There’s been much buzz recently about the use of images in social media marketing.   More and more platforms are visual (think Pinterest, Instagram, SlideShare and Tumblr).   Facebook’s Timeline is all about pretty pictures.  And it seems that every other tweet references an infographic. We love images because they offer a nice diversion in a busy social media environment, and, let’s face it; viewing can be more fun than reading.   Savvy marketers are jumping on board and exploring ways to incorporate imagery into the marketing mix. It is about winning and keeping attention.  The right image can bypass our filters, trigger …

In previous posts I have talked about the importance of producing content that grabs the attention of your customers and prospects and engages them or inspires action.  But how does one do this in practice?  How do you speak in the language of the customer, connect with their concerns and choose topics that are of greatest interest? There’s a concept called Voice of the Customer (VoC) that can be important for content and social media marketing.  According to Wikipedia, it “is a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs… prioritized in terms of relative …

As I discussed in my first post, it can be a real challenge to maintain the pace of content needed to succeed in today’s busy social media environment.  Forrester’s famous Social Technographics report revealed that most of us are not natural content creators.  And there are so many media choices today, making it harder to break through and make an impression. Content curation can open the floodgates by providing a rich source of third party info for sharing and commentary.  It helps to ensure a steady stream of topics by avoiding over-reliance on 100% original content, and is a great …

Use the Right Content Marketing Metrics and Strategy to Produce Real Results I believe it is a very exciting time for content marketing.  Some say that this will be its big year, e.g. see 2012 is the Year of Content Marketing; and Windmill Networking columnist Judy Gombita shared this post about a Content Marketing Institute study that projected an increase in spending and said it “remains a top priority for marketers in 2012”). Social media expands the possibilities.  By combining the two, you can take a discrete unit of marketing, track its trajectory, costs, impact, and connect the effort back …

Optimize Story, Wrapper and Delivery Mechanisms to Break Through and Achieve Your Goals I started the first column in this series with the decidedly uncontroversial statement: Content is King. The truth is, I don’t really believe these words. In my opinion, content is no longer king. In fact, it is quickly becoming a commodity. The burgeoning growth of information and media choices is dividing our attention, and challenging marketers’ efforts to rise above the noise. Please understand that I am not saying that content is unimportant; just that having great content alone is not enough to achieve your goals, whether …

In my last article I said that combining content marketing with social media can generate impressive results; that it can turn content into a work horse, one that generates real returns for the business. That is the good news.  Unfortunately, it is much easier to try to bring the two together in ways that are not terribly impactful, or worse, hurt the brand. Success means overcoming differences between the worlds of marketing and social media.  Marketers need to open themselves to new ways of communicating and launching campaigns.  Social media practitioners need to learn more about marketing and get in …