7 Tips and Tools to Craft a Killer Content Marketing Strategy #SESCHI

	7 Tips and Tools to Craft a Killer Content Marketing Strategy #SESCHI Have you ever created content that sucks? Or worked really hard on something, dedicating a ton of resources, only to have it under-perform or not earn the reach and impat you wanted? You're not alone. Despite the fact that content marketing has becoming increasingly popular among B2B companies this year, only 44% of them have a documented content strategy. This creates marketing silos that limit the benefits of creative and shareable content, which basically results in crappy content. A diverse, creative, and strategic content plan can break down silos and help create content that resonates with your target audience while increasing social shares, network size and engagement. During today’s SES Chicago conference, TopRank's Brian Larson and Walmart's Alok Jain shared several tips & tools to help marketers take their content marketing strategies to the next level. Lucky attendee Andrew Webb even tweeted his way to win a copy of Optimize, authored by TopRank Online Marketing CEO, Lee Odden. 1. Know What to Create & When to Post: Regardless of why you’re doing it, there’s something you hope to achieve with your content marketing efforts. To be successful, align your overall sales strategy with understanding the objective of your content marketing. What you’re hoping to help your prospective customers do will impact what and when you post: Awareness: If you want to help increase awareness of your brand, product or sale posts should be daily and in short form. things like blogs, banner ads, and social media posts are best. Research: Let’s face it–a lot of people do research online prior to purchasing. To help cater to those users post weekly content in long-form. Things like buyers guides and white papers will provide all the information these searchers are looking for. Compare: When there are hundreds of other companies that do what you do, customers will naturally begin to compare you to your compeition. Try to appeal to these searchers by publishing “top 10″ or “best of” lists. Be sure to always interact so cially so they know you’re listening (your competition might not be) 2. Collect Lots & Lots of Data: It is important to integrate your keywords into your entire content marketing effort. Start researching keywords that fit well with your brand and that your customers are using. Make sure the words you choose are being used in search and are things you can (and plan to) generate content for. Grouping those keywords together can help make it easier to integrate them throughout your marketing mix. 3. Keep Your Content Fresh with an Editorial Calendar An editorial calendar can house your keywords, your content plans, and your social messaging while helping you plan when to post it all. However, constantly producing brand new content can be expensive–especially when technology updates faster than we can keep up with. Include a content refreshment plan in your editorial calendar to make sure you stay up-to-date with technology while reducing the burden on your content creators. 4. Leverage the Information Around You There is so much data available that it is impossible to wrap your mind around all of it. But there are a few things that you can, and should, leverage in your content strategy to help take it to the next level: Customers: Crowdsourcing ideas are great ways to find out what your audience wants and then giving it to them. Don’t be afraid to ask! Web Analytics & Keyword Research: Search volumes, page views, website navigation, and keyword derivatives are just a few of the ways web analytics can be baked into your content planning to make sure your content is relevant and found in search Social Data: See who your customers are following, what they’re talking about. Doing so can help provide insight into opportunities for content and interaction.  5. Find Your Engaged Influencers An engaged influencer is someone who your content resonates with, so much so that they’re motivated to share. A few traits of engaged influencers (aka how to find them) are link backs, social shares and comments. Now, that being said, you can break influencers down into several categories: thought leaders, colleagues/coworkers, family, celebrities and even more. Regardless of what category they fall into, those influencers have the ability to help your brand reach it’s audience. 6. Amplify with Influencers, The Right Away Influence marketing is not an afterthought it is an ongoing effort and requires a few steps. You’ll have to start softly and giving value to them, asking nothing in return. Citing or promoting them in social is a good way to signal to your influencer that you care, and that you’re willing to share their content. Connect with them on social Consistently engage with them on social. Don’t interact until you get what you want, and give up. Continue to send them signals so they know it wasn’t just a one-off connection that provides no value Then you can pitch. Lead with a value proposition for them. Restart with Step 1 to maintain the relationship you just built! 7. Use Tools for Research & Measurement Everything from the old school industry publications to social media tools can help you find what people are talking about, see what’s resonating, and find the influencers that will be friends to your brand. Here are a few tools to help get you started Topsy: Free tool that’s great for finding influencers on particular topics Tweet Binder: Free tool (if you analyze less than 2,000 tweets) that lets you see the impacts, reach, contributors and follower averages for the people talking about a certain topic Content Marketing Institute: Great resource for finding tools that can achieve the research you need to launch & measure your content efforts ShareTally.co: Can offer insight into the number of social shares your content generated Remember: Content marketing strategies should take into account everything from keywords, search volume and customer relevancy to posting timelines, linking (internally and externally) and integration with social networks. Thanks to attendee, Andrew Webb, who proved to be the most active Twitter user. He was rewarded with his very own copy of Optimize and a little photo love to the right. Stay tuned for more from SES Chicago! We’ll be live-blogging sessions throughout the next three days. Want instant information? Follow the action live on Twitter @elizalynnsteely and @bslarsonmn. The Truth About Visual Content Marketing Tactics: Infographics It's safe to say that Big Data is revolutionizing 21st century business. The big question for marketers, however, is how do you take the wealth of information at your disposal and effectively simplify and present it in an engaging and informative way? One answer is infographics. Defining what entails a good infographic is complex. For one, not all data lends itself to creative and unique visual communication. Someone who's expert in design may not understand your audience or how to map relevant data in a compelling way. Don't forget: great content isn't great until it's discovered, consumed and shared. A couple of years ago, big splashy infographics with little substance were able to attract a lot of traffic because they represented a new content marketing format. While the novelty of the format has waned, they are still a fantastic way to present ideas and data in an easily digestible way as long as you think about the story behind the numbers and readers glean actual insight. Remember, data is the foundation of every infographic, so when you have a dataset on hand, take the time to learn what it's about, where it's from, the methodology behind the estimates and what makes it interesting and unique. According to statistics gathered by Hubspot, consider that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text So, the proliferation of infographics should come as no surprise. When it comes to business, big data offers unprecedented insight, improved decision-making and untapped sources of revenue. In the era of big data, where information moves faster than ever, infographics can reveal patterns in our lives and our world in fresh and surprising ways. Simply put, infographics as a content marketing tactic provide a tool to educate and inform your primary target audience using data-rich visualization through storytelling, which TopRank has advocated for years. Pros Helps with search engine optimization (SEO) – As the infographic gains traction, it earns incoming links. Builds brand awareness – By adding an unobtrusive logo in a prime position on the graphic, you can boost your online branding. One way to measure this is by viewing image file loads in your server logs. Creates social buzz – It's easy to measure new followers, fans and sharing on various social networks. Establish company as an industry thought leader – By utilizing your own company data, internal subject matter experts, and industry related research, you offer a rich trove of information, demonstrating your expertise. Cons Infographics created solely for their 'linkbait' potential has resulted in a glut of poorly executed infographics, giving a bad name to worthy and creditable data visualization. The cost to create a striking infographic may place this content marketing tactic out of reach for small businesses. Outsourcing information mining for statistics or hard data may result in a disconnect with your audience's true pain points to be effective. Unrealistic expectations of what it takes to make an infographic 'go viral' could perpetuate infographic fatigue, doing more harm than good for your brand. What the Experts Are Saying "As a Google search term, 'infographic' has increased nearly twenty-fold in the last five years. Yet infographics have been popular, in one form or another, for centuries. The source of their power isn't computers or the Internet, but the brain's natural visual intelligence. Gareth Cook, The New Yorker "The very best [infographics] engender and facilitate an insight by visual means — allow us to grasp some relationship quickly and easily that otherwise would take many pages and illustrations and tables to convey. Insight seems to happen most often when data sets are crossed in the design of the piece — when we can quickly see the effects on something over time, for example, or view how factors like income, race, geography, or diet might affect other data. When that happens, there's an instant 'Aha!'…"David Byren, quoted in BrainPickings. Infographics That Engage National Pen Company Ranked #2 for views and shares on Visual.ly, the National Pen Company created a compelling information-packed infographic geared to their target audience. Who knew so many people still wrote with pens?! They identified over 5,000 personality traits that are reveled when a person writes. With their in-depth data analysis, they tapped into the zeitgeist of handwriting analysis. They intrigued the reader with tidbits of how graphology is even used for detecting lies. In addition to being visually appealing, they cited numerous credible sources in the footer of the graphic. You can view the entire graphic here. Dell – (TopRank Client) Dell, clever as ever, utilized the old-school binary 'yes-no' format known to programmers the world over to engage their primary audience. They created a cohesive piece of 'eye candy' incorporating humor which, again, works with tech types. While there's no real data employed, by visualizing a 'Day in the Life' of a person sitting in front of a computer all day, Dell made it clear they empathize, making it easy for the reader to connect with the brand. ADT Home Security Services The creative department at ADT Home Security Services produced this infographic, depicting some of the largest diamond, cash and art-related crimes around the world in recent times.Making use of thorough research, the infographic's author establishes what are generally believed to be the top heists in all three categories, and writes up notes showcasing just why each is classified as 'extreme.' The infographic does a good job of incorporating a clean central theme, blending in the different heist scenarios into a single canvas. The recurring stylistic elements of the map background and the ‘outcome’ section tie together the separate topics into the intended focus of the need for security without hitting the reader over the head. Infographic Best Practices Write a catchy title. (Easier said than done.) Choose an interesting vs. 'hot' topic that resonates with your customers' needs. Be topical. Check Google trends for trending topics relevant to your industry and/or target audience. Involve credible sources in the data collection, such as prominent companies, people or research organizations, and then encourage those sources to help you promote the resulting graphic. Promote vial social channels and make it easy to share or embed by including HTML code. On the resized image page, try and insert text to help with search engine crawlers and include social sharing buttons above and below the infographic. Avoid a white background or too much text. Infographics are often shared on multiple websites and blogs, most of which have white backgrounds. If your infographic's background is also white, then deciphering where it begins and ends will be difficult. Link to a larger image of the graphic to a page with no formatting for a better user experience. List references of research sources you've cited, which will increase the perceived value of your efforts. For more on the optimization and marketing of infographics, see Chapter 10, pp. 142 – 144, Optimize, by Lee Odden. Remember, you're telling a story. Too much emphasis on data points (less is better) and not enough on high resolution visuals will result in a ho-hum infographic that receives a tepid response. Design isn't just about making things pretty. It's about making things work and, in the case of infographics, that means representing data accurately and clearly. It means letting the data speak. What do you envision the next generation of infographics will be? Photo credit: Shutterstock 2013 SES Chicago – Wind, Shoulders, and Search Wind. That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Chicago. Well, that and food because let's face it—Chicago has some pretty incredible food. But to be completely honest, big shoulders never would've popped into my head when thinking of the city. Yes you read that right—apparently Chicago is also known as "the City of Big Shoulders". The city also happens to be known as "The City that Works". Suffice it to say, SES Chicago will fit right in. Full of search and social marketers filling their heads (and potentially big shoulders) with information about paid, earned and owned search, the conference has several promising speakers that I can't wait to learn from. For those who are unable to attend or for attendees just looking for some advice on which sessions to attend, here is a preview of 5 sessions that any search or social marketer would be crazy to miss: 1). SEO in the Boardroom: Leveraging Relevant Metrics This session was designed by Ryan Jones of Sapient and Alan K’necht of Digital Always Media, Inc. to help address the ranking challenges and revenue opportunities of the constantly evolving world of search. Highlighting the importance of earned media and integrated/holistic marketing strategies that are search and content centric a few key, actionable takeaways from this session are: • Knowing how to forecast revenue and convince on resources, budget and overall ROI • Reporting metrics that matter at the c-level 2). How to Craft Killer Content Strategy to Earn Links and Visibility A successful content strategy has become the fulcrum of many businesses. But how can creative, diverse content be created that resonates with target audiences while touching on hot topics? What does it take to cultivate and curate fresh, useful, shareable content? How can businesses generate audience engagement? Alok Jain, SEO Senior Manager at Walmart and TopRank's own Account Manager Brian Larson, plan to address those questions and provide attendees with ways to identify, manage and amplify the reach of their content strategies. 3). Mobile Targeting: Using the Right Aggregate Data to Reach Your Target Audience Let's face it—most of us have smart phones, and love them. It's no surprise that with all the advances in technology, and the desire to stay up-to-date with technology, that over a billion smartphones enter the market every year. People have become much more dependent on their devices—using them to shop, research, and ask for advice. Businesses are now faced with an opportunity to reach this audience in a unique way. Lauren Moores of Dstillery and Ambrish Verma of Microsoft designed their session to teach attendees how to: • Utilize location to target the right audience at the right time • Pull data from hyperlocal segmentation to create unique messages, as well as how to effectively use that data 4). How to Turn B2B Social into a Lead Gen Machine It's no secret that social media is taking the marketing world by storm. Despite the surge in usage and ways consumers and businesses are using social media sites, only 15% of CMOs say they can quantify the ROI of their social efforts. This session from Michelle Killibrew, Program Director, Strategy & Solutions, Social Business at IBM and John Lee Manager of Brand & Social Marketing at Webtrends, plans to highlight how IBM integrated and applied smarter marketing best practices to launch a successful campaign, as well as a few key takeaways: • Learning when to use paid vs. organic social tactics in a B2B environment • How and when to tie in marketing automation, analytics and email marketing to make social lead gen stronger and integrated with the rest of B2B marketing 5). B2B is Different-Brand Marketers Share Data-Driven Strategies That Get Results This discussion session leverages a power panel of savvy B2B marketers—Stephan Brisard of Mitchell International, Kevin Espinosa of Caterpillar Inc, and Stephanie Gassen of TDS Telecommunications Corp—to share examples of how they have leveraged digital data to overcome common B2B challenges, build customer relations and prove marketing ROI. As with any great conference, these sessions represent a tiny fraction of the great sessions scheduled throughout the three-day conference. Check out the conference program for the full lineup of presenters. If you can't attend SES this year, don't worry TopRank's got you covered. I, and my colleague Brian Larson will be live-blogging the sessions above, and a few more, to share key nuggets and conference updates. You can always stay up-to-date on the conference via Twitter by following @bslarsonmn, @elizalynnsteely or by tracking the hashtag #SESCHI Online Marketing News: Psychology Behind Viral Content, Artsy iPhone App, YouTube Charging, Instagram Ads, Foursquare Analytics What Makes Content Go Viral? The book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Malcolm Gladwell has some pretty fantastic research on how content goes viral. See what compels people to click and share content. Content consumption is relatively static compared to content generation, so there is only so much attention to go around. [Infographic] Leaderswest Easier Recovery for Hacked Sites – Google adds new features to Webmaster Tools “Security Issues” to enable faster recovery if you’re hacked. Google Blog Artsy Launches Innovative iPhone App for Art Lovers – Artsy have announced the launch of the Artsy App for iPhone and iPod touch that will give users access to more than 50,000 images from more than 600 of the world's leading galleries art fairs, museums, private collections, foundations, and