News: Google Cautions, Creepy Social Services & Eric Schmidt’s Crystal Ball (664 words)

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Online Marketing News: Google Cautions, Creepy Social Services & Eric Schmidt’s Crystal Ball | http://www.toprankblog.com

On Wednesday evening in downtown Minneapolis, marketers gathered to hear the answer to a burning question: #whatthefoc? (AKA what is the future of content?)

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) hosted the sold-out Future of Content event, with speaker Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing CEO and the author of Optimize, aiming to point attendees in the right direction.

Marketers know content is important; in fact, 78% of CMOs think custom media represents the future of marketing. How has content changed how we view marketing today and more importantly, how can we prepare for the future? These highlights from The Future of Content with Lee Odden should shed some light on the issue:

Ask yourself 3 questions about your existing content strategy.

Odden instructed the audience to ask themselves three questions about their business:

• Do you have content?
• Do you have fans?
• Does your brand have a story to tell?

If you answered yes to these questions – then you’re ready to get started preparing for the future of content, he said.

Those lacking any type of content may be struggling with creativity, budget, resources, or any other of the myriad of reasons people put content on the back burner. It’s critical at this point, though, that brands are able to reach out to customers and prospects not only with the advertising messages they want to get across, but with content that addresses the needs of their users.  The first step in the creation of great content, Odden said, is understanding your customer’s journey from discovery, to consideration, to purchase and beyond.

(In fact, he recently spoke at SES New York on the ability to generate creative content at scale; those working towards a content strategy may find that presentation a great place to start.)

Odden went on to discuss three critical questions which will impact your content strategy moving forward. 

1: What do we really mean by content?

This is a tricky question and content thought leaders are divided. Odden recently polled marketers on the definition of content and received a wide variety of responses.

According to one marketer, “Content is a compilation of information, ideas, and messages that are translated into some kind of written, visual, or audible format for others to consume.” Another believes it is “something that provides information to the viewer/reader/etc.” Yet another respondent defines content as “Original and opinion-charged copy with a focused message and personalized voice.”

At a basic level, content is something that motivates a user to take action, Odden explained. What does your content cause your audience to do? He recommends marketers get started by analyzing the customer information journey.

Develop and plan good content so that the customer is able to discover, consume and ultimately act on the information with which they’ve been presented. Consider how your target audience:

Discovers. Think about how your customer finds content. Create information that is good enough to share, because social network recommendations are becoming as important as Google when it comes to discovery.

Consumes. Rather than just focusing on utility, differentiate yourself through stories that connect with the customer on an emotional level and encourage them to consume content by fostering a personal connection with your brand.

Acts. Create content with the objective of driving a profitable customer action.

2: How are content teams structured in organizations?

Lee Odden refers to Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model as a starting point for brands in examining the state of their existing content strategy.

The key functions of a content team are:

• Strategy Development
• Creation  & Management
• Optimization, Aggregation and Curation
• Conversation & Listening
• Measurement &  Learning

Content impacts an organization on all levels, but companies have very different strategies and organizational hierarchies, especially in this newer and oft-misunderstood industry.

Whether barely getting started or moving towards a refined content strategy, all companies must examine how their content teams should be structured.

The future of content means creating a team which can fulfill all of these functions.  Content teams should be organized by function, rather than siloed by subject matter. Brands will need to learn to identify inefficiencies, as well as opportunities for improved performance. You may not have a dedicated resource for each of these roles, but as the content world continues to advance, they must be filled with skilled practitioners in order to achieve your status as a high performance content organization.

3. What content marketing trends are emerging?

Now that you’ve considered how to create content and how to structure your content team, you can begin to position your company to take advantage of upcoming trends in content. Here are the content trends Odden told the audience to expect and prepare for:

Converged Media:  Creating a consistent source of digital media across platforms, including paid (ads) , owned (corporate content) and earned media (organic) is becoming increasingly important. Customers want to have a consistent experience wherever they interact with your content.

