Happy Holidays From TopRank Online Marketing

We celebrate and appreciate the opportunity to have you as party of our online community, and look forward to our mutual success in 2013 and beyond.  You can now “Optimize” your own holiday card!  The first 5 people to comment on this post or share a tweet of their TopRank holiday card will win a free copy of Optimize by Lee Odden.

Make Your Own Holiday Card!

Google Facebook Take on Patent Trolls
Google recently joined forces with Facebook, Dell, and Intuit to try and restrict the validity of certain patents issued by the United States.  This filing is meant to determine if a company should be able to secure a patent for an “abstract idea” concerning financial intermediation implemented with a computer.  Via Inc.

21 Hilarious Tweets for the End of the World
Hopefully the world has not already ended by the time this post is published!  Many people have taken to the Twitterspehere and shared their comedic take on the impending Mayan apocalypse.  Via Mashable.

Mobile Web, Apps Driving US Social Media Growth
According to a recent study from NM Incite and Nielsen consumers are spending roughly 20% of their total time online via personal computer and 30% of their time via mobile.  Apparently, social media use on these devices increased by 37% year over year.  Via MarketingProfs.

New Google+ Social Sharing Bar Spotted on the Web
Google’s purchase of Meebo has enabled them to begin testing a Meebo-inspired bar to increase user engagement on Google+.  This new functionality will allow users to chat using Google+ even if they are not on the actual web page.  Via The Next Web.

How to Keep Your Compelling Content Engine Fueled Running Smoothly
This interview with Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Manager of Content Amanda Nelson sheds light on what drives Salesforce’s content machine.  The interview includes insight into tactics, results, and challenges of content marketing.  Via Content Marketing Institute.

TopRank Team News

Miranda Miller – Lessons From Facebook’s Instagram Photo Flap
Instagram pulled an incredibly naughty stunt that may leave a lasting impression on their userbase. There were lumps of coal all around for Instagram staffers, after the social image sharing company infuriated users with a very Facebook-esque privacy policy. In fact, the new policy allowed the sharing of Instagram user data with Facebook, who acquired the company last year, as well as unnamed affiliates and third-parties. Instagram was forced to repeal the new policy as quickly as it was sprung on their users, who until this point, had been almost rabidly loyal to the brand.  Via Time.

Jolina Pettice – Facebook Gets Into Local Search With “Facebook Nearby” For iOS Android
Facebook taps into Local Search; here’s what it means for consumers and businesses: (Via Search Engine Land)

• Consumers – you will be able to search to find local businesses by name or category. Results will be ranked by criteria such as ratings, check-ins, likes and recommendations with your network playing a role.
• Businesses – if you don’t have a page, you won’t show up. Time to think about creating a page and/or updating the one you have to ensure it’s optimized.

Evan Prokop – Preparing For the New LinkedIn Design: How to Optimize Your Page Profile
Are you ready for the new LinkedIn profile design? Optimize your personal and business profiles to get the best results from LinkedIn with this helpful guide.  Via Social Media Examiner.

Mike Odden – Chrome Backlink Analyzer
Majestic SEO has created pretty cool and free Chrome Extension, that allows you to see back link data from the page you are looking at.  It also has a number of tools available including their Flow metrics data.  No account is needed to use this extension. It can be downloaded from the Chrome Store.  Via Majestic SEO.

Mike Yanke – There Was A Big Google Update This Week!…Wait – No There Wasn’t
A combination of chatter and weirdly fluctuating search results this week led many to believe that a big Google Panda update pushed live sometime around the 13. A Google spokesperson speaking to Search Engine Land, however, indicated that there was no update that they at Google ‘were aware of.’  Read more about this potentially conspiratorial non-update / update in this Search Engine Land coverage.

Rob Bayne – Estimating the Impact of iOS 6 Organic Search Data Loss Relabeling
This article highlights how users can better understand the traffic coming from newer Apple devices running iOS 6, specifically highlighting how search from Safari is now secure.  Also included is a description of this issue in some technical depth, and includes a segment on how to generate traffic estimates. Via Search Engine Watch.

Brian Larson – Google Ramps Up User Feedback Testing
There are MANY factors that influence Google’s search algorithm that will never be known, but one factor that is known as user feedback. That is, how an actual person experiences and rates content. Well, Google is now developing additional user feedback tests (user tests have been in-place for some time) to better understand which pages visitors prefer. Learn more about this new test in this post from Search Engine Land.

Time to Weigh In: Do you think that a company should be able to secure a patent for an abstract idea?  If you could only share one more tweet before the world ended what would it be?  Does the clear rise in consumers use of mobile devices for social media impact your online marketing strategy?

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One of the most common issues companies seem to grapple with as they get pulled, kicking and screaming, into a content focused world of digital marketing is content creation.

Of course, anyone with half a brain can create information, but “content” implies usefulness or utility. Content has purpose and content marketing is meaningful information designed to be useful for a certain audience with the intention of inspiring an outcome or action. A lot of companies are creating information, not content, under the label of “content marketing”.

