How College Grads Can Find Career Success in Digital Marketing

How College Grads Can Find Career Success in Digital Marketing Recent 2013 college graduates have received their diplomas and spent the past few summer months relaxing, celebrating and continuing their job search. Many students, particularly in the Journalism, Communication or Marketing fields are pursuing positions in the fast growing digital marketing industry to launch their careers. Fortunately, digital marketing budgets are expected to increase by 9% this year and there are many agencies seeking talent. However, upper management like the President of tech company, PubMatic, Kirk McDonald in this WSJ article, take the perspective of, "…the right skills are very hard to find. And I’m sorry to say it, dear graduates, but you probably don’t have them." Despite demand for talent, college graduates often don't qualify for the digital marketing positions available. Agencies want employees with experience, but as college grads, there’s a common feeling that you can't gain “real-world” experience until someone gives you that opportunity. Fortunately, there are several options for graduating college seniors or post college graduates to gain useful digital marketing experience that can help their chances of getting hired: Internships Seek other positions within the industry, or even outside the industry Develop and showcase your skills in the digital space Internships serve as a great stepping stone to that first real-world experience. Historically, internships have a negative reputation of little-to-no pay and menial tasks like the infamous coffee run.  Even if this is part of your job description, you can make any internship worthwhile. Use that time to observe, build relationships, utilize and grow your current skill set. You can achieve this by offering to help a co-worker on a project or taking initiative on your own project that may benefit the agency as a whole.  These tactics will demonstrate your dependability, teamwork and problem solving. Internships are smart for agencies too. To tap into a great source of talent, agencies seeking talent should invest in their internship programs by providing interns with the necessary training and tasks for them to be successful as future employees. Think outside the box. If you are not landing those internships or entry-level positions offered, you might consider seeking other positions, maybe even in another industry, in order to gain core business skills and the experience agencies are looking for. Research all positions available, via LinkedIn and agency career sites, where you can apply your current knowledge and skill set and continue to grow. Unbeknownst to many, there are more positions in a digital agency than a creative director or account manager. As digital agencies are ever changing, so are positions and job creation. Considering jobs outside of the digital agency will also be worthwhile. According to Forbes, "40% of grads from the nation's top 100 colleges couldn't find a job in their chosen field." Although this path may not directly provide you with the expertise you need, there are still invaluable professional and common skills to be learned, perfected and used to better position yourself for the job or in the industry you intend to pursue. Keep an open mind and more options will present themselves. Showcase your skills to stand out. Whether you are searching for a job, have an internship or are already in a full-time position, the best way to be competitive in the digital marketing industry is to develop and showcase your abilities. Showing your problem solving, creative and organization skills is a great way to brand and position yourself as the best candidate; it is your virtual resume. If you claim to be an expert in a program or skill, create something tangible to publish on digital sharing networks or a personal and professional site (like a blog). You should also stay current in the industry; find a problem facing a company, brand or product and provide a solution. This will demonstrate your quality of work, industry knowledge, how you think and your current skill level. As much as college students are seeking agencies, agencies are also seeking talent. Agencies should add creativity to their application process to allow applicants to stand out through writing samples, ad creation or problem solving. This will serve as a filter for smart, creative and hard-working candidates. There are many paths to reaching that dream job as a recent or future college graduate, especially in the digital world where jobs are plentiful, but hard to grasp. Candidates interested in the online marketing industry should consider internships, seeking alternative positions and showcasing their talent in the digital space. There are also more basic tactics that can be utilized to better position yourself as a candidate including researching the industry, applying everywhere, learning and applying skills agencies and positions require and networking with family, friends and professionals in the industry. Making the connection between agency and talent. From the agency perspective, many CEOs like our own CEO and Author of Optimize, Lee Odden, claim that finding the right talent is just as difficult as being the right talent in the digital industry.  Odden, says, "Agencies are having a hard time finding the right talent. I talk to other agency execs all the time, and all over the country there is a shortage of experienced digital marketing talent." To avoid the risk of hiring unqualified entry level employees, agencies should consider investing more time into their internship programs, explore the digital space for candidates and provide further ways for potential hires to demonstrate their qualification in the application process. We're doing just that at TopRank Online Marketing and have recently hired two of our interns (Steven Zahurones and Eliza Steely) into full time positions after completing an internal training program and demonstrating their skills with numerous projects. As a 2012 college graduate, my search for the right job in the marketing field explored other industries such as service and law. I was persistent and now I am an AdWords Qualified Account Coordinator at TopRank Online Marketing specializing in Pay-Per-Click. I get to work on projects with a smart team of marketers that allows me to help clients become successful, show my skills and gain valuable experience to advance my career. I invite you to network with me whether you are seeking a position in the digital marketing field or are looking for advice. TopRank continues to grow having added 8 new clients in the past few months and we’re also growing our team. Please refer to our career page for job opportunities with us! Photo source: Shutterstock

Online Marketing News Vacation Edition: Icky Gmail Ads, Twitter Oops!, LinkedIn Bandwagon, Google Dominates the Web

	Online Marketing News Vacation Edition: Icky Gmail Ads, Twitter Oops!, LinkedIn Bandwagon, Google Dominates the Web I’m on vacation this week, so today’s news post is light and fresh for your reading pleasure.  Enjoy! From the Social@Ogilvy Slideshare post: Every day people have millions of conversations about brands around the world. Many of these are advocacy mentions that help brands significantly amplify their marketing. Research suggests that up to 80% of reach from marketing campaigns now comes from network amplification through advocacy. This means brands that can't generate substantial advocacy will simply pay more to market less efficiently than those who make advocacy a brand priority. Social@Ogilvy analyzed 7 million brand social mentions across 4 countries (Brazil, China, UK, US) and 22 brands (with data from partners CIC, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Visible Technologies) to analyze the key drivers of advocacy. In Other Online Marketing News… Along with the auto-organizing inbox, Google starts placing ads that look like emails in Gmail – Time. This news is quickly followed by advice on how to opt-out – Information Week Slideshare now offers an infographics player along with reporting on views and embeds. Pro users get all new enhanced analytics options including graphs and the ability to drill down into more specific data – Slideshare Google Announces The New Nexus 7, Android 4.3 And Chromecast – trendblog Twitter fakes real users' tweets to promote ad platform – SF Gate Report: Web site advertising is a buzz kill. Satisfaction rankings for search engines, social networks, and news sites drop almost 4 percent from last year according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index – CNET LinkedIn Introduces Sponsored Updates for Companies. The new change follows in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter to enable the 3 million plus companies on LinkedIn to run paid promotion of their updates to the broader network beyond those that follow the company page – Mashable Facebook sales of ads on wireless devices now on track to surpass revenue from desktop computers – Bloomberg Foursquare Opens Self-Service Advertising to Small Businesses – Search Engine Watch Flipboard Brings Its Mobile Magazines To The Web – TechCrunch Google sets Internet record with 25 percent of U.S. traffic – CNET From The Online Marketing Blog Community: On the post, “Does SEO Still Matter?”, Patrick McFadden says: The struggle many face with marketing online is a misguided impulse to put various tactics into separate boxes, instead of seeing each as an aspect of one strategic process. People still refer to content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) as three different things — as if each is a tactic that can get you there alone. On the guest post by Brian Sheehan, “How the World's Top Marketers Make Emotional Connections to win in the Marketplace” Brent White says: A loved company has longevity because with emotion as the driving force boredom seldom will be a concern or an issue. What's Your Take? Do you think email-like ads in GMail are the right move for Google? Will you try to opt-out? What about the growth in social advertising? Will you try the new options from LinkedIn to promote your company posts?