Storytelling & Media 360: Creating  your brand story is vital in connecting with your customers. That brand story should filter across all channels, mobile, TV, print, display ads, corporate content, etc.

Visual: Consumers are 44% more likely to engage with brands if they post pictures than any other media. Creating the type of content that your consumers want to view is going to increase your share-ability.

Adaptive – Real-time:  Content which takes advantage of trending topics. The example of the Oreo campaign “You can still dunk in the dark” is a great example. Capitalizing on stories your audience is interested is a great strategy.

Utility: Creating content that is useful for your core audience is still going to be key to companies in the future. Brands should focus less on content that is about them and more on what they can offer to their audience.

Human/Humor: We know that most audiences like to laugh. Smart brands create content which resonates with the human side of their audience through humor.

Collaborative: Content will become more collaborative in the future. Collaboration between customers and companies, within the customer community or between brands makes content more valuable and more share-able. Social media makes collaboration easier than ever and this will continue to impact the future of content.

Co-Creation: Co-created content gives social incentives for the people who helped create the content to promote it.  Co-creation is smart because it aids in amplification and interest within a piece of content.

Mobile:  Mobile continues to grow  at a rapid rate and will have a huge impact on content strategy moving forward.  Not only does  mobile offer a lot of utility for the user, it’s the platform that they are using most frequently throughout their day.  You can do anything from a mobile device – rent a car, file your taxes, order room services or request a taxi pickup.  This makes mobile a very important piece of the content puzzle.

Search & Social Integration:  Integrating your search and social strategies will become even more vital in the future. Given the increasing impact of Google+ in search results, and the importance of the social network in buying decisions means that social must be an important part of the amplification of your content.

In order to be successful in the future, brands must understand where content fits into their organization and moreover, in their customer’s purchasing journey. They can then structure their content teams accordingly.  Content marketing allows brands to connect with their audience in increasingly meaningful ways and this is a trend that will only continue to grow, allowing that relationship to deepen.

Brand content strategies must evolve, to the point they are creating content that resonates with their target audience and is optimized for their specific discovery, consumption and action.

How are you preparing for the future of content? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments.

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
An Interactive Marketing Evening on the Future of Content: Tips, Team Building & Upcoming Trends | http://www.toprankblog.com

This month, we learned that although 65% of brands participate in influencer marketing, just 10% of total digital marketing spend goes to social, which includes influencer marketing. Some have cried, don’t people see the opportunity? Why aren’t they spending on influencers!

Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report shared the above insight, as well as the fact that a mere 6% of social spend is allotted to marketing to influencers. This doesn’t signal a problem to me at all. In fact, it’s an indication that while influencer marketing is recognized as a valuable piece of the online marketing puzzle and many practice it, it doesn’t require a great deal of budget to accomplish. That, friends, is what we call an opportunity.

That’s not to say influencer outreach is easy, but that an array of low-cost tools are available to help marketers better identify, understand and connect with industry influencers. These social tools enable us to automate much of the research, to weed through a mass of data and identify trends or common characteristics among the people who can positively impact our business with a tweet, a blog post, or a thoughtful comment.

Check out these social tools for brand marketers looking to more easily and inexpensively measure and act on influence in their industry.

Commun.it – Twitter Community Management

Commun.it is a Twitter-specific dashboard for managing relationships and identifying/engaging influencers. In addition to serving as a dashboard, it serves up handy reports on new followers, unfollows, total reach, and more. It integrates seamlessly with Twitter, allowing you to interact from within the dashboard. This tool allows for multiple users and multiple Twitter accounts (with a paid package) and is used by the likes of Dell, Sony and Cisco, among others. As you complete the signup process, you can choose to follow specific keywords or hashtags, in order to identify new engagement opportunities. Commun.it is a freemium product, with a free basic service and three upgraded options starting at 6.99 a month.

GaggleAMP – Leverage Your Internal Influencers

What could it mean to your company if you were able to effectively leverage the influence of your employees across social channels? GaggleAMP allows brands to create “gaggles” (think a group of geese) of users around specific content, each of whom receive an alert when new social content goes out. They can then choose to share it with their own networks (or not). It encourages social amplification while allowing users to retain control.