artists' estates in 50 countries. Art Market Blog Vine Adds Ability to Edit Videos, Save Sessions – With a new feature called “Time Travel,” users can now reorganize the various shots included in their videos. That means if a user wants to put the last clip he shot at the start of his video, he can simply drag it to the front before sharing. Los Angeles Times Get Ready to Pay to Watch YouTube – YouTube is increasing its efforts to generate more revenue with its most popular video producers. Any video creator who has 10,000 subscribers and has been verified by YouTube will be able to set up a new paid channel and charge a fee for access to their content. Creators can set their own subscription rates, though YouTube has final authority to determine pricing. Time Buffer's Response to Hacking: A Study in Social Media Crisis Management – Social sharing start-up Buffer was hacked October 26th. In the hours their service was down, the Buffer team managed the crisis across social media and email channels like champs. Read about lessons learned in social media crisis management for brands. Search Engine Watch LinkedIn Tops 250 Million Members – LinkedIn’s stock has more than doubled in the year to date, closing a few dollars shy of $250 per share. As of publication, the stock was up by nearly 2%. Mashable Ads Set To Appear on Instagram Next Week – Starting with a very small, select group of advertisers (Adidas, Ben & Jerry's, GE and a few more) Instagram will begin introducing high-quality brand-oriented ads into the news feed, these will include still imagery and video. Marketing Land 25%+ Young Internet Users Commenting On & Discovering TV Shows Via Social Media – 3 in 10 broadband internet users aged 15-17 say they occasionally post comments to social media sites about the TV shows they watch, a figure which remains relatively high (25%) among 18-34-year-olds, but drops to just 10% of respondents aged 35 and older, according to survey result from Horowitz Associates. Marketing Charts 5 Google AdWords Enhanced Campaign Tips – Early adopters may have had the first jump on Enhanced Campaigns, but it's definitely not too late to take advantage. Read these five tips to help maximize performance and improve efficiency in your Google AdWords campaigns. Search Engine Watch Foursquare Adds Analytics Tools For Publishers – Foursquare last week rolled out new tools for publishers that give them more insight on places popular with their followers and which of their tips on the social location app are resonating. MediaPost 15 Ways Ecommerce Sites Can Use Urgency to Increase Conversions – Through showing low stock levels, encouraging people to buy quickly for faster delivery, or by using email to pull customers into sales, urgency is a great selling tool. Check out more tips here. eConsultancy 4 Social Media Horror Stories and How to Avoid Them – Let these serve as a warning: What you say online can–and will–come back to hurt you. Inc. An Easy Way to Upgrade to Google Universal Analytics – Google launches Universal Analytics upgrade, making it an easy two-step process to upgrade your existing properties from classic Google Analytics to Universal Analytics. Google Analytics Blog LinkedIn Announces LinkedIntro App – The growth of mobile email is simply staggering. Four years ago, less than 4% of emails were read on mobile. Today, half of all emails are read on a mobile device. Enter 'Intro' which shows you LinkedIn profiles in your iPhone Mail app.  Very cool! LinkedIn Blog Google’s Matt Cutts: More Pages Does Not Equal Higher Rankings – In a new video by Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, we learn that the number of pages on a specific site does not have a direct ranking benefit; the more pages you have, the more chances you have to rank for different keywords. However, the more pages you have, the more likely you have more overall links and PageRank, which do directly impact your rankings. Did ya get all that? Search Engine Land First Evidence of Google Smartphone Ranking Penalty Appears – If you are using smartphone error pages, this is your incentive to stop. It's no longer just a worst practice and bad for your user. It will now make you less visible in Google search results. Marketing Land Wrong Ways to Use Hashtags – Many people don't seem to understand how #hashtags work, and they misuse the tool, which is a fast way to suffer a backlash, sometimes without even knowing it having happened. Here are a few common ways people abuse the hashtag system, and what you should do instead. SEO Chat From the Online Community This post promoting a free 214-page eBook from Lindex generated lengthy comments and great ideas from the community. On "31 Top Marketers Agree: It's Time to Rethink Your Content Marketing" Stephen Bateman said, Thanks for this Lee. My tip for content marketers is to start with the end in mind. Turn the process of content creation on its head, and decide first what you want your content users to do. Then, work through a systematic tried, tested and trusted content marketing planning methodology that gets results, not dissimilar to Rick’s http://slidesha.re/17eqJiJ Rick Noel said, Excellent post Lee. My tips would be to follow a process which begins with building customer personas that could be used as a light house to guide your content marketing efforts. This is in support of your 2nd bullet above from your Chapter 1 recommendations. Second, document FAQs for those personas. This is what they care about and is related to their business goals. Third, find the gaps to addressing those questions in the existing Google index. Fourth, evaluate keywords used by target market to find the useful information you are contemplating creating. Pick keywords carefully and then be aware as you write, making sure to write naturally and don’t be overly focused on keyword density, just aware and all things being equal, the best words to use in each situation. Keyword research should guide your approach to fill those voids that are in demand and possible to rank based on current page 1. Factor in geographic scope (local, regional, national, international) and personalization when determining ability for organic rankings. Fifth, and perhaps most important, be prepared to create unique content that is better than everything else or takes a creative slant on the topic covered. Six, share strategically on social channels most relevant to your personas/target markets, ideally at times when they are likely to be using these social channels. This is key for reach and discovery. Sound like a tall order? To do it well for competitive markets, it is, especially as you are building audience and authority. We consider this process in driving ROI from Content Marketing, especially as it relates to search. Thanks for sharing. On “Gamification as a Content Marketing Tactic: How Brands are Engaging Consumers,” Brad Szollose said, In my own Cross-Generational work, I recommend Gamification to managers and executives. It is an excellent way to build in micro-incentives in order to achieve goals, helps to build a team environment and sets the tone for recognition & reward. Many Fortune 500 companies are using Gamification driven software over their intranets in order to keep project management transparent and on task. 3 Books I recommend are: 1) Got Game: How a New Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade 2) What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by Professor James Paul Gee 3) And of course my own work, Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia. We are entering a disruptive time in business and Gamification seems to be an incredible game changer for HR, and a great tool for employee evaluation. In Marketing, it’s a no-brainer. Thanks again Nicolette. What’s Your Take? Do you use negative or positive emotional language to tip the scales in social media? Will you pay to watch YouTube videos? Will ads on Instagram kill this popular app? Integrating Public Relations & Content Marketing – It Doesn't Have to be Scary At this year’s PRSA International conference in Philadelphia, a few thousand PR professionals from all over the world gathered for the latest trends and insights into the future of PR and communications. For my part, I presented on the growing role of Content Marketing for Public Relations to a packed room of attentive and inquisitive PR and communications pros. On top of the networking, awards and education, there was plenty of connecting with old friends. I was happy to see Shonali Burke (who is handling book PR for Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s new book, Age of Context) as soon as I walked into the venue hotel. Shortly after we connected with Richard Bagnall (founder of Metrica, acquired by Gorkana) who came over from London. The night before his opening keynote, Brian Solis had the bright idea to take a few Uber SUVs with our pals Deirdre Breakenridge, Eric Schwartzman, Michael Pranikoff and few more friends over to Jim’s Steaks for Philly Cheesesteaks. The experience was fun, but late night cheesesteaks was just one of those things you probably only need to do once. All that fun aside, there’s some serious business going on in the Public Relations world that has driven a lot of attention towards digital PR expertise, content marketing, native advertising and defining the future role of PR. The PR industry has been in a state of flux over the past few years as major changes have occurred in the the news and media. One striking example is this: Over 17,000 newsroom jobs have been lost since 2007. If you’re a journalist, it doesn’t need to be Halloween for a stat like that to be scary. If you’re in media relations, it’s scary too, because with fewer journalists, competition for stories skyrockets. On top of that, declining readership of traditional media, exploding use of social and mobile technologies, shortened news cycles and an explosion in brand publishing make today’s media environment very different. And by “different”, I mean zombie-like scary for some. “If you want to be in the media, become the media” Brands are evolving as publishers, hiring brand journalists and investing heavily in content. In fact, according to a recent CMI and MarketingProfs study, 58% of B2B and 60% of B2C companies planning on spending more on content in 2014. This is up a few percentage points over last year and the overall trend towards content marking is decidedly on the up. Over 5 years ago, we decided that investing in our own content would help us create enough of an audience for our services that we wouldn’t need to rely on local or industry media. There are several ironies to how this has played out. 1. By developing our blog to be a rich information source over a long period of time, we’ve attracted far more unsolicited media coverage (NY Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal) than when we had someone doing media outreach. 2. We still don’t get covered by the local media in Minnesota. But we also have reach that is on par or exceeds many of the business magazines. To reach 10 – 50,000 business people today, all I have to do is publish a blog post. And I can publish as many blog posts as I want without paying anyone for advertising or having to interrupt a reporter with some kind of pitch they’ll never care about anyway. The lesson? To ensure your place as a trusted source for stories in the media, create content that demonstrates that expertise. Creating a themed, rich resource that is easily findable and shareable, will attract customers directly as well as journalists and bloggers doing research on a topic relevant to your business. Publishers are Marketers Publishers are increasingly offering marketing and content creation services as well as content as advertising, aka “native advertising, sponsored content or advertorial”.  One of the best examples of this is Forbes Brand Voice, and recently The Associated Press started taking money for promoting content. Journalists are also becoming more accountable to driving traffic to their stories. A few years ago, the only pitches I would receive were from junior media relations specialists. Today, I’ll occasionally see pitches from newspaper, magazine or online publisher writers suggesting I share their most recent story. We are the Internet Along with changes with the media, brands and content are the major trends in ubiquitous internet connectivity (10 billion connected devices now) and the ability for consumers to create, consume, publish, interact and transact anytime and anywhere with smartphones, tablets or computers. The public is connected 24/7 and that creates all new means of interaction for brands that may have been used to transactions and customer service as their primary reasons for communicating with the public. Since so many consumers are empowered to publish, companies have too look at the competition a little differently. Whether it’s the “shelf space” of search results or share of conversation on the social web, brands are not only competing against other companies, but their own customers and peers for topical attention of common interests. Optimize for Customers, Optimize for Journalists In the same way marketers segment customer data to create profiles that reflect key data about information discovery, consumption and what motivates action, so too can PR professionals approach content creation and optimization for journalists, analysts and reporters doing research. Time on social media and search engines means being where the target audience is looking, whether it’s buyers looking for solutions or a journalist looking for statistics or a story source. How can you be where journalists are looking? By creating and optimizing content that’s useful on “in demand” and relevant topics. Besides findability, companies are investing in more utility for the media as well. Granted, some smart companies have been doing this a long time: creating well researched information sources on topics a particular reporter or journalist covers. A good example is the media resource, Google Media Tools that offers members of the media a number of utilities to: Gather and Organize, Engage, Visualize, Publish, Develop and other resources. A big part of optimizing performance is to be useful and make it easier for your target audience to do what you want them to do. What Are PR Pros Doing to Integrate Social Media and Content Marketing? Added to the regular duties of creating messaging, communications strategy, media and blogger outreach, reputation monitoring, crisis management, employee and customer communications are some specific social media activities: Social Listening Social Content Creation Social Engagement Social Ads Grow Networks on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and forums as necessary. As the relationship between information and influence evolves, so too must the definition of content marketing. "Content Marketing is the planning, creation, and amplification of brand and customer focused narratives that drive measurable business outcomes." When you look at the idea of storytelling targeted to a specific audience intended to affect certain intended outcomes, it sounds a like influencing publics to me. When you combine that ability to incorporate key messaging into content stories with marketing level accountability – it’s a clear competitive advantage over PR or standard content marketing by itself. Of course there’s a diverse array of skills involved with content marketing that go way beyond the purview of most PR professionals. But the messaging, ability to influence and target groups is spot on. Both Marketing and Public Relations are in the content business. Our agency started pretty much as a PR firm and we were creating all kinds of content for clients back then. Now, we have years of experience integrating PR, marketing, advertising along with SEO, social media and content marketing. Some of the content types you’ll find PR pros creating include: Newsroom Blog Posts Press Releases Case Studies Social Content Newsletters Contributed Articles White Papers Events Video, Image, Audio Personally, I think Public Relations pros that are skilled in messaging, content planning, social media and promotion have an excellent base to become better content marketers than many of the people now calling themselves “content marketing experts”.  The main area of opportunity is in measurement, because marketers are accountable to performance and business outcomes in ways that most people in the PR world aren’t. If you’re in the Public Relations world, how has your company started to integrate more content marketing into your services? Are clients asking for more content? Are they expecting more marketing oriented performance from your PR and media relations efforts? For a great #prsaicon recap, check out the post on CommPro.biz here. Image: Shutterstock #SMBMSP59: What You Need to Know about Location-Based Social Media for Business On Halloween you expect to see costumes, candy, spooky decorations and….bacon?! Yes you read that correctly. At this morning's Minneapolis and St. Paul Social Media Breakfast there was bacon. And bacon costumes. Several of the TopRank team opted for their own unique costumes like Gumby, Wayne (from Wayne’s World), a hunter, and Steve Jobs. With the surge in apps with location-enabled features—Foursquare, Facebook, Yelp, Instagram, and Twitter to name a few—it's no surprise that this month's breakfast delved into best practices for incorporating location-based (or location-aware) apps a part of your social media strategy. Presenter Christopher Lower of Sterling Cross Communications used case studies & success stories to offer advice to attendees. Here are 16 key takeaways our team gleaned from the presentation: Brian Larson: 1. Location based marketing is not simply checking-in on foursquare. Due to the sensitive nature of some services (e.g. medical related services), marketers can be more effective at driving engagement if they use their physical environment (e.g. waiting room) to interact with their target audience. 2. Robots are coming! 'Eye-See-You' mannequins which actually 'see' shoppers and can provide recommendations are already 'working' in select malls in Canada. So look twice next time you stroll through a department store. Ben Brausen: 3. The first ever swarm badge unlocked in Minnesota was at SMBMSP #24 – Social Media & Retail at the Rick Bronsen Comedy Gallery at the MOA. 4. Foursquare was far from the first location-based social app but it has been the most successful so far with over 40 million users worldwide and 4.5 billion check-ins. Nick Ehrenberg: 5. Augmented reality is the next trending technology, already demonstrated with apps like Layar and Google Glass. As the technology becomes more available and user-friendly, our mobile devices will simply become an extension of ourselves. 6. Search in Foursquare differs from regular Google or Yelp services, in that everyone gets different results based on their previous check-ins. There's nothing static about it. Jesse Pickrain: 7. When mobile users visit a standard site (non-mobile, no responsive design) and has a negative experience, 61% never come back and 40% go to a competitor's site. In other words, more businesses should be prioritizing mobile-friendly sites. 8. Are QR codes dead? Absolutely not – especially among 40 – 60 year olds, which is surprising. Marketers who have taken QR codes out of their arsenal should consider putting them back in. You can also get creative by rotating the back end to deliver a new customer experience each time a QR code is scanned. Eliza Steely: 9. Making sure you interact well and in relevant ways with your customers without creeping them out is key. Personalizing deals can help encourage them to make a purchase they'll enjoy. 