Giselle Abramovich recently posted an interesting article in Digiday, Why Brands Struggle With Content Creation, that really represents some of the most common issues brands like Nestle, AARP, Kellog, Cisco and Capri Sun have with content creation. This post will outline those common challenges and share tips on how to fix.

Challenge 1: “Quality content at a pace that “feeds the beast” of socially relevant content is challenging.”

Sustained content of quality is one of the most common challenges companies encounter with a “brand as publisher” approach to digital marketing. In fact, many companies resist initiating more robust content creation efforts due to the fear that content quality cannot be maintained.

The reasons for not being able to sustain high quality content range from lack of resources for creation to issues with planning, internal approval and not tapping into readily available content sources.

Solution for Sustained Content Quality: Companies that lead their content creation efforts with the brand agenda will inevitably run out of interesting things to say. Customer and community focused content marketers tap into customer insight and develop a content strategy that is not only designed to provide segmented customer groups with useful information throughout the sales cycle, but continues to engage in the community to mine topics, measure content impact and “optimize” content marketing tactics and topical themes.

Front line staff like Customer Service and Sales are consulted for the most common or difficult questions which can inspire editorial. As long as the brand is connected to the feet on the ground of their community, they will never run out of useful, interesting and impactful things to say. That is the way to sustain content quality.

Challenge 2: ”Blurring of the line between content creation and journalism - workflow, marketing and job descriptions.”

It’s a new world for companies to hire Corporate Journalists and Brand Editors. Companies are hiring journalists as fast as they can find them and many marketing , PR and communications departments are challenged in finding the right processes and staffing.

Solution for Corporate Editorial Marketing Workflow:  This is a tall order, but one of the first things I would recommend is to pick up Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose’s book, “Managing Content Marketing“. It’s literally a whole book that answers this question.  Another book to check out from a strategic content perspective would be “Content Strategy for the Web” by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach, which will help you audit, plan and design workflow.

Challenge 3: ”Being able to create breakthrough content and still have the budget to fund distributing that content.”

As I like to say, great content isn’t great unless people can find and share it. A lot of brands run into the budget issue because they rely so heavily on advertising or paid inclusion/advertorial to get content exposure. Leaving SEO best practices and not incorporating social media networks as part of content sourcing and amplification is literally creating a disadvantage to the competition that is employing those practices.

The focus on campaigns and making a splash with a specified start and stop for content marketing efforts results in high initial promotional costs for advertising content and leaves a lot of value that can come from the long term, unrealized.

Solution for Content Creation AND Promotion Within Budget:  Content promotion must be “baked in” to the content creation process.  It’s simply naive to think creating great content and paying for traffic alone will achieve marketing and business objectives. At least not within budget. Community development, social networking and media as well as industry and public relations are essential for companies that want to improve the reach of their content investments.

Understanding the dynamics of influential communities, individual centers of influence and end consumer information consumption preferences can help brands make smarter choices about content formats and media types. Advertising, PR, social media, email, SEO and other means can be employed appropriately to introduce, promote and amplify brand content investments.   Tactics like sequenced content leaves communities in anticipation of what the brand will publish next, inspiring social shares and organic, earned amplification that costs nothing and pays huge dividends.

Check out books by: Ann Handley and C.C. Chapan “Content Rules” and of course “Optimize” for step by step guides on planning, implementing and measuring high impact, efficient cost content marketing.

Challenge 4: ”Balancing adding value to the consumer and communicating your brand message. Creating both consumer-relevant and brand-building content.”

How to sell without selling is another common concern with companies that want to use content more effectively to reach customer acquisition and revenue goals.  Increased investment in content creation brings higher expectations of performance, so there’s pressure for content marketing efforts to result in immediate conversions or other business outcomes.

Solution for Brand Content Customers Will Love:  Start by figuring out what customers and influencers care about. What are their goals and pain points? What are the information trends? Then figure out what stories you can tell that illustrate consumer-centric value while including brand messaging at the same time. Understanding customer interests and storytelling are the key to creating brand content customers will love.

Give customers and influencers what they want and the brand will get the business outcomes they’re being held accountable for. Brands that create value around the reasons why customers would buy vs. focusing on trying to covertly “sell” within content will build goodwill, brand awareness and brand preference.

Challenge 5:  ”Getting buy-in to our approach to content creation from our peers.”

Introducing a content centric approach that focuses on storytelling and creating value before expecting sales from consumers is a pretty big minshift for a lot of corporate marketers. Not being able to see immediate returns or a cause and effect ROI as you would with advertising or direct marketing can leave peers feeling unconvinced of the value increased content creation will bring.

Solution For Converting Legacy Mindsets to a Content Focused Perspective: Legacy mindsets about content’s role in marketing is an obstacle that can be overcome through education, showing value and making meaningful connections between the outcomes of content and goals for the overall business. This is easier said than done, of course, but it’s  important to know that organizational change is a long term commitment.  Also, that commitment means understanding what those peers value and communicating how your content creation approach will help them achieve those goals.

