What Are Social Channels Good For?

Sure you’ve setup your company profiles and pages on social media.  However, do you know what channels are best used for which type of interaction?  This infographic by Grovo shares some great insight into specific uses for many of the popular social media platforms.  Did you know?

• 40% of people like brands for discounts and promotions
• 8% of all Huffington Post traffic comes from Facebook

“Content Marketing Becoming Vital”  Kelly OCG, a workforce consulting and outsourcing organization shares that they do no B2B brand advertising.  Instead they spend about 60% of their marketing budget on creating, distributing, and promoting their own unique content.  According to the Custom Content Council approximately $41billion dollars are spent on creating custom content. Via BtoB Magazine.

“Digital talent:  the innovative integrated marketing brain”  Since humans only use roughly 10-20% of our brains taking on the task of converging digital marketing strategies can sometimes seem like an impossible task.  The infographic included in this article dives into the notion of Right Brain versus Left Brain Marketers, and the personality traits associated with each side.  Via Econsultancy.

“SEO: A Force for Good”  There is no quick way to increase your search engine rankings, which is exactly as it should be.  SEO isn’t about who can buy the top position, it is about who can earn that position by providing relevant and timely content.  This article provides some great information supporting why SEO  is not dead and it should still be a very essential part of any online marketing strategy.  Via Search Engine Watch.

“Why User Experience is Critical to Customer Relationships”  The relationship between brands and customers is quickly changing.  As customers become increasingly sophisticated and empowered the way that marketers interact with them will have to evolve.  The introduction of smart phones and other web enabled devices only makes this approach so much more important.  Want to know more about how you can connect with your customers in a meaningful way?  Via Fast Company.

“How Twitter Can Improve Your Management (in 140 Characters or Less)”  Social media marketers have learned that with Twitter it is essential that you create a meaningful interaction, in only 140 characters.  This notion of short, concise, and meaningful interaction can be translated to other areas of your business as well.  This article provides some great tips for streamlining and shortening your communication style for improved communication with your team.  Via Inc.

“5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fan Engagement”  Even if you’ve taken a very interactive approach to posting information regularly and answering the questions of your fans you may be missing out if you aren’t implementing proper calls to action.  This post provides 5 very practical, but essential tips for improving your engagement and ultimately turning followers and fans into customers.  Via Social Media Examiner.

Team TopRank News

Brian Larson – Understanding Ranking Lag Time for New Links

We all know that the number of quality inlinks pointing to a site are factored in the major search engines algorithms. The more difficult question, and one that every marketer who every conducted a link building effort has asked, is how long does it take for a link to influence search rankings? As with many questions related to search performance, the answer depends on several factors. Eric ward successfully outlines several of those key factors in his Link Week column for Search Engine Land.

Ken Horst – Complacency in Search Advertising:  Growing Beyond Keywords

This is a very interesting take on the search advertising industry, which, according to eMarketer Daily, will see its  growth rate flat-line.  The problem highlighted here is that in order to seriously scale your search advertising campaign, you need to dramatically increase the number of keywords you’re using.  This simply takes more hours and many companies and agencies are reluctant to invest in the human resources necessary to scale.  Via Media Post.

Time to Weigh In:  Would you consider yourself a left brained or a right brained marketer?  What do you think the benefits are of each type of marketer?  Do you think that when it comes to management, saying less is worth more?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/6SsZVBKeVAw/

If you remember last November I had a Football+Internet marketing charity fundraiser where I auctioned off consulting with myself,  2 football tickets to the Iowa VS. Nebraska game, and a really cool private event with legendary football coaches Hayden Fry and Tom Osbourne.

The 2 guys that one came down and we had a great time:

They have a really awesome site called Heistit.

Which from time to time they run these time sensitive limited deals that have tons of great software for a very low price.

For instance right now they are offering for only $97:

• Trust-Guard ($402 value) – Security seals proven to increase sales and conversions.
• SurveyGizmo ($294 value) – Identify customer wants needs that grow your bottom-line.
• Woopra ($179 value) – Real-time website analytics that increase profits.
• Office Autopilot ($1,200 value) – Skyrocket sales with an all-in-one profit-faucet platform.
• Wistia ($594 value) – Premier Video hosting built to boost sales.

That’s $2,600 in Top Business Apps for just $97!

Pretty sweet. But remember there bundles are only good for a few days when they launch so get in on this while you can!