10. My generation is a little lost: only 14% of the American population knows what the yellow pages are, only 1% uses it to find businesses….and people take selfies at funerals. Katie Bresnahan: 11. Retailers are making it a point to adapt to the world we live in – with more and more locations adding wi-fi capabilities in-store. This has not fared as well for retailer Barnes & Noble, where they have become a showcase for customers to view the book in-person, then check major online retailers such as Amazon for cheaper prices. 12. It's not just phones – social interaction and check-ins are now possible with Google Glass and Samsung Galaxy Gear Watches – soon we may see contacts (that go IN YOUR EYE) that are vision-responsive and in addition, our clothing could be capable of knowing where we are and how we're feeling! Emily Bacheller: 13. Did you know that Foursquare has robust back-end analytics? Use Foursquare to learn who your most valuable customers are, their favorite products and what your peak business hours are. 14. Remember in Minority Report when Tom Cruise walks into the Gap and the robert salesperson recommends products for him based his eye-scan? Yeah, that's now a real thing with mannequins programmed to do facial scans. Alexis Hall: 15. Location based apps like foursquare also serve as valuable search engines. 94% of websites are not mobile friendly. If a business does not have a mobile friendly website then they must leverage mobile apps in order to be found from a mobile device. 16. QR codes are immensely popular with the 40-60 year old demographic. So although marketers may be tired of talking about QR codes, consumers are very interested. Mix up the types of content delivered via a QR code scan in order to keep consumers scanning. The potential for an incentive, like a discount, can be a great way to drive sales in the hospitality industry. Essentially there are a few unique things location-based media can bring your business: Customer service opportunities that allow you to go above and beyond expectations and provide customers with deals (and experiences) they’ll use, remember, and rave about online Deep backend analytics to help you schedule happy hours, promotions, and maintain (or remove) items from your product list A big thank you to Christopher Lower and the audience members who asked such intriguing questions! As well as Mykl Roventine and the Social Media Breakfast MSP volunteers & sponsors. How have you used location-based social media to interact with customers? How 5 Large Consumer and B2B Brands Are Using Vine This post is from one of TopRank’s social media strategists, Emily Bacheller. As companies look for examples of using different social media platforms, I asked her to find examples of major brands using Vine. Here’s what she found: There's been considerable debate in the marketing community as to whether or not Vine is a valuable social marketing tool for B2B brands.  While the six second video app has proved its worth to B2C organizations, B2B brands have lagged behind in testing this video platform. In this blog post, I hope to show that Vine videos have a number of useful applications for companies of all sizes that would like to diversify their content mix. The highly consumable and shareable nature of these short videos as well as the ability to embed them on any web page means that you don't necessarily need a large following on Vine itself to get major exposure. The five large B2B and consumer brands highlighted in this blog post demonstrate that Vine videos can be an engaging element of any marketer's social media toolkit. Philips – Share your Office Culture Consumers are more likely to trust brands that are able to demonstrate their humanity. Similarly, B2B brands want to engage in partnerships with companies that are engaging, innovative and staffed by intelligent individuals. Organizations that are reputed to have a great office culture also find it easier to recruit and retain excellent employees. There are major business benefits to having a healthy office culture and an exceptional staff. If your office is a great place to work, then you should let the world know. Vine videos are a great way to give clients and customers a glimpse into the inner workings of your organization. Featuring your staff, office space or a staff event in a Vine video is a great way to show that your organization has soul. Philips, the lighting and electronics giant, has created Vine videos that feature their staff and office building. These videos put a human face on an organization that might otherwise be too large or too technical to relate to. Cisco – Showcase your Creativity Creativity is an essential component of effective problem solving, project management, product creation and, of course, marketing. Creative thinking is necessary for distilling complex ideas, tackling entrenched problems and developing innovative solutions. Cisco, a networking services provider, recently developed a brand pillar called The Internet of Everything. The philosophy is so brainy that they needed to employ some creative content specialists to help them convey their new philosophy to the masses. Cisco launched a blog and multi-channel social media campaign to explore concepts related to The Internet of Everything. The Vine below is one artists' interpretation of The Internet of Everything. Although it's abstract, content like this is eye-catching, interesting and helps establish Cisco as a creative thought leader in an innovative new field. Adobe – Document Industry Events Industry events provide a great opportunity for brands to engage in "real-time" social media marketing. Supplementing your blog posts, photos and tweets from industry events with Vine videos gives your employees and fans insight into the events and your brand's role in the industry. Adobe software is a prime example of a company that has spiced up their event coverage with Vine videos that highlight their keynote speakers, branded displays and product presentations. Hewlett Packard – Promote Product Launches Use Vine videos to create anticipation for a new product launch, unveil the product to the public or to promote a new product. Hewlett Packard, the American information technology corporation, recently created a series of Vine videos promoting the new HP Officejet Pro X printer. The Vine series compares the speed of the printer to the fast pace of life in New York City, adding an element of regionalism to the campaign. General Electric – The King of Consistent, Buzz worthy Content In the marketing blogosphere, General Electric is consistently named one of the best branded users of Vine. This energy solutions provider proves that B2B businesses can leverage Vine just as well as any B2C brand. General Electric keeps their fans engaged by uploading a new Vine video every week. They also create themes like "6 Second Science Inspiration" and share their fans' best submissions as a way to reward participation and supplement their on-page content. Brands that want to succeed on Vine can follow General Electric's model of posting Vines regularly, following a theme or content plan and encouraging fan submissions. From demonstrating the brand personality and culture to getting creative with company news and industry participation, these 5 major B2B and consumer brands have found ways to use just 6 seconds of video in powerful ways. One important thing to understand about Vine is that the experience for your audience is not limited to one 6 second video. Think about Vine as a TV channel with 6 second episodes. The impact you can make by connecting your string of short videos will be far more impactful than random videos about various topics. Is your company using Vine? What are some tips you can share with our other readers? Gamification as a Content Marketing Tactic – How Brands Are Engaging Consumers From frequent flyer programs to unlocking badges in Foursquare, gamification is permanently embedded in our cultural DNA. Loyalty programs present the simplest examples of companies reinforcing consumer behavior they want repeated. Smart marketers are using the same mechanics that have hooked gamers to generate more business and, with advancements in technology, are doing so with greater creativity and complexity. For the record, gamification is not new. Charles 'Chuck' Coonrandt, identified as the 'grandfather' of gamification by Forbes, wrote The Game of Work in 1984, in part, to answer the charge that U.S. productivity was not world class. Fast forward 29 years – we see more and more companies embracing game elements and mechanics not only as a means to identify influencers and advocates internally, but also as a content marketing tactic to attract and engage consumers. The gaming principles Coonrandt's first used in the workplace to motivate workers has now become an accepted and recognizable way to win over customers visiting a website. Brands are applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make their products more fun and engaging. Why does gamification work with consumers? "Immediate feedback is the secret sauce," says Coonrandt. The human psyche craves feedback; the badges and points are just methods. If brands play their cards right, game scores will translate to business goals. And many brands are getting on board. According to Gartner, 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014. Pros In-depth engagement. Game mechanics provide more in-depth engagement than other forms of digital advertising due to its ‘additive experience’ for users. For example, one FarmVille advertiser is Green Giant frozen vegetables. Inherent motivation to return to the source of interaction. Achieving a certain level of status motivates consumers to engage frequently with the brand. Uses fun to embed brands in customers' lives. Cons Marketers provide no long-term value to users. Without a competitive 'me too' aspect, minimal levels of engagement could result in virtual ghost towns. Game-based marketing has the potential to disrupt traditional loyalty rewards programs when customers feel it takes too long to consider engaging worthwhile. Confusing 'free' with 'status'. Not understanding what it is about video games that engages consumers is a recipe for failure. What Industry Thought Leaders Are Saying… “Basically game mechanics are a way to get consumers addicted to things.” Tim Chang, principal at Norwest Venture Partners, which has backed many social mobile game companies. “Gaming has become ingrained in culture. The consumer has become more and more engaged, and [gaming] allows them to spend more and more time with your brand, and gives them incentive to do so.” Ann Mack, director of trend spotting for worldwide ad agency, JWT. “It’s the system that’s engaging, not the reward. That’s what game designers know really well, and this is what gamification is unveiling to the marketing world.” Gabe Zichermann, author of Game-Based Marketing. CA Technologies To help their globalized users get the most out of their technology investments and connect with one another, CA launched a comprehensive online community called MyCA. CA saw opportunities to improve user retention and progress visitors from lurking to actively participating. Their gamification and loyalty program enabled them to identify, measure and reward valuable collaborative behaviors, surface experts, and increase community member adoption and value. Using real-time feedback and championed expertise, CA Champions continues to drive engagement. CA Champions crowned experts and advocates, lowering support costs and increasing brand reach. Autodesk Due to the power and complexity of Autodesk’s 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, a user license can represent a significant investment, making software trials a critical component of a customer’s purchasing decision. Leveraging The Behavior Platform by Badgeville, Autodesk built powerful Game Mechanics into Undiscovered Territory, a new software experience for trial users of Autodesk 3ds Max. Their goal was to guide and on-board potential customers through the benefits and differentiators of the tool, increasing usage during the trial period. By engaging onboarding users through its trial products, Autodesk demonstrated clear value, e.g. 10% greater trial downloads and 40% higher trial usage. Bell Media While Bell Media’s MuchMusic received millions of visitors a year to its music and television website, many were inactive and their time-on-site varied with music video releases and season finale air dates. The MuchMusic team hoped to engage users and incentivize them to return regularly, contribute content, and advocate for their favorite Much artist or TV show. Bell created MuchCloser, a loyalty program that uses Reputation Mechanics to champion top fans and give them early access to exclusive content and privileges (like Skype chats with celebrities). The website saw a 33% increase in daily retention, a 21% increase in registered users and a 59% life in overall behaviors as a result. Tips to Keep Your Gamification Strategy on Track Take the best lessons from games and apply them to your specific business model; it's not about turning everything into a game or turning your business into a gaming company. Identify behaviors fans are already performing and reward them appropriately for those contributions. Offering free products is a quick win, but offering customers status above their peers has the potential to create more long-term brand loyalty. The key reward that marketers can offer consumers is status, followed by access to new content, power over their peers, and free stuff, according to Zichermann. In what ways has your business used game mechanics to drive customer engagement and brand awareness? Do you consider gamification as a content marketing tactic? Check out the full list of content marketing tactics in our series here. Photo credit: Shutterstock 31 Top Marketers Agree: It's Time to Rethink Your Content Marketing – Free 214 Page eBook from Linkdex Post Sponsored by Linkdex Starting as a public relations firm with SEO skills in 2001, we’ve always had to create content for clients whether it was press releases, newsletters, case studies or graphics and diagrams for newsrooms and events. In 2008 we made a major shift to what I call “SEO Plus” and focused a lot more on content. In fact, we were named the #1 content marketing blog that year by Junta42 (now Content Marketing Institute). Fast forward to 2013 and the momentum of converged search, social media, public relations and content is unmistakable. SEO vendors and agencies are realizing marketing is the business we’re in, not just SEO. One of those companies, Linkdex, is a marketing SaaS platform that brings content, search, social and PR components together in one service to help companies perform better marketing. This applies to service models that want to evolve from SEO to SEO plus, from PR or content marketing agency to integrated marketing agency. The same goes for departments within a company that want a platform to help integrated components of search, social media, content and PR. To bring marketers and agencies the insights they need for this evolution towards more coordinated search, social, PR and content marketing, Matt Roberts and the Linkdex team reached out to 31 industry experts and created a 214 page eBook: ReThink Your Content Marketing. Sometimes eBooks like this include the same list of names and insights, but I think you’ll find this one pretty refreshing. You’ll see why when you check out the list of international search and content marketing experts as well as the titles of their contributions covering strategy to tactics to measurement: Joe Pulizzi (@joepulizzi) : Foreword Lee Odden (@leeodden) : The Speed of Change Bas van den Beld (@basvandenbeld) : The Role of Content in Modern Day Marketing Rick Ramos (@ricktramos) : 7 Reasons Why Content Marketing is the New Black Matt Roberts (@Linkdex_Matt) : Use Content to Supercharge Your Organic Marketing Rob Garner (@robgarner) : If You Have a Website, Then You Are Already a Real-Time Publisher Andrew Smith (@andismit) : What Can Content Marketing Learn from PR? And Vice Versa Danny Denhard (@dannydenhard) : Creating the Perfect Cocktail: Do PR, Social, SEO and Content Mix Well Together Nick Garner (@nickgarner) : Organic Marketing Driving Social Influence Phil Mackechnie (@akcamiwik) : Breaking Down Internal Silos Robert Rose (@Robert_Rose) : Be Remarkable or Fail Kevin Gibbons (@kevgibbo) : Creating a Multichannel Content Marketing Strategy Paul Roetzer (@paulroetzer) : The Art and Science of Content Marketing Collide Michael Brito (@britopian) : Transforming Your Brand to the Next Media Company Ann Handley (@marketingprofs) : Does Your Content Convey Honest Empathy Darren Fell (@TeamCrunch) : With Content, You Reap What You Sow Hannah Smith (@Hannah_Bo_Banna) : Why You Need Great Content Stuart Tofts (@StuartTofts) : How to Use Content to Diversify and Strengthen Your Online Marketing Melissa Rach (@MelissaRach) : What Makes Content Great Sonja Jefferson and Sharon Tanton (@sonjajefferson – @sjtanton) : The Year That Content Grew Up Susan Genelius (@susangunelius) : Great Content is Shareworthy Content Suzanne Fanning (@SuzanneWOMMA) : Content is No Longer King Henneke Duistermaat (@HennekeD) : How to Write Great Content and Become an Influential Writer Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) : The See-Think-Do Framework Simon Penson (@simonpenson) : Content Strategy (Make Your Ideas Your Friends) Andreas Ramos (@Andreas_Ramos) : The Hub-and-Spoke Model of Content Chelsea Adams (ChelseAdams) : 5 Fresh Ways to Use Content Marketing as Lead Generation Jonathan Alderson (@jonoalderson) : Measuring the ROI of Content Marketing Stephen Lock (@stevejlock) : Frameworks to Audit, Measure & Maximise Content Marketing ROI Gerry McGovern (@gerrymcgovern) : Quality Content Means Measuring Outcomes, Not Inputs Kristjan Hauksson (@optimizeyourweb) : Content Impacts on a Global Scale I’d be surprised if you’ve seen a free eBook this substantial on the topic of content marketing from so many thought leaders and practitioners. This is a necessary read for a lot of online marketers, from SEOs who still think content marketing is a link building tactic and that “more is better” to public relations practitioners that really need to get on the digital marketing track fast and in a meaningful way. When you check out the ebook you can get a demo of Linkdex too if you like – totally up to you. Just make sure you dig in to the strategic to practical insights from all the search, social media, public relations and content marketing pros that contributed to the eBook. Then make sure you share it with your marketing and PR networks. Once you read this eBook, here are some of the next steps and key questions to ask that I recommend in Chapter 1, “The Speed of Change” What business goals could you solve with more useful and meaningful content? Who are the target audiences your business needs to connect with? What do they care about? What are their goals? Develop an editorial calendar that takes into account how each target customer segment discovers, consumes and acts on information during their buying cycle Build search, social media and media optimization best practices into your content planning and promotion efforts so your brand can “be the best answer” where ever customers are looking Continuously analyze key performance indicators and business outcomes to optimize the performance of your content marketing investment Once you make the shift from content as a tactic to content as useful and meaningful information designed for specific customer groups and objectives, you’ll be on your way to more efficient and effective online marketing programs. If you were going to contribute a short tip to a content marketing eBook like this, what would it be?  