You have diligently read this column and heeded my advice about crafting compelling content. You have noted the challenges of getting attention for content – and used all of the tricks and techniques that I have shared to boost the odds that yours will rise above the noise. It is aligned with customer interests, optimized, colorized and multi-screen sized. In short, you have that YouTube video, blog post, article, whatever, crafted that is sure to set your audience on fire – and now want to get some results from the %@|^& thing. What do you do next? What are some …
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As I was doing research for an upcoming presentation on digital branding, I came across some interesting stats that I believe have big implications for B2B marketers. First, JD Power’s “Social Media Benchmark Study” provided showed that 2/3 of consumers used social channels for customer support, versus 33% who used social media to access marketing information. This is a consumer study, but B2B buyers are people, too, and it’s not a big leap to expect their habits as consumers influence their behavior in B2B interactions. Second, American Express reported in 2012 that its research found social media users are willing …
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I’m sure by now you are aware of all the benefits that Facebook contests brings for businesses. A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from one of our newsletter subscribers from Binkd. Helen is in the jewelry business and had been seeing great engagement on her page. She had been following our posts for a while and has finally decided to create her own Facebook contest for her business, in her email she asked if she really needed a Facebook contest app as she had noticed some Facebook pages don’t use them. She wanted to know what are …
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So far, we’ve covered why your business should have a blog, how to set it up, how to create your blogging strategy, and where you can find good topics to write about. The next step is creating a great blog post. Today, we’re going to look at the most important elements that go into composing a successful blog post. Length There are lots of differing opinions about how long a blog post should be. Some stick with the 300 word minimum for SEO purposes. Some think that no one wants to read a post longer than 600 words. Some won’t …
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As outbound marketing tactics peel away in the form of paint falling off of billboards, I am loving how much of a collaborative turn the world of marketing has taken as we head down the road of inbound. Every time I read through my Twitter feed, influencers and brands are recommending the words of others. Each time I read a blog post, content from other bloggers are linked to. All of these links, shares, tweets and likes are the modern and digital way to recommend something or someone—it’s word of mouth marketing and it’s the best marketing a brand can …
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Language choice is essential when it comes to internal communication. It’s also critical when communicating social media guidance within organisations. How social media friendly are you? In my last column I wrote about obeying the social media rules of the road and equipping leaders. I’m now going to look at creating social media guidelines for employees and available resources. One of the first steps is to identify your approach thorough choice of language. For example, think about the difference between the word policy as opposed to guidelines. Policy could be perceived as a threat and guidelines opportunity. I’m going to …
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Properly identifying the decision maker(s) may be the single most important aspect of the sales process. Certainly, this is no different in social sales. Specifically, we are looking for that person who has the … Money Authority Need Otherwise known as the “MAN”. If they don’t have the money, or they are not willing to part with it, you don’t have much of a prospect. If the person you are selling to does not have authority to make a decision about your services, and to authorize the expenditure, you have spent a whole lot of time selling to the wrong …
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As a social media marketer, you know the importance of your company’s reputation. You spend a lot of time working to build up and maintain a good name through Twitter, Facebook and possibly your blog and website. You know that in the age of social media direct engagement is key to building customer trust and loyalty. But sometimes you may think you’re doing all the right things and still experience a hit to your reputation. Unexpectedly, you may get word from one of your customers or contacts that your latest email campaign is being flagged as potential spam or that …
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Companies want to protect their assets, including their trade secrets, their client/customer lists, and the company’s most important asset: its own workforce. Companies invest significant resources to on-board new employees, put them through orientations, training sessions, retreats, and of course, provide them with salaries, commissions, benefits and other perks. They also become privy to confidential information and trade secrets. Simply put, good employees are difficult to find, and losing a good employee can be quite a setback for an employer. But change is inevitable. Employees leave good companies. To limit the possibility of an exodus of employees (and customers as …
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One of the first things my Social Media MBA students come to realize within the first 2 weeks of class is that the world of social moves at a rapid pace, changes often, and is constantly being evaluated and re-evaluated. You, the social media professional, carry the responsibility of ensuring you stay current with technology, methods, and strategy. With this responsibility also comes the need to represent yourself in a realistic light. Resist the urge to describe yourself as a social media Jedi, social media rock star, social media guru or the like. However, ‘social media professional’ is quite descriptive …