About the author…

Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2421 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock

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At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego I caught up with Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors to talk about digital marketing.  In this short interview I asked Charlotte a few fundamental questions about digital and social media marketing related to customers:

1. How does GM segment digital marketing activities between customer acquisition and retention?

Follow up: Does GM follow a social media editorial calendar according to customer buying cycles and personas?

2. With all the shiny objects of social media in the world, how does she go about deciding what to test and what to implement?

Take a look at the video and I think you’ll be interested in the customer-centric approach GM takes with social media and how time is allocated towards new customers, activating current customers as evangelists and their approach to filtering shiny social objects.

How is your company focusing digital and social media marketing efforts towards winning new customers and engaging those you have? How do you evaluate new social technologies for marketing and communications? Do you allocate time for testing, experimentation or go with the crowd?

Transcript:

LO: This is Lee Odden from MarketingBlog.com at Online Marketing Summit in San Diego. With me is Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors. Welcome.

CB: Hi Lee, Thank you.

LO: So thanks for spending a couple of minutes with me to answer some key questions I think for digital marketers, big brands, small brands. One of the first questions I had for you is, in terms of your digital approach, how much of it is split between customer acquisition vs customer engagement and retention?

CB: We definitely approach the consumer from a 360 degree angle. We try to keep the consumer at the center at all times in thinking about their journey from when they’re just kind of living their life 98% of the time to maybe thinking about making a car purchase a few months down the road to actually actively researching the car.

I think social media in particular, plays a role in all of those areas of the funnel. Our own channels, like our Facebook pages and Twitter handles for example, we typically think of as an upper funnel play.  There are really an opportunity to engage our consumers with their lifestyle passions. For example, music is a big pillar for Chevrolet and we offered early access to Spotify when that came out. That was a good integration with the millenials that we were targeting for the Sonic launch. That encouraged more engagement with our Facebook page. That would be an example of a lifestyle play that we use our own social media channels for.

I also see social media playing a big role in the ownership and CRM space and that’s where I think I’ll be focusing a lot of my efforts this year. I think that there’s a big opportunity with turning our owners into advocates and giving them tools to light up their social graphs and really share with their friends how they love their GM vehicles.

In that kind of middle area, more on the conversion question, we do have an entire group that has all kinds of sophisticated ways of knowing when someone is in market.  Because we really want to be cognizant that we’re not flooding the market with our messages about “buy now, buy now” when really only 2% of people are in market at any given time.  So we like to be very sophisticated in the way that we target those people with relevant messaging when they’re ready for it. There are still great opportunities for social to play a role there, especially in the influencer space. The ratings and recommendations – we work a lot with 3rd party sites like KBB and Edumunds – those are increasingly socializing.

LO: Is there integration much from an editorial planning standpoint? Are you running social content calendars for example, that tie into buying cycle or customer segments?

CB: We absolutely do use content calendars, mostly from a lifestyle engagement space. We do constantly measure and optimize the way that we’re resonating with consumers. We’re starting to find some real nuances depending on the name plate. So some of our more performance oriented vehicles, Camero fans, Corvette fans, Cadillac, they really like that awesome car content – great performance engine type of content that they just can’t get enough of. Whereas we’ll use some of our bigger brands, Cheverolet overall to connect more with young consumers based on a lifestyle play, a mom blogger relationship or ways to be more a part of every day life.

LO: In the social media world, by the way I love that you used the word optimize, OptimizeBook.com is where you’ll see this video and information about a book called Optimize. In terms of this fast changing world we’re in, there are so many apps and channels for us to deal with, it’s almost information overload not only for consumers but for marketers deciding where it is that those consumers are spending their time. How do you decide when it comes to new digital marketing technology, to invest, where to experiement?

CB: That’s a great question, that’s one of the things I talk most about in my job. It’s one of the most important things that we can do.  It’s all about consumer insights and putting yourself in the shoes of the consumer you’re trying to reach. This varies by campaign, by name plate, by the tone that we want to have with our consumers. We need to define up front what are we trying to achieve and who are we trying to connect with? Put ourselves in their shoes using thorough research, data and insights. What is that these people like to do? Do they use the Pinterests of the world, are they big Tweeters, do they even click on online advertising? It depends on who we’re trying to reach. If you constantly put yourself in the consumers shoes, it can help avoid the “chasing shiny object syndrome”.

LO: Right, some empathy towards what’s important and what they care about.  If you’d like to share a Twitter handle, a blog or any other social destination for folks to find out about you and the work you’re doing?

CN: You can follow me @charlotteblank and please like all our Facebook pages. We have  8 Chevrolet pages and one each for Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

LO: Thanks Charlotte!

 

 

 

 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/U_p9r08Kz2o/

Does your business need better content marketing like this Social Media Examiner contest participant?

In 2009 Michael Stelzner (@mike_stelzner) decided to run an experiment.  He wanted to see if he could repeat his previous success in a new industry.  That experiment led to the launch of Social Media Examiner in October of that same year.  Michael had been well known in the whitepaper industry and joked “I went from the king of whitepapers to the joker of social media.”

I really appreciated Michael’s insight into today’s customers and the need for change in an industry that is constantly evolving.  Below I’ve provided some highlights from what I learned from Michael Stelzner at the 2012 Online Marketing Summit.

In the World of Marketing Change is Essential

As industries advance, ideas begin to expand, products morph, and customers move on.  With this change comes a series of questions:

• Will my business survive?
• Have I set the right trajectory?
• What is coming?
• Am I ready?

In the rapidly evolving Social Media Marketing industry there is one thing that is constant that business often overlook.  People are the constant; at their core people don’t change.  They will always be looking for great insight, access to great people, and recognition.  If you can keep focused on people and their desires then half of your mission, as a content marketer is complete.

What is Wrong with Marketing Today?

One of the analogies that Stelzner shared is that we often treat our customers like fish.  In order to better target these customers we must create better offerings and promotions than our competitors in order to get our customers to bite.  Marketers should also keep the following tips in mind when creating a content strategy:

• Don’t focus strictly on yourself, products and services
• Instead shine the spotlight on others such as outside experts or successful peers
• When you lift others up, they’ll return the favor

Channel Overload Syndrome

As customers receive marketing messages from multiple sources on a daily basis they begin to tune out and seek a sense of refuge from the marketing bombardment. If you are able to create a sense of trust between your company and your customers it is one of the biggest assets that you have working for you.

Customers as a rule will typically distrust companies. If you can manage to solve your customers initial problems at no cost you open up the possibility that they will look to you to solve their larger issues which could lead to increased revenue for your organization.

What is the Formula for Growth?

According to Stelzner the formula for a great and engaging marketing plan is:

Great Content + People – Marketing Messages = Growth

• Great content is that stuff that everyone wants.
• Other people, means it’s designed not for your purposes but for others.
• When you throw your marketing messages out the window completely in relation to content marketing you can grow quickly.

Creating Great Content

Instead of investing your marketing dollars in ad space consider investing in the creation of quality content.  That content will include personal experience and gathering information about topics customers care about, and identifying where they are spending time looking for answers.  Stelzner also identified two types of content that marketers should be creating which includes:

Primary Content: The type of content that people consume on a daily basis that brings them back for more on a regular basis.

Nuclear Content:  This type of content is harder to produce and includes things like industry reports and contests.  Nuclear content can have a larger impact and draws people to your organization and can get you noticed as an industry leader.

What Have We Learned?

There are many elements to creating a great content marketing plan.  First and foremost we must always remember who this content is for, what their preferences are, and what problems we are trying to help our audience solve.  I also really enjoyed hearing Stelzner’s take on different types of content, when to create them, and the anticipated results when executed properly.  What are your thoughts on adding “primary” and “nuclear” content to your online marketing strategy?

Be sure to tune in this afternoon to Social Media Examiner’s Small Business Summit with Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner, Joe Pulizzi from Junta42, Brian Clark from Copyblogger Media and TopRank CEO Lee Odden as they discuss blogging and small business success.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/3SMzT7i2qjE/

Attributes of a Socially Optimized Business – Dachis Group

Add “social” to just about anything and you’ll boost interest in your topic by at least 50%. While many consultants appear to be employing that tactic to boost their interesting-ness, it’s not the case with the topic of social business.

As companies work to figure out what role social media will play with external marketing and communications, there’s a rapidly growing trend with progressive companies that are also viewing social media internally. By that I mean, they’re looking at social technologies as platforms to connect people within the company for the purposes of collaboration, tapping into the collective wisdom of the organization and bringing internal social media literacy to a level that enables external communications to scale.

Implications for social business run the gamut of organizational structure from operations to customer service to accounting. And of course, marketing and PR. The fact that social technology can facilitate connections across groups of people world-wide is pretty amazing, especially with Facebook nearing 1 billion users. What’s equally interesting (to me) is the application for surfacing and connecting internal company expertise, collaboration and the multiplier effect of scaling internal resources for external brand social media participation.

If you’re also interested in the topic of social business, here are a few resources I’ve found useful.

Presentations from Altimeter Group, Edelman, Dachis Group, Ant’s Eye View, and IBM.

For those of you who want to dig deeper into the principles and guts of social business, here are 5 excellent books on the topic by authors: Michael Brito, Anthony J. Bradley, Mark P. McDonald, Mike Barlow, David B. Thomas, Jay Baer, Amber Naslund, Dion Hinchcliffe, and Peter Kim.

Books on Social Business

Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization
Michael Brito

The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees
Anthony J. Bradley, Mark P. McDonald

The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy: How Social Networks Are Radically Transforming Your Business
Mike Barlow, David B. Thomas

The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social
Jay Baer, Amber Naslund

Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company
Dion Hinchcliffe, Peter Kim (Out May 1, 2012)

I will likely update this post with reports, infographics and events in the coming week. So be sure to revisit the post next Monday. 

Source: Michael Brito

Even if it has been many years since I studied Sociology and Organizational Development at University, I’d still be interested as a marketer in the trend towards social business. Think of the transformations that have happened across the globe by connecting common interests through social channels. What transformation is possible for companies that could release the same spirit of change and improvement within their own organizations, amongst partners and customers?

Rather than looking at this from a pure OD perspective, I’m seeing the marketing opportunities. As our agency TopRank matures and brings on more consulting expertise, we’re definitely elevating our practice areas to include the marketing and public relations aspects of social business. In fact, we’re already doing consulting in the area of online marketing optimization for social business initiatives right now.

To me, social business is a natural evolution of how companies can internalize the social tools and means of collaborating that are becoming the norm for communications with the next generation. It’s a way to tap into expertise more efficiently and effectively to boost organizational intelligence as well as the ability to act more competently as a brand advocate on social platforms.

When it comes to marketing and communications, one social media manager and a social strategist can only do so much. Most companies don’t even have one full-time person dedicated to their social media efforts. What if a company could educate, train and support internal staff to facilitate certain types of external social media communications and even support ala Best Buy’s Twelpforce?

What do you think? How would your company do in an assessment of organizational social media readiness? Are you already leveraging internal social tools like salesforce.com Chatter or similar applications for internal social collaboration?

You can read about how SEO and Content Marketing affects Social Business in my book Optimize, coming out soon. (Wiley) Get a preview of chapters here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/e8m1JfMkY94/

How Social Media Keeps Leaders Honest

David Jones of Havas and Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore recently sat down to talk about the responsibilities of the leaders of today to respond to social media, and how it holds them accountable.

“Google Clarifies: No, Ads Shouldn’t Help Rankings No, SEO Isn’t Bad”  Recent comments made by a new Google employee have some SEO’s up in arms.  Apparently his comments included “SEO isn’t good for users” and “It’s a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads.”  Curious to know what else he has to say and what reaction this has caused within the online community?  Via Search Engine Land.

“100 Million Americans Watch Online Video Per Day.  Up 43% Since 2010- comScore”  According to comScore Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011 alone.  This is an increase of 44% over the previous year.  With this astronomical jump in online views, is television in trouble?  Via TechCrunch.

“The Next Big Social Network Is You”  Many companies are trying to address the now common social network exhaustion.  Between the constantly shifting policy changes and programming updates many users are getting tired.  This opinion piece shares that in the near future it will be less about your number of followers and more about a smaller group of well-connected individuals.  What do you think?  Via Information Week.

“5 Essential Spreadsheets for Social Media Analytics”  If you are involved in social media, and are a small business this post provides some useful tools for measuring your data.  Want to know the best part?  They’re free, customizable, and easy to use.  Via Mashable.

“Brand Storytelling Lessons You Can Steal from Hollywood”  Innovation, a term we seem to hear quite frequently these days.  As a content marketer innovation is especially important because not only must you attract customers, you must veer them away from your competition.  Paying close attention to Hollywood entertainment and the way that promotion is done in that industry is a great means for discovering new ideas.  Via Content Marketing Institute.

TopRank Team News

Alexis Hall – Report: National Marketers Love Local, Fail At Basic Tactics
This post discusses survey results from late 2011 which revealed that although many marketers have the perception they are highly invested in local advertising, survey results show they are failing when it comes to basic tactics, like management of local directory listings.  Those seemingly small tactics can have a big impact on local results, so if marketers are really invested in their online local presence, they must be diligent when it comes to education on all types of tactics.  Via Search Engine Land.

Ken Horst – Pinterest is quietly generating revenue by modifying user submitted pins
It appears as though Pinterest has found a way to monetize their site, even at this early beta stage.  Most people would say that’s a good thing however the way they are making money has some people crying foul.

Pinterest is using a service called SkimLinks to add an affiliate link wherever there is a link to a product page that has an affiliate program.  It’s not the idea that people are concerned about, it’s the fact that Pinterest is doing this without providing any disclosure to its users.  Via LLsocial.

Brian Larson – Bing Now A Full Point Ahead of Yahoo In Search Share-comScore
According to comScore, Bing is now a full point ahead of Yahoo! in search share. While Google’s search results are highly flavored by Google+, Bing receives streams of information from Facebook and Twitter. With Yahoo! In Bing’s rear view mirror, is Google next?  Via Search Engine Land.

Time to Weigh In:  What do you think of Pinterest’s money making tactics?  Smart move or too far?  With so many American’s consuming video on a daily basis, are you including video in your 2012 online marketing strategy?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/zp6yhnPsBW0/

by Tim Morral, on February 9, 2012, filed under: Public Relations

You’ve spent hours researching, drafting and polishing your copy. Mechanically, it’s perfect – it has a compelling headline, great structure and absolutely no typos, misspellings or grammatical faux pas.

But when the piece is published, it goes over like a hunk of Kobe beef at a vegan cooking class. Instead of moving audiences to action, it increases awareness without inspiring readers to take the logical next step, at least not right now.

So what went wrong? The problem could be that your beautifully crafted copy failed to create a sense of urgency with readers.

Urgency is the engine that drives quality writing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a print ad, a white paper or a crime novel – readers need to be motivated to either continue reading or to make a conversion action.

In brand-conscious marketing and PR writing, the challenge is to create a sense of urgency without relying on the kind of cheesy “act now and get two for the price of one” messaging that audiences expect from infomercial pitchmen.

When it’s done right, effective copywriting respects the brand while subtly pushing audiences toward targeted actions. Here’s how . . .

• Focused Messaging. Unfocused and rambling copy is the kiss of death for conversion rates. With today’s audiences, it’s not enough to launch with a solid hook – you need to move your copy forward by focusing on primary messages instead of taking the reader down rabbit trails that have minimal value for your audience.
• Strategic Vocabulary. Certain words have the ability to connect with readers on an emotional and motivational level. For example, in old school advertising, phrases like “special” and “limited time” were often used to motivate readers to take immediate action. Although specific terminology varies according to context and objective, it’s important to strategically (and economically) sprinkle “urgent” vocabulary throughout your copy.
• Clear Conversion Paths. Conversion paths are fundamental in motivating readers to action. From an urgency angle, a clear conversion path involves a lot more than a highly visible call to action. The entire flow and composition of the piece is a conversion path, a step-by-step process that creates urgency, connects with readers and guides audiences toward targeted brand objectives.

About this contributor: Tim Morral is a Senior Copywriter with Walker Sands.

As a Senior Copywriter, Tim brings more than a decade of PR, web and marketing copy experience to the Walker Sands team. From web copy to white papers (and everything in between), Tim specializes in creating content that generates sales, builds brand reputation and drives strategic outcomes for Walker Sands clients.

Source: http://www.walkersands.com/Blog/write-now-creating-urgency-in-pr-marketing-copy/

2 months ago I put up a survey to blog readers and newsletter readers. I asked what content people were interested in that I could create from you.

From that we have released software, lots of free videos, and done webinars.

But one particular top we got a TON of questions on was local marketing.

But it was a big mix between people who were business owners looking to learn more and people who were looking to offer services to local businesses.

If you’re an affiliate looking to make money working with local business owners
or if you’re a local business owner who wants a flood of new customers then this if for YOU.

I have a few simple questions for you below, just click on the link that’s for you.

- BUSINESS OWNERS – What’s your biggest problem when it comes to getting new customers?

- AFFILIATES- What’s your biggest problem when it comes to doing local affiliate marketing?

Once you give me your opinion in the survey above, I’m going to put together a KILLER report
showing you exactly what you want to know…

So click one of the links above and fill out the quick 1 page survey.

About the author…

Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/shoemoney/~3/TUSeKZNaP2I/