What’s one piece of advice you think is most important? Online Marketing News: Google Banner Ads, 50 Tech Megatrends, Oracle Buys Compendium, The AP Sells Out 50 Powerful Statistics About Tech Mega Trends Affecting Every Business – There are five mega trends impacting the IT departments of every company: Mobile, Social, Cloud, Apps and Big Data. In this presentation, Vala Afshar reveals ten startling stats for each mega trend. @ValaAfshar Oracle Buys Compendium, A Content Marketing Startup, To Build Up Its Arsenal Against Salesforce - Congratulations to Chris Baggott, founder of Compendium (and Exact Target) on the aquisition by Oracle, which also aquired Eloqua late 2012. The cloud markting space is heating up! TechCrunch 2014 B2C Content Marketing Research – 60% of B2C marketers expect their company's content marketing budget to increase over the next 12 months. Learn about more trends here. Content Marketing Institute Associated Press is the Latest News Organization to Try Sponsored Content – The roll out is expected in early 2014, with potential sponsorship deals centered around major events the AP is planning to cover, such as the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the Academy Awards. AdAge What Can We Expect From The Next Decade of Marketing? – Like it or not, we've entered a post-promotional paradigm. Marketers must focus on experiences, adaptive strategy and platforms that hold customers' attention. Forbes The Evolution of Content Marketing Software – Becoming a full-fledged segment was the result of a steep climb over fast-changing buyer behaviors and technology providers adapting to those shifts. Check out this great horizontal infographic chronicling this evolution from 1993 to present. Kapost Google Tests Banner-Like Ads in Search Results – Google confirmed that it has been experimenting with these visual search ads among a select group of desktop users in the United States, but in a very limited test in the U.S. Mashable Twitter Experiments With a Private Feed – Opting in to the experiments involves following two special Twitter accounts, which then send personalized messages using the service's direct message function. The experiments may provide a preview of how Twitter will further expand a service that started out simple but is now becoming more complex. Follow @MagicRecs and @eventparrot to experience it yourself. MIT Technology Review Twitter Now Offers Tweet Scheduling Function for Advertisers – Many marketers use third-party social media dashboards to schedule their tweets ahead of time. But Twitter advertisers may be able to give those tools a rest with Twitter's new scheduled tweets option. ClickZ 3 Hashtag Tools That Rock – This technology blogger reviewed three sweet hashtag tools, complete with screenshots, tips, and some practical takeaways. A must read for anyone wanting to improve visibility among influencers on Twitter. SteamFeed Study: New Algorithm Can Spot the Bots in Your Twitter Feed – Borrowing some tricks from computational neuroscience, coauthors Gabriela Tavares and Aldo Faisal have come up with an algorithm that can tell—with 85 percent accuracy—whether a Twitter account is home to a bot or (worse) a corporate shill instead of a regular person. Wired Study: Facebook Ad Profit a Staggering 1,790% More on iPhone than Android – More than 200 billion ads on Facebook says that mobile ads on iPhone generate 1,790 percent more return on investment than ads on Android. Even worse, advertising on Android actually costs more than it returns. Venture Beat Study: New Algorithm Can Spot the Bots in Your Twitter Feed – Borrowing some tricks from computational neuroscience, coauthors Gabriela Tavares and Aldo Faisal have come up with an algorithm that can tell—with 85 percent accuracy—whether a Twitter account is home to a bot or (worse) a corporate shill instead of a regular person. Wired 6 Seasonal Christmas Email Marketing Ideas – ‘Tis the season for marketing, so this is an ideal time to be planning your holiday promotions. Online retailers in particular can benefit from strategically planned cross-channel sales promotions. SUREFIRE Blog Report: Google+ Drives a Fraction of the Referral Traffic That Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter Do – According to Shareaholic, Google+ has consistently driven less than one-tenth of one percent (> 0.1%) of all referral traffic to its publishers over the past year. Statistics suggest that Google+ usage continues to grow, but critics point out that those numbers are "goosed" to some degree because Google has integrated Google+ features across its properties and activity on other properties can count as being "active" on Google+, too.  Marketing Land Millennials Want Technology to Invade Their Lives More Deeply – The survey of 12,000 people aged 18 and older in eight countries, commissioned by Intel Corporation, showed that 18- to 24-year-olds want technology to be more personal and know their habits, but also think technology makes people less human. Older women and those living in emerging markets are the most enthusiastic about the role technology can play in their lives. Are you optimized for that? The Globe & Mail Study: Facebook Delivering 152% ROI for Retailers in 2013 – E-commerce may not have taken off on Facebook, but a new study suggests that retailers can still use the social network to drive sales. Online Media Daily 41 Redundancies You Should Ditch – Have your ever experienced editor's block? Read this list of redundancies to cure you of these copy writing gaffes. The comments are worth a look too. Ragan's PR Daily Google Launches New Google Media Tools Site for Journalists – Whether it's refining your advanced search capabilities, improving audience engagement through Google+, or learning how to visualize data using Google Maps, this website is intended to guide you through all the resources Google offers to journalists. Google Think Social Media Is a Waste of Time? Don’t Give Up So Soon – Before you rush to judgment, give your effort an honest assessment against the following three basic criteria of effective social media. Marketing Profs Facebook Announces New "Stories To Share" Feature For Media Sites & Publishers – Stories to Share makes it even easier for media sites to find the most engaging content they might want to post on Facebook. Publishers can now easily post any of those suggestions to their page directly from their Insights Dashboard in their admin panel. This is currently a test starting with media organizations and publishers and is not available on all Pages. Facebook A Marketer's Guide to iBeacons and Bluetooth Low Energy – By combining the use of mobile apps and location-based services, marketers are able to reach out to their customers in the right place and at the right time to help increase engagement and drive conversions. Learn how here. eConsultancy 3 Analytic Tools to Improve Your Social Media Performance – It's important to analyze your social media efforts and try to improve results. These tools can help you do just that. SocialMedia Examiner 7 Big Recent Twitter Changes You Should Know About to Optimize Your Tweeting – The communication dynamics happening on Twitter could drastically change how customer support interacts with followers and the ability to direct message anyone will increase the velocity of newsworthy exchanges with PR and marketing pros. Buffer From the Online Community From "Digital Marketing Has Changed; What Are You Doing About It?," Luke Collins said, I agree that it is a necessity to use the right tools in order to reach customers, but it is no longer just about providing information regarding products and services, it is also about engaging in a conversation. Social media provides an opportunity to have a give and take between you and those that you are trying to reach. By producing content that encourages dialogue you are much more likely to get customers actively involved in your campaign. From "8 Things You Need to Know About Influencer Marketing," Ted Atwood said, Blogs are a great opportunity to share content – decentralize the control news papers and media outlets have on content and expose all angles of a story. Great way to define the science behind the success. What's Your Take? Have you been optimizing your Twitter feed? Are you optimizing for the Millennial Generation? Are you harnessing the power of mobile apps to engage with your customers at the right time and the right place? I guess we’re just in an “optimized” state of mind this week. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Photo credit: Shutterstock Customer Empathy Plus Brand Leadership FTW at Social Brand Forum “Win More, Suck Less – How to Optimize Your Social, Search, & Content Marketing” That’s the title of a presentation I’ll be giving today in Coralville, Iowa at Social Brand Forum a conference run by Nick Westergaard. Other speakers include Jay Baer, Gini Dietrich, DJ Waldow, Marcus Sheridan, Laura Fitton and more. The cool thing about my presentation title is, I didn’t decide what it would be. Our Facebook community did. I’ve also run a survey of our community to share their smarts in other ways. Some of that will end up in the presentation too. That’s the beauty of social networks:  The ability to connect with a group of like minded people in an ongoing transfer of knowledge, ideas and feedback. Even though all the tools and advice are there for the taking, many companies still see social networks purely as distribution channels. Of those, most treat their social network accounts like a RSS feed with a steady stream of “all about us” updates. Below is an example of a Fortune 50 company self promoting and retweeting most of their own tweets: Does this look like winning on the social web? It could be worse, they might not publish anything at all or rely entirely on automated tweets. The reality is that there are plenty of good brands choosing to approach social content with minimal and unprepared resources. The result? Social content that isn’t read by anyone and certainly isn’t acted on. Why do so many companies STILL suck at social media content? This is where the “Win More, Suck Less” title of my presentation comes from. That’s what I’ll be presenting on at Social Brand Forum to about 250 folks looking for insights on better social media marketing. Here’s sort of a summary and you can let me know if it resonates in the comments. Silos Suck It doesn’t take too many smarts to realize that many marketing organizations are resource challenged. On top of that there are dots that are not being connected between paid, owned, earned and shared media. When siloed off, marketing, PR and advertising are severely challenged to build a cohesive and congruent customer experience with social content. This is still a serious problem: Way too many marketers look at media as isolated tactics. They’re so focused on their own areas of expertise vs. what it will take to create online marketing plans that actually touch customers on their terms, that the marketing suffers. One of the major shifts happening around content marketing is that it’s being used as a vehicle to connect with customers in a meaningful way that is specific to their needs, not just the brand. While this is a trend, a LOT of companies haven’t caught on yet in practice. Brand content is also becoming more entertaining. A great example of this is the project-tp.com collaboration between Cheetos (a rare guilty pleasure) and Google this week. A microsite collects an address in a search box and Google Maps displays it as a target to be TP’d, Halloween prank style. The outcome? Below is the hotel where I’m presenting tomorrow after being TP’d by the Chester Cheetah. Is that Winning?  It’s a bit early to tell, but the campaign is certainly interesting, and interactive. It creates a fun experience the target audience can relate to that’s personalized (or creepy) and is easily and invitingly sharable. It also puts the product in front of the user in a subtle way, making customers think about it while doing something fun. Like TPing your hotel. One of the B2B examples of content integrated with search and social that I like to share are the eBooks we do at TopRank Online Marketing. You can view a few examples of them here, here and here.  The content is packaged in an interesting way, is easily shared and continue to attract thousands of views from search visitors. There are also some great integrated B2B content marketing campaign case studies with social media components here. I think that’s what a lot of marketers need to do more of:  Think with more empathy towards the customer situation. What topics will interest them? What emotions can you connect with? What are the things that happen that cause a person to need what you do? What motivates buyers to make the choices they do? What is it like to buy from your brand? Map that customer journey and preferences out and architect a content plan to provide targeted customer segments the information they need to be engaged and inspired to move along the sales cycle. The sales cycle isn’t a linear experience, so to connect in a more relevant way when and where customers need your brand’s information, marketers should aspire to being “the best answer“. In that way, you’ll be accountable to a higher standard of content quality and usefulness as well as visibility wherever a customer might be looking or influenced. Customers don’t care whether you’re a good content or social media marketer. They have a problem and they’re going to look for solutions where it strikes them. They’ll look where it’s convenient (mobile for example) and where there’s the most likelihood of success (search or a trusted group of friends on a forum or social network). Social is for discovery, search is for validation. Imagine a situation where a customer might ask a friend for advice and then search that recommendation on Google. Then they might visit a review site and go back to friends on a social network, finally using Google to find a site to transact. All along that journey, customers will interact with multiple touch points involving content. It’s either going to be your brand that’s the best answer during those interactions or someone else. Optimization is a continuous effort at improving performance. Armed with knowledge about what your customer wants, you can create content experiences to connect and engage with the intent of inspiring action. Data collection during these content and social media efforts will surface insights that allow for refinements and improvements to optimize performance. This cycle never stops and the longer highly quality content is created, networks are engaged and marketing tactics are optimized, the better the performance without scaling up of costs. Here are two important perspectives worth considering with social media content: 1. Customer empathy – Think about how your company can be the best answer for the solutions customers seek. Especially for customers that know what they want. Knowing customer’s pain and goals allows for planning, creation and targeted promotion of content that is specifically optimized and socialized for attraction – pull or inbound marketing. 2. Taking a leadership position and stand for something to become a beacon for those customers that don’t know exactly what they want. Even though the solution is not well defined in the mind of the customer, the problem they’re having is – and your business can serve (or save) them. Be authoritative for the overall category for which your business is focused and you’ll create all new demand. The bottom line is, if you want to win more and suck less with content on the search and social web, it’s essential to focus more on what is driving customers as well as taking a leadership position for whatever it is that your brand stands for. Then find a balance between that customer and brand centric focus in your content marketing strategy.  Balance is important, because if we only focus on customer interests, we’ll pay the price in less innovation and long term growth gains. Henry Ford: If I listened to my customers, we’d still be riding horses. Harnessing the Power of Social Media at @Dell #SMaC2013 UnConference Companies large and small continue to evolve and even grapple with how to scale meaningful connections with prospects, customers, the media, potential employees and many other constituents. One of the most valuable and overlooked resources for social engagement with the public are the people within a company. Looking beyond the corporate communications and marketing department, companies like Dell (a TopRank client) are making major investments in time and resources to recruit, train and support their employees to be brand ambassadors on the social web. Getting SMaC’d at Dell: So far, 10,000 Dell employees have become social media certified by the Dell SMaC initiative. The goal is much larger than that though – Dell has 100,000 employees world-wide. One way Dell is energizing social media education and communications of the larger vision is through an UnConference, where employees create and deliver the agenda themselves. I was invited to participate on an opening panel at this week’s Dell SMaC 2013 UnConference with over 200 Dell employees and marketing leaders. Me with Dell North America Marketing VP Bryan Jones and a photo bomb from the amazing Jackie Huba In addition to the 200 participants from Dell across marketing, customer service, sales, PR, IT, analytics, CSR, and many other departments, there was some serious star power with Dell marketing leadership present including Bryan Jones, Vice President, North America Marketing, Karen Quintos, Senior Vice President and CMO, Richard Margetic, Director, Global Social Media, and Connie Bensen, Senior Manager, Inbound Marketing Strategy. The conference opened up with remarks from Bryan and a “fireside chat” with Dell CMO, Karen Quintos about the strategic vision Dell has in regards to the role social media is playing with Dell’s future as a business. Click on the image above to see a short video of their discussion. Next up was the panel moderated by Social Media “OG” Richard Margetic and included one of the people I’ve been following since I started working in the social media space, Jackie Huba, who was named one of the 10 most influential online marketers and is the author of multiple books including here latest: Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics. Also on the panel was Adam Helweh, a digital design guru and CEO of Secret Sushi. And there was me. We fielded a variety of questions from Richard and the audience on everything from the role of paid social to how one should best exit a social account they started to the worst things companies are doing on the social web. The focus was really centered on social media for business vs. social media in general. You can follow that dialog using the #SMaC2013 hashtag on Twitter using tchat.io. Also, here’s a graph of social activity during the UnConference from Keyhole. Now on to the good stuff. The UnConference. I’ve never been to or presented at an UnConference before so this was a very new experience. After the call for topics, people rushed to pick a topic and time slot. There were 5 session times with 8 tracks each. In all, there were nearly 40 different sessions and topics to choose from. Each session had an official note taker/liveblogger so the smart discussions could be recorded and consumed later. Topics during the UnConference included a diverse array of subjects from content to social platforms to data/analytics to customer focused engagement. Here are many of them: Cool content to share Content across websites – what, when, where The road to become a social media influencer What do you do with all that raw data? Don’t let unhappy customers scare you. SOS to the rescue! Enable SMEs Subject Matter Experts How do I start with social? What’s next with Direct2Dell corporate blog? Social SEO Building personal value and the Dell brand in social media. Are they the same? #DellLove How to thank customers and turn them into fans Create awesome content How to effectively build community Making Vine and Instavideo work How do I build a sincere social brand with multiple people contributing? How do you help generate and inspire loyalty in social media? How do determine topics for your social media content strategy Social Insight @Dell – what’s possible, what’s coming Blogger Relations: Is it PR or Marketing? Looking past Facebook and Twitter into the future of social media Marketing and Big Data: How to grow our footprint beyond CTOs, CIOs Using Internal social media Leverage analytics (internal/external) to develop relevant thought leadership Google Plus Best practices in igniting viral How to authentically connect with a B2B audience Enable your loyal supporters How to grow thought leadership with content and social Big data, social analytics, digital analytics, CRM: How do they all come together? Can you imagine attending a conference where all these topics were address by practitioners and a peer discussion? Personally, I have never seen another company do something like this and it’s a testament to both the leadership and vision of Dell marketing leaders as well as the Dell team members in attendance. In all, this UnConference was a fantastic venue to hear directly from business leaders about strategic vision of the company, to learn from and share with peers on very practical, actionable topics. It was also a great way for people working in different parts of the organization to network. There were many new ideas formed, connections made and brains inspired to take next steps. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in such an event with a company that is clearly focused on customers, employees and doing the best job they can. What a great way to tap into the vast resources of knowledge within an organization that might otherwise not have a platform to reach so many people. Thank you to Connie Bensen for inviting me and Bryan Jones for sponsoring the event. I’m looking forward to seeing the social momentum grow even more within the overall Dell organization and what that means for the business. Has your company used the UnConference format to pull together subject matter experts and other employees with knowledge to share? I am curious what your experience is. My take is that you don’t need to be a big company to pull something like this off in way where everybody wins. Digital Marketing Has Changed. What Are You Doing About It? Ubiquitous internet connectivity and information overload have changed the landscape of brand and customer communications forever. For stats fans, that translates to 10 billion connected devices and 90% of the world’s data  created in the past 2 years. How does this change digital marketing in 2014? First of all, the evolution of social technologies and the impact on consumer behavior has led to different expectations. Consumers expect to find answers to their questions on search engines and social networks alike. They also expect to interact with what they find – commenting, sharing, rating and contributing. And transacting. Is your brand meeting those expectations? Do you know if they exist for your specific customers?  Search is the “Mack Daddy” of answering questions and that’s why paid and organic search are so powerful. For companies that know their customers’ needs and can implement search ads and organic content accordingly, it’s the perfect moment to be exactly where buyers are looking. You know, it’s the ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth). The New Face of SEO  After Google announced the Hummingbird update (a month after it was implemented) there’s been a flurry of Hummingbird optimization advice.  If those folks knew something was different, they’d have been pontificating a month earlier. That said, there’s some good news for content based marketers that leverage social networks, media relations and customer experience optimization tactics. Understanding the context for why your buyers need certain topics or categories of information and the questions they’re asking is core to content marketing strategy. Content mapped to stages of the buying cycle and useful information that engages along the way from awareness to purchase to advocacy sounds like the kind of optimization Google (and your customers) can get on board with. Add in topically themed, third party signals of credibility from industry publications that cover your brand editorially as well as robust social network activity and I think we’re on to something. Let’s call it SEO 5.0. Search & Answers Aren’t Enough.  While very powerful, providing basic answers to customers’ questions is not enough. To stand out, successful brands are creating more engaging and “infotaining” experiences through rich media and storytelling like the examples I shared in last week’s B2B marketing post. They’re creating these experiences with content across channels and enabling the discovery of that rich content with optimized, socialized and paid media. The result? Becoming the “best answer” wherever it is that buyers are looking. To be, or not to be (the best answer) The most fundamental integrated online marketing advice I could give for 2014:  Focus on being the best answer for whatever it is that your customers care about most when they need your product or service. Be credible and be easy to find, buy and share across all channels that matter to your customers. If you’re not the best answer, how will you stand out? How will you ever get prospects to care about you? How companies are evolving integrated online marketing Singular channel promotions (let’s run AdWords or let’s send out an email blast) have given way to muti-channel channel marketing where consumers can discover, consume and act on brand information on a variety of platforms. That’s not to say multi-channel is new, but there are a lot more channels to deal with now and more companies are trying to be present on more of them. Some brands are taking it a step further and coordinating the kind of multichannel marketing efforts that create congruent and complementary customer experiences across different platforms. Retail marketers call it “omni-channel” marketing. Such coordinated, multi-channel efforts are more complex, but supporting “the brand story” and customer experience consistently across paid, owned, earned and shared media is an idea many progressive brand marketers are embracing. I think it will be even more of a hot spot in 2014. Discover, Consume, Act The challenge for brands to become the best answer and a great experience, is to understand the relationship between the consumer and information that helps them achieve their goals and satisfy their interests. It’s important that brands understand this relationship in terms of how consumers discover, consume and act on information as they experience the brand engagement lifecycle from awareness to purchase to advocacy. Think about it: Are you the best answer wherever customers are looking? Is your brand meeting customer expectations in terms of useful, engaging content experiences? By understanding, planning and optimizing for the customer experience, brands can better engage with information in a meaningful way that supports both customer and business objectives. Optimization for the customer journey means content planning, creation, socialization, promotion and measurement are accountable to three key elements: attract, engage and convert. Attract – How will will this content attract the right customers? Engage – What stories and information experience will we offer that matters most to customers? Convert – What action will we offer the customer as a next step? (It doesn’t need to be a lead or monetary transaction conversion) Hold yourself accountable to developing content experiences that support being the best answer for what your brand stands for and what customers care about. Understand how your distinct customer segments discover, consume and act on information so you can plan an optimized and socialized content marketing strategy that attracts, engages and converts across the entire customer journey. Now the question is, how will your online marketing efforts be integrated and optimized for 2014? Online Marketing News: Forbes Cashing in on Native Ads, Google Ads Starring You, Top Tech Trends for 2014 Birthday Emails #Infographic –This email client solution provider conducted research involving more than 180 B2C brands—including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits—shows that there's plenty of opportunity for brands to delight subscribers with best wishes on their special day. Check out the stats and tactics below to learn the who, what, when, why and how of birthday emails. Exact Target Can Cameo Make Two-minute Movies as Addictive as Vines? – With Cameo, your movies can be two minutes long, but no shot can last for longer than six seconds. The principle is inspired by Vine, and the lessons it learned early on: that the attention span of the average person is pretty short. The Verge IBM Researcher Can Build a Detailed Personality Profile of You Based on 200 Tweets – The breakdown is based on "psycholinguistics," or analysis of word choice, and includes 41 traits. Business Insider Top Content Marketing Tactics for 2014 – B2B marketers’ confidence in content marketing continues to grow; content marketing usage rates are up from last year; and, not surprisingly, marketers with a documented content strategy are having the greatest success, according to just-released research. Read how marketers rate Social Media, On-site Articles, Blogs, Events, Case Studies, Videos and more. MarketingProfs Oracle Adds Leading Content Marketing Platform Compendium to Eloqua Marketing Cloud – Compendium's data-driven approach aligns relevant content with customer data and profiles to help companies more effectively attract prospects, engage buyers, accelerate conversion of prospects to opportunities, increase adoption, and drive revenue growth. Oracle Forbes BrandVoice Accounts for 20% of Total Ad Revenue – BrandVoice, which launched three years ago as AdVoice, is a big-ticket service that allows brands to contribute ad-labeled content that, if it works right, behaves the same way editorial content does. It appears in the same content streams and gets bumped to ‘most popular’ content modules and social trending lists if it performs well. Folio Google’s New Ad Star: You – The search giant will soon have individual names and profile photos pitching products, across its sites as "shared endorsements." The move encourages word-of-mouth marketing but is already raising privacy alarms. You can easily opt out, however. The Wall Street Journal Content Marketing Director: Top Marketing Job of 2014 – And, according to HubSpot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report, companies that clearly define marketing and sales roles in relation to content marketing, experience a significantly lower customer acquisition cost than those that don't have this in place. CommPRO Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 – Mobile devices, mobile apps and the Internet of everything. Forbes Five Examples of Brands That are Nailing Pinterest – Three year-old social site Pinterest has over 70m users, and according to a study by Shareaholic, Pinterest is driving more traffic to publishers than Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit and Google+ combined. Check out these retailers getting it right. eConsultancy The Complete Guide to Twitter Etiquette – A comprehensive guide to Twitter etiquette (or Twetiquette), so you can look your best on social media. Mashable BtoB to Merge with AdAge in 2014 – The move reflects the growing overlap between B2B and consumer strategies as both grow more focused on targeting and engaging specific customer groups. BtoB Want To Find Brand Ambassadors? Start With Your Employees – The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a trust and credibility survey that collects data from more than 30,000 people, found that regular rank-and-file company employees have more credibility than executives. This news represents a fantastic opportunity for employees with direct contact to your company's customer base to become vocal advocates. Forbes 5 Provocative and Daring Marketing Campaigns in 2013 – More and more companies are starting to embrace multi-channel marketing, touching consumers on many levels at once. The best modern marketing campaigns make use of current events, popular culture, and emotions. Let's look at 5 of our favorite boundary-pushing marketing campaigns from 2013. Marketo 14 Google Tools You Didn’t Know Existed – Now that the industry has written eulogies for Google Reader, it’s a good time to remember that Google has an abundance of other resources that may not be as popular but still deserve a spotlight. Mashable Interesting Partnership Between Bing and Klout – Search is one of the most common ways that information about you is discovered by other people. "Snapshots" on Bing enables anyone who signs up on Klout to verify and manage how they appear in Bing search results, based on their public social network profiles. Search Engine Land Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear In Retailers – Retailers used to think they had customers in the bag, coaxing them inside stores by enticing them with specials. Now, thanks to mobile shopping programs, competitors can match or beat a store’s prices—even as customers are standing in its aisles. Check out Lee's post about it. The Wall Street Journal Survey: 100 Most Beloved Brands – APCO surveyed 70,000 consumers in 15 major international markets about 600 of the world's biggest brands to arrive at its top 100 rankings. Interestingly, the Washington, D.C., firm's study measured eight emotional feelings people have toward brands: understanding, approachability, relevance, admiration, curiosity, identification, empowerment, and pride. Do you agree with brands that made the cut? Marketing Pilgrim From the Online Community On “Marketing Automation Essentials for Small Businesses,” Stefan Krafft said "I really do like this post and a fully agree that the time has come for SMB companies to take advantage of the technology behind it. The obstacle is, as you clearly pointed out producing relevant content. However I recommend everyone to get started right away even though they only have got one or two pieces of good content. Why? Because you learn will you´re taking your first baby steps in this field and that will give more knowledge about how your audiences respond to your content. From there, it´s much easier to take the next step. There is one solution out there which actually allows Marketers to get started with Marketing Automation without any cost what so ever." On “8 Questions About B2B Content Marketing You Really Need the Answers To,” Matthew White said, "Good point about content objects/assets vs outcomes and experience. Repeatedly, I’m surprised by how much timeliness and relevance trump quantity and sometimes even quality, as with images. Keeping existing content – including those images – up-to-date and engaging is becoming more and more important. "If you’re not focused on outcome and experience, it’s easy to count content assets with tally marks." On “Content Marketing Tactics That Work: eBooks,” Barbara Mckinney said, "Great insight. Thanks for sharing these tips. If done right, eBooks can be key tool in your painless prospecting efforts." What’s Your Take? Are Google Sponsored Endorsements a big deal? Are your employees your number one brand ambassadors? What do your tweets say about you? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! New Mobile Assisted Shopper Study on Showrooming & How Mobile Can Work For Brick and Mortar Retailers On the one hand, the speaker lineup and list of brands participating at the Pivot conference in New York this week was one of the most impressive I’ve seen for a niche event. From our clients LinkedIn and Dell to a cornucopia of brands including Walmart, MTV, Intel, Kraft, Monster, NBC, General Electric, Yahoo, Adobe, Salesforce, SouthWest Airlines, General Motors, IBM, Ben & Jerry’s and many more – there was plenty of brand star power in the room. On the other hand, the format and venue made this the most difficult liveblogging experience I’ve ever had. I’ll spare you the details, but I suspect things will be changed up for next year. Of course the networking was excellent as were many of the interviews and presentations that I was able to see and hear. One that I caught is the topic of this post about showrooming with research presented by @David_Rogers, Author of a great book called, The Network is Your Customer, as well as a Professor of Digital Marketing at Columbia University School of Business. His presentation, “Integrated Experiences and the Mobile Shopper: A Research Report” shared findings from a previously unreleased report that would be of interest to any brick and mortar retailer that wants to get a better understanding of the impact mobile assisted shoppers have on the in-store and online purchase experience. Showrooming is causing a lot of anxiety amongst retailers: “Phone Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers” Wall Street Journal There’s more than a little concern from retailers as consumers use apps during the in-store shopping experience. The concern is that shoppers are checking out products in the store and then buying cheaper online or at a competitor. While some of that might be true, the devil is in the details, as they say and this report offers insights on how retailers can leverage in-store consumer mobile behaviors to their advantage. 23 Statistics and Insights from – Integrated Experiences and the Mobile Shopper: A Research Report How many mobile assisted shoppers are there? 21% of all consumers 23% in the US Who are Mobile Assisted Shoppers? 52% men 48% women – diverse demographic profile 26% Millenials What are shoppers doing in the aisles with their mobile phones? 52% Price checking 50% Researching information and reviews 38% Call or text a friend or family member A key lesson here is that consumers are not just looking at competitor sites. According to this study, they are just as likely to look at the website of the store they’re in. In fact, 12% of Walmart.com sales are from customers that are IN a Walmart store. Are all Mobile Assisted Shoppers showrooming? 30% Never 25% Yes 45% On the fence. May opt to buy in store despite cheaper online Why do some customers showroom vs. not showroom? Showrooming shoppers do so to get lower prices, free shipping, membership rewards or discounts, Shoppers that don’t showroom choose not to because they need the product right away, they don’t want to wait for shipping, it’s more convenient to shop in the store, they want on-site customer service 5 Types of Mobile Assisted Shoppers Exploiters – 6.1% Always showroom Savvys – 12.5% Very digital savvy, calculating but persuadable Price sensitives – 19.4% Do not plan on show rooming can be persuaded Experience seekers – 31.7% value the best experience, not just the price. Influenced by service, special events, store environment Traditionalists – 30.2% Prefer the in-store shopping experience “What’s show rooming”? 