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Matt Singer is a huge advocate of using video to market your real estate business and rightly so. As the Founder and CEO of Videolicious, he is well acquainted with the advantages this marketing medium has to offer. As a featured speaker at a recent conference I attended in Las Vegas, NV, Matt presented on the many benefits of integrating video into an online marketing plan. I agreed wholeheartedly with his overview and was in fact so excited by the possibilities he discussed that I eagerly put together an introductory getting started guide to using video in your real estate …
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Years ago, while working for a human services agency, I stumbled upon the fact that the most clicked-on item in our e-newsletter was the ‘Recipe of the Month.’ It really had very little to do with our mission, but we wanted to offer something ‘tasty’ that would assure folks opened our emails. The recipes were from clients, staff and volunteers; we then included a sentence or two about the relevant program. We hoped folks would come for the recipe, learn something about our mission that might intrigue them, and then stay for the meal. It worked! It’s a way we …
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It’s been said that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it and, even though video in social media is still relatively new, the internet is littered with brands that have had to learn the hard way. Fortunately, they provide us with the opportunity to learn from their mistakes! Here are six mistakes to avoid: 1. Your video doesn’t tell a story. When you create a humorous, interesting, thought-provoking, or problem solving video, people will share it. When you ignore the rules of storytelling, people tend to ignore your video. Good visual storytelling is about sequence and structure. …
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By now (I hope!) most businesses realize that Google Plus is not only here to stay but offers a number of distinct benefits from a marketing standpoint. Many will mention the effect of Google+ on SEO (Google Search). Or they’ll bring up Hangouts and Hangouts On Air as useful, free communication and broadcasting tools. And more and more brands are finding creative uses for Google+ Communities. But for anyone who regularly produces content for the web, it’s likely that one of their first attractions to Google+ will be to Google Authorship and its fabled, much-speculated-about cousin Author Rank. As one of …
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Marketing to Today’s Empowered Consumer It’s no secret that we are increasingly connected. The penetration of smart devices has now reached a tipping point, globally. Surveys continue to reveal significant changes in consumer behavior and expectations. We have been writing about the evolving Social, Local, Mobile (#SoLoMo) marketing practice requiring a new mindset. Consumers are empowered and socially persisting. In days gone by, relations with friends and even colleagues were paced, constrained by the limitations of antiquated technology; now, technology has made everything instantaneous. While there are many opportunities for brands to seize, it’s important to recognize boundaries. So, in …
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Nonprofits always have an uphill battle — how to get the most value while spending very little money. After all, as much of the money a nonprofit can generate is meant to help the cause itself. Social media marketing is one low-cost tool that can help. In this post I’m highlighting 3 cool platforms that are helping nonprofits get the most bang for their marketing buck on social media! StayClassy StayClassy.org I met some of the team behind StayClassy a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed by both the people, and the platform. The company’s mission is to …
read more![Power Byte: Utilitarian Influence — Scaling and Managing PR 2.0 Expectations [Ike Pigott Interview]](http://windmillnetworking.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Apple-Bite-Social-Media-Public-Relations-Relationship-Judy-Gombita-150x150.jpg)
A feature interview with Ike Pigott, communication strategist with Alabama Power—a part of Southern Company that serves 1.4-million customers in the lower 3/4 of the state of Alabama. Please provide a brief backgrounder, including your contributions to Alabama Power in building up and scaling its social media presence. When I came to Alabama Power almost five years ago, there wasn’t a social media program—there really wasn’t a place for it within existing units. My original role was to edit the company’s intranet news site, which proved a fantastic place to learn the business quickly and assimilate the corporate culture. At …
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With social media moving so quickly and content being shared so readily, brands may lose control of their trademarks and copyrights. My colleague Christopher Budd has written a two-part blog on common sense content security in social media. His posts rightly discuss that social media engagement requires some degree of foregoing control. At the same time, brands need to be sensitive to protecting their intellectual property. This post presents the top five mistakes marketers make that expose a brand’s intellectual property to risk. 1. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT MISTAKE: Photographs on Google Images are not free for the taking. Regardless of whether …
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Shame on you if you’re seriously looking for my advice on this matter. I am a social media user who , as fellow LinkedIn author Viveka Von Rosen would say, is a “promiscuous networker.” I virtually meet and connect with a lot of other people in the world. It is a virtual connection to establish potential that I have been talking about ever since I published my first Windmill Networking book in September of 2009. Over the years, with the advent of open networking platforms like Twitter and Google Plus, many of us are much more promiscuous online than we …
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For years marketers have attempted to understand their target audience and create messages that speak directly to them. Focus groups, psychographic profiling, surveys and more have been used to get into customers’ heads for decades. And they still are today. But thanks to social media it’s even easier to become a “spy” and understand who you’re selling to. Cracking the nut of what makes your customers tick can be as easy a tracking a few key terms and listening in to the social chatter that’s already going on in your industry. Being a spy can help your marketing …
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