For example, if you can show how mining customer service questions into a keyword optimized and socially sharable FAQ leads to an increase web traffic for that content and a reduction in customer support calls and customer service web requests, you can probably get more Customer Service department support.

These are all reasonable struggles that top brands are having with content creation. I doubt they are much different than the challenges most companies face with increased demand for content creation.

What are some of the top challenges with content creation that you’ve faced? Are they industry specific? What about variances with media, such as the increased popularity of visual content?

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Wouldn’t it be awesome to have your own army of word-of-mouth marketers, standing by for deployment at your beck and call?

A handful of brands have been able to count on their most loyal fans to act as brand advocates for years. Remember the die-hard Coke vs. Pepsi fan wars in the 80s and 90s? There was no convincing a fan of one he should try the other; he would shout his preference from the rooftop to whomever would listen.

Social media has taken these brand advocates of days gone by, given them each a megaphone and shot them full of espresso and steroids. Your most loyal fans are now exponentially louder, more influential, and able to spread the word about your brand just as quickly as they can thumb-type a status update or tweet.

Starbucks is one of the more recognizable brands known for delighting social customers and building brand advocates, since long before it was the latest cool thing to do. Two years ago, I taught a Facebook marketing course and remember using them as a model for successful loyalty building in social even then. Just last month, chief digital officer Adam Brotman announced that Starbucks cards are now used in approximately 25% of the company’s U.S. transactions and that the amount of dollars loaded on Starbucks cards increased by more than 20 percent last year. These are very real, tangible business benefits.

Yet your company doesn’t have to rake in billions per year to win over brand advocates. Across the board, for organizations big and small, people are becoming more willing to stick their neck out and speak well of the brands they love.

Attract New Fans by Consistently Delivering Awesome

Though many companies still struggle to measure the effect of social media on their bottom line, repeat business and average revenue per order are simple metrics to track. A recent study on orthopedic surgeons’ brand loyalty, for example, found that 60% are loyal to one brand of knee implants, whereas 40% are loyal to two or more brands. Just 1% of brand-loyal orthopedic surgeons switch brands within a year. These B2B consumers are fiercely loyal and advocate for the brand they prefer by driving hospital purchasing decisions.

Of course, you can reasonably expect orthopedic surgeons are most apt to be loyal to the company that provides the best quality product and therefore experience for the doctor’s customers (patients). Starbucks, too, built their business on the back of their product quality. This is just as attainable for small businesses.

 

Take Lauren Lilling, New York entrepreneur and founder of Keep It Sweet Desserts, for example. Lilling has well over 1,000 fans on each of her social accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. She’s also a pro in engaging fans and converting them to advocates, but how does a one-woman show attract such attention in a sea of competing bakeries, many of which operate right in her own city? Quite simply, she turns out a stellar product. Lilling attracts not only customers, but fans of her product, by consistently delivering awesome.

Listen, Connect and Engage

This is where it gets really exciting, where savvy brands can begin to build lasting relationships with the people who will become their most vocal champions. You have a great product or service, fans are reaching out to you, people are curious about your brand and connecting to your social profiles… are you listening?

In 2011, Google held their inaugural Global Top Contributors Summit at their headquarters in Mountain View, California. Top Contributors (TCs) are unpaid, non-employee Google forum participants across Google’s various product forums. These are the people who tirelessly answer questions, solve problems, moderate and generally point other users in the right direction on Google’s forums. Of course, Google staffs these forums as well (each has a Community Manager), yet bringing TCs into the fold by giving them a name and rewarding their loyalty allowed the tech giant to build its thriving forums community.

Google’s Alan Eustace speaks to participants at the first Global Top Contributors Summit (image: Google AdWords Blog)

This particular event was designed to reward TCs for their investment in Google products, seek their feedback and offer educational resources to help them become more effective brand advocates. My friend Jennifer (Lysis) was invited to attend, as a TC in Google’s Webmaster Help forum.

Alongside dozens of Google’s other advocates, she was flown to a two-day, all expenses paid event in Mountain View. Jennifer met the other TCs she had been interacting with online for years, alongside the Google Community Managers they worked closely with, yet had never actually met. She was able to participate in product demos, social events, panel discussions and more.

Talk about engaging your fans! “It definitely made me more loyal,” she shared. “I’ve been able to understand their side of things and I know that they really do try to make a good product. I’ve seen the “softer” side of this big business; the company became more human to me.”

Google offers these most loyal advocates additional benefits, as well; she has received a Chromebook, Google swag, and is regularly given early access to new products for beta testing. As a brand advocate, Jennifer has an open line of communication to Community Managers and feels her input is valued.

You don’t need to fly your fans to the coast to engage them and show that you’re actively listening. Once upon a time, Google’s incredibly active forums were just a twinkle in their eye. That their community is as active as it is now is one of the older and better examples of a truly great outcome from listening to and engaging your fans.