Cyfe – Monitor Everything

No, literally… everything, from Facebook and WordPress, to Google Analytics, MailChimp and even Salesforce. Cyfe has a variety of pre-built widgets, but also allows users to add custom widgets or API for custom data sources. Get real-time reports, see historical data and download reports in PNG, JPEG, PDF or CSV formats. Cyfe’s premium version gives users access to unlimited dashboards and widgets for as little as $14 per month.

BlogDash – Over 100,000 Bloggers Listed

BlogDash categorizes thousands of bloggers, leaving them searchable by gender, industry, location, Klout score, keywords and more. Use this tool to find, engage and even pitch bloggers all from within the platform. With just 15 categories, you might find yourself relying heavily on keywords to drill down to the most relevant results for your business, however the insights make it worth it. BlogDash offers a 7-day trial, with plans starting at $44.99/month.

Traackr – Enterprise-level Influencer Engagement

Possibly the best known solution on this list, Traackr helps marketers identify and engage influencers using three core algorithms to measure reach, relevance and resonance. Users have access to dynamic lists that update in real-time, share of voice reporting, sentiment analysis, real-time listening and many more features. Starting at $1,795 a month, it’s definitely one of the pricier options on the list but has the power and depth for enterprise-level insight and engagement.

mPact – A Different Take on Influence

Popularity does not mean influence and sometimes, the people with the power to influence your buyers may not be all that popular. mPact looks beyond common popularity indicators to identify the people who actually influence your market. Their algorithm considers topical relevance, authority and social capital, but also the frequency and consistency by which people influence the market. Users can start with a topic they’d like to dig into, or look into specific voices to see what influence they may have. A 14-day free trial is available.

Social Snap was a personal favorite, though they’ve just closed their doors for good. Founder and CEO Nan Dawkins shared their reasoning for getting out of the SaaS business in a recent blog post, if you’d like to learn more.

In the meantime, I hope you’ve discovered a few alternative tools for social listening, monitoring and influencer engagement. Did I miss any? Share your tips and tools in the comments!

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Never Miss an Opportunity to Engage: Social Marketing Tools to Connect with Influencers | http://www.toprankblog.com

Danger! Don’t Optimize Presentations to Suck. Image via Shutterstock

Over the past 5 years I’ve given a few hundred presentations in front of crowds from 10 to 1,000.

I also make sure to attend other speakers’ presentations, sometimes to delight and sometimes to horror.

Despite that experience, I’m far from a perfect speaker. But I am passionate, knowledgeable and continuously trying to optimize my speaking skills. Part of this comes from feedback but also from watching people give presentations.

There are many mistakes I’ve made that all could have been avoided. I have a feeling this is the case for many. Whether you give presentations at conferences or internally, here are a few tips on what to avoid.

1. With panels, a moderator isn’t worth listening to, so don’t cooperate. Don’t reply to their requests to prep for the panel or answer any of their questions about your presentation.

2. Ignore who the audience is and why they’re in attendance. This is all about you baby.

3. If there are technical difficulties, freak out or better yet, just give up. You didn’t prepare, so there’s no reason to give the presentation sans PPT slides.

4. Do not be funny or complement the audience, conference and co-speakers. Remember, this is all about you.

5. Spend a lot of time talking about yourself and why you’re so awesome.  Have at least 5 or 6 slides focused on you. Then a few more about your company.

6. If you’re on a panel, banter with other speakers that you’re old friends with and tell lots of inside jokes that the audience will be oblivious to.