5 Strategies for Retailers 1. Offer a variety of discounts. Example: Target is testing automatic price matching 2. Convenience – Omni-channel: Retail and e-tail work together seamlessly. If you go to Walmart site while you are in the store, they will geo detect this and give you special offers. Convenience makes inshore purchases more likely. 3. Help the shopper find the right information. Think of this in terms of the mobile experience with helpful online reviews, advice on in-store products from people the shopper knows (friends/family the text or call for an opinion), provide additional product information. 4. Social engagement – Engage with customers on social platforms. Example: Evans has in-store events to encourage user reviews or products and to connect to the company’s presence on social networks. 33% of shoppers are open to location check in 31% engage with stores social media presence 5. Offer loyalty programs. Example: Best Buy - Focusing on this with “My Best Buy” rewards program that has a dedicated mobile app and website. If you do a mobile check in to a Best Buy store, they’ll give you extra rewards which can be redeemed for in-store discounts. 48% of shoppers decided to buy in-store vs online because they had a loyalty relationship 58% bought in-store to join a retailers loyalty program If you’re a brick and mortar retailer, does showrooming concern you or affect your in-store sales? Have you observed the behaviors cited in the study above? Better yet, have you found ways for mobile to work with you for inspired in-store sales? Cartoon by Tom Fishburne Top Photo: Shutterstock Content Marketing Tactics That Work: eBooks As a content marketing tactic, eBooks fit the bill for those businesses that need to communicate complex information but in a striking, easily digestible way. Infotaining eBooks raise the bar on “interesting” combined with practical, useful and even inspiring messages that align with the brand. Compared to many other content marketing tactics, eBooks represent a longer form of content that can educate prospective buyers about topics important to buyers and the brand. It's a great way to demonstrate expertise in a creative way and is much more visually appealing than a white paper, yet more serious than an infographic. This longer form content marketing tactic is inching its way into popularity, especially among B2B marketers. According to the 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks Report, 34% are using eBooks as a content marketing tactic while 57% of B2B users consider eBooks to be an effective tactic. Pros Establishes your company as a thought leader Offers a comprehensive way to make a business case Creates launching pad for a host of marketing content Delivers dynamic and engaging branded information to target audience Helps with search engine optimization (SEO) because content is searchable Increases potential for increased visibility and engagement because it's embeddable Provides user friendly content to a searcher on his own terms and in his own time frame Captures target prospect when they are most primed to buy when registering for the download Cons Poor distribution plan may make for lackluster results Lack of clearly defined customer personas can create a fuzzy execution Poor collaboration between editorial and design can produce an incoherent end product What the Experts Are Saying "The ebook has become the current standard for the long-form content package. A lot of companies are moving away from the verbose white paper to the sleeker, more appealing ebook." Joe Pulizzi, founder Content Marketing Institute (CMI). "E-books are the hip sibling of the white paper." HubSpot "Instead of one-way interruption, web marketing is about delivering useful content just at the precise moment that a buyer needs it." David Meerman Scott, best-selling author eBook Marketing Examples: Who’s Doing it Right Some examples of eBook successes from TopRank Online Marketing and other content marketing leaders include: Content Marketing Institute TopRank worked with CMI’s event, Content Marketing World to create a clever, eye-catching eBook to help promote the largest content marketing conference in the world. The eBook included tips and tactics from speakers at the event, many of which represent the top content marketing experts and companies (aka Content Marketing Secret Agents) on the web.   With 85,000 views, it’s clear to me that TopRank knocked this one out of the park. Getting it Right Marketing content to industry peers is no small feat. TopRank crafted compelling content by leveraging a well-loved "Mission Impossible" theme. Who wouldn't want to identify with Secret Agents? The content was clever without sacrificing its overall message: gain a competitive advantage when you read these tips. Displaying a clear call to action in both the opening and the closing slides worked beautifully with nearly 35,000 marketers viewing the eBook from an embedded link. Dell   One of the world’s most respected and proven marketers share what changes they believe are in store for social media in 2013. For Dell, social media is more than a tool — it’s an extension of their brand, which is all about enabling people everywhere to use technology to grow and thrive. Dell engaged TopRank Online Marketing to create this eBook to communicate to both Dell customers and the community-at-large about future social media trends and aligning social media expertise with Dell’s own social media thought leadership. The eBook gathered insights from some of social media's heavyweights, adding credibility and authenticity and seizing the opportunity to be a social business rather than just a business using social (which was also one of their featured predictions.) Getting it Right Choosing industry experts to provide predictions earned Dell fantastic visibility with 146,000+ total views. It also demonstrated their commitment to the community and strengthened their brand as a global technology and social media innovator. The content was concise but packed a wallop with commentary from such marketing notables as Valeria Maltoni (@ConversationAgent),  Michale Brito (@Britopian), @RohitBhargava and our own @LeeOdden. Including their unique selling proposition along with a clear call to action on the end slide provided a perfect example of how to conduct social business. Lumension As with any successful eBook, your business wants to solve a problem through educating your target audience. In their case, Lumension's research revealed a potential roadblock to sales. While their target audience was technology decision makers, they could not get buy-in from their CEO. Security concerns were a real threat to IT infrastructure but a low priority for many CEOs juggling numerous responsibilities. They created an eBook to demonstrate that security issues are relevant to both industry reputation and lost revenue and backed it up with proof. The eBook was downloaded more than 7,000 times. Getting it Right Writing a title that captured security-minded decision makers with information they could bring to their CEO who has ultimate sign-off on approving security expenditures was a smart way to attract and engage both audiences. Providing interactive content, such as embedded videos and a hyperlinked table of contents, allowed the reader to easily navigate to any section of particular interest. Updating the first version of an earlier eBook demonstrated a commitment to helping its primary audience (IT professionals) by educating its secondary target audience (CEOs). HubSpot With 85 e-books in circulation and many more waiting in the wings, no doubt, HubSpot could be called the "granddaddy" of eBook marketing. From the beginning, eBooks have been one of HubSpot's primary lead generation tactics for this inbound marketing automation software company.  A great eBook can garner industry and press attention (Deloitte and Forbes), as well as confer expert status. Getting it Right Simple yet compelling and visually appealing layout makes it easy to understand and inspiring to share (358,000+ views) Incorporating quotes from HubSpot executives builds brandividual and brand thought leadership By optimizing its landing pages they can further promote their e-books via social media, paid advertising and drip marketing. 10 Best Practices for Creating eBooks that Convert Covers need to be compelling with short, provacative titles that can get people’s attention, even if all they can see is a thumbnail Make eBooks easy to find, share and act on with invitations to get more information, or participate in an event with deeper content KISS – keep it simple silly. Anticipate varying screen sizes for eBook consumption and make graphics and text readable for the most common sizes Lists, tips, and best practices with examples tend to be the most compelling eBook content formats Include links within the eBook to complementary resources: blog posts, videos, articles and others both from your brand and 3rd party resources Include tweetable quotes and embed social media friendly links to make it easy for social sharing Deconstruct your eBook and promote portions in advance through blog posts and social networks Co-create eBooks with industry thought leaders so there is a built in incentive for them to help promote Use a clear and relevant call to action according to the eBook purpose. Thought leadership eBooks might only ask for a share. Case studies and best practices eBooks might ask for a consultation. Provide PDF and embeddable versions of the eBook – Slideshare is an excellent resource As more brands mature their ability to publish robust content, eBooks will grow as a powerful asset in the content marketing mix to attract, engage and convert more business – especially in the B2B marketing space. Is there an eBook in your organization's future? If you don’t have the internal writing and design resources to create a winning eBook, TopRank has demonstrated expertise in this area as the examples above show. For more best practices content marketing tips, see our list. Have to Give a Presentation? Here Are 8 Quick Tips To Go From Zero to Hero You’ve heard the saying, “What’s the one thing people fear more than death? Public Speaking”. That’s why so few people do it. That’s why I avoided it at all costs for many years. But then I became so interested and passionate about the work I was doing, I decided to accept a speaking request in 2005. At 7am in the James J. Hill Library in St. Paul, I presented “Organic SEO, PPC, Blogging – What does it all mean?” to a group of about 70 people. And I didn’t die. Since then, I’ve given presentations all over the world, from New York to London to Hong Kong and next month Madrid and Moscow. The funny thing is, I’m not a natural public speaker. I’ve had to work at it. I’m STILL working at becoming a great “infotainer”. Along that journey I’ve been able to learn a few things that might be helpful to other reluctant or new speakers who have a chance to represent yourselves or your company in a public forum. Check out these 8 quick tips and try them out. 1. Make sure you create the presentation with the audience in mind. Think about what they might want to know vs. what you want to share or promote. To do this, ask the event organizer about who the attendees are. Types of companies, position titles, etc. 2. Ask a qualifying question at the beginning – an easy to answer, but thoughtful question to show you are interested in them. To make sure you don’t forget, put this question into your presentation and include an illustration. Make it funny, but most of all, make it relevant. 3. Tell stories. Back them up with stats or examples, but what’s most interesting are stories. As I like to say, “Facts tell, stories sell”.  Use a story as a metaphor that aligns well with the key points you are making. Or relate real world experiences you’ve had as an example.  I’ve shared my story of social crowdsourcing the itinerary of a trip I took to NYC with my son and the social sharing and content creation that resulted many times as a way to introduce the notion of consumer information discovery, consumption and action. 4. Optimize your slides. Make slides visual and include tweetable quotes and stats. Include your Twitter handle and the event hashtag (if there is one) in the footer or header of each slide. People WANT to tweet interesting and useful things to their networks, so why not make it easy for them? Don’t be so coy as to ask the audience to tweet a particular slide. But do make quotes in large text that are compelling and even provocative. If it’s good, they’ll share it. 5. Be enthusiastic, but don’t talk too fast. Don’t go too slow either. Presenting in a routine and subdued way can be boring for an audience. However, speaking so fast that they can’t comprehend the full value of what you’re saying is even worse. I’ve found this out in my efforts to be “info-taining” that sometimes I speak too fast. There is the belief among some speakers that you should cram as much information into your deck as possible. But if the audience can’t understand you, it can be incredibly frustrating. When you’re passionate about a topic, audiences won’t care if you miscue or make verbal mistakes. Laugh at those roadbumps and focus on telling your story and sharing your information. Remember to take a breath after a key point and let it sink in for the audience. That gives them time to absorb (and tweet). 6. Always include takeaways.  Create an outline of our presentation and then use that outline to distill 3-5 key points. I often write these key points as large text slides and then compile them all into one takeaway slide at the end. This reinforces the key points your making and helps the audience summarize in their mind what you’re trying to convey. 7. Give them something to do at the end. Download, contact you or a task. Challenge them to take the next step. When you’ve captured people’s attention for 45 minutes, they are looking to you for leadership. For direction. If you’ve been effective at presenting your point of view, then help translate the experience they just had listening to you into something tangible. 8. Have fun! A few years ago when I keynoted a conference in Minneapolis, I made up an illustrated rhyme to tell the story. This was out of my comfort zone but the story was near and dear, so it was fun to do. People still come up to me at events in the Twin Cities and mention that presentation because it was fun and interesting, not just educational. Remember, that audiences are mostly interested in “info-tainment”. Be yourself and show your personality. Do your best to connect with the audience and they’ll open up to your information. What are some of the tips you’ve learned from public speaking? 8 Questions About B2B Content Marketing You Really Need the Answers To If you work in the B2B marketing world, content is one of the most important tools you have to create awareness, nurture and convert prospects to customers. For proof, look no further than the recent CMI & MarketingProfs industry survey for 2014 that reports 93% of B2B marketers use content marketing. Part of gaining confidence in the right direction for your B2B content marketing efforts means asking and answering the right questions. Not just for your potential customers, but internal questions to open doors of consideration for your content marketing strategy. Here are 5 essential questions many marketers are facing now and my answers to consider. I invite you to think of your own answers and share them in the comments. What are some common misconceptions about content marketing? Many companies still think of content marketing solely in terms of creating more content. In the SEO community, content marketing is a very hot topic, but most SEOs think of it as a link building tactic: Create and promote great content to attract links. Another limitation people impose on content marketing is to think of it only in terms of content objects, iike webinars, white papers and infographics vs. in terms of outcomes or experiences. When I’m planning content for a client or for TopRank Online Marketing, not only do I think about the accuracy and compelling aspects of the story, but I also think about how that content can contribute to the overall consumer experience with the brand. How will it make a reader feel? The B’s in BtoB marketing are people too and some types of content are more than appropriate for connecting emotionally with the buyer. A great example of B2B storytelling that contributes significantly to an experience is GE’s Datalandia Another is Suitemates from Kinaxis What kind of resources do you need to build a successful content marketing program? Many companies considering resources for a content marketing program are not in a position to start hiring dedicated staff, so these suggestions could be considered as additional responsibilities in some cases. Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose cover content marketing organizational structure pretty well in their book, Managing Content Marketing. Since we’re in the thick of providing content marketing services for mid-market companies like Strongview and LinkedIn as well as large companies like McKesson and Dell, I’ve been able to get a good picture of what the essential resources need to be – for any company size. Content leadership – A person who will champion the content cause in the organization. Larger companies will need executive sponsorship for the initiative and this role. For mid market and small companies, this role might be an Editor in Chief hired from the publishing industry. Experience with a media publisher and newsroom is essential as is managing or working with a team of writers, creatives and the business side of publishing. This editorial oversight serves as a steward for the voice of the brand For a small or medium business, a Content Marketing Manager often fills this role with experience in corporate communications, publishing and marketing. Content creators – From a brand journalist to copywriters, front end web developers/designers and creative design, the production team is the bread and butter for a content marketing effort. Companies large and small are scaling their content creation efforts not by hiring more pro writers beyond a core team, but by tapping into internal subject matter experts. Additionally, companies that integrate their content marketing and social media community efforts will be able to connect with external resources for content creation as well. Some of these external resources will be fans and advocates and some will be paid writers and contributors that can create high quality content and share it with their own networks. A great example of the output of this mix of internal and external content creation resources is Dell’s Tech Page One (Disclosure: Dell is a TopRank client) Another great example of this is IBM’s Midsize Insider program. Content Promoters – Great content isn’t great unless people can easily find, consume, share and act on it. That means having the people resources to promote the content being created, whether it’s traditional fare like white papers, eBooks and infographics or interactive social media content. Content Amplification is something that should be factored in at the content planning level. We encourage our content creators to promote the content they’re producing and offer some performance metrics so they can see evidence of their work having impact. This feedback loop is critical for ongoing content performance optimization and can be highly motivating for content producers. Organic amplification can be accomplished through SEO, social networks, blogger outreach and media relations. Paid amplification can be accomplished through PPC ads, social network ads, sponsored content and native advertising and other paid placement. Monitoring and Analytics – From social media monitoring to web analytics, the performance of content can’t be left simply to page views and search engine rankings.  