Convert Fans to Advocates

This conversion of fans to advocates is really the reward for consistently delivering awesome, listening attentively, and engaging fans in a meaningful way. Conversion in relationship building is not formulaic, as in paid search marketing, nor is it easily optimized. How do you split test authentic conversations? How do you optimize a human being to take the actions you desire?

No, converting fans to advocates isn’t a tactic or a strategy; it’s not even the end game in your brand advocacy program. These relationships require nurturing over their lifetime. When you take that time, though, the benefits to your business can be both tangible and impressive.

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Dave Cynkin Rick Calvert Photo Credit: New Media Expo (NMX)

In college I had a diverse group of friends, people that represented different interests and common experiences which made my time during those years a lot more fulfilling. Even better was that these different groups all came together fairly regularly for a themed event at a local watering hole. Connecting with diverse interests in a meaningful way has been a tremendous business advantage to this day.

When I attended my first BlogWorld conference in 2008, it was a similar experience in that there was a convergence of different groups: from new media/bloggers to public relations, to internet marketers to brands and business owners.  The common experience of using blogs and digital content as a communication platform has brought a lot of people together in a way like few conferences have. I’ve made some of the most meaningful connections for my business and personal growth through BlogWorld, now known as NMX.

The two guys behind NMX are are of course, Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin, who I am eternally thankful for. They’ve built a community and a conference that is really something special. They’re such good guys that just weeks before the huge NMX event coming up, they took the time to do an interview about who NMX is for, practical social media advice and future predictions.

Congratulations on NMX! You’ve continued to expand and develop the event each year. When I first attended it was really focused on blogging, but NMX is more of an overall content conference. What’s driving that evolution and change?

Rick: Many people don’t realize the event’s name was “BlogWorld New Media Expo” When we first announced it in 2006. I really think Twitter had a big part in people just shortening the name to “BlogWorld”. Those 140 characters force you to be brief. Still there was definitely a much heavier focus on blogging because back then blogging was the term people heard every day in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. Podcasting was really strong back then two but it was a much smaller community of content creators than bloggers simply due to the fact that it was a bit harder to start a podcast than to start a blog. I litterally started my first blog in five minutes.

Really in the last year you have seen this explosion on WebTV and video and Podcasting is experiencing a new renaissance. I think you can attribute that to the technology making it so much easier for people to create content in those two areas. For video YouTube has been the single biggest influence on the growth. It is just so easy for people to distribute their video content and for their audience to consume it. WebTV is about to explode. That’s why you see groups like IAWTV emerging.

We changed the name in June to reflect how podcasting, WebTV and video were becoming a much larger part of the show.

Dave: Thanks Lee! As Rick mentioned, in the beginning, the event was called BlogWorld New Media Expo, and incorporated all forms of new media content. But, no matter what the official name was, everyone just shortened it to BlogWorld in conversation and that’s how it’s been referred to over the years (until we shortened the name to New Media Expo in 2012–NMX for short). We wanted it to be obvious that the industry’s big event is about all new media, so this was the logical solution.

Looking back, this has always been a multi-faceted content event. Podcasting leader Leo Laporte gave the opening keynote at our launch event in ’07. Matt Mullenweg and Mark Cuban gave keynote talks about blogging. Gary Rosenweig taught his Secrets of Great Video Production. There was a single YouTube presentation that first year; YouTube was less than two years old. And there was this thing many of us tried that first year called Twitter…

Our mission has always been to help content creators become more knowledgeable and successful, so the changes we’ve made have really been a reflection of attendees’ needs and the industry changes we see in motion. We work hard to bring some very smart people to teach in the conference, aimed at giving the community the jump on emerging industry trends in online publishing and broadcasting. That’s what drives the evolution of the event; the knowledge content creators ask for…we just do our best to listen and bring what’s needed in one place.

Who is NMX for and what can attendees expect? What makes NMX different?

Dave: NMX is for content creators. Bloggers, podcasters, web TV video creators. It’s for businesses too–everyone needs to tell a story, bring it to life. But it all starts with great content, so the creators are the core.

Attendees can expect to learn. A lot!

What makes NMX different? It’s a big, diverse snapshot of what’s happening globally in content, communities and social. We’ve had attendees from over 50 countries, all different genres of content focus… emerging niche bloggers to podcasting pros, video bloggers to web TV series producers with millions of viewers…It feels like a content creator world’s fair. So many interesting and talented people, each with great stories to tell and many leaders you’ve never met, until you get there!

Rick: First and foremost we are not a technology event or a “social media” conference. We are a content event. Our core mission is to help content creators succeed. That includes anyone distributing content on the web; bloggers, podcasters, WebTV and video.

I’ve noticed that you’ve been able to attract some real heavyweights in the industry to speak like Guy Kawasaki, Ann Handley, Mitch Joel, Robert Scoble and Dana White from the UFC. You’ve also included a large number of speakers that are highly talented and with deep expertise that are not so well known. How do you manage the mix of big names with introducing new or up and coming speakers?