Does SEO Still Matter?

	Does SEO Still Matter? We've all heard “SEO is Dead” from alarmists, the uninformed, and in countless link bait articles (irony?). But is there any truth to it? While Search Engine Optimization may look completely different than it did even a year ago, I firmly believe that SEO is not only alive, but thriving. Heres why: Some of SEO is Dead Many tactics that have fallen under the SEO umbrella can safely be considered dead, either because they don't work anymore, never worked, or still work but are in violation of Google's guidelines. I'm not going to spend time discussing why they don't work or are risky, because that's not what this article is about, and there has been plenty written about the topic. Just so we're on the same page, here are some examples of basic SEO tactics that aren’t worth your time: Keyword stuffing and hiding Buying mass links, directory links Duplicating websites (or categories) on different domains Content spinning, automatic content Optimizing purely for “ranking” outcomes What SEO is Today SEO at its core is the art and science of making high quality content easier to find on search engines. The key point being 'quality content' that helps customers answer questions that lead to purchase or some other business outcome. Most of Google's algorithm updates are intended to reward good content and punish spam. While it may not always feel like it, most Google’s best practices for SEO are really on your side, you just need to learn and master them. Here are some SEO tactics that are alive and well: Keywords that support customer targeting SEO copywriting and on-page optimization Link attraction Internal link optimization Technical SEO (anything designed to make your site more accessible to search engines) Optimizing for engagement and conversions Quality Content is Good, Optimized Content is Best If search engines are just trying to reward high quality content by making it more findable, isn't it enough to just create great content and call it a day? Unfortunately, no. While search engines are getting much smarter, more efficient, and overall better at 'screening' content, they still pale in comparison to peoples inherent ability to pick out the nuances and meaning of content. So it's important to send the right signals to search engines and make those signals as easy to understand as possible. Content quality comes down to relevance for customers and there’s no better way to target customer interests than through keywords. Every search begins with someone typing keywords into a search box, and ends with them clicking on one of the sites listed in the search results. If your site doesn't include the keywords or closely related phrases on web pages, in meta-data, or inbound link anchor text, you're not giving the search engines (or buyers) the information they need to understand your site’s relevance for that search query. Optimization of on-page copy and meta elements can have positive effects on search traffic and rankings, in particular for sites that are strong in most other aspects. For example, I have been working with a client in the software industry who has a well designed site that is technically sound, has useful and compelling content, and a strong back-link profile. However, competitor keyword research and customer targeting analysis indicated that the keywords which are most relevant to their audience related to consideration and purchase stages of the buying cycle weren’t being effectively targeted (i.e. they didn’t enough or at all in on page copy, meta elements, or cross-linking). Within 3 months of implementation of basic on-page content optimization, we achieved a 320% increase in organic search traffic, a 15% decrease in average bounce rate and page one rankings in the major search engines for nearly all of our identified target keywords. Better visibility for what customers are actually looking for leads to more traffic and sales. Links Still Matter While Google's recent announcement about the decreased importance of links is significant, it is far too soon to write off quality links altogether. Crawling links is an important way for search engines to discover content, thus the more links pointing to your site (from relevant, quality sources), the more opportunities the search engines have to find your content. Don't fall into the trap of treating links as more important than quality content, or that enough links pointing towards bad content can somehow make it good. This is the definition of misguided effort, as great content will not only attract quality links on its own (with help from effective promotion and social media shares), but is far more likely to increase visitor engagement when it's found, and result in those all-important conversions. Social shares are as important as links from other web pages, so ensure your content creation efforts include content promotion efforts through social networks. Grow networks on a regular basis to increase the audience reach of the optimized content you’re promoting too. Google+, Facebook and Twitter are must-haves with any content promotion efforts through social media. Just make sure you’re promoting plenty of other useful content, not just your own. Increasingly, it has become important to not only acquire quality links, but to monitor and potentially remove low quality links, especially if you have received an unnatural link warning from Google. Regular monitoring and auditing of your site’s link profile is a good preventative measure, as bad links often have a cumulative effect, and can be very difficult to clean up once it becomes a clear problem. Recently, a preliminary audit of a new client’s site indicated the prevalence of several nasty kinds of links, including paid site-wide links, and several thousand links from blog networks and link farms. Given the severity of the problem, we prioritized an extensive inbound link audit and disavowal initiative to ensure the quality content being published would not be negatively affected by previous SEO link building efforts. Technical Problems can Prevent Search Engines (and People) from Finding and Engaging with Your Content As fast as things change in SEO, the chances that search engine algorithms will start to penalize sites for functioning well from a technical standpoint are slim, and humans are no different. How many times have you wished a site would load slower? The importance of optimizing your site so that your pages load fast, your content is easily accessible and your navigation is intuitive cannot be understated. People will leave a site and never return if they get confused or have to wait too long, and search engines will too. This is one area in particular to keep a close eye on, as small technical issues can have wide-spread and severe effects on your sites search engine friendliness. Many companies with large sites that employ digital marketing agencies with strong SEO skills, receive their value many times over just from ongoing technical optimization. For example, un-intentionally  blocking pages or a whole site from being indexed in search engines via robots.txt is not only an SEO killer but very easy to do. Often development teams will temporarily block parts of a site when making updates, and unfortunately neglect to restore the robots.txt file following the updates. As site updates can often introduce indexation as well as other technical website problems, it’s a good idea to include a step for an external team to check for any problems following  a major update, as well as on an ongoing basis. Modern SEO is Alive and Well By definition, SEO is about an ongoing effort to improve the performance of your website content to be found both by customers using search engines. What better time is there for your useful content to be found than at the exact moment your customers need it? That’s the value search engine optimization brings to the online marketing mix. As long as people use search engines to find information and businesses have content they want potential customers to see, SEO will be important. I don't see that changing anytime soon. How are you using SEO in your company to attract, engage and convert more customers? Image source: Shutterstock