While it may make sense for a company to have dedicated analytics and monitoring resources, we believe in cross training content and account staff on these skills. For example, Eliza Steely, Ben Brausen and Steven Zahurones from our team recently become Google Analytics certified. Congratulations! If you have social media specialists, it only makes sense that they provide reports and recommendations using social media monitoring software. Same for SEO, PPC and other Inbound Marketing specialists to bring web analytics expertise in support of the content marketing effort. What does it take to build a sustainable content marketing program? People, process and tools – from planning, to management to measurement that supports a feedback loop so you can optimize performance. Also, and most importantly, a community. When content marketing efforts are integrated with community building and networks, a brand will have a never ending supply of content ideas and amplification resources. A strong vision for what content marketing is supposed to accomplish for customers and for the brand is also essential for a sustainable program. You have to be able to to show progress towards a goal and contribution to the business besides just being able to create content over a long period of time. We’ll be celebrating our 10th year of blogging this December, which is a great example of a single content marketing tactic that has sustained and succeeded over a long period of time. Where do I start if I am starting from zero? It’s like eating an elephant. One piece at a time. And with a plan. Decide where to start and focus specifically on that area. No one goes from zero to hero by trying to be all things to all people. It’s also important when starting to have a clear idea of what success looks like. More leads? Lower marketing costs? Shorter sales cycles? Retained customers? More referrals? More industry media coverage? Additional monetization channels? If you start specifically, you can become a really meaningful and important resource on that one thing and then expand into other areas with far more credibility than trying to be all things to all buyers from the start. For example, when we started working with Marketo before they launched their product, the singular focus for content was around “marketing automation”. From there, it expanded to a wide variety of relevant topics expressed through a variety of content and media types. Where do you get ideas for your content? Ideas for content should come from knowing your brand, and customers. A content marketing strategy that identifies customer segments and their buying journey will reveal many content ideas – basically, the questions that need to be answered in order for your customers to move through the sales cycle. Think about what your brand stands for and what do your customers care about? Where do those interests intersect? The answer is a gold mine of meaningful content ideas. Beyond that, the best or more unique ideas often come from community participation, experiences with customers, the industry, and with employees at your company that have regular, direct content with prospects and customers. You can also get good ideas from answer sites like Quora, mining trending social media topics and the search queries from historical web analytics data or your on-site search engine. Why do most content marketing programs fail? Lack of vision, planning, commitment. Unrealistic goals or forecasting of resources. Not being realistic about how competitive an industry is, not tapping into what information buyers want and focusing more on what the brand wants to put out there. Empathy with your community of customers, smart planning, strong vision of success and commitment are the keys to not failing. What's the role of search? Does architecting content for SEO play a larger or smaller role than in the past? Not making it easy for buyers to find your content is a bad user experience. Ideally, the role of SEO and content should really be aligned with the opportunity for search to drive awareness and attraction for your topics and customer community. Are the topics you want to be known for in demand when it comes to search? Is it achievable for your brand to become the best answer for those topics? Because of my long experience with search and seeing the impact on client marketing programs, I am biased that search should play an essential role with any kind of content that can be indexed and presented in search results. Achieving search visibility now or in the future means your brand solutions are presented at the exact moment the buyer wants or needs that information. However, search is just one channel and one touchpoint during a typical B2B buyer experience. It has to fit with the rest of your digital marketing plan. What's the next level of content marketing? Infotainment. More creative, more storytelling.  As brand content marketing initiatives become more sophisticated, they’ll actually become competitive in some ways with industry publications. Also, there is a growing shift from multichannel to omnichannel and content marketing that is better integrated with public relations, social media SEO and other communications channels. As brands become publishers and more publishers become marketers, I think we’ll see a lot more owned media efforts that look like “in-house earned”. As an example, think about the disruption of Netflix creating it’s own shows as a way to understand how brands will evolve their content marketing efforts. More earned will become owned and that opens up a whole new world of monetization opportunities and marketing efficiencies. What about you? What are your answers to some of these critical questions for companies that want to succeed with content marketing?  Marketing Automation Essentials for Small Businesses Do you know which companies are visiting your site right now? Are you able to automate your marketing messages to reach different audiences based on their behavior on your site? How about scoring leads to ensure your sales team knows who should make it to the top of their calling list? If you find yourself answering no to some or all of these questions, you’re not alone. The scenarios above can be a reality for marketers, but this reality often requires an investment in marketing automation. While large corporations were predominantly the earlier adopters of this technology several years ago, small businesses are learning that the technology synchs with their business needs as well. And marketing automation providers are taking notice, offering solutions now geared to SMBs as well. Today’s MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum session is led by marketing veteran Frank Days, and includes the panel of Lori Cohen, David Karp & William Toll. Geared towards small business with an emphasis on the key features, best practices and considerations that small businesses need to take into account when considering marketing automation, Days begins the session by validating that he has the right audience for the session. “How many in the audience are the sole person responsible for marketing at your company?’, Days asked. 66% of attendees raised their hand. Yep. It’s the right audience. With Days directing today’s session with a series of questions for the panel, the conversion track begins with the important question ‘WHY’ marketing automation can be effective for small businesses. Why Marketing Automation Toll takes the lead on answering the question by focusing on the efficiencies marketing automation can create. According to Toll, “Marketing automation allows you to be more productive with your time” by automating many processes and allowing marketers to focus on creating the content and workflows that nurture their respective audiences. Cohen concurs and backs that position with a statistic that varies slightly from source to source, but is highly compelling none the less. “80% of the buyers journey happens before they contact the company. If that’s indeed the case, our role as marketers is to provide information to our audience to help them along their journey.” Really understanding that journey, supported by real data, and refining your marketing activities accordingly is where the panel sees the most value in marketing automation. But it’s not all roses. There is also misinformation and overstatements abound about marketing automation, and the panel is quick to define what it ‘can’t do’ as well. Marketing Automation Does Not… It seems that people often expect that marketing automation will move the clouds and suddenly reveal a marketing strategy. Karp explains that “marketing automation cannot form your corporate strategy. It can do many things, but your strategy needs to be sound and actually exist to get value out of the technology.” Days agrees that “marketing automation cannot define your strategy for you. It can, however, compliment your existing strategy.” So marketing automation is not a “strategy developer”. So what else can it NOT do? “It can’t train your sales and marketing teams,” according to Karp. Marketers and organizations need to own the responsibility of training, ensuring adoption and monitoring compliance. When to Invest On this point the panel agrees in perfect harmony, content is needed before any small businesses considers the investment. Or as Toll more eloquently puts it, “You need content before you even consider investing. It’s the meat to your marketing automation strategy.” Imagine having the power of a tool that can tell you what content resonates with an individual and then offer the ability to serve them additional content to move them through the buying cycle. Now imagine that same scenario without the whole ‘content piece’. Not much going on. The investment conversation brings us to the topic that the audience is eager to discuss: what features do small businesses need. Key Small Business Features Let the record show that the panel, beginning with Cohen, caution that the answer ultimately depends on your objectives and your strategy. But Days persists, and the team hones in on several key features that they believe would be beneficial for small businesses. For more convenience consumption, those features are represented in the word cloud to the right, courtesy of Wordle.net. The panel believes that the CRM integration is maybe the most crucial feature, as it acts as the gateway to delivering the leads you worked to hard to drive to your sales team – who should be waiting with baited breath! With, ‘WHY’, ‘WHEN’ and ‘WHAT’ covered, the session concludes with a discussion on ‘HOW’ small business marketers should leverage this tool. Marketing Automation Best Practices As Voltaire wrote (he might have even said it too, but I wasn’t there) “with great power, comes great responsibility.” This axiom certainly applies to marketers leveraging marketing automation. Cohen says marketers need to be wary of over-marketing, “don’t use marketing automation to shout. You can automate your campaigns, but that doesn’t mean blasting your target audience incessantly is a good idea.” Increasing the frequency of messages or touchpoints does not necessarily equate to better results. Instead, the panel emphasizes the importance of timing. “When you contact leads is critical,” says Days. Adding that the single most important follow up tip he can give is to contact leads within 30 minutes of completing a form, ideally by phone. According to Days, “the need that drove them to complete the form is still top of mind.” What better time to connect? Now that you have heard what the expert panel believes are some of the marketing automation essentials for small businesses, what do you think? What best practices or features would you add? Online Marketing News: Scary Good Creative, Email Beats Social, B2B Twitter, Wasted PPC Scary Good Creative Video: 'Carrie' Promo Spooks New Yorkers – It may be a little early for trick or treating, but a new campaign rolled out of the proverbial pumpkin patch this week and tricked one of the most cynical consumer groups, New Yorkers. The video reached 25+ million+ views in just a few days. With the creative juice of Stephen King and Hollywood behind it, the Sony promo for the upcoming Carrie remake is the biggest thing to scare up that many views since The Blair Witch Project. CommPro More Sharing on E-mail Than Facebook, Twitter – Email beats social networks Facebook and Twitter combined as the top medium for sharing online coupons and other offers, according to new research from SocialTwist, a company that specializes in giving consumers incentives to share deals online. AdAge Study: How B2B Marketers Use Twitter – Industry media sites are the most common source of content shared by B2B marketers on Twitter, accounting for 62% of all content shares, according to a recent analysis by Leadtail and DNN Software. MarketingProfs Use Images on Twitter to Get More Retweets – Based on a data set of more than 400,000 tweets, those with images uploaded to pic.Twitter.com were nearly twice as likely to be retweeted while the use of Twitpic increased the odds by just over 60%. On the other hand, Tweets that used Facebook or Instagram links were less likely to be retweeted. Dan Zarella, Hubspot How Twitter's Ad Business Went From Zero to $500 Million in Less Than Four Years – Remember when Twitter didn’t want to be in the ad business? With an eye on Facebook's struggles in the last couple years, Twitter has also made a point of noting that the service is in large part a mobile service, and that its ads have always worked for mobile users. AllThingsD New Study: A Typical Small Business Advertiser Wastes Money on PPC – A new analysis of 500 small and medium business Google AdWords accounts determined that they were wasting 25% on average due to poor keyword selection, suboptimal ad relevancy and quality scores and lack of time or expertise for optimizing PPC, Search Engine Watch The World's Most Influential CMOs – The number of influential CMOs has increased nearly 50% from last year. For the 2013 CMO Influence Study, research was expanded to include the top 500 companies from the Forbes Global 2000 list. Of those companies, 66 have CMOs who are engaged in influential conversations. Forbes Editorial Unease Rises As Content Ad Links Proliferate – For many editors — especially those who don't interact much with the business side of the house — the feeling is that the revenue generated by link generators is not worth the sacrifice of editorial dignity. Too often, the suggested content has nothing to do with the lead story. Digiday A Scientific Guide to Effectively Saying 'No' – "I can't" and "I don't" are words that seem similar and we often interchange them for one another, but psychologically they can provide very different feedback and, ultimately, result in very different actions. In other words, the phrase "I don't" is a psychologically empowering way to say no, while the phrase "I can't" is a psychologically draining way to say no. Lifehacker How Small Businesses are Dropping the Ball on CTAs – The "Small Business B2B Call to Action Study" of 200 websites found that companies routinely fail to include special offers and related incentives. Even basics, like Contact Info and a phone number are  not prominent. Here are some highlights. Online Marketing Coach 7 Tools for Finding Great Content to Share – Finding and sharing great content is an essential part of social media. These tools will help you find content to share and save you a lot of time. Discovered a few new tools myself. MarketingProfs 5 Ways to Increase Customer Engagement Using Science – With digital marketing and loyalty programs, we have the tools to drive customer engagement in a way that’s empirical and scientific. We can draw upon the techniques developed by BF Skinner, called "operant conditioning," to fine-tune our marketing program for maximum effect. Here are five modern marketing techniques that you should use and the science behind their effectiveness.  Direct Marketing News Samsung’s Curved Smartphone: Big Innovation or Novelty? Analysts predict a small group of early adopters in the U.S. will favor the Round’s distinctive look, but only at half that price. ComputerWorld The Story Behind 118-year-old Brand – In its 118-year history, John Deere's The Furrow has become something of a legend in two exceptionally disparate communities: agriculture and brand publishing. For farmers, it's the agrarian version of Rolling Stone. For brand publishers, it's a thing of wonder — a brand magazine born generations before the term 'content marketing' was coined, which sees its back-issues fought over — fiercely — on eBay. Contently 8 Important e-Commerce Stats – Like most large industries on the Internet, the e-commerce space has become more competitive as new businesses, platforms and complimentary services enter the market. Data analysis of over 18,000 small to medium e-commerce sites help paint a picture of current marketing and consumer behavior trends in the e-commerce space; and one that will give store owners a better chance to reach their business goals. Kissmetrics Where to Place 30 Elements on Your eCommerce and Why – The product detail page is where the magic is supposed to happen. When a product detail page does its job two things happen: (1) the consumer has his/her need fulfilled and (2) the retailer achieves its goal and acquires a happy customer. Read these recommendations to gain a solid starting point. eConsultancy Google On Original Content Related to Product Descriptions – Google will try to show users the appropriate version that matches what they think the user is looking for. So in some cases, the original source of content is not always the most important thing, demonstrating the growing importance of context for SEO. Search Engine Roundtable 6 Tips for Finding Prospects on LinkedIn – Social selling produces better results than cold calling and allows you to easily reach the decision-makers. To be successful, strive to offer value and build credibility. Following these six steps when integrated into your business strategy will set you apart from other LinkedIn members. Social Media Examiner 3 Google+ Power Users Reveal their Secrets – If you're still in the dark about value proposition of Google Plus, prepare to be enlightened. Here are just three people among the hundreds who spent the time to make a positive contribution to the conversation, left lengthy comments and have provided real insights as to the power of Google+. Jeff Bullas From the Online Community On "10 Content Marketing Tools for Creation, Distribution and Analytics," Cara Posey said, Lee, this is a great list. Some tools I know, some I’m trying out (like Little Bird) and others I have yet to try. I will humbly add ExpertFile to this list…another platform that is great for finding experts and reviewing expert content as well as a platform for companies and individuals to share their own content. We also just launched our new visual dashboard, helping B2B marketers and agencies with content marketing analytics and assessing ROI for expert content marketing efforts as well as identifying new opportunities. I hope you’ll check it out as a potential tool that adds additional value to your list above On "Digital Newsletters as Content Marketing," Sarah Bauer said, Great post! Some takeaways from your examples: 1. Consistent branding for digital newsletters is key. The logo/colours need to be instantly recognizable as the brand, and so should appear above the fold on the newsletter. 2. Before diving into a topic, it’s important to outline what readers can expect from the newsletter. A simple table of content at the top of the page can suffice. On "5 Habits of Digital Marketing Agencies That Get Results," Ava Christi said, While the digital revolution has given marketers great new ways to be creative, it has also demanded that they become more statistical and analytical in order to prove ROI, which has proved difficult in the past. But help is at hand. Episodeone.com said, All these characteristics which you have talked about here are very important for success. Well! Success in digital marketing is often the result of a mashup of tactics and technology from multiple sources, which means marketers need to think beyond their role, team and hierarchy to embrace the ideas, and, in some cases, the expertise of others. What's Your Take? Was a Scary Carrie video good content marketing even if it was a trick? For e-commerce sites, do you have a continuous improvement process in place? Is your CMO an influencer in your organization. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Photo credit: Shutterstock Maximizing Usability & Findability Among Multiscreen Users #SESCHI Remember the days of just watching TV? Or just working on your computer? How about finding what you needed from one source—like a book, phonebook, or one website? Those days are over. Completely. Google released a study earlier this year that revealed 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish their goals, using up to an average of 3 different screen combinations each day. The key takeaway from their study? Content needs to be optimized for all channels so brands don't run the risk of losing conversions from any one channel. This new initiative has posed several challenges to marketers on how to make their site findable, and usable, to multiscreen users in order to retain conversions. Bryson Meunier of Resolution Media and Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive shared a few best practices and tips on how to create the best website architecture to achieve excellent multiscreen experience. Decide What Mobile Configuration Strategy is Best for Your Site According to Google, you have three choices when it comes to the mobile configuration of your site:               1. Responsive Web Design: Same HTML & URLs but a different layout served through flexible layouts, dynamic grids and media queries The main advantage of this popular site configuration is that it’s one site. However, there a significant disadvantage to a responsively designed site: the download time can significantly increase. Workarounds are available. But when you do a workaround, it requires more JavaScript which in-turn increases downtime (so realistically, it’s hard to avoid the decreased downtime).              2. Dynamic Serving: Same URLS potentially different HTML served through device detection              3. Dedicated Mobile Sites: Different HTML & Different URLs You have the power to decide what’s right for your business based on user activity and what you feel fits your messaging and design best. In order to determine which web design is best for your brand ask yourself the following: Are mobile users well-served by your current information architecture? If it is, changing your site architecture might not be the best idea, but again the choice is yours. Do your mobile users use the same keywords as your desktop users? If you don’t have a mobile site, or even look into mobile keywords you could miss out on dozens of keywords. For example: mobile games, mobile ringtones, navigate to [insert brand name here] etc. Mobile-only features won’t help users? For example Lowes provides an in-store map to help those of us (myself included) that get lost in stores easily. Enhanced mobile experiences have the added benefit of building link equity and increasing traffic. Does your audience use smartphones? If not, Google does not recommend doing a responsive web design. Instead consider dynamic serving or dedicated mobile sites. Is speed not important to conversions? It’s harder to make a responsive site fast than a dynamic serving site. mobitest.akamai.com is a great tool to see how fast your site is running on mobile devices. If your users are going to want an extremely fast experience, consider dynamic or dedicated mobile. Follow Google Guidelines Whichever configuration design you choose for your site, it’s important to follow Google guidelines to make sure your site isn’t penalized, hidden from searchers, or creating a negative searcher experience. Use switchboard tags with Mobile URLs. These tags help create a connection between your mobile & desktop sites ensuring that indexing and link equity are shared between the two Use vary HTTP header with dynamic serving. This header lets Google know that some of your content is for mobile and some is for desktop. Do not build a separate tablet-optimized site. Use responsive design if possible Don’t block Googlebot Mobile or Otherwise! If you block your site, searchers won’t be able to find it. Consider user experience. Google is starting to penalize sites for things like app interstitials, slow-loading sites, faulty redirects and unplayable videos Cater Your Content & Site to Mobile Users: There are several things that mobile users are going to expect from your mobile site in terms of usability and findability. Catering to those things can help enhance user experience and improve your mobile ranking. When it comes to your site make sure: Clicks actually click. Accommodate for a finger, not just a cursor. It’s extremely frustrating to press over and over again on a button that’s not clicking. Make sure your site is working, and recognizes fingers. Bonus: make things look extra clickable on mobile sites because it’s harder to know what clicks and what doesn’t. Information Sent is Validated: Always remember: Go. Know. Do. Where you want to go, what you want to know more about, what you want to do. Like an elevator when you press a button, you expect it to light up and do what you asked it to. Then you expect a direction sign telling you where to go. Mobile users what the same guidance. They want to have their information and queries validated. Content is Organized Logically: there are several Google implications that originate from how you organize your site. But there are also user implications. Make sure your site is logical for mobile users because their needs will be different from those of desktop users. Information architecture should be decided before the site is built. If you don’t do it right, it can cost you a lot after launch. Consider On and Off Page Criteria: Keywords, labels and design are the glaringly obvious on-page-criteria that are important to your site. But off-the-page criteria like link development, social and web searcher goals will factor into your success in mobile. Popular Information is Included: Three kinds of content are very important to mobile users: quick facts, location and personal information. Mobile searchers want to know where things are or where they can find them, they don’t want to read pages and pages of text, and they want the ability to login. Use Effective & Search Engine Friendly Design Site design and layout will change based on your content–if you have huge images it will distort the rest of the page, the same thing if you have no images. However there are a few designs that are better than the rest: MostFluid Design: If you have 5 or 6 navigation buttons this layout will work well. It’s a great layout for a mobile friendly responsive site. Column Drop: Also an ok format for a mobile-friendly responsive site, but you have to be conscientious of where you put your call to action because it can get lost Layout Shifter: Another design that is great for a responsive site. Also, great for sites that require huge images (i.e. food) Labeling Systems These will strongly impact your search engine rankings. They can help tell a search engine and users that your information is consistent. There are 3 kinds of labels that are important to your site content, navigation, and document. Content labels are things like your heading that tell a searcher “this page is about x”, the navigation labels & URLs also point out “this page is about x” (they both usually have a keyword in there somewhere), and document labels, like a title tag, also indicate “this page is about x”. That consistency is extremely important to website rankings. Remember: don’t assume that responsive design is search engine friendly. Just because someone else uses it, or because there are a lot of benefits, doesn’t mean that it’s best for your site. A key take away from this session is that design isn’t universal, you really need to think about your content, your users and your graphics and design it based on those things. Stay tuned for more from SES Chicago! We'll be live-blogging sessions throughout the next three days. Can’t wait?  Follow the action live on Twitter @elizalynnsteely and@bslarsonmn. New SEO Best Practices with Schema Markup #SESCHI Web Developers often faint and the mere mention of ‘schema’. The mysterious term conjures up thoughts of impossible code to implement with benefits that seem difficult to pinpoint. At least, those were just some of the perceptions surrounding schema markup. Anne F. Kennedy, the sessions first speaker and member of the SES Advisory Board, wants to reduce that fear among the SEO community surrounding schema markup and explain the benefits derived from their usage. Kennedy polls the office and asks ‘how many currently use schema markup?’ With what appears to be a little over half raising their hands, a little step back is needed. So Kennedy starts us with the basics: What is a ‘schema’ anyways? Schema is ‘a cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information.’ Why it matters in search – and why this particular session is well attended – is because search engines crave information that help them categorize information, both literally and contextually. More importantly, they need that information to be organized in a way in which they can be easily understood. But schema markup is not new, as Kennedy notes. Schema.org - a joint effort by Google, Bing & Yahoo to develop a universal set of structured data – actually launched in June, 2011. However, in the wake of Google Hummingbird, where context is becoming even more important in search – as opposed to literally matching keywords to onpage ‘matches’  - providing more signals that can help search engines understand context is a necessity. Or as Kennedy more succinctly puts it ‘[g]et over keywords! Feed the search engines entities’ of information. Rich Benci, COO of Algebrize, takes over the floor and guides the conversation towards results. Schema Markup in Action If you’re needing proof of this new SERP reality, try searching for a celebrity. What you’ll undoubtedly find, like the example below for one of the more famous Chicagoans, is SERPs are highly influenced by schema markup. In this case, ‘Person’ schema markup is driving results that include a knowledge graph that clearly organizes certain information about Kanye West. While talking results, Benci passionately clarifies the difference between ‘schema markup’ and ‘rich snippets’. To summarize Benci’s point, schema markup is a classification of code, where as rich snippets is one of several ways that the subsequent information can appear in SERP (Knowledge Graph is another). Schema Classifications Schema.org includes a lengthy list of categories of information that can be organized with schema markup. While too numerous to mention all, the full list can be found at schema.org. Key categories include: Action Class Event MedicalEntity Organization Person Place Product Property If you aren’t able to locate a category of information that applies to your company, you can provide feedback to schema.org and make the case for additional categories. How Fast Does it Work? Schema markup does not yield results immediately, according to Benci. While he shares that he has seen dramatic progress in how quickly search engines are reading, interpreting and presenting new results based on schema markup, he cautions that businesses should expect it to take 5-6 weeks – provided the code is properly installed – before results represent the schema markup. He also makes an important point, and one that many SEOs may struggle with: we are not entitled to rich snippets appearing in SERP. There’s no guarantee that the schema markup will produce results in SERP. Instead, Benci counsels practitioners to view successful results as being ‘awarded’ rich snippets. A result that is made more likely in Benci’s opinion by the comprehensive (and correct) implementation of schema markup on a site. Getting Started with Schema Markup Tools Two of Benci’s favorite tools come directly from Google: Structured Data Markup Helper: This tools helps you decipher what schema markup needs to be added to a page. Simply select a data type and enter the corresponding URL for the page you would like to markup. Structured Data Testing Tool: Useful to diagnose any issues or code errors after implementation. Users can enter a URL and immediately receive direction on what changes are needed to yield the code correctly. With a few new tools in our arsenal and a better understanding of how schema markup impacts SERPs, the session ends. Is it a coincidence attendees immediately locate the nearest flat surface so they can unfold their laptops and pull up their site? That’s not for me to say. Stay connected for more posts from SES Chicago. You can also keep your finger on the pulse of  the conference by following @elizalynnsteely and @bslarsonmn on Twitter. What You Need to Know about Enhanced Adwords Campaigns #SESCHI If there’s one thing I’ve heard non-stop lately it’s that digital marketing is becoming more customized and tailored to the wants and needs of consumers. Those creepy Eye See You Mannequins, facial monitoring at gas stations, and those social ads that somehow know that I was shopping for a watch yesterday are all proof that brands are able to cater their advertisements to appeal to something we’re actually going to be motivated to buy. This has created a unique opportunity for marketers: enhanced Google AdWords campaigns which were launched on July 22nd of this year. In their SES Chicago session, Michael Griffin and Lisa Raehsler reviewed what those campaigns are and how to design, segment, and optimize one. Here are some of the key takeaways from their session: User Habits Have Changed A lot of the sessions at SES have been talking about the fact we like to multitask on several devices. Searchers shift between mobile devices like tablets and smartphones, desktops, and laptops simultaneously. So marketers have to stop thinking of things in a channel-centric way, and start thinking (and creating content and design) in terms of all devices. It is also important to become much more strategic in targeting and ad campaigns to help attract and engage multidevice users. Marketers Need a New Mindset Search is no longer all about keywords. It’s important to shift your mindset to knowing your customer deeply and leveraging the tools Google gives you to appeal to those customers. The days of mass creation are over–we’re transitioning into a time when customization, personalization, and relevance will make or break the success of your content. Leveraging this data can help you provide the right message to the right people at the right time. Calculate Bid Modifiers There is data out there to help you understand your customers at the zip code level, the city level and the state level to help you maximize the impact of your enhanced ad campaign.  Bid modifiers are a great way to tailor your campaign to reach the people who it is most relevant to, and who will likely click on your ads. However, like most things, there is some debate over how to calculate the bid modifiers for an AdWords campaign. The formula the presenters recommend is: [(Revenue per click for a segment divided by revenue per click of the whole) minus 1] * 100. Use Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) This new feature allows you to create different audiences based on the value you think they might have. You can bid on those people in Google search results differently helping customize your ads. Segmenting on granular level has proven to bring the best results when leveraging this new capability. This deeper level of segmentation will allow you to guide those searchers to where you want them to go on your site, and help make those landing destinations more relevant. This works well for eCommerce sites by adding value to the items in a shopper’s cart and targeting based on the value of the total items in their cart. The only limitation to this capability is that 1,000 people have to be in a segment for you to bid on it. Mobilize Your Campaigns Design ads that are mobile preferred. This will require specific imagery and a tailored call to action that’s easy for mobile users to complete and that assures them it really is ok to click. With the impressive surge in mobile usage, it is important to convey your messages to the mobile users that are visiting your site. Follow an Action Plan for Capturing Opportunity When faced with an opportunity, it’s important to not only capture it but to bring it full circle to enhance mobile experiences. Raehsler provided the following action plan for helping brands do so: Increase bid modifier for mobile to increase visibility Increase bid modifier on top states Create ad copy to mobile + location Use Data to Craft Mobile Adjustments, Targeting and Experience There is an abundance of data in anything related to Google. Google Analytics can help you see whether or not people are engaged with what you’re showing them based off of how much time they’re spending on your site, how many pages they look at etc. In AdWords you can break down your insights by gender and age. Seeing who is more likely to visit your site can help you target a more engaged user. Don’t Limit Yourself to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns only Did you know Bing had enhanced campaigns? Yeah I didn’t either, but they do. They also allow deeper segmentation and more filtering. Don’t limit yourself to using only Google enhanced campaigns, there’s no reason you can’t use both. Get to Know Bid Strategies There are 5 bid strategies when it comes to enhanced AdWords campaigns. The last two in the list below are the newest, and most impressive, of the strategies. Maximize Clicks: this is a flexible version of the Automatic CPC bidding strategy CPA Bidding: this is a flexible version of Conversion Optimizer used in the target CPA (average CPA) capacity Enhanced CPC: this is a flexible version of the existing enhanced CPC capability Search Page Location: AdWords will increase/decrease bids to target a top-of-page or fist page position with ads. This bid strategy works with Search Network only and doesn’t specify a position on the page (so you can’t choose to be in the second, third, fourth position on the page etc.) Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): AdWords predicts future conversions and values based on conversion values advertisers set up. Used for Search Network only or the Search Display Networks, Adwords will try to reach the ROAS targets across all keywords, ad groups, and campaigns. Use PPC/display results to further design & author Ad campaigns aren’t a one-and-done type deal. Use consumer reactions and the results you see through analytics to tweak, redesign, and rewrite your content to continuously appeal to audiences and maintain relevance. Stay connected for more posts from SES Chicago. You can also keep your finger on the pulse of  the conference by following @elizalynnsteely and @bslarsonmn on Twitter.