Rick: We work really hard ha ha. One of the things our community loves about the show is that we are always exposing them to talented people they may have never seen before. I love reminding Robert Scoble how many people have never heard of him. He is one of the biggest technology bloggers in the world but at New Media Expo he is just another content creators to many of our attendees and so they approach him differently than a fanboy of his might at CES or SXSW or other tech focused event.

Dave: Interesting that you asked that. I spoke with a major journalist recently who had no idea who Dana White was. I’m a big fight fan, so that was pretty shocking at first, but it’s no different than what happens at our event. Rock star bloggers in one microcosm meet podcasters, bloggers or video creators from another–and they’d never heard of each other before. The new media world is a big place, and when these microcosms overlap at this event, you begin to realize that the big names are part of a much, much larger world. That’s pretty exciting if you think about it.

Even though social and content have helped create a world of information overload online, quality advice from people “who know” is more important than ever. What practical advice can you share as a fast growing company to other businesses out there trying to decide where blogging, podcasting, online TV and social media fit in their mix? How important is social to the future growth for most businesses?

Dave: Wow, this is a huge question, Lee. Social is critical for every business. It’s as simple as asking yourself when you start a coffee shop “How important is it that I talk to my customers every day, to find out if they like the coffee I’m making for them?” Customers have all embraced social, and they’re having conversations online continually, so if you’re going to know your customer and best serve their needs, there is no question as a company you must be where those conversations take place. If you’re not talking with your customers, somebody else is. My practical advice for businesses is this: The only way to understand how to give real value to your customer is to talk with them, and listen to them. Social isn’t tech, social is relationships. Get the tech you need to connect, start, maintain, and grow relationships with your customers, and make it a part of your business ethos. That’s the only way you’ll know if you’re making the coffee right, or if you need to change flavors.

Rick: There is no doubt social media in all forms is going to become a larger part of everyone’s business regardless of what kind of product they sell. The first thing to do is realize that. No one is insulated from this. Once you know that, the sooner you start learning about the dynamics of social media the sooner you can apply what works specifically to your business to give you a competitive edge. Some people will tell you everyone needs to be blogging or creating video but I certainly disagree. You can’t just write or broadcast commercials for your product and the truth is not everyone has a good story to tell or they don’t know how to tell their story well. What everyone can do is listen and react. You can monitor what your customers and prospects are saying about you and help amplify the positives, address and hopefully fix the negatives. Any business that doesn’t at least do that is really sticking their head in the sand.

The new year is almost upon us, any predictions on the state of social media and content in 2013? What bubbles do you think will pop and what do you see as breakout technologies, platforms or ideas?

Rick: WebTV and Podcasting are both going to grow exponentially in 2013. The other gigantic need we all have is for quality filters. There is so much content out there now, we need to be able to easily sort through the irrelevant stuff and find those amazing bits. There are thousands of tech geeks out there trying to figure that one out right now.

Dave: I think mobile publishing, mobile video capture and streaming from consumer devices is going to surge. Mobile device usage is overtaking desktops and laptops rapidly. We’re going to see a continual explosion of mobile content sharing and consumption–and the little phones we carry around will become more and more powerful as personal media portals. Laptop sales will drop. Tablets will rise further. No surprises.

Companies will be able to learn more about their customers through easier-to-access social analytics, but most of the biggies will still stumble with engagement due to the lack of understanding that relationships are driven by people and personal engagement at the core, not tools. Small companies will keep kicking big companies’ tails with social, as the C-level in small business is closer to the customer.

I’m very curious to see how Google and Facebook will compete with one another for social platform users. And how Twitter will evolve to get users and companies to potentially think of it as their main platform instead of an accessory. And what the new My Space will become versus what it once was. It’s going to be an interesting 2013. I think we’re in for a big battle of the social superpowers.

Thanks Rick and Dave!

You can find out more on the January 6-8, 2013 NMX conference here, which includes major tracks for Blogging, Podcasting, Web TV Video and Social Business. You can find both Rick and Dave on the social web here:

Rick Calvert
Twitter: @blogworld
LinkedIn
Facebook

Dave Cynkin
Twitter:  @dave_blogworld
LinkedIn
Facebook

TopRank Online Marketing is a media sponsor for NMX so be sure to follow us on Twitter @TopRank for tweets during the conference and liveblogging from TopRank staff. We’re also producing an eBook,”Tips from the New Media Rat Pack”, with practical advice from NMX speakers and TopRank Marketing smarties on Blogging, Branding, Content Marketing, New Media Law, Mobile, Podcasting, Social Media, Video, Tools and Thought Leadership.

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With 9 out of 10 B2B marketers counting on content marketing tactics in their mix, it’s no wonder content marketing is getting so much attention on blogs, in traditional media and on the social web.

Along with the increased popularity of content, opportunists have begun aligning themselves with the topic of “content marketing”, even though their offering is only remotely related. As it was with websites in the 1990′s, SEO in the early 2000′s, social media over the past 5 years, so-called experts have begun pontificating advice based on thin air, obscure experiences and self interest.