Social Media Strategy: Where to Start & Why

Social Media Strategy: Where to Start & Why Where to Start Your Social Media Strategy Whether you're a bricks and mortar mom and pop business or a 100% online digital enterprise, NOT participating in social media is no longer an option. In many ways today’s social networks represent the new discovery engine. Consumers and business decision makers are sending their friends and colleagues to websites they like through their browsers and desktops and, increasingly, their mobile devices. According to eMarketer, more than 1.4 billion people worldwide will use social networks in 2012. Although the global audience is massive, it is by no means unified, they caution. It's clear that companies of all sizes need to embrace a social media strategy because what our connections are doing online will drive your customers' behavior more and more. What still appears murky for many, however, is exactly where to start. Begin With Social Media Monitoring I recommend casting your net wide, beginning with social media monitoring. Why? Because basic business intelligence will provide a framework and may also reveal gaps in your competitor's digital footprint – knowledge you can take advantage of. For example, Google+ is still an underutilized platform for many companies, even with 343 million users. If your competitor isn't using a specific top-tier social media platform, your business can become an influencer with little effort. However, there are hundreds of social media sites and apps that may fit your target audience perfectly and some your competitors may not have discovered. The Core of Your Social Media Strategy: Goals & Measurement Just as every website serves a purpose, so too should your social media strategy. A social media presence without a business objective is like having a website without a Contact page. Business goals involving social media will vary depending on your unique product or service; just be sure to identify them. For example, one objective of social media might be to support sales by answering questions or publishing how-to videos. Another may be to augment customer service. By establishing specific goals, you can measure results and calibrate your efforts accordingly. The one thing I've learned about social media is that it's a fast-moving ecosystem. If you know what you want to achieve, and you aren't hitting your numbers, you can always optimize tactics for better performance. Or, if your metrics are anemic, this may be the signal to refine your strategy. Google recently made it even easier to measure referring traffic with their new Social reports. Since they scour the web looking for new content via links, it was only a matter of time before they released this layer of data. By providing a holistic social media report through your existing Google Analytics account, it will be much easier to replicate success when you know which pages, posts or social links are garnering the most engagement. Integrate with Search As Lee likes to say, “SEO is the peanut butter, social media is the jelly and content holds it all together”. The dynamic between social media content and shared links with visibility on search engines is undeniable.  When planning out social media content, make sure you tap into keyword glossaries researched by the SEO team or agency. Creating keyword optimized content that is prone to be shared will extend the reach of your social media messaging and attract even more participants to your networks on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Social Goes Mobile Lastly, no social media strategy would be complete without discussing mobile. It can be argued that the rise in smartphone technology correlates directly to the explosion of social media usage.  Keeping pace are technology platforms that can track conversions from social media and email to real-world foot traffic. Whether you're a local business who wants to tie Facebook "likes" to in-store purchases with performance monitoring from startup Circl or a cross-channel marketer wanting a 360 degree view of your customer using an enterprise-level solution, like Strongview (formerly StrongMail), gaining insights into customer behavior has never been easier. (Disclosure: Strongview is a client of TopRank Online Marketing.) Your goal as business owner or marketing department then becomes creating the right offer tailored to the right person at exactly the moment they're ready to buy, elevating the term "digital handshake" to a whole new level! Image source: Shutterstock

What Makes a Company Loved? Loveworks by Brian Sheehan

What Makes a Company Loved? Loveworks by Brian Sheehan Apple. Google. Disney. These are some of the most admired and in many cases, loved brands in the world.  No doubt, many companies are envious of the connection these top brands have been able to make with their customers.  A strong connection between brands and consumer manifest in many ways from retention to word of mouth to premium pricing. As companies focus in on creating more content and utility in their marketing, more organizations are beginning to realize the importance of creating an emotional connection. This is along the lines of meaningful vs. mechanical marketing I’ve often talked about. I was reading a book recently that focuses in on exactly this topic: Loveworks: How the world’s top marketers make emotional connections to win in the marketplace by Brian Sheehan.  Brian agreed to do a guest post answering a pretty important question in today’s age of information overload: What makes a company loved? People today do not find government or business very trustworthy, let alone worthy of their love. The 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer showed “a serious crisis of confidence in leaders of both business and government.” Trust in the institutions of government and business themselves is up on 2012, but still tepid. Globally, business is 58% and government 48%. Business may be the best bet for improving global life, but winning people’s trust is only the start. The good news is there’s a higher path. As a marketer turned academic, I’ve recognized a pattern in the most successful companies across sectors and geographies. These companies apply 10 universal elements to become not just liked, trusted, respected or admired — but flat-out loved. Putting love in the same sentence as business occasionally meets resistance, but love occupies premium territory for margin, share, growth and preference, and makes the world a better place. Love works; here are the 10 elements of a Lovemarks Company: A Loved Company is driven by Purpose. Purpose is the thread that binds great companies, their people and their customers. Purpose is the dream of the entrepreneur that flows through the enterprise, from Sam Walton bringing choice into the lives of millions of people to Bill Gates’ computer on every desk and in every home. If there is no dream, the company derails. A Loved Company Inspires People. Being loved is not about satisfying or persuading people, the modus operandi of brands. Love is about inspiring people, about lifting their lives through innovation (Procter & Gamble), distribution (Amazon) communication (Toyota) or in other magic ways. Love answers the big question: “How will you improve my life?” Priceless. A Loved Company is Emotional. It sounds obvious, but how many companies are emotional? How many understand what separates their customers from others and plumb those differences to speak to the hearts of users and non-users alike? Big Data wants to, but it will never match the irresistible human touch, from the flying fun that Virgin Atlantic delivered to the authenticity of the Miller High Life Delivery Man. A Loved Company Uncovers Truth. Most research produces insights that are not insightful because what people say they do and how people actually behave is different. A loved company uncovers the truths needed to deliver what matters to people by getting closer to people. For example through exploration, Guinness got the revelation that there is a “Drop of Greatness” in every African man. A Loved Company is a Creative Leader. Only creativity has unreasonable power and the more that brands look the same the more there is a premium on originality. From the Ford assembly line through to the ground breaking Toyota Prius, the companies that inspire love will always be those that do what Apple did, “Think Different.” A Loved Company Has a Rallying Cry. Revolution begins with language and a rallying cry is a way to drive purpose to action, both inside and outside the company. Whether it’s a statement (Lenovo. For Those Who Do.), a challenge (Lexus – Pursuit of Perfection) or a visual cue (Cheerios), a rallying cry creates a higher meaning to inspire a greater involvement. A Loved Company Has People Power. Loved companies win because in a time of viral velocity, a ‘Participation Economy,’ they build a movement and inspire more people to join them. Whether it’s through igniting customer passions or capturing the popular imagination ‘Gangnam Style’, people power accelerates results through emotion, participation, celebration and sharing. A Loved Company Has Mystery. The less we know about something, the more interesting it gets. This is mystery, the powerful realm of inspiration, dreams, icons, myths and stories, and past / present / future together. Winning is about a shared journey with a clear trail to follow. An unfolding always-interesting narrative. A Loved Company Has Sensuality. People operate on all five senses. Most brands operate on one or two. Lovemark companies evoke responses across all the senses. Argentina’s top home appliance brand BGH changed out the ‘beep’ of a microwave for your favorite song. A German bank visualized its annual report with art installations. Sensuality is a gateway to the real world that engages people. A Loved Company Has Intimacy. This is the company putting itself in the heart of the audience. Not putting customers at the heart of what the company does, but asking to be invited into their individual hearts, and doing it through empathy, commitment and passion. The Ritz-Carlton switched “Please stay with us” to “Let us stay with you.” Love works in business, try it. This guest post is © 2013 Brian Sheehan, author of Loveworks: How the world’s top marketers make emotional connections to win in the marketplace Besides being the author of Loveworks: How the world’s top marketers make emotional connections to win in the marketplace, Brian Sheehan is Associate Professor of Advertising at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University and was previously at Saatchi & Saatchi for 25 years.

Online Marketing News: Fortune 500 Social Media Pops, Sharknado!. Boomers Online Not TV, Ecomm & Tech Boost Spending

Online Marketing News: Fortune 500 Social Media Pops, Sharknado!. Boomers Online Not TV, Ecomm & Tech Boost Spending The annual study of Fortune 500 company blogs and social media use by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has been published for 2013 indicating the largest increase in corporate blogs since 2008. Other statistics from the report: 77% of Fortune 500 companies have at least one Twitter account Consumer Food Products and Specialty Retailers lead with Twitter adoption Facebook, Google and Starbucks have the largest Twitter following with a combined 20,000,000 Twitter followers 69% of Fortune 500 companies have a Facebook fan page Facebook, Coca Cola and Walt Disney have the largest Facebook following with a combined 300 million fans 69% of Fortune 500 companies have a YouTube account 9% of Fortune 500 companies have a Pinterest account 35% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Google+ account. 19% have Google+ accounts but are not active 9% of Fortune 500 companies have an Instagram account 9% of Fortune 500 companies have a FourSquare account and only 1 (Walmart) in the top 10 59% of Fortune 500 companies link to their social media accounts from the home page Here is the full infographic and report. In Other Online Marketing News… How Marketers Are Approaching Mobile in 2013: A new study from Chief Marketer reports that most marketers are integrating mobile in their marketing efforts including 76% that optimize email for mobile. However, only 40% are optimizing email landing pages for mobile. Source: MarketingProfs  TV + Twitter = Sharknado. SyFy ran a TV movie about a tornado of sharks pummeling Los Angeles that attracted over 300,000 tweets during the broadcast. An additional 400,000 plus tweets went out leading up to the show and afterwards. Wil Wheaton live tweeted the show and it was retweeted over 10,000 times. Source: AllTwitter Baby Boomers and seniors now spend more time online than watching television, according to a report by Ipsos and Google. Source: MarketingProfs Buyers prefer B2B vendors with better site search & easier purchase processes. (that’s why you optimize!)   Sourcs: BtoB Magazine Yahoo buys Admovate to ramp up its mobile advertising Source: Network World B2B Email Marketing Study: What is the biggest challenge with email marketing for B2B marketers? Content & measuring ROI.  BtoB Magazine Search Rules in Ecommerce: Online retailers are putting most of their marketing budget into search. Source: VentureBeat Smartphone Marketing Opportunities Abound: Google study reports that 56% of U.S. consumers own smartphones, 61% search daily, 77% research product or services. Mobile ad spend is $7.7B in 2013, $28B by 2017. Source MediaPost Where are B2B Multi-Channel Marketers Investing Most? A new study from Silverpop and Forrester reveals that B2B Marketers are invested more heavily than B2C in only one area of multi-channel marketing. Guess what it is? Source: MarketingProfs Advertising Investments Rose 30% During Q1 2013 At Tech Companies While Overall Ad Spend Dropped 1% Source: Mediapost From The Online Marketing Blog Community Here’s our favorite comment from this week’s posts: How to Rock Content Marketing World 2013 – Six Ways John Ellis says: Fantastic post Lee. “Most people drift from session to session like sheep and sit passively hoping something the speaker says will wake them from the fog of last night's networking.” This is one of the biggest issues and I think it has a lot to do with the presenters as much as the attendees. Listening to someone drone on over a PPT can be horribly boring. Many presenters are simply regurgitating the same message wherever they go. Research your presenters and watch clips of them in action. Find the ones that excite you, that speak to you. Stay away from the drones. What's Your Take? Should all Fortune 500 companies have social profile links on their home pages? Did you Tweet while watching Sharknado? What, you didn’t watch Sharknado? That’s OK, neither did we Have a great weekend!

How to Rock Content Marketing World 2013 – Six Ways

	How to Rock Content Marketing World 2013 – Six Ways Joe Pulizzi rocking his talk at Content Marketing World 2012 There’s some serious momentum growing in the digital marketing world and companies world-wide are scrambling to figure out one of the most important pieces for success: content. What better way to close the gap between early maturity model stages and a path to greater profitability than learning from top experts who have already “been there, done that”? Content Marketing World coming up Sept 9-11 will provide the answers many digital marketers are looking for. Like anything of value, attending conferences is an investment and #CMWorld is no different. If you’ve been thinking about how to advance your organization’s ability to plan, create, market, measure and govern content in your organization, then I can’t think of a better event. While Joe Pulizzi and his team do everything they can to make the event an incredible experience, here are 6 tips for you to boost the ROI of your conference investment even further, whether you are attending, speaking or sponsoring. 1. Rock The Mic Before, During & After – Optimize Your Presentation Experience Failure to plan is a plan to fail. This is easily one of the most basic, yet impactful things you can do to get more value out of a conference. While Content Marketing World is one of the best organized events I’ve ever been to, it’s important to understand you are in control of your experience. Especially if you plan things out ahead of time. Allow for adaptation of course, but setting goals and outlining steps beforehand will make speaking at an event an entirely new marketing experience. Before the event: Write headlines, descriptions, tags and make trackable short URLs Pre-write tweets, updates and decide on a hashtag Submit your session to event listing sites, create events on Facebook and LinkedIn Create a contest or buzz around your presentation to inspire others to tell their networks Issue an optimized press release Schedule interviews with media attending the event and/or local media Connect with other speakers in advance Create a teaser for your presentation Announce your event attendance through email and your social channels When you meet people before your presentation, don't be shy about sharing when you are speaking Create a check-in notice on Foursquare inviting people to attend your session During the event: Create content the audience can participate with. I like to take photos of the audience and post to our Facebook page so they can tag themselves. Use tweetable, shareable content in your presentation Give something away to motivate desired behaviors like asking questions Always include a report or fulfillment piece in your thank you page Have someone on your team monitoring tweets and buzz during your presentation. Interact as appropriate After the event: Curate buzz about the presentation into a blog post and/or newsroom post Follow up on questions asked and fulfillment deliverables Connect with new contacts through appropriate social channels Thank the conference for having you If you were on a panel, thank the panelists and moderator Thank any livebloggers that covered your session Use media coverage from the event in your newsroom, corporate email and other communications 2. Sing for More Than One Audience  - Identify Networking Targets Most people I talk to evaluate conference attendance purely by how many leads they went home with.  The frequent disappointment based on that one dimension is a result of a copious amounts of short term thinking and overconfidence. It’s a competitive world out there and if you want to make it to the big stage, you’ll need to hustle. I always like to say that I can make money 5 ways when I attend conferences and that starts by identifying your networking targets. What business goals can you achieve from connecting at an event where so many likeminded, interested and capable people are present?  Set goals for those targets: How many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates will you meeting? Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up. Common event networking targets and objectives: Recruiting Collecting competitive intelligence Vendor and consultant sourcing Partner sourcing Prospecting for new customers 3. Become a Better Marketing Musician By Learning From Others – Plan to Get Smarter Before you ever attend a conference, think about which sessions will you attend and how will you capture information? Notes, photos, video (where allowed) When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes – it's a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you'll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes. You can benefit from understanding how the information is presented as much as from the actual tips. The format, sequence, design and presentation of information that connects is a model you can leverage for your own purposes: whether it's speaking at a conference or event yourself or communicating and persuading people internally. Planning your conference session attendance is essential. Think of how many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information presented. Will you take notes on an iPad, laptop or (gasp) on paper? Will you take photos or video (where allowed)? Do you know where to get a copy of the speakers' presentations? Introduce yourself to speakers and ask them a key question on video so you can review later and share with your team. When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes – it's a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you'll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes and you might miss out on the session entirely because rooms can fill up. Most people drift from session to session like sheep and sit passively hoping something the speaker says will wake them from the fog of last night’s networking. Other people set goals, and proactively seek sessions, speakers and vendors that will help them fill gaps and expand their knowledge. It’s an intentional effort, not a passive approach that wins when it comes to gaining new knowledge at a conference. Be a rock star attendee and be intentional about how you’ll get smarter. 4. Bootleg the Music – Create, Curate and Amplify Content  When you attend an event like Content Marketing World, you’ll be one of thousands and thousands of marketers who are not able to go. It’s like being able to go to a concert with the best bands. You don’t want to keep all that musical goodness to yourself, do you? While bootlegging performances is usually prohibited at a concert, creating content at a conference is one of the best things you could do for the benefit of your colleagues and customers. Think about how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation? Set goals for how many you'll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what's happening in the industry. If you have staff attending an event, make it part of their requirements to create content while they are there. At Content Marketing World, you’ll see TopRank’s Alexis Hall, Katie Bresnahan  and Susan Misukanis live-blogging away and posting their observations here. This tip alone will turn up the volume on your conference ROI. Set goals for how many blog posts, articles or other types of content will be created each day of the conference. It doesn't have to be all text – take photos of people, and presentation slides. Take videos where allowed. Liveblogging – You can transcribe what the speakers say word for word or just listen for key quotes or pieces of information and make a "list post" around a specific topic. Pre-write an article about the session topic and fill in stats and quotes from the speakers. Interviews – Reach out to speakers in advance and collect tips from their presentations as a way to help boost attendance to their session. Shoot video interviews of speakers or other smarties at the conference. Record podcast interviews with the same people. Capture single tips on video from a large number of people and compile into one video. Go to exhibitor booths and ask them for a 30 second pitch on video and compile them. Survey attendees on what they like best, tips they've heard, etc into a compilation video. With video, you might want to get sign-offs. Also, non-speakers may be reluctant. Journal – Keep notes and write a summary of key points from the day and publish like a journal entry. Link to other bloggers that are publishing liveblog posts at the same event. Curate – Use a tool like storify to curate the buzz of the conference. You don't even need to be at the event to do this if a conference hashtag is used consistently. Track Your Own Buzz – If you are speaking, make sure someone from your team is tracking mentions of you, your company and topic on social streams like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Monitor any liveblogging of your presentations as well. Give people an incentive to liveblog your sessions too. If anyone liveblogs or livetweets one of my presentations, I will often send them a copy of Optimize. Curate those mentions into a roundup post on your company newsroom. 5. Get Your Demo Tape to the Right People – Amplify the Transfer of Knowledge When you do make a commitment to capturing content at an event, it’s equally important to consider how those tips, tactics and actionable insights will get out of your head and computer and into the hands of people in your organization that can put them into action. Think about how will you pass on the information you've acquired to the rest of the team? At TopRank Online Marketing, our staff take the highlights and any specific tactics of use and create presentations which they share with the rest of the team. Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining with the team back at the office helps focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of the new information. Here are some handy tips for knowledge transfer: Capture: Target specific speakers and sessions. Write questions you want answered and if the presentations do not contain those answers then pursue subject matter expert speakers to ask them directly. Capture information in text, audio, video and image. No one ever comes back from an event thinking they took too many photos. Maybe the wrong photos, but not to many. Also, be aware of conference policies on video and image capture. Synthesis: When you formulate questions, have specific applications for your business in mind. When you get the answers, filter the information in a way that will be practical and useful when it is shared – vs. all theoretical. Discuss the information and tips collected with fellow attendees to filter out what's most useful. Distribution: Have a plan for how you will present the useful tactics, insights, statistics and case studies with your co-workers, clients and other interested parties.  You could write a report, you could create a presentation to give live or via webinar, you could compile video clips and images to narration. Individual tips could be saved on an internal knowledge base blog according to category. You could have a post-conference brown bag lunch discussion or a more formal presentation. There are many different options, but have them in mind before the conference to increase the likelihood they will actually happen and in an effective way. 6. After The Concert, The Real Party Begins – Optimize Your Socializing Where there's a conference, there's a party. Content Marketing World will be no different. Especially when you consider that Cleveland hosts the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After hours events are exceptional opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. Make a point to relax and have fun, but be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are ad hoc events that occur as a result of likeminded individuals wanting to continue the day's discussion. The formal connections you make during the day can be extended with social conversation after the event. These connections can become some of the most valuable because no matter how smart you are, people want to work with other people they like. After conference networking is a chance to connect with other professionals on a more personal or at least relaxed level. Just remember, what happens in Cleveland, will absolutely be broadcast on Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Facebook and maybe even Google+ Are You Ready to Rock? Even if you do 2 or 3 of these things, you’ll be able to multiple the value from attending a conference like Content Marketing World. These tips are applicable to any event and as the demand for more content grows, why not take advantage of the opportunities right in front of us? Here are details on the event. If you have any questions about Content Marketing World, or are interested in more tips, please be sure to ask in the comments or email me directly at lee at toprankblog dot com. I hope to see you in September!

Essential Q and A on SEO & Content Marketing for Small Businesses

	Essential Q and A on SEO & Content Marketing for Small Businesses The idea of making online content that is useful to people as well as easy to find and share applies to any organization whether it’s a B2B software company, a non-profit association or a government organization. There’s so much information being produced and promoted plus a growing array options for consuming content that standing out can be a real challenge. I recently did a Google+ Hangout with a group of Chamber of Commerce executives from all over the U.S. talking about the role of content in marketing for small businesses. We dug into the fundamentals of what to talk about and how it can create a mutual benefit for SMBs and their customers. We also discussed the notion of empathy for our audiences and how important it is to invest in quality content as well as efforts to make that content easy to find and share. Here’s a “cliff notes” version for our conversation, which was organized and led by Frank J. Kenny: What’s more important, content or SEO? Content is the reason search engines exist and if they didn’t, content would still be what people use to connect online. In the modern digital marketing mix, it’s a holistic and customer centric approach that wins. That involves objectives and planning but also an understanding of the topics that matter to customers through the buying journey. Knowing how customers seek out answers online and what content formats they prefer is important too. Understanding how to create useful, entertaining information that moves the buyer along from awareness to purchase is how investments in content pay off. SEO plays a role for discovery across the entire sales cycle to surface brand information that helps buyers come to know your company as the “best answer” to their problem. By understanding how your target audience Discovers, Consumes and Acts on information, we can optimize to Attract, Engage and Convert them as customers. How do you decide what to write and how much is enough? Intuitively, content creation should come from a place of passion about what your company stands for and how it helps customers. There are many reasons people buy a product or service and that translates into stories to be told. As long as different people buy a company’s products and services for different reasons or applications, there will be reasons to create content. I think it’s important to understand that Content Marketing is not a project. It’s a commitment to your customers that you’re there to help them get the information they need to feel confident about buying from you. Logistically, content should be planned in an editorial calendar that focuses on the topics, frequency and channels that matter most to potential customers and any other audience you’re trying to connect with: existing customers, the media and industry influencers. Crawl, walk, run and base the transitions on your goals, resources and monitoring of what’s working and what’s not. Always be optimizing! How does social media work with search and where does content fit? I like to say SEO is peanut butter, Social Media is the jelly and content is the bread that holds it all together. Except this sandwich is in more than one dimension. Content is where your stories get told and both SEO and social media are ways to amplify the reach and engagement of those stories. Insights from SEO keyword research can review topics in demand that you should probably write about to attract customers that are actively looking. At the same time, monitoring social media can reveal topics and trends that can drive your editorial plan by covering issues, topics and especially, answering questions that your customers and buyers are interested in. Understanding customers, researching relevant keywords, planning, creating, optimizing and promoting content are all part of a process that any small business owner can begin to tackle through a blog or contributing articles to other blogs and industry publications. Think about what kinds of questions customers have when they buy and then create content with answers that is easy to find and compelling to share. Become the best answer for what your business is best at, make it easy to buy and your sales will grow.  That’s a win for everyone.

Optimizing With Youtility – Free Tools to Better Understand Your Customers and Create Marketing That Matters

Optimizing With Youtility – Free Tools to Better Understand Your Customers and Create Marketing That Matters As you know, we rarely run guest posts but today I’d like to welcome best selling author Jay Baer to TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.  Jay’s new book, Youtility, is lighting the bookseller charts on fire and has offered an excerpt for your reading pleasure.  After meeting Jay about 5 years ago at SXSWi, it’s been a pleasure to see his rise as a digital marketing powerhouse keynote speaker, consultant and all around great guy. Jay is a veteran agency owner going back to the very early days of the internet and an entrepreneur. He’s worked with numerous Fortune 500 brands and is one of the few marketing “celebrities” that walks the talks he’s giving. Enjoy! For your marketing to be so useful that people would gladly pay for it – which I call "Youtility" marketing – you have to fully understand what your prospective customers need to make better decisions, and how you can improve their lives by providing it. There was a time when trying to reach “25 to 44 year-old housewives in the Midwestern United States” qualified as a highly segmented effort. Today, in the age of self-serve information, the demographics of prospective customers are simply the starting point, not the end. You must align what you provide your customers and prospects with what they actually need. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank, and author of the excellent book Optimize describes this need to better understand the customer exceptionally well: “You have to empathize with your target audience in three ways,” says Odden. “One, ‘how is it that they discover information?’ Two, ‘What are their preferences for consumption?’ which drills down into channels, and devices and content types. Then the third thing is what motivates them to take action?” Fortunately, as knowing more about your customers has increased in importance, so have the tools available to gain that understanding. There are a variety of free (or nearly so) approaches that you can use to better understand customer needs on the way to creating Youtility. Search Engine Data is the Atlas for Consumer Understanding While the number of places consumers go to seek information has grown exponentially, weakening somewhat the role of search engines in the process, search engines (especially Google) stand alone in giving us the ability to mine and analyze consumer inquiry data. A variety of free tools from Google can help you understand customer needs, based on what people are looking for, and when. Google Trends enables you to compare search volume patterns across location and time frame, and provides related search terms and comparative volume for them. For example, if you owned a barbeque supply e-commerce site and were thinking about starting a new, online forum dedicated to a method of outdoor cooking growing in popularity, an analysis of “pellet smokers” on Google Trends shows a sharp spike in searches for that term in the United States from 2008 onward. Digging deeper, Google Trends shows that Texas and California have disproportionate high incidences of search volume for “pellet smokers,” and that “pellet grills smokers” and “traeger smokers” (a popular brand) are related queries used by searchers. An even simpler tool is to use Google Suggest to better understand how consumers see your products and services. Type a company or product name into Google and see what Google “suggests” as possible searches. Typing in “Charmin” for example, finds these suggestions: “charmin coupons,” “charmin mega roll,” and “charmin toilet paper” as well as something called “charming charlie.” This information is updated instantly and is useful for understanding who consumers think your competitors are, and how you stack up. A longstanding favorite of the inbound marketing community, Google’s Keyword Tool is often used to determine which search terms to include in a paid, search engine advertising campaign. Unfortunately, this tool will soon go offline, so it's time to start looking at alternatives. They all pretty much work like this: starting with one, a handful or hundreds of seed terms, the keyword tool will then recommend a swath of alternatives and display comparative search volume and level of competition (number of existing advertisers per term). Using the Keyword Tool with a seed term of “Facebook advertising,” for example, finds that Google recommends “facebook advertising cost,” “free facebook advertising,” “facebook advertisement,” “facebook advertising statistics,” and “facebook and advertising” as the top five alternatives based on relevance, and “facebook advertising costs” is shown with 8,100 monthly searches on average by consumers, with a high level of competition. Google Correlate is the newest of the free Google tools, and it is essentially Google Trends in reverse. The tool allows you to research a term and see what other searches were being performed with similar volume at a similar point in time, or in the same regions. It’s outstanding when used to uncover seasonal and location-specific inquiry patterns. For example, Google Correlate shows that the search term “pellet smokers” has a .8947 correlation with the search term “big 12 basketball standings” across the entire country, but the correlation in Kansas (where two of the Big 12 members’ universities are located) has a correlation of 4.814. If you – in your barbeque equipment business – want to find a way to provide exceptionally useful marketing for customers in Kansas (and throughout the Big 12 region), a program that sends text messages with instant basketball score updates might make for a successful implementation. Excerpted from the New York Times best seller Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype by Jay Baer. See YoutilityBook.com  for other resources. For your further reading pleasure, take a look at an exceprt from Youtility below: Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype – Exclusive Free Excerpt   Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Break Free of Old SEO & Become the Best Answer for Prospects, Customers & The Media

Break Free of Old SEO & Become the Best Answer for Prospects, Customers & The Media Between major algorithmic updates to better filter content, links and aggressive tactics to removing several important signals SEOs use to improve marketing performance of their websites, the search engine optimization game isn’t what it used to be. Change is a constant with SEO but one thing is certain at the moment: A LOT more companies are asking about how they can create some buffer against the volatility of Google organic search listings. Some have been hit by Panda or Penguin updates, but even more are realizing their over-reliance solely on organic SEO has them feeling a little uneasy. This is not to say SEO is the reason to be uneasy, because it’s not. Putting all your online marketing eggs in one basket is what should cause concern. For every company that is creating useful, sharable content, growing their social networks, and optimizing the performance of their online marketing, there are probably 10 or even 100 more that are solely focused on tweaking keywords and getting links in the hopes of that first page or top 3 listing. “If only we could reach #1, we’d be in the money.” Beyond the singular SEO focus is the growing realization that consumers use more than search to find information and make purchases. And to be successful with online marketing, companies need to be where their customers are. They need to be there in a meaningful way. How? By understanding and answering your customers’ questions on their journey from awareness to purchase to advocacy. There’s a lot to be said about the utility of answering questions and the benefits for customer acquisition, just ask Jay Baer or Marcus Sheridan. Where to start? Making the transition to a more diversified, customer-centric approach to online marketing with content that is easy to find and share is actually pretty straightforward. The most basic and impactful thing a company can do to leverage content to increase awareness, grow brand credibility, and improve customer acquisition is to answer customer questions. Keep in mind, when it comes to diversifying your online marketing mix beyond standard SEO, your target audience is more than people who buy. It includes other important groups including existing customers and industry media. Here are three building blocks for questions you can answer to fuel a more diversified and customer centric content marketing plan: 1. Answer the questions of your prospects – Don’t just write FAQs for this. Create stories, get visual and definitely get creative in how you empathize with customers and show them how to go from problem to solution with your help. If you do anything with the creation of new content, do this.  Of course, you must optimize for search and social media discovery as well as for sharing. Where to find questions? Monitor “trigger” keywords on social networks Talk to your sales force to discover common questions from real prospects Review web analytics to find questions that have been used as search queries to deliver visitors to your website Review logged search queries on your internal site search engine for frequent search phrases Leverage keyword research tools to find forms of questions using relevant keywords to your business Crowdsource questions with your social networks and communities Compile questions into topical clusters and leverage for your ongoing content creation plan. Create a feedback loop for questions sourced through social media by posting answers and recognizing publicly those who helped. 2. Answer the questions of your existing customers – Customer acquisition can be a lot more expensive than retention, so make sure you’re creating, optimizing and socializing content that will help, inform and entertain your existing customers. Happy customers will tell stories about your brand and products. Make it easy for them to do that by providing useful content – whether it’s a lifestyle magazine or practical ways to get more out of their purchase. Survey existing customers to find common questions so you can better serve them Talk to your customer service people to discover common questions posed by real customers Review web analytics for the keywords used in search referring traffic to your customer support content, FAQ, knowledge base or support forums If you have a forum, customer focused social network accounts or feedback channels, monitor for questions, topics and themes Customer retention can contribute a significant financial impact on a business, so why not create content to support customer satisfaction? Why not optimize and socialize that content so it’s easy for customers to find and share? 3. Answer the questions of industry media - Make no mistake, the credibility of 3rd party media visibility can be instrumental for growing  awareness, authority and sales. A journalist, analyst or a blogger have different questions than a prospect or an existing customer. Strong opinions, compelling examples and research are often useful for adding expertise to a story. Facts and media are probably the easiest and often overlooked types of information that can be useful to journalists. The types of content often created and used by journalists, editors, reporters, analysts and bloggers that could be useful in an optimized and socialized newsroom include: Past media coverage and bylined articles Video Reports Images Company fact sheet FAQs about the company Management team Event calendar Press Releases Links to corporate content Links to corporate social profiles (or a social hub) As you come to know the information preferences of customers, why not discover those preferences for the media covering your industry? Make it easy for them to find and definitely make what they find incredibly useful. Optimization is about more than rankings and how content is discovered through organic search. It’s about understanding your distinct audiences and creating findable, shareable content that answers their questions in a way that builds your brand credibility and pulls prospects to purchase, customers to advocacy and the media to your brand as the best answer for your area of expertise. To optimize is a continuous process of putting forth the tactics of a plan designed to achieve a particular objective. Optimization is a cycle of continuously collecting the performance information of online marketing efforts and making adjustments to improve. To diversify from a singular approach to online marketing using SEO requires a more holistic view of what optimization is and has evolved into. It means a commitment to content, community and an approach that is customer focused. Are you mining data sources, connections and networks for questions? What challenges are you having in using those questions to inspire content? Are you making an intentional effort to diversify your SEO efforts to be more content and social media focused? Image credit: Shutterstock

5 Ways to Optimize Lists for Content Marketing

5 Ways to Optimize Lists for Content Marketing When you spend time creating great content and being useful on the social web (as well as in the real world) it’s inevitable that you’ll be included on a list.  Recognition is a powerful thing and when it comes to lists, the value of inclusion is in direct proportion to how objective and well curated the list is. A credible list of people, brands or resources will not only attract visitors and shares from the community of the site that published it, but more importantly, inspired sharing by those included in the list itself. As a public person that creates a lot of content and tries to be useful on the social web, I get included on a good number of lists. On this blog we create quite a few of them too. The fundamental rules for list creation and repurposing with content marketing is to: Identify the target audience and their interests, pain points and goals > Determine the scope of topical influence with the entities being included in the list > Establish (topically) how the brand wants to be known > Align a list content plan that accounts for topic variations, stories and themes as indicated by customer goals and brand  >objectives EContent Magazine recently published a list of content marketers on Twitter (thank you for including me). As far as I can tell, the only content created for the list is the list blog post. That list got me thinking about other ways a thought leader list like this could be repurposed to extend value and reach. Here are a few 5 worth considering: 1. Drill Down Into List Qualifications –  Maybe a list isn’t qualified competitively or in the case of the example below, there’s a different way to look at qualifying the list outside of the intended purpose. Cision manages a well managed list of influential marketing and public relations blogs. While influence is an essential part of being able to affect action, findability is a pretty important pre-requisite. Since we’re in the “findability” business, the question was posed: “Top Marketing & Public Relations Blogs Are Influential, But Are They Optimized?” This new take on the list drilled down into specific SEO opportunities with the blogs included in the list and suggested that great content that influences action is indeed an achievement. The post also made the case for the importance of findability through search and providing word visualization of the top keywords driving traffic to the blogs via search, suggesting that the bloggers compare those topic clusters with how they actually want to be known.  2. Co-Create an eBook with the List – Identifying and sorting a list of resources or people must include some kind of qualitative criteria valued by the community. Expand on those criteria and involve the people on the list with offering insights or advice. The outcome of asking for a tip relevant to the reason a person was included on a list might be an eBook. A good example of this is the 20 Ways to Rock the Social Web eBook we created as a complement to the 25 Women Who Rock Social Media we publish every year as a blog post.  3. Interview the List – In some cases, those included on the list might be open to doing a longer form version of an interview. These interviews can be conducted before the actual list is published as a way to promote it. Interviews can be in text, real time on a Google+ Hangout or through Skype, recorded and published to YouTube. With interviews, questions can include target topics and keywords as well as formulated to elicit tactical answers which can then be compiled later for even more repurposed content. Interview answers can also be used as source information in other articles pitched to industry publications. An example is the series of interviews we did with speakers of Content Marketing World 2012. 4. Visualize the List - Turn the list into an infographic citing industry bios and industry statistics. Additionally, an infographic could work well with the eBook idea mentioned above and include succinct tips from each person. In the case of the EContent Content Marketing 50, a DM request via Twitter (apropos due to the list’s focus on Twitter influencers) to those included on the list asking for a Tweet sized content marketing tip could then be used to create an infographic.  What’s interesting about this idea is that anyone could do it – and cite EContent as the source. Any takers? 5. Repeat the List - When smart research and effort has been put into creating a list, one of the greatest opportunities is to make it a repeatable event. Annually is probably the safest, although monthly works too. We publish the 25 Women Who Rock Social Media list once a year. Our list of the top UK Online Marketing Bloggers & Influencers started out being a yearly list, but now updates monthly thanks to our friends at Traackr, the influence identification and scoring service that makes the list work. Each year you publish and promote the list, more people are aware of its existence and look forward to it. On the first go of a list, it’s important to gauge the credibility of the publishing site with the community and the connections with the people or resources included in the list before asking for interviews or deeper participation. Essentially, the more credible the publishing site is, the more likely list participants will be interested in co-creating content. When creating, repurposing and optimizing a list as part of your content marketing mix, it’s important that you do your homework to identify the intersection between target audience goals and brand objectives. Select topics, list qualifiers and repurposing efforts that result in a win for everyone involved. Doing so will engender trust and credibility so that your audience anticipates the next list. What are some of your best ideas for list optimization? Which of these tactics have you seen in play and what are your favorites?

Online Marketing News: Tailored Twitter Ads, $630k for Likes? Yahoo Pulls a Qwiki, Email Crushes Social, B2B Trends

Online Marketing News: Tailored Twitter Ads, $630k for Likes? Yahoo Pulls a Qwiki, Email Crushes Social, B2B Trends B2B Content Marketing Trends 2013 is a new report from Holger Schulze of the B2B Technology Marketing Forum on LinkedIn.  According to this survey, what are the  top 5 Content Marketing trends for B2B marketers in 2013? Here you go: Content marketing is going mainstream and is becoming more sophisticated to help marketers generate more leads and enable thought leadership. The popularity of white papers as a content marketing format is declining relative to interactive, easily digestible formats such as video. More than 82 percent of B2B marketers are increasing their content production over the next 12 months. YouTube is gaining popularity as a social media platform to reach and engage B2B audiences – Facebook is losing ground. Marketing automation is on the rise. 61 percent of marketers use marketing automation platforms, up from 43 percent last year. In Other Online Marketing News… “Tailored Ads” Will Make Twitter Advertising More Personal, Enable Retargeting – Marketing Land State Department bureau shelled out $630K for Facebook ‘likes’ - CNET Watch what you say on the social web: Teen could face years in prison for Facebook comment – USA Today Study: 62% plan to reduce their tech socializing time next year & instead focus on face-to-face interaction – eMarketer Fire up PhotoShop! Facebook Removes Text Restrictions on Page Covers – Marketing Pilgrim Yahoo Buys Qwiki (app that automatically turns photos, music & videos into short movies) for $50 Million – All Things Digital Study: Brand Interactions on Social Media Equally Likely to Lead to In-Store as Online Purchases – Marketing Charts Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online – Wired Google News OneBox With Bigger Photos –  Google Operating System Adobe acquires marketing technology company, Neolane for $600 million. Here’s what that means – ZDNet Looks like simplification is the word for search engines. Yahoo to shut down AltaVista – The Next Web New tools added to optimize LinkedIn: "Who's Viewed Your Updates" & "You Recently Visited" – LinkedIn Google adds consumer surveys service – Google Analytics Blog From The Online Marketing Blog Community Here’s our favorite comments from this week’s posts: Ray Petrucci says this about “7 Steps for Creating an Optimized Content Publishing Schedule” Thank you for writing this excellent post! I have been struggling to find an article that clearly and simply defined the process of an effective content marketing strategy. Working with an early stage startup presents many challenges due to limited resources; however, after reading your post, I can clearly understand what it takes to begin and execute a content marketing strategy while not ‘breaking the bank,’ Julia Serafina says this about “RIP Google Reader, External Keyword Tool is Next” I also loved Google Reader, but I accepted the change and have moved to Feedly. Every time Google retires a product/service it only makes me realise how much I use (and like) Google. I think it also makes sense to “gate” the Google Keyword Tool…whether it is for data capture or enticing users to become an Advertiser… I don’t think Blogger will be retired….It has one of the largest blogging communities in the world.. The Blogger profile page feature may be discontinued in favor of using the Google+ profile feature on a blog….but I don’t see Blogger being discontinued. What's Your Take? Was the State Dept out of line spending so much money, just for “likes”? What are your thoughts on all the changes Yahoo! is making? Is email marketing outperforming other digital marketing tactics in your marketing mix? What else would you like to see in our weekly news roundup? Be sure to follow @TopRank for daily news updates. Have a great weekend! From the team at TopRank Online Marketing.