7. Use as much stock photography as possible. Cats are good too. Kittens, actually. Meme it up.

8. Give the exact same presentation every time, just give the title a different name. Why go through the extra work?

9. Don’t include contact information on slides or a Twitter handle and hashtag to make it easy for people to share.

10. You’re the expert, so talk down to the audience. If they knew their stuff, they’d be on stage and not you, right?

11. Say umm, you know and ah. A lot.

12. Ignore what the session description says and talk about something related, but not really the same.

13. Speak in a monotone, quite voice and by all means, don’t show evidence of enthusiasm.

14. Use condescending commentary about your own examples, about competitors, the conference itself (including wifi).

15. Don’t bother citing sources when giving quotes or statistics.

16. Talk too fast. Overwhelm the audience with information and they’ll have no choice but to give up on doing it themselves and have to hire you.

17. Don’t follow a linear or logical structure. If movies can have simultaneous and erratic story lines, then your presentations should too.

18. Don’t give any practical examples or tell stories.

19. Spend all of your time “setting up the topic” and why it’s important. “How” can be covered some other time.

20. Blatantly pitch your own services or companies throughout. Make sure your slide templates use your branding in a way that covers at least 40% of the viewable slide area.

21. Don’t bother repeating the question being asked for others to hear when there’s no microphone for audience questions.

22. Deflect any questions you’re not interested in answering, “Great question but what I think you’re really asking is…”.

23. Interrupt other speakers and contradict the moderator. In fact, make jokes on Twitter about the other speakers and even the audience.

24. Forget about a takeaway slide that sums up the key points of the presentation.

25. No need to leave time for questions at the end. They should have been paying attention.

26. Whatever you do, don’t say thank you to the audience.

27. Make promises and then spam them. Tell the audience they can have a copy of your presentation if they leave a business card. Then spam the hell out of those emails.

28. Leave the room immediately. You’re a big deal and you have places to go, people to see.

29. On second thought, linger into the beginning of the next presentation and ignore requests to move things out into the hall.

That’s more than enough advice about what NOT to do with presentations. But surely you’ve experienced many others. Please share.

Giving relevant, interesting and sharable presentations have been an instrumental part of our digital marketing strategy. That’s right, presentations given in real life are part of our digital strategy. In today’s connected world, when you talk to one person, you’re talking to 1,000. So it follows that when you give a presentation to 100 people, you could be reaching thousands or more.

If you’re investing in the optimization of your content and advertising, then why not optimize the performance of your public speaking? Don’t ignore the impact of such a powerful means for connecting with people that want to buy from you or who can influence others to buy.

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
Warning: Do Not Read This If You Want to Give Awesome Presentations | http://www.toprankblog.com

Future of Content – Retro image from Shutterstock

It’s a pretty compelling question: What is the Future of Content? What’s in store for content marketing?

With the growing adoption of brand publishing and convergence of paid, owned, earned and shared media, many companies are looking forward to what’s next. In retail, Multi Channel is now Omni-Channel and single format storytelling has evolved into Transmedia Storytelling. Computers are becoming the fax machines of internet connected devices as smart phones, tablets and laptops become the norm.

To answer the question about the future of content, I think it’s important to think about the relationship of information, technology and the human experience with content.

A good place to start is understanding how your target audience discovers, consumes and acts on information. I believe an effort towards empathizing with the consumer information journey provides the essential cues for meaningful content marketing planning, promotion  and performance optimization.

Discovery

Good content planning considers audience characteristics in the context of the business. In addition to that, it makes sense to dig into discovery channels, whether they be ads, email messages, search keywords, topics on social networks, popular websites and other places where digital information is most likely to occur for your target audience. Marketers must think in terms of how to be the “best answer” for what it is that consumers want, everywhere they may be looking.

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs says:

“Finding has been around for a long time — in the age of Google, you can expect that people will search for your business online. But as social platforms expand and adoption increases, sharing is far more prevalent AND important. That’s the secret to successful content, too: Creating content worth sharing, because increasingly social networks recommendations are as powerful (actually, more so) than Google results.”

On today’s search and social web, discovery is intertwined with experience and sharing, which leads to more discovery. Making content easy to find, wherever your audience is looking, as well as easy to share is the standard today. But most companies are still playing catch-up to that standard. The future of discovery means an investment in meaningful content and optimizing the visibility of that content where it matters most.

Consumption

Optimizing user experience means more than the ideal page layout and calls to action to increase conversions. Not every visit to your information will result in a sale. But the information consumption will be an experience of some sort. The question is, will it be an experience that’s memorable and worth sharing?

Content format preferences can be key, so it’s important to figure out how your target audience prefers to consume information: whether it’s video, visuals like infographics, long or short form text, or the many other media formats that exist. Topics and stories matter too, not just the media used to tell them.

Also look at what devices and platforms people are using to consume the information – social networks, websites, blogs, apps, and games plus smartphones, tablets or computers. Computer sales are rapidly declining and more people now buy more smartphones than any kind of computer. Is that trend reflected in your own customers’ journey?

Tapping into web analytics for devices used and media types consumed that results in conversions is the low hanging fruit for determining whether you need to optimize for a mobile experience vs. tablet or images vs. video. The same goes for themes, topics and stories that result in reaching content consumption objectives, whether they be time on site, page views, social shares or sales.

It’s not enough to create more content on the web. Companies need to look at creating compelling content that contributes to a memorable and compelling customer experience wherever they may be. The trend towards transmedia storytelling, borrowed from the entertainment industry, is a reflection of this shift. In retail, Omni-Channel marketing is the direction companies are taking to be wherever the consumer lives and to give them an experience worth inspiring purchase and sharing.

Michael Brenner, Vice President of Marketing and Content Strategy at SAP says: 

The future of content is human. Emotional. Personal. Until now, most content marketers have been focused on utility and publishing practical value through things like presenting data in infographics, lists and “how to” tips. I think this kind of content serves as a foundation. There will always be a need for this. But to differentiate themselves in the future, successful brands will be telling stories that evoke strong emotions and help the brand make a personal connection with their audience. One great example of this is the Google Chrome commercial “Dear Sophie.”

Action

Creating compelling content where your customers are looking and in the formats they prefer is where a lot of companies stop. But taking the next step and optimizing for action (not just sales conversions) is essential to positively affect business outcomes and to meet consumer expectations. Not every interaction with your content will result in a sale, but if it resonates with the reader or viewer, then providing alternative actions will help guide the consumer closer to the transactional objective the brand desires.

Lisa Grimm, Director, PR and Emerging Media at space150 says:

“Content, its present and future, is about storytelling. The result of which being a shared experience with meaning that prompts an action or outcome. Storytelling relies on the audience to develop specific visual imagery and detail to complete and co-create the story. Digital and social media enable us to create rich dialogue and dynamic communications experiences through the creation and distribution of content, and the conversation it precipitates.”

The future of content is most meaningful in the context of your brand’s experiences with your customers. Those experiences must also be accountable to meeting customer needs and contributing to business performance.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, Content Marketing World and Chief Content Officer Magazine says:

Content is: Compelling content that informs, engages or amuses. What makes content marketing different than simple content is that content marketing must do something for the business. “…with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

What I’d challenge you to do is think about answering this question for your company and your customers. What is the future of content for your customers and community? Answer that and I think you’ll be a lot further ahead to answering what the future of content is for your own brand and even yourself.

If you’re in the Twin Cities this week, join me downtown Minneapolis at Solera on Wed, April 17th at 5:30pm for a MIMA presentation on this topic: The Future of Content.

Here’s the official description:

According to IBM, 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years. Once you sift through the porn, pregnancy announcements, unfortunate health-condition disclosures and cat videos, you’re faced with a deluge of information produced by brands and their consumers.

As the traditional publishing model evolves, the door is open for brands to wield even greater influence over reporting and consumer information-discovery. However, taking advantage of this opportunity necessitates understanding the future of content.

Join Lee Odden at Solera on Wednesday April 17 for a discussion on the future of content, trends and how content is organized in successful organizations.

Get more info on the MIMA site and follow the hashtag #whatthefoc on Twitter.

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. |
What is The Future of Content for Marketers? | http://www.toprankblog.com