Mastering StumbleUpon, Is Your Content Ethical?, Twitter's New Design, Must See Mobile

 

	Mastering StumbleUpon, Is Your Content Ethical?, Twitter's New Design, Must See Mobile StumbleUpon Marketing: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Content – In this podcast, Michael Stelzner interviews Nick Robinson, co-author of StumbleUpon for Dummies. Nick shares how StumbleUpon works and why it's different than other platforms, how to discover shareable content and the type of content that works. Social Media Examiner How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Professional Services – Build a routine, deepen your network, and share. These practices have worked for decades in helping professionals earn new clients and matters. Now this same process can be done online, on LinkedIn. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity. MarketingProfs Ethical Content Curation: A 10-Step Checklist – Curation is nothing new, but many content curators are still unsure about what constitutes ethical content curation. Use this 10-step checklist as a guide. Content Marketing Institute 9 Ways the Pros Integrate Their Blog with Google+ to Dominate SERPs – Learn how to leverage the connection between your blog and the social network with the strongest social signal impact in search ranking, Google plus. Socialmouths Twitter Now Lets More Advertisers Target TV Show Conversations – Twitter's TV ad targeting product, launched earlier this year, lets television advertisers promote tweets to users who are referencing the shows in which their ads are appearing. Now TV conversation targeting opens this type of engagement up to those companies that aren't running TV ads in the specific shows they want to run promoted tweets against. Search Engine Land 10+ Must-See Mobile Commerce Stats – [Infographic] Mobile devices have re-engergized email marketing and are driving new growth in eCommerce with the right marketing tactics. You're no longer limited by how and when you engage with your customers, allowing companies to promote and close sales anytime, anywhere. GetElastic The Banner Ad Isn’t Obsolete. It’s the Future – Say whaaat? The banner ad might seem like an artifact of the early Internet era that will inevitably die out. But its functionality is the key to the future of business. Inc. Sneak Peek at Twitter’s New Design – The improvements seem to be on the design only, and really haven't changed what a great tweet looks like. Here are a few screenshots of the new design compared to the current format. The changes are subtle, but most likely data-driven improvements perhaps to boost efficiency to please Twitter's new public investor base. Social Media Today 10 Twitter Tools to Help Busy Entrepreneurs – Many people still struggle with finding the time to tweet regularly – especially busy entrepreneurs. Here are recommendations to help you take advantage of some of the most cutting-edge Twitter tools out there to make your time spent on the social platform as seamless and automated as possible while still maintaining a human touch. Shopify Pandora Revs Up Revenue 50% On Mobile Ads – Online radio service Pandora reported a 50% gain in revenue in its fiscal third quarter, with mobile advertising breaking $100 million for the first time in the period ending Oct. 31. Who has considered advertising with them? MediaPost 14 Unique Types of Content Every Marketer Should Try – Here are some outstanding ideas for you to shake up your content balance. Get a leg up on your competitors with these Under-used content marketing types you should incorporate into your content creation strategy. Hubspot Top 9 Blogging Communities That Can Drive Massive Traffic – Here is a list of top blogging communities where you can interact with like-minded bloggers, share each others’ post and build relationship with them and generate massive amounts of traffic. AddictedMe 5 Easy Tips to Increase Your Facebook Engagement Rate – Here are some tips that will help brands stay on message and not compromise the quality of the interactions. Business2Community 10 Surprising Social Media Statistics – Here are some statistics that may make you rethink how you're approaching social media strategy for business. HuffingtonPost Content Marketing for the Holidays – What does your marketing plan include this season – another boring sale? Here are a few ideas for flavoring your content with holiday cheer the right way! Social Media Today 2014 Trends Dominating eCommerce – [Infographic] The landscape is quickly changing. Thanks to good data, we have a clear read of what lies ahead in the web of eCommerce. Here’s a high level overview of what to tune into for successful operations in 2014! Visual.ly Tired of social media? Why Not Have Google Tweet For You – Google tries patenting computer-generated, personalized social media reactions. The basics of the patent is that Google knows so much about you that it could generate personalized reactions on social media on your behalf. What do you think, creative or a bit Big Brother? ArsTechnica 12 Wonderful Examples of Immersive Online Storytelling – The best long form experiences on the web blend quality content, eye-catching design and useful functionality. Can you pick out the common elements that make this content sing? eConsultancy Survey: 91 Percent Of Parents To Use Smartphones Black Friday Weekend – As the first winter snow blankets parts of the East Coast and Midwest, a blizzard of new Black Friday/Cyber Monday PR-driven survey data, predictions and "infographics" are hitting the wires and in boxes. Each of the involved studies offers slightly different figures and estimates of what will happen. Among those addressing mobile usage there's a consensus: smartphones will be out in force. Marketing Land  E-commerce: 10 Case Studies to Help You Excel in Content Marketing, Social Media and Website Optimization – Customers relish in the convenience and ease of online shopping, but those on the other side of the screen know the process isn't so effortless. Read on for insights from 10 case studies that you can use to aid your e-commerce marketing efforts. MarketingSherpa From the Online Community From 3 Tools to Help You Find Influencers in Social, Digital Insights said, Great article Eliza, influencers add that seal of credibility to your business/brand. With the tools you have mentioned makes the process simpler and easier with effective results. From Content Marketing With Press Releases: Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices, Susan Payton said, As a communications professional, I’ve been wringing my hands about the whole Google killing press releases thing, as it affects my business. But you reiterate what I already believed: press releases are one more breadcrumb trail back to a site. And I was happy to hear that journalists DO use them to find news. John Trader said, Excellent, excellent post Nicolette. When Google recently announced that they were giving less credence to links that appear in news releases, I think a lot of PR pros saw this as a reason to give up on this medium when in fact news releases continue to have an important place in the PR tool belt. Your post gives some very concrete reasons why, and I love the examples of companies doing it right. Thanks so much for this great post! From Beyond Content Marketing Basics: Optimize & Socialize Your Digital Marketing for 2014, Raghav Thakur said, Customer satisfaction is most important, no matter what, you will have to ask them what they want and tell them what will be your approach towards it. What’s Your Take? Are press releases back on the front burner as a relevant part of your content marketing mix? Will 2014 be the year you go beyond content marketing basics? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Photo credit: Shutterstock

Content Marketing With Press Releases

	Content Marketing With Press Releases: Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices When Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam team, announced that links in press releases have no value for SEO, it created a lot of discussion and debate in the SEM community. But, if you look at his comments in their entirety, you'll notice that he also said press release sites do have value for press and marketing reasons as Cheryl Conner, contributing writer at Forbes, so eloquently points out. Consider, 92% of journalists use search engines to research stories and 81% of journalists use search engines daily (MarketingSherpa) Blog readership, RSS feed subscriptions and social media sites are visited in record numbers Journalists using Google News surpass usage of major networks, like MSNBC & CNN! A consistent public relations program (that might include press releases) will help build general awareness of your product, service or brand and will supplement any direct marketing and advertising efforts. One good media placement, whether it's an online blog, like Huffington Post or an online print counterpart, like Inc., can lead to a substantial increase in web traffic and sales growth potential. For many small businesses, the press release is still the most cost-effective way to get their unique angle out to local media. TopRank has been a pioneer in the field of using press releases as an online marketing tool since 2001 when the agency was founded. In fact, there was a period of 3-4 years where TopRank provided SEO consulting to PRWeb to help them improve the search visibility of press releases being purchased by PRWeb customers. That said, press releases have evolved from a largely media relations-based discipline to a modern profession steeped in a complex mix of stakeholder engagement, reputation management and services that blend paid, earned and owned media (i.e., advertising, PR and marketing). Let's not leave out the importance of the online newsroom and it's evolution as a resource hub for today's journalists. With the proliferation of social media, the online newsroom has become a must-have digital tool for all areas of communication, including investor relations, employee relations, marketing and brand awareness. Press releases represent content, although the format, application and distribution have evolved. They can still reach journalists, but are also effective as direct to consumer content marketing as well. Digital News Surpasses Radio and Television Online and digital news consumption, meanwhile, continues to increase, with many more people now getting news on cell phones, tablets or other mobile platforms. The percentage of Americans saying they saw news or news headlines on a social networking site yesterday has doubled – from 9% to 19% – since 2010. Among adults younger than age 30, as many saw news on a social networking site the previous day (33%) as saw any television news (34%), with just 13% having read a newspaper either in print or digital form. While traditional news platforms have lost audience, online news consumption has been undergoing major changes as well. Nearly one-in-five Americans (17%) say they got news yesterday on a mobile device yesterday, with the vast majority of these people (78%) getting news on their cell phone. Among smartphone owners, nearly a third (31%) got news yesterday on a mobile device. These are some of the findings in the Pew Research Center's biennial news consumption survey, which has tracked patterns in news use for nearly two decades. Modern Public Relations Defined After nearly a year of research, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA is a TopRank client) announced the winning definition of modern public relations: "Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics." They also listed a number of reasons companies use news releases and why. New product announcement Significant modification to an existing product Changes in corporate identity, such as a new company name or logo New website Joint ventures Changes in corporate structure (New division or subsidiary) Corporate opinions (Opinion on industry trends) Features Events (Open houses, trade show involvement, speaking engagements, award ceremonies) New funding Personnel changes Corporate philanthropy (Volunteer work or donations) Hiring of agencies (Public relations, accounting, law firm) New partners Significant new customer Media advisories Milestones (Customers served, years in business) Round of funding received by the company Increase in market share or revenue That's a long list of reasons why your organization should be including news releases in your ongoing content marketing arsenal. Pros  Although Google discounts links coming from press release syndication, an optimized press release is still crawled by search engines and found by both consumers and journalists. Multimedia news releases allow you to deliver your news in a multimedia format blending video, audio, text, logos, photos and related documents to help expand the reach of your news. A digital press release can be distributed much more quickly than emailing relevant trade press and reaches a larger audience through online syndication. A press release is more cost effective than traditional advertising to get the word out. You benefit from the amplification effect by embedding social media links, extending both the reach and life of your releases online. Cons Creating a regular calendar of relevant news may tax your internal resources; alternatively, hiring professional writers who can provide a fresh take on a news story may be outside your budget. Press releases are hard to measure ROI; generating a lot of referral traffic may not lead to sales. While press releases are less expensive than paid advertising, when counting number of man-hours or consulting fees, they are not necessarily cheap. If you don't have the resources to push your release out through social media and bloggers, mainstream media or trade organizations, press releases by themselves, won't improve your communication with your target audiences. Competition for distribution is high; there is no guarantee your release will be successful. What the Experts Are Saying "Before the rise of social media, public relations were about trying to manage the message an entity was sharing with its different audiences. Now, P.R. has to be more about facilitating the ongoing conversation in an always-on world." Adam Lavelle, a member of the board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association who is the chief strategic officer at the iCrossing unit of Hearst. "In a world where the ordinary consumer is walking around with global publishing power in his or her pocket, the role of public relations and corporate communications has shifted from creating content to attempting to influence the content that's created by others." Dan Tisch, chairman of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, chief executive at Argyle Communications Press Release Examples Carnegie Mellon This 113-year old Pittsburgh institution of higher learning isn't resting on its reputation alone to get the word out. Carnegie Mellon is in the news nearly 365 days a year. From ground-breaking research to award-winning faculty, the university prides itself on an interdisciplinary philosophy. To that end, below is a press release for their College of Fine Arts, promoting an International Film Festival. What Carnegie Mellon is Doing Right: Topic optimized headline which helps with branding and search visibility Excellent use of hyperlinks to provide a scented trail of additional information for media and attendees Prominent display of a number of social sharing buttons, increasing amplification potential Effective layout, color and use of photography Coca-Cola Here's an example of a brand demonstrating the characteristics of the real-time, data-driven newsroom — a model that’s prolific, agile and audience-centric and takes the online newsroom one step further with its brand journalism website. What Coca-Cola is Doing Right: Visually creative layout consistent with brand messaging Provides a centralized, social-media-equipped online information headquarters for mainstream journalists and consumer Offers a digital tool for all areas of communication, including investor relations, employee relations, marketing and brand awareness Coca-Cola has invested heavily in social business and it shows. With seven of the most popular social networks prominently featured in the footer, along with follower numbers, making it easy for users to engage everywhere. Content Marketing With Press Releases Best Practices Write a catchy, interesting and keyword- focused headline. Make the intro/opening engaging. Write in laymen’s language. Avoid superlatives, jargon and excessive mentions of a brand name. Make the release useable, word for word, if cut after the second paragraph. Keep most paragraphs to below 30 words and the length no more than 650 words max. Spell check and then read your news release aloud. Any typos or grammatical errors will ultimately lead to your news being discarded and can tarnish your reputation. Repress the urge to use fancy fonts, colors, font styles and other text attributes in your news release. You'll come off as an amateur. Include relevant links for background information. Make it easy for journalists and news consumers to conduct further research. Make it easy to share; include all your social networks. Send only news releases that contain news! Press releases represent a great way to engage in inbound marketing. No longer do you have to rely on a constantly churning media list to secure coverage and visibility. Today, your press release has thousands of opportunities to make a lasting impression online. Are you still using press releases as part of your media relations or online marketing mix? Do you use press release distribution services or do you send them directly to your media contacts list? To check out more of our content marketing tactics articles, please be sure to visit the index. Photo credit: Shutterstock Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2013. | Content Marketing With Press Releases: Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices | http://www.toprankblog.com Read More » Beyond Content Marketing Basics: Optimize & Socialize Your Digital Marketing for 2014 Figure out what your customers want, and give it to them. Monitor what works and what doesn’t. Adapt and optimize performance. This would appear to be common sense marketing and yet, when you examine a lot of what gets published in the name of content marketing, social media and SEO, the “makes sense” doesn’t seem so common. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve given presentations to audiences in the U.S., Spain, Russia and the UK.  For just about every audience, there is a common language everyone seems to understand and if you can connect with that, it’s amazing what progress you can make. Perhaps you’ve been in situations where you’ve followed a certain marketing process over and over again and after really looking at the “why” and for “who”, there’s a newly observed disconnect. I think that’s happened with a lot of digital marketers pressured to follow and create shiny new object strategies without alignment towards true brand and customer objectives. You know the drill: “Create more content”, “Grow our social networks”, “Rank high on search engines”. The pivot from routine, mechanical to more inspired and meaningful is found through the customer journey.  Balance customer insights with unique stories and content experiences that guide customers from attraction, to engagement to conversion. Help customers pull themselves through the buying cycle with information they want and enjoy. Provide answers and create experiences. Create information and media that provide context and guide customers along the buyer’s journey from awareness to interest to consideration to purchase by answering their questions in a way that motivates them to the next step.  Core to this kind of content approach is the customer behavior and how they discover, consume and act on information. Be the best answer for your customers, wherever they may be looking or influenced. Walking the talk. At our digital marketing agency we’ve been implementing that kind of approach to varying degrees for numerous mid-market and several Fortune 500 businesses. Our experience working with companies like McKesson, Dell and recently, LinkedIn, have shown how going in with best practices must also be adaptable to ensure implementation of the tactics that will achieve the desired impact. What seems to resonate with everyone is a focus on optimizing for customer experience through high quality content that’s easy to find, engaging to consume and inspiring to share. There’s a book about this. Anticipating customer information preferences and then optimizing for attract, engage, convert is what I cover in the book, Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. As a preview to the book and to provide online marketers some insight into this perspective, below is a presentation I did this week for Silverpop’s EMEA group in London.  I even re-invoked the famous ZRobot example for buy cycle optimization. Optimize & Socialize Your Digital Marketing for 2014   On the one hand, it makes sense to focus on customer insights and then anticipate content topics and media that will resonate to achieve a desired business outcome. This is the core of what modern content marketing is. On the other hand, it’s also very important for brands to identify their core differentiators and unique selling proposition to be included in any customer focused narrative. Thanks to the education efforts of folks like Content Marketing Institute, marketers are becoming savvy about content marketing with customer segment-specific content plans covering each distinct buying journey. To stand out, it’s important for content marketers to incorporate brand differentiators with the voice of the customer content.  For example, if the persona “Executive Jane” prefers service over cost, it’s not enough to be the best answer for “service”. Your brand must differentiate itself in terms of the best service plus whatever it is that your company brings to that service to make it different (better for the customer) than the competition.  It might be service + low cost + socially conscious if your company has social responsibility as a core value. Are you optimizing across the buying cycle with content, search and social media yet? Have you incorporated your brand’s core differentiators into your digital marketing messaging?  What successes (or challenges) are you seeing?

3 Tools to Help You Find Influencers in Social

	3 Tools to Help You Find Influencers in Social Influencers are influential. They have a significant following on their social channels and are so knowledgeable about a topic that people not only like to consume their content, but share it. Engaging an influencer and being promoted by them is a great way for your brand to increase visibility, grow a following, and rank in search. Sounds simple right? It's actually something many brands struggle with. There are over 500 million registered Twitter accounts, 300 million active monthly Google+ users, and 1.26 billion Facebook users. Add to that the 150 million people that are active on Instagram in any given month, the 70 million on Pinterest, and the 238 million members on LinkedIn and it's no wonder finding influencers is a bit like playing "Where's Waldo?" But it doesn't have to be. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of tools out there that can help find influential people in your industry in an easy, cost-effective manner. The problem becomes how to choose from all of those tools. Don't worry; we've made that easier too. Here are three tools we love for finding influencers on Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn: For Twitter: Followerwonk A picture is worth a thousand words. Followerwonk knows that, and shows you a majority of data in visual formats to make it easier to understand. The tool, which delves deeply into Twitter analytics, can show you things from who your followers are and where they're located to when they tweet, what keywords are used most often by your followers (or those you follow), who you're following relative to someone else, and when your most active hours for retweets are. Finding influencers is made easy by the search Twitter bios function. Enter a keyword – a product name, a topic, an industry, whatever seems relevant – and Followerwonk generates a report for you of everyone who uses that term or phrase in their Twitter bio. The list bolds the word you searched for, shows the name and avatar of the account, how any followers they have, and their social authority. Sorting by relevance, or social authority can help you pinpoint people who are influential on Twitter for that phrase. The tool makes it easy to follow the people you find by including a "Follow" button next to the avatar of those who show up in your search. The free account has some reporting limitations that can be circumvented by 'subscribing', which is free for 30-days. For Google+: Circle Count Designed to help you understand Google+, the homepage of the tool shows popular categories like: people with highly engaging content, most followed profiles and pages, and today's cream of the crop which highlights interesting profiles. All of the categories are great places to look for inspiration and creative ideas. How it works: you can search using a name, location, or the URL of a profile to generate a list of results. Click on any one of them, and you're taken to a profile of information. What you'll see: The profile has a ton of useful information in it including: • Links to their other social channels • Bio & Occupation • Profile rank (where their profile ranks out of all Google+ profiles) • Number of followers and following • Follower history graph • Average activity numbers for the last 50 posts • Stream of latest posts Feature we really like: the profile also shows how many public circles the person has been shared in. Taking it one step further the Circle Count reports who shared, the number of followers they have, the date of the share, how many users are in the circle they shared to, and how many comments, reshares and +1s the share received. That feature is a great way to identify the influencers that are engaging with your content and have a noticeable interest in that topic. You can click on any name in the author column and be taken to their Circle Count report and follow their page from there. The tool is also a great way to search for influencers you've identified on other channels to determine their klout on Google+. The numbers of each profile are the public numbers shown on Google+. However, the platform caches the numbers so the profile generated by Circle Count isn't always the most up to date data. Not all profiles will show up in Circle Count but can be added by using the URL or profile ID on the homepage. For LinkedIn: Influencers Program Launched a little over a year ago, the Influencer Program on LinkedIn allows thought leaders to share their original content directly with LinkedIn users. Users in turn can follow influencers to read and interact with their content, along with sharing it with their own networks. There are over 300 influencers in the program. Their average post receives around 30,000 views and is read by entry-level professionals all the way through to director-level and above. You can browse influencers by a list of them all, or by channel which sorts the posts by topic. The channels cover a wide variety of information from accounting, customer service, the economy, and green business to healthcare, online advertising, retail and technology. Not only are the authors influencers themselves, but make sure to pay attention to the people who interact with the post. People who comment, like and share content have shown an interest in the topic, and demonstrated their own knowledge in their posts. Those kinds of people are likely to engage with your content, and can be great people to cite and connect with! Influencers have the ability to help your brand reach its audience in a personal, honest way that doesn't take a huge bite out of your budget. There are tools out there to help you narrow down the arena of social media users to a manageable list of people worth connecting with. But it's up to you to build a relationship with them through engagement, support, and conversation. What tools have you used to find influencers? What are some unique ways you've begun to engage with them? Let us know in the comments!

15 Eye Popping Social Shopping Stats, Thanksgiving Social Media Facts, Killing Content Marketing Myths

15 Eye Popping Social Shopping Stats, Thanksgiving Social Media Facts, Killing Content Marketing Myths Tips From Women Who Have Broken the Glass Ceiling – Barri Rafferty, Senior Partner and CEO, Ketchum North America, kicks off the 'Real Women Fostering Women's Leadership' now in its fifth year. Hear the most dynamic women in the digital marketing world discuss overcoming obstacles. Women rock at TopRank! CommPro Just 71% of Companies Test Their Websites – Companies whose conversion rates have improved carry out 50% more tests on their websites than companies whose conversion didn't improve. However, 7% are testing nothing at all. eConsultancy Digital Marketing Tactics for 2014 – This article examines a few trends that must be taken into consideration for any digital marketing endeavor in 2014, including visual content, Google+ and SlideShare and 3D printing. Social Media Today Google Upgrades Adwords Opportunities Tab – The improved opportunities section will hopefully provide more clarity to advertisers on ways they can enhance their pay-per-click campaigns to get more out of their existing budget. Search Engine Roundtable 10 Lessons Content Marketing Writers Can Learn From Journalists – Content marketing writers must now have the blended skills of both a marketer and a journalist. Here are 10 critical journalism tips for the marketing writer's success. Social Media Today Social Media Thanksgiving Facts – [Infographic] What would the holiday be without a visual display of all the updates about Thanksgiving dinner. Out of more than 150,000 tweets and updates, stuffing was ranked #1 with more than 38,000 mentions, way ahead of its nearest rival, mashed potatoes! Visual.ly 15 Eye-Popping Stats about Social Shopping – It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but that's no matter. The holiday shopping season starts earlier and earlier every year: Walmart is starting Black Friday on Thursday this fall – smack dab in the middle of turkey dinner. These numbers will prove the influence social media has on pockets and profits. Digiday Pinterest Rolls Out New APIs to Showcase Top Pinned Items on Partner Websites – Pinterest is rolling out its initial set of APIs, partnering with a number of companies that have already started featuring popular Pins on their websites, including Top Pins API, Domain Search, Most Recent and Related Pins. MarketingLand News Use Across Social Media Platforms – How do different social networking websites stack up when it comes to news? How many people engage with news across multiple social sites? And what are their news consumption habits on traditional platforms? Read the latest social media and news analysis. Pew Research Center Effective Content Marketing on Google Plus: 5 Tools to Measure Success – If you're among the marketers who are still figuring out the best way to use Google+, use these 5 tools to measure your effective content marketing efforts. Content Marketing Institute Google+ & SEO: How Google+ Impacts Search Results – The author writes that the personalization impact is quite strong and that Google+ posts themselves can rank in the SERPs. This is already a compelling reason to engage in Google+, especially if there is a real audience for you there. Are you optimizing for Google+ yet? Search Engine Watch Survey: The Value of a Follower for SMEs – Twitter recently posted the results of a survey on their blog to demonstrate the potential importance of the blue bird Network for Subject Matter Experts (SME). The findings are worth noting: 85% of followers feel more connected with an SME after following their profile. Do you have a content outreach strategy for influencers in your industry? SocialBro 7 Marketing Tips from Content Marketing All-Stars – Following another successful MarketingProfs B2B Forum, here are some takeaways from this panel session of digital marketing pros, including Lee Odden! ExactTarget Study: Tweets With Images Generate Huge Engagement – A recent study found that tweets with images received 18 percent more clicks, 89 percent more favorites, and 150 percent more retweets. SproutInsights 5 Content Marketing Myths That Need to Die – In 2013 content marketing has finally progressed from a buzzword to a legitimate mainstream marketing strategy, and we can expect more validation in 2014. If you’re a brand, thinking about investing in content marketing, don’t fall for any of these content marketing misconceptions. Search Engine Watch LinkedIn Introduces Showcase Pages – Showcase Pages are dedicated content hubs enabling businesses to extend their Company Page presence, effectively segmenting audiences and enabling businesses to deliver the best message to the right audiences. This represents another great opportunity for businesses to well, showcase, their content. Social Fresh 7 Ways Your Content Can Increase Facebook Engagement – Recently, members of Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania released their findings from a study on the effect of social media content on customer engagement. Here are key points from their findings and some recommended actions you can take as a result. Search Engine Watch How to Generate B2B Leads With Content Marketing – Though there are a number of strategies businesses can employ to garner leads, 91 percent of B2B marketers generate leads with content marketing. Read about the different approaches your business can take. MarketingLand Holiday Engagement Goes Mobile in 2013 – [Infograhic] This visual from Sparked, a company specializing in expanding mobile engagement, discusses some of the behavior patterns that are changing – like Webrooming and Showrooming. Marketing TechBlog From the Online Marketing Community From 5 Tips You Should Be Leveraging for Event-Based Content Creation Sarah Bauer said, Sometimes the intimidation factor of the room can stop you from getting started on a piece. That’s why it’s useful to turn off Twitter for the first half hour (so many utterly brilliant brains!) and dive in. Trust that you’re consuming and relaying the information in an interesting, intelligent way. Adopt a hyper-confident sense of self to get you through the “getting started” with live-blogging! From Content Marketing With Microsites: Pros, Con, Examples & Best Practices Lee Blue said, It seems like a nice middle ground, especially for smaller businesses, might be highly targeted landing pages. The quote from MarketingSherpa about landing pages improving conversions by 40% was very interesting and compelling. Spinning up an entirely new microsite with its own domain name and everything might not be technically difficult or expensive but getting traffic to it can be quite a challenge for smaller businesses. From B2B Social Media Marketing Trends & Tips for 2014 Barbara Mckinney said, The important things that we need to consider to achieve our success in 2014 is still the same. Marketers have to focus on how to engage with their customers and help them solve their problems. What’s Your Take? What can content marketers learn from journalists? How influential has social media become to sales? Are you following subject matter experts? If so, what’s been your experience? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

6 Cleverly Creative Marketing Campaigns of 2013

	6 Cleverly Creative Marketing Campaigns of 2013 We all have friends. One thing that makes us friends is that we have things in common, and what we have in common are our personalities and our interests. We interact with others based on those things—and with the social atmosphere so crucial to a brand's persona, they want to be our "friends" too. 2013 has been a great year for content marketing. Savvy marketers have come up with new, unique ways to create bonds with their audiences, encouraging interaction and ultimately intent to purchase. Viral has become a buzzword that many strive for, yet few achieve. But regardless of how frequently online marketing changes, one thing will remain the same: brands will continue to use stories, interaction, and creativity to attract customers. We polled our team to see what creative, clever online marketing tactics they've seen this year. Here are the campaigns that made the list: Steven Zahurones Video game developer Naughty Dog wanted to develop a viral interest for their newest video game title that will launch on the Playstation 4, Uncharted. They created a teaser video campaign to build anticipation for the game while taking advantage of the interest in the PS4 console launch. Rather than take the traditional video game promotion approach where you view live clips of the game, this teaser plays like a story from a first person point of view – a man is telling a story that will bring users into the game, leaving much to the imagination, but building incredible suspense. Click here to view the embedded video. Going live on the eve of the PS4 launch, the video gained over one million views in four days on the official Playstation YouTube channel. It also generated significant coverage from industry publications that were already tuned into covering the PS4. Ben Brausen Coke Zero embraced the coming holiday season and created the Ugly Christmas Sweater Generator. People can go to their website and create their own ugly sweater with everything only an elementary school teacher would love like bows, cats, and other holiday items. Then, users can vote for their favorites. The 100 sweaters that are voted the best as of December 1st will be made and sent to their creators for the holiday. This is a great campaign as it is something fun, creative, and interactive for the customer. It is something people will share with others as they want to get the word out and get those votes so they can win. The response has been so great that the website is currently down due to the traffic load. Katie Bresnahan In light of the holiday season and their recent push for borderline-racy advertising that gets people talking and goes socially-viral-crazy, (See "Ship My Pants" which has almost 20 million views on YouTube, and "Big Gas Savings" with just over 6 million.) Kmart's latest campaign is called, "Show Your Joe." It features men in tuxedo jackets wearing holiday themed boxer shorts, dancing to "ring" like bells. Kmart as a retailer has struggled in recent years, rapidly closing stores in an effort to stay afloat. 2013 has been their year for advertising in that it has definitely gotten people talking and given them some great brand exposure. Click here to view the embedded video. As its predecessors did, the ad is causing lots of controversy, and yet younger people are heavily embracing the ad via their social channels. "Show Your Joe" is well on its way to becoming yet another viral success for this struggling retailer making a name for itself in the marketing space. Brooke McDonald Dutch brewing company Heineken held an Instagram contest to engage their fans. The prize: 18 tickets to the U.S. Open Men's Final to 9 winners. How it worked: Fans had to follow the @crack_the_us_open Instagram page, search the posted photos of fans for clues, and comment on the correct photo with a code word given each day. Fans who commented first and followed clues that led to the last photo had a chance at winning tickets! Heineken got a boatload of brand visibility and 1,400 Instagram followers on its special Instagram page without redirecting visitors elsewhere – it all happened within the confines of their Instagram. Cool! Emily Bacheller In case you haven't heard, Bob Dylan just released a complete album box set that includes 41 official albums. In order to create buzz around this new release and drive traffic to the Bob Dylan official website, Interlude created an interactive music video for the 1965 song "Like a Rolling Stone." The music video is formatted into a TV screen, and viewers can flip between 16 different channels and view different shows including, "The Price is Right" and "Pawn Stars." The actors in the shows lip sync to the song as it plays. Viewers are encouraged to share the video on their social channels, and with so many Bob Dylan fans out there, and the visuals being pretty incredible, social viral success was all but ensured.We're eager to stay tuned to learn how it impacted record sales and hear a view count! Jesse Pickrain Have you ever been offered free underwear? If you're like most people, the answer is no. But Fruit of the Loom set out to change that in 2013. The company sent a message to LinkedIn members who either changed jobs or got a new job for a 30-day period, allowing them to claim some undies on the house. Why? Because, "Great fitting underwear can help you start your workday in a great mood." So true. Word is, new customer purchases are up, and I'm also told my colleague's uncle's friend's nephew changed jobs for the sole reason of claiming a pair. There are countless ways to weave stories into your content to connect emotionally with your audience. As we transition to the New Year, think of ways events, holidays, pop culture and trends can factor into your marketing mix to help take it to the level of our examples! What creative campaigns did we miss? Feel free to share your favorite 2013 online marketing campaign in the comments!

5 Tips You Should Be Leveraging for Event-Based Content Creation

	5 Tips You Should Be Leveraging for Event-Based Content Creation Creating event-based content can be tricky. The room is full of extremely smart people. And they're all talking. Loudly. You find a chair in front between two people you don't know, but who smile and offer a handshake and a name. Looking around, everyone is working on a laptop. Or a smartphone. Or both. A hush falls over the crowd. A speaker stands up at the microphone, offers an introduction, and launches into a mind-blowing presentation full of statistics, facts, tips and tools. There are dozens of keys being typed, tweets being sent, and people whispering. And you have to make sure you catch it all. Event-based content creation isn't always the easiest thing to tackle, but it's worth learning. Liveblogging is a great way to interact with people who are participating in the same event, communicate information to coworkers, share wisdom with your subscribers, and learn things that can take your digital marketing efforts to another level. (Not to mention the increased visibility, social shares, and traffic this type of content can bring your brand). There are certain things you can do to prepare for creating compelling, shareable content during an event (when we learn how to get speakers to speak slower, or how to get all attendees to put their phones on silent, we'll share those, too). Here are 5 liveblogging tactics you can use at your next event: 1) Choose the Interesting, the Useful, and the Relevant Can you imagine trying to liveblog, a webinar or presentation from the teacher in Ferris Bueller (Bueller…Bueller…Bueller)? It would be painful to listen to, and even more painful to try and make interesting for your readers. When you're deciding what to liveblog, make sure you choose content that intrigues you. The more you relate to the topic, and the more useful it is for you, the easier it will be to create compelling content. 2) Prepare, Prepare, Prepare There is a lot that goes into events. The more you can do to prepare for it, the better you'll be at covering it. Research speakers ahead of time, learn what topics are represented, and choose which sessions you'll attend. Create a schedule of everything to help keep you on track and mentally prepared for the days ahead. Then, prepare for your actual posts. Do some contextual research and draft your introductions. That way, you're part way done before the presentation even starts! 3) Leverage Social Media Channels Before the Event Connect with the speakers on different social channels a week or two before the event. Engage with them, let them know you're excited to watch their webinar, or hear their presentation. This puts you on their radar, and lets them know you'll be attending their session. Doing so also creates the added bonus of making social profiles easier to reference in posts during their presentations (thanks to auto-populate). 4) Don't forget to smile It can be easy to get wrapped up in writing the best liveblog, or posting the most tweets that you forget to interact with the people around you. It's really important to break that habit. Networking with others at the event can compel fellow attendees to share your posts and feature your content on their own sites. Plus, you only have so many opportunities to build great relationships that will last longer than the event. Bonus Tip: introduce yourself to the presenters and ask to take a picture to feature in your post—they'll love that you're covering them, and will often promote your post on their own channels. 5) Always Respond The event is over, your post is live and the social shares are climbing. So you're done, right? Not quite. It's important to interact with the people who engage with your post. Thank the people who tweeted, liked, or shared your content. Respond to all the comments. It will help show you care about the content you created, and are committed to helping others understand your topic. Remember that, like you, your audience is interested in unique and creative content that provides them with something useful. Let your personality show through, connect with those around you, and your event-based content will be as successful as you are! What are some tips you've found useful when liveblogging?

Content Marketing With Microsites

Content Marketing With Microsites: Pros, Con, Examples & Best Practices In the past, the term microsites had often been used interchangeably with mini-sites, those one page stand-alone Web pages used by direct marketers in the 90s. Mini-sites became popular with the introduction of Google's revolutionary (at the time) pay-per-click business model. Microsites are perfectly acceptable to serve as landing pages or hubs for search engine advertising. This is one main reason for creating microsites – to create a hyper-focused website that meets the needs of a specific search query – and to satisfy Google's Quality Score criteria. B2B lead generation is another prime example for why marketers create microsites; they don't want their prime prospects to get lost on the parent website and thus lose a lead. In TopRank's experience with Marketo, optimized landing pages improved conversion rates by as high as 200%. Sophisticated Consumers Want In-depth Information For our purposes, microsites refer to a site that is associated with an organization, but is on a separate domain or subdomain and has its own navigation, design and content. Consumers are much more sophisticated today and want in-depth information, but they also want it quickly. Microsites provide a lightweight alternative to corporate websites, which are often loaded with extraneous content that doesn't meet the exact need of the visitor. Also, a corporate website often fails to meet Google's Quality Score guidelines to power Adwords ads, hence marketers push for microsite creation to highlight a certain product or promotion. By offering a few simple interrelated navigation choices, the visitor doesn't get bogged down with the baggage of your main website's navigation, which is removed, as well as footers and other irrelevant elements. The user is focused purely on the campaign and associated calls to action. In a study performed by Forrester Research, P&G found that a microsite like BeingGirl.com was four times more effective than a traditional marketing campaign. BeingGirl.com offered a gathering place that helped position the brand in a way that would have been lost on the main site. Ultimately, the purpose of a microsite is to provide deeper content that's easier to consume, which P&G accomplished. Customized Messaging for Context-Specific Interaction Microsites are a great way to deliver a targeted message customized for different topics, issues or buying stages. For example, you can use microsites both for early stage prospects interested around a topic and later stage prospects to present a specific offer. It is generally a one- to three-page site but is not mutually exclusive of a company's main website. It may be around a specific event or marketing campaign, but a microsite exists to cater to a very specific context, or to very specific ads or keywords where it makes sense to tailor your information to that specific user experience and need. Pros Visitors can quickly navigate to the content most relevant to their search. Marketers can use the data from those choices to naturally segment their audience. You can build microsites around a set of reusable templates that let you leverage the design assets of one microsite concept across a number of campaigns. Because microsites, like landing pages, live outside the formal framework of your main website, they can often be deployed quickly. You can use A/B testing to compare the performance of one microsite against an alternative single-page landing page. The new breed of microsite is pure HTML, they load quickly, they’re SEO friendly, and they can be built quickly and inexpensively. Helps leverage your social media marketing, extending your reach and building awareness organically. Cons Forces users to adapt to different user interfaces when they stumble across the microsite while exploring the main site. May cause confusion for those who saw the campaign and didn't make a note of the URL; they may remember the company or brand, but, seeking out the company will take them to the main site and not the microsite, resulting in frustration and an aborted interaction. A poorly designed microsite can actually reduce conversions. In order for a microsite to remain effective, it requires long-term maintenance, which can be expensive. Things move rapidly online and, as a result, websites cannot just be launched and then abandoned. A site that was fine on launch can become inaccessible for a significant part of its target audience as technology changes, as is the case with responsive design. Many companies are just now realizing that they need to make their sites accessible to mobile devices. Updating the corporate site will likely take precedence. What about all those microsites each with a different design and underlying technology? What Marketers Are Saying "Improving your landing pages can increase your conversions by 40% or more." MarketingSherpa "We don't have to explain the value we bring to the table anymore. All they have to do is go to the Labs site and see for themselves." Scott Maxwell, CEO, OpenView Venture Partners, discussing the performance of their microsite. "The main difference between a microsite and just content on your website is that the microsite actually has its own brand. Think of it like a magazine." Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute Microsite Examples Nike Nike is one of the world's most recognized brands, yet even they see the value of launching microsites as evidenced by the above snowboarding collection. I, for one, did not know they were in the ski boot business. This microsite represents home base for all things Nike Snowboarding: boots and outerwear, team, news and more. Getting it Right By launching off the corporate website as a subdomain, they benefit from the SEO value of the 'mothership' without sacrificing usability. Visitors can quickly navigate to the content most relevant to their search. For example, someone searching for "snowboarding outerwear" will have no doubt that they've arrived at the right place. The segmented navigation allows marketers to gather data from those choices allowing them to further refine their brand message. Leverages the design assets of the corporate website with a clear pathway to other sections. Encourages engagement through social media and newsletter sign-up and user interaction with its responsive design. Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Cubist is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products that address unmet medical needs in the acute care environment. They launched www.battlingsuperbugs.com to provide interested parties with a resource on multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens. Concern is growing about the public health threat caused by infections due to a growing array of MDR pathogens. Their microsite brings together the views of physicians, scientists, policy experts and others about the problem and what we can do about it. Getting it Right They created a valuable resource dedicated to an important topic, tailoring the information to a specific user experience and need. Visitors can quickly navigate to the content most relevant to their search. Provides a focus for content that doesn't necessarily fit on the corporate website. Built on pure HTML, it loads quickly, is SEO friendly and takes advantage of responsive design. OfficeMax – ElfYourself Just in time for the holidays, we bring you ElfYourself.com, now in its seventh year. Launched in 2006, ElfYourself was the number one downloaded entertainment app last December and the number two overall downloaded app on iTunes (second only to GoogleMaps). For 2013, OfficeMax is adding four new dances, as well as an Android app. Getting it Right You can't argue with success; this is a great example of a microsite going viral. Adding more functionality every year, including social media applications & allowing viewers to save and/or download the films they had created. Capitalizing on the worldwide phenomenon with themed products, such as a free calendar (Note: Once the video plays, click on 'Get Calendar.') Content Marketing With Microsites Best Practices When trying to figure out if a microsite is a good investment of time and resources, consider your goals, think of an idea that makes sense for your brand and keep it simple. Be on brand. While a microsite gives you the opportunity to break away from your corporate brand, you don't want a complete break from messaging or the design assets of the main website. Nike does a great job with all of its microsites. ElfYourself may not have anything to do with office supplies, per se, but the holiday theme resonated with consumers and grew their brand awareness exponentially. Determine your goals. According to Social Media Judo, the goal for ElfYourself was to "warm up" OfficeMax's corporate image. In 2008, the campaign won three Ad:Tech Awards: ‘Best Word of Mouth Marketing Campaign’, ‘Best User Defined Experience’, and ‘Best of Show’. Mission accomplished! Keep it simple. Execution should be simple and artful because people are busy — if there are too many steps or something’s unclear, they’ll click away. Cubist does a great job with making complex information accessible with videos, expert interviews and downloadable guides. In addition, their graphics and layout are compelling. Microsites offer companies a way to provide in-depth and rich media in a hyper-focused context. When visitors arrive at your site, you want to present them with exactly what they are looking for without them having to hunt for it on the corporate site. In what way are you using microsites to increase your brand's online footprint? Are we seeing an evolution in sophisticated tactics?

B2B Social Media Marketing Trends & Tips for 2020

B2B Social Media Marketing Trends & Tips for 2020 Are you a B2B Marketer that’s not fully on board with being social with your marketing? Have you started and you’re looking for a little inspiration? Here’s a short presentation I’ll be giving this week in Moscow (in addition to a social media marketing workshop). While there are flavorings towards a Russian audience, (Yandex, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki) there’s plenty of good advice for any B2B company that hasn’t fully embraced opportunities on the social web. In particular, I think newer B2B marketers will appreciate the Social Media Marketing Maturity Model that outlines various stages that companies will experience as they gain more experience and confidence with social media. B2B Social Media Marketing for Success – Moscow 2013 from TopRank® Online Marketing Check it out and if you happen to be attending the workshop in Moscow this week, I’ll see you there!

Online Marketing News: Creating Knockout Infographics, Must Have Google+ Tools, Facebook Star Ratings, Real Time Social Monitoring

	Online Marketing News: Creating Knockout Infographics, Must Have Google+ Tools, Facebook Star Ratings, Real Time Social Monitoring 7 Super Tips for Creating Powerful Infographics – What better way to demonstrate the power of the infographic than with an infographic! Follow these steps to consider when planning, creating and sharing infographics that get shared and drive traffic on the visual web. Create knockout infographics that can give your marketing a visual flair. Entrepreneur How Facebook is Building a Global Marketing Ecosystem Around its Products – Facebook's Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) network has been around in its current form since April 2012. The aim of the group is to help connect brands and advertisers with developers who can make their marketing campaigns more engaging and comprehensive. Read the interview with Mike Randall, new global head of PMD, to learn what changes we can expect from this program next year. TheNextWeb 5 Tools to Measure Your Marketing Success on Google+ – If you're among the marketers who are still figuring out the best way to use Google+, use these 5 tools to measure your effective content marketing efforts. Content Marketing Institute Study: Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Even Out PPC Responses – Paid search click-through rates on tablet computers were 27.0% higher than on desktops, compared with 51.0% higher in the year-earlier period. The study also found that smartphone search budgets continue to rise, hitting 12.6% of all paid search expenditures. B2B Magazine B2B Marketers Find Success With Content Marketing – [Infographic] As marketers get savvier with the strategies they use to distribute their content, which tactics, platforms, and trends are garnering the greatest benefits?  LinkedIn team up with MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute to answer this question. Check it out. MarketingTech Blog Google+ Commenting is Now Live on YouTube – YouTube has been pushing people to tie their YouTube account to their Google+ account for many months and now they're making it even harder to say no. This new feature allows you to direct your comments to your Google+ friends with a tag mention. Marketing Pilgrim 4 Social Analytics Tips to Improve Your Social Media Marketing – Track the right metrics for your community and you'll better understand how and when to share information, as well as what type of content drives the most traffic to your website. SocialMedia Examiner Facebook Tests Star Ratings Displayed On Pages – Screenshots and live testing show that Facebook has turned on the star rating display for at least a small subsection of users, providing information to network users that goes beyond the basic Like. Using a star system for place and page ratings isn't entirely new. What is new is making this information explicitly displayed on the social network itself, in a prominent place on a business or place Page. Read the full implications here. TechCrunch How to Use Social Media Monitoring to Generate Viable Leads – 68% of marketers claim to have created leads from social media sites and 55% have closed deals found from a social media lead. Learn how to how to navigate the key areas of creating a lead generation campaign, in order to assist in the finding of viable leads for your business. eConsultancy Study: Only 8% Of Brands Believe Its Marketing Team Is Strong Across All Digital Marketing Channels – New research by OMI, in partnership with ClickZ and Kelly Staffing, reveals Fortune 500 companies and global agencies face a serious digital marketing skills shortage. While the skill level is inflated and talent is slim, there are opportunities for brands that are proactive. Read more here. OnlineMarketingInstitute The Beginner's Guide to Facebook's Edgerank – What does it take to really understand the hundreds of factors that contribute to Facebook's news feed algorithm? Here's the latest research telling us which four are the most important. Buffer 6 Steps for Successful Content Marketing Using SlideShare’s Search – Think of SlideShare's link juice as rocket fuel for SEO. All you need is a coordinated plan to start borrowing some of the professional network's search clout. Content Marketing Institute 4 Tips for Monitoring Your Social Campaign in Real Time – Social media gives companies huge marketing opportunities, but also challenges them to stay up to minute on the second-by-second social interaction consumers are having with their brand. Launching a social marketing campaign and not tracking it in real-time can backfire. SmartBlogs Google+ Quietly Introduces New Share and +1 Buttons – Google employee Paul Lindner posted about them in the Developing with Google+ community on Google+. He says that the +1 and Share buttons are now consistent with the Follow and Badge widgets. MarketingLand Marketing Lessons From a Garage Sale – No matter how sophisticated the world becomes, the fundamentals of buying and selling never change. Read these six lessons learned from this marketer and home owner. BusinessWeek LinkedIn Unveils Major Pulse Integration, Replaces LinkedIn Today – LinkedIn announced that its popular news curation feature, LinkedIn Today, has been replaced on both desktop and mobile by Pulse, which now provides the back end technology for all content surfacing on the platform. The transition comes alongside an update to the Pulse mobile app, which will more tightly integrate the news reader with LinkedIn. Mashable Report: Survey Finds Social Media and SEO Drive Inbound Marketing – 21% of marketers report that social media has become more important over the past six months. The HubSpot research shows that inbound marketing dominates lead sources, with social media and SEO driving the highest level of leads with each driving 14% of all leads. SocialMediaToday 3 Simple Ways to Incorporate Your Influencers into Your Blog Posts – As you read your influencers' content, look for opportunities to incorporate their work into articles on your own blog. Keep your eyes peeled for good questions in their content. Read more tips here. Traackr 15 Greatest Marketing Innovations of All Time – History’s greatest contributions to the fine art of connecting buyers and sellers. What did they miss? Inc. Twitter Announces Custom Timelines For Hashtags or Topics on Tweetdeck – This will allow people to create powerful streams of information out of Twitter's public fire hose, effectively allowing anyone to curate individual streams of data tailored to a topic. The ability to create custom timelines in Tweetdeck is rolling out slowly, so not everyone will have it right away. It also offers a bunch of customization options for people that use Twitter for information gathering. TechCrunch From the Online Community From “Content Marketing with Interactive Tools: Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices,” Mark said, I have been wondering how to make my website more sticky. I believe this post has provided the answer. It should have been obvious, because that is the reason I return to my favorite site. Thank you for an information-packed post. Guest said, While I’m not sure what the next generation of interactive tools looks like, I can only imagine that they will become more advanced. A great example of an interactive tool that I use on a daily basis is Pixlr. I know by looking at the three options on the homepage (Editor, Exprss or O-Matic) which one I will need for any given photograph. The whole editing process is smooth and easy to use. P.S. I think you’ve got it right when you say we need to create “experiences” with our customers not just content. This is what will keep them coming back and build loyalty. Thanks for sharing! From “It's Not the Moment, It's the Story – A Bigger Picture View of Personal Social Media Participation,” Sean Raulsen said, Very timely, man. Thanks! I was just thinking about the growing number of social media platforms, and whether it’s really necessary to have a presence on all of them. Your article serves as a great reminder to step back, and to think about what tools you want to utilize to assist in presenting your story to others. Barbara Mckinney said, The division between storytelling and marketing has dissolved. Stories play on people's fears and emotions. With stories, brands connect with readers on a more human level. What’s Your Take? When you look at the cumulative effect of social media participation, does it make your decision to jump on board and stay connected easier? Think of each social interaction as a pixel; over time, what you’ll see is a dynamic portrait of a person or a brand.

Social Media Workshops & Training

	Social Media Workshops & Training – A Journey, Not a Destination In a past life during my career in the business world, I was a corporate trainer. Interestingly, I received training on becoming an instructor from the Army (Reserves) and the corporate world at the same time. Many of the core principles were very similar (understand your audience, clear learning objectives, inform and interact, evaluate for competence), although the subject matter was clearly different. One of the key lessons I learned after developing various training programs and running hundreds of people through them is that skills development is never finished for a company. The temptation to create a certification program and then consider your staff “trained” is simply not realistic. This is especially true when it comes to the multi-dimensional aspects of social media and what it means for improving business. Along those lines, I’ll be giving a workshop next week on social media marketing for a group of business professionals in Moscow, Russia. While I’ll include data and examples specific to the region, the core principles will be similar to social media marketing instruction I’ve given in Western Europe, APAC and in the United States. The key to corporate social media training in my opinion, is to create the framework for participants (yes, participants, not “attendees”) to build on so that they can achieve competency on some core concepts and at the same time be prepared for an ongoing learning experience that will continue indefinitely. What that means is, a focus on core social media behavioral skills as well as the mechanics of specific social media platforms. Below is the general outline of what I’ll be discussing in Moscow. Keep in mind, this is only a 3 hour workshop. Audience Survey Core Social Media Marketing Principles Social Media Planning: Listening, Customer Goals, Business Goals, Community, Integration, Strategy, Tools, Measurement Planning Exercise Social Media Marketing Implementation: Tactics, Key Platforms, Staff Roles & Organization, Tools Tactics Exercise Optimization:  Tools, Data Collection, Analysis, Applications for Social Content, Engagement, Networking, Performance Improvement Social Measurement & Optimization Exercise General Q/A Compared to the DMA’s first social media marketing training that I created a few years ago (2 days of 7 hours each) this workshop format is abbreviated. But it will certainly be high impact and interactive with an emphasis on core principles and personalized application.  Of course, that could change after I ask my first audience survey question: Who knows any English? There are many online training programs on just about every aspect of social media marketing from Market Motive to classes on Udemy and Lynda.  There are also numerous first rate conferences like Social Media Marketing World and New Media Expo (I’ll be speaking or keynoting at both). I think it’s worth companies to have their staff try those kinds of programs out. When it comes time to have someone create a customized training program that can do a bit of homework and interviews in advance to really understand the objectives and unique situation of your business and create a framework that can scale, then I’d recommend a social media marketing practitioner with training experience. Hmm, I wonder where you could find one of those??? [wink wink] Have you implemented formal social media marketing workshops or training within your company? What resources did you find most useful? Online? In-Person? Both?

It's Not the Moment, It's the Story

	It's Not the Moment, It's the Story – A Bigger Picture View of Personal Social Media Participation My favorite personal socnet: Instagram! Social media technologies and platforms are now everywhere internet connectivity exists: desktop, tablet, smartphones and even kitchen appliances, cars and wearable devices. While social technology usage has matured significantly, there are many business professionals who either haven’t started or aren’t comfortable with the behavior of public sharing. One of the most common criticisms or objections I hear is that an individual Tweet, Facebook post or image on Instagram isn’t going to make a difference amongst the stream of social noise published every second. In fact, it can seem pretty overwhelming to executives my age, because expectations of their position are generally high and so is their own uncertainty about the impact of social media participation. Therein lies one of the most profound misconceptions about being active on the social web as an individual or even as a brand: It’s not the single social post that matters, it’s the story that evolves out of the cumulative experience. Sure, people still share what they had for breakfast (I had a classic oatmeal from Caribou) but they’ll also share other useful information that provides a bigger picture of who the person is, what they stand for and insights into their professional expertise. The conclusion we come to from just one social message is nothing compared to the effect over time. That’s the disconnect. Don’t evaluate the impact of personal social media participation from the moments shared in individual posts. Think of your social media participation (curation, sharing, engagement, promotion) in terms of a story you’re telling over time. In my case, my social participation is intended to communicate creativity, domain expertise in the marketing and PR field, thought leadership in those areas and appreciation for our team and customers. Those key areas are the filter for many (not all) of the social messages, interactions, curation and promotion that I do on my combined network of over 250,000 social connections. When you combine cumulative social messages on different platforms in different media with traditional digital (email) and offline experiences, the playing field is decidedly leveled. So if you’re tentative about social media participation and evaluating whether you should Tweet, use Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube or any other social network, think more about the overall story you have to tell about yourself, your brand and especially those around you (co-workers, clients, partners). You’re just doing it 140 characters or one image or Vine video at a time. As you decide how you’ll engage personally on the social web, think about what it is that you stand for. How do you want to be known?  How can you be the most helpful to others? As you answer those kinds of questions, make choices about the kind of information you share on the social web. Use the answers as a filter for where and with whom you engage. Think beyond the moments towards the overall story you can use social media to tell. You’ll find it to be a more satisfying and productive experience.