To help our readers distill the signal from the noise, here are 3 myths about content marketing and how they are busted to give companies a clearer picture of reality when it comes to effective content marketing.

Myth 1: “Content Marketing” Simply Means Creating MORE Content

A misperception for many marketers new to the field of content marketing is that adding more content leads to improved business outcomes. When Google launched its Panda Update to filter out poor quality and thin content from search results, many members of the SEO community clamored to produce more content for the search engine rather than information focused qualitatively on the consumer intended to read it.

Myth Busted: Quality, not quantity rules the day when it comes to high value, high impact content marketing. But there’s nothing like a quantity of quality to win the week, month and year.  Content Marketing is based on creating useful information that meets the needs of the people the brand is trying to connect with. Relevancy, timeliness, context and utility all combine to create incredibly productive content marketing efforts. More is not better.

Myth 2: Quality Content is Not Sustainable

Fear of not being able to maintain high levels of content production is a reasonable concern, but not for companies that are connected to sources that matter most: their customers.  Companies that fear running out of interesting things to say have bigger issues to solve than writing their next blog post. 16% of the daily queries on Google have never been seen before, so there is plenty of opportunity to diversify key topics with empathy towards the voice of the customer.

Myth Busted: Connect with frontline customer service and sales staff to uncover important questions that, when answered, can lead to improved consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy within your market. Tapping into the themes and topics of importance to our community means you will never run out of meaningful ideas for your content creation efforts.

Myth 3: A Content Object Has Only One Life

Many companies approach content marketing by publishing singular content objects and promoting through channels of distribution like email, RSS, PR, advertising and social media. The investment in time and money into just one instance of a key story or message is akin to throwing money away and leaving the rest on the table for your competition.

Myth Busted: Content planning should include the repurposing of evergreen and co-created content. Break big topics down into a series to attract attention and inspire anticipation for the next content object. That means a series of blog posts, infographics, webinars, whitepapers, press releases, videos or case studies. Then repurpose those content objects into new forms to give your audience information in a format that better connects with their information consumption preferences.

Content used for marketing purposes only works when it’s useful to the people who consume, share and act on it.  Without fears or misperceptions in the way businesses can achieve a 360 degree array of benefits including awareness, interest, consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy with a thoughtful approach to content marketing.

This post is the first in a three part series where I’ll touch on common myths that are polluting perceptions of incredibly effective marketing tactics like content marketing, SEO and Social Media. These posts are also a preview to my presentation at BlogWorld’s BusinessNext conference January 8th (Tuesday) at the Rio in Las Vegas.

Here’s the official session description:

War of Words: Myth-Busting Social, SEO Content

This just in: “SEO is Dead”, “There is no ROI in Social Media” and many other proclamations are made in industry press and on blogs just about every week. And yet investment in social, search and content are all on the rise. Why the disconnect? From pageview journalism to egomaniacal SEO superstar wannabe’s, sweeping generalizations and out of context observations have created a number of myths about these highly effective online marketing channels.

This presentation will identify and bust the most common myths about SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing plus provide attendees with examples of how an integrated approach will win the battle and the war for more customers, better engagement and online marketing success.

Takeaways:

• Distinguish fact from fiction about social, SEO and Content Marketing
• Discover a model for integration that gets results
• See examples of modern social, SEO content in action

As always, those that liveblog the session can get a free copy of Optimize as will the top 2 people who livetweet.  I hope to see you there! (Registration info)

What are some of the biggest “myths” you’ve heard about content marketing? Any suggestions for myth-busting about SEO or social media?

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8 Deadly Sins of Site Design

This recent infographic from Nexus Themes targets 8 common mistakes that drive customers away from your website.  These sins include:

• Bad Navigation
• Too Many Ads
• Bad Content Structure
• Obtrusive Use of Audio Video
• Registration Requirement
• Boring Content, Boring Design
• Poor Legibility
• Lack of Frequency

Yahoo Has More Users Than Gmail – Introduces A Faster, Cleaner Email Interface
Yahoo has begun pouring effort into updating their email platform across all platforms.  A more modern design is being implemented in hopes of attracting users to actually use their Yahoo! Mail account, instead of using it as a repository for junk mail.  Via Marketing Pilgrim.

First Look At Google+ Communities: The Importance For Brands, Search and PR
If you have used Facebook or LinkedIn Groups for business, you’ll be interested in Google+’s new feature.  Communities is another step by Google towards building authority around individuals related to a particular subject.  Via Econsultancy.

Twitter Adds Instagram-Like Photo Filters
Last week Instagram pulled Twitter Cards support from its app, meaning that users who shared  their images were relegated to simple links.  Twitter has teamed up with Aviary to provide it’s own series of photo filters.  Via Mashable.

For Email Marketers, List Segmentation Is a Top Priority
Finding a way to harness big data is a priority for many digital marketers.  For email marketers, segmenting consumers based on a series of characteristics and finding ways to target those consumers is no longer a stretch goal, it’s a reality.   Via eMarketer.

