I enjoy writing my monthly column for Windmill Networking. The drill usually involves talking to industry experts and doing lots of reading. As far as the latter goes, here’s a great trick that I learned: tune your Twitter listening to #contentmarketing; you will get a veritable fire hose of relevant information. There are many fine articles to read. There’s also often a numbing sameness in the Twitter stream, making it seem like we all went to the identical school of headline writing and use our prescribed tricks on our own content (if I don’t read one more “10 Ways to …
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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 …
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Content marketing is all the rage these days. The ” content” in content marketing might be blog posts, videos, slide shows, white papers, podcasts, ebooks–anything that can be read, viewed, or listened to by others. But why do it, and how is it “marketing”? Good content can do all of the following: Build your image as a trusted authority in topics related to your business concerns. Develop loyal followers who will come back for more of what you have to offer. Enhance the likelihood that you and your business will be easily found in search engines. Create new relationships with …
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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 …
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As companies become media publishers as part of their social media marketing strategy, one topic that always confuses my clients is the topic of content curation, or sourcing information from 3rd party sources and then sharing them on your social media properties. Windmill Networking Content Marketing contributor Bob Geller wrote a great post yesterday on how content curation can help complement your content marketing and social media marketing efforts. If you’re still trying to get a grip on content curation, let me frame the topic the same way I do for my clients: There is a certain frequency at which …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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Brings Content from King to Ka-ching “Content is King.” The words are stated so often that few people question them. Yet, kings can be both fickle and demanding sorts. And, let’s face it; for those who work in social media, and areas like marketing, content is not just king, but can be a royal pain, too; after all, it can be a real challenge to generate the quantities of high quality content needed to stay ahead of the proverbial pack. Bringing social media together with marketing via content marketing can address this concern and offers other benefits. It can provide …
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Over the last few years blogging has become a recognized marketing tool as a component of a social media strategy. While businesses used to scratch their head as to why they should be fiddling with something that was originally created for individuals, B2B marketing professionals should now realize that a blog can and should play a central role in their content marketing efforts as well as provide the foundation for their social media engagement. B2B blogs are not only showing up within the websites of more companies, they are providing real and measurable success for those that are doing it …
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Today’s blog post is from a guest and is about the importance of content, a topic that I have touched upon recently in posts such as the importance of everyone’s content on Twitter, and its value not only as part of your social media marketing, but also how it positively affects your relationship building as well as SEO efforts.
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As businesses embark on a social media strategy, I am finding that social strategy is being owned either by the Corporate Communications or Marketing Department. If you are one of the few companies that already have a Social Media Department, congratulations! If not, keep reading, because the advice is applicable to whoever is in charge of social at your company as well, regardless of department. Social media is only going to become more important for companies to engage in moving forward, but the question then becomes how is your company going to engage with the public on social websites? Sure, …
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