TopRank Team News

Evan Prokop – Traveling in Australia?  Don’t Use Apple Maps, or You May Die, Warn Australian Police
Apple Maps has garnered plenty of criticism since its launch, but the recent warnings from Australian police are certainly the most severe.  Due to incorrect directions, several people have been led to remote areas far from access to food and water, leading Australian police to advise against relying on the service.  Via Search Engine Watch.

Jolina Pettice – 5 Ways Social Media Will Change The Way You Work in 2013
Last year 73% of Fortune 500 companies were active on Twitter. What does 2013 hold for social media and business? Read on to find out.  Via Forbes.

Thom Craver – Google Makes Structured Data Easy with Data Highlighter
Rich Snippets are an excellent way to provide semantic data to search engines. In practice, however, it has been a tedious and technical process to implement.  Google Webmaster Tools has added a new tool to help make the process easier by highlighting text on a page. It only works for events at the moment, but it’s a good start.  Via State of Search.

Brian Larson – It’s Not Just for Landing Pages – Split Testing In Twitter
While most marketers don’t need to be sold on the benefit of conducting AB or multivariate tests on their webpages, very few are taking that scientific approach to social. The first question to ask re this epidemic  (that may be overly dramatic) is ‘Why’.  I’d venture to guess the reason is that most marketers have not developed the processes to address the ‘How’. Luckily, Social Media Examiner has the laid out the game plan to address that very question.  Via Social Media Examiner.

Rob Bayne – Social Media and the Boardroom: Much Work Remains
The role of business and social media has changed from something only the online marketing department was concerned about, to something that impacts companies in a multitude of ways.  Only 14% of companies are regularly engaged in monitoring social media sentiment, is yours one?  Via Social Media Today.

Mike Odden – Arrests Over $850M Facebook Botnet Crime Spree
10 suspects in a Facebook cybercrime ring have been arrested in the US  UK and other countries  around the world.  Facebook users had been targeted since 2010.  Via BBC.

Miranda Miller – U.S. Online Holiday Spending Approaches $27 Billion
Online spending is up again this year, continuing a steady year-over-year growth trend as more consumers take to doing their holiday shopping online. comScore reports $26.6 billion has been spent in the first 37 days of the 2012 holiday shopping season, up 13% over the same period last year.  Via Comscore.

Mike Yanke – Holiday Traditions Falls As NORAD To Track Santa With Bing Maps
A long-standing holiday tradition, dating back five years now, will fall in 2012 as NORAD’s Santa Tracking will be supported by Bing Maps rather than Google.  Does this mean that Bing Maps are emerging as victorious in the online map wars – or does it mean that Google hates Christmas?  Because it can only be one or the other, after all.  Search Engine Land reports.

Time to Weigh In: Do you think that a site redesign is enough to get Yahoo! Mail users to spend more time on the platform?  Have you begun testing Google+ Communities for your business?  Have you ever run an A/B test on a social network?  What were the results?

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As a business journalist, I looked forward to information from a handful of specific sources each quarter. In fact, my quarterly e-commerce reports would wait until each of these select few companies, from whom I had come to expect great information, released their data. I relied on these sources for fantastic written and visual content our readers appreciated.

Now, when you have journalists and readers actually waiting on and looking forward to your content, isn’t that a massive win for your brand?

This is the power of sequenced content. Your audience comes to expect a certain type of product from you with each new installment. They subscribe to your RSS feed so they won’t miss it. They follow you in social channels to catch that first tweet once it’s released. They absolutely cannot wait to see what you’re coming up with next!

One of the greatest practitioners I know in generating buzz and anticipation for the next piece of his puzzle is Larry Kim, from WordStream. What is sequenced content, exactly? Kim explains it as, “a full content marketing campaign, typically consisting of original research, which is then followed by a sequence of follow-up articles which cover the same topic from a different angle.”

WordStream Discovers the Power of Original Research

WordStream has generated millions of pageviews over the last four years, having published approximately two thousand unique, original articles. Incredibly, 50% of that traffic was derived from his Top 10 performing sequenced article campaigns alone!

In May of this year, around the time of the Facebook IPO, Kim and his team at WordStream released a study on Facebook Advertising that suggested Facebook Display advertising doesn’t work. He turned his original research into a professionally designed infographic to make his information visually appealing and easy to share. In order to keep the story going, Kim then wrote a series of follow-up posts, such as Why I Bought Facebook IPO Shares and Why I Dumped My Facebook Shares, from a business angle.

Another of his sequenced content campaigns delivers data points on the most lucrative keywords in Google’s paid advertising arsenal and is a perennial favorite with media and readers.

Follow-up stories are incredibly helpful, says Kim, in that they have driven thousands of additional page views, social shares and links to the original study, in his experience. He had even more media inquiries from journalists looking to interview people who had recently bought or sold Facebook shares.

Kim has invested millions in publishing original research. Is he some kind of saint, altruistically out to help his fellow marketer with his company’s data and insights? Does he want to be famous author? No, he uses sequenced content to help establish thought leadership, build brand recognition and ultimately drive sales for WordStream. Numbers don’t lie; Kim’s sequenced content has earned his company:

• thousands of social media shares, including over 1,000 tweets and almost as many Likes on the Facebook Advertising example above,
• a significant presence in major news sources and business/technology publications,
• hundreds of thousands of blog visitors per month,
• increased organic traffic to the website,
• and a greater volume of more relevant, better converting leads for their software products, AdWords Grader and 20 Minute PPC Work Week.

Take a page from Larry’s book with these best practices for sequenced content campaigns:

• Produce original, interesting research or analysis.
• Stay relevant to your audience and target market by offering content closely related to your product or service.
• Seek out hot topics and become the news.
• Make it easy and fun for readers to share your content with their social contacts.
• Stay on point; set out to prove one concept or idea and keep your work tightly tied to that idea.

TopRank Rocks Social Media with Curation and Networking

I’m still relatively new to TopRank Online Marketing, but one of the main reasons I was inspired to join the team is their brilliant content marketing strategy. For the past three years, TopRank has published the 25 Women Who Rock Social Media series, with excellent reception.

Each year’s winners nominate the next year’s candidates. This content creation strategy accomplishes a number of really awesome objectives in one fell swoop:

• Celebrating the successes of others is great PR and a fantastic networking opportunity.
• Industry influencers have a vested interest in promoting the content.
• The entire collection of content is highly relevant to a marketing audience.
• Readers anticipate and look forward to the next installation.

TopRank’s free visual e-book series is another example of the power of sequenced content in practice.  The title “B2B Marketing Innovation” alone has been viewed almost 60,000 times! Our Content Marketing Secrets eBook has just as many views and has been embedded 71 times, creating an even greater opportunity for new sets of eyes to reach our content.

TopRank’s tips for winning sequenced content campaigns:

• Act as a curator of awesome, celebrating the successes of others, for influencer buy-in and increased exposure.
• Focus on one format and do it incredibly well.
• Repurpose content and build out your content marketing campaign by writing a blog post about your e-book, sharing snippets in social channels, etc.

There are a number of other companies excelling in sequenced content creation and I’m running out of room! More and more, we see smaller companies acting as publishers and using these strategies to create original, interesting content, or curate and repurpose to win views, social shares and leads for their products and services. Success in content marketing isn’t reserved for bigger brands; focusing on building a series of content can actually help you focus and build campaigns you can easily scale.

Do you know of a brand, large or small, killing it with sequenced content that gets social shares and wins targeted leads? Share your favorites in the comments.

Image via Shutterstock.

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As consumers we make a few large priced purchases that we remember and many small cost items here and there.  For the larger items we expect personalized care and service, whereas the smaller purchases may be out of our mind just as quickly as we’ve purchased them.

There is another category and those are the purchases that we make each month, without even thinking about it.  Subscription based services are great, you get your service when you want it, your account is auto charged each month, it’s pretty awesome.  Until of course it stops working.

You may have had the same experience as I have where you call, furious that your cable or Internet stopped working and reach an automated system, or are put on hold for what feels like hours.  Fortunately, social media has provided an opportunity for these seemingly “unreachable” companies to help customers in need.

In this post you’ll find three examples of subscription based companies that are using social media to answer the questions and concerns of their customers and keep them up to date on what’s new.  Any company looking to better connect with customers can look to these organizations for ways to communicate properly with consumers using social media.

Sprint

Sprint uses the handle @sprintcare on Twitter to answer customer questions and field issues.  The level of personality that comes through in their tweets feels very genuine and compassionate towards the problems of their customers.  They even go so far as to use the initials of the person providing information at the end of each tweet.  This way consumers are assured that they are getting help from a “real person” and not just from someone nameless within the organization.

Sprint’s Facebook page provides easy access to all of the ways customers can connect with the wireless provider as well as insight into some of their customer service team members and frequently asked questions.

Netflix

The majority of inquiries that Netflix receives on their @netflixhelps Twitter account are customers requesting that new titles be added to their content library or loading errors that they are experiencing.  Netflix does a great job of pointing users facing issues to existing content on their website.  For those looking for new titles, Netflix shares that while they have no control over when they receive specific titles, they are currently working with studios to secure the requested content.

While Netflix is not using Facebook to solve customer service issues they are taking the opportunity to inform customers of new titles and specials available on their streaming service package.

SiriusXM Radio

SiriusXM’s Twitter account @sxm_help is run by “Kate” and is focused on helping customers find radio stations they’re looking for and taking suggestions for new channels to add.  As with Sprint customer help, SiriusXM makes a point of interacting with customers in a qualitative way.

SiriusXM doesn’t take any specific customer requests on Facebook but they do point to other helpful resources on Twitter, FAQ’s, and quick access to email them a question or comment.

Whether you’re providing a video service or subscription based marketing services, there is always an opportunity to provide your customers additional care using social media.

What companies have you found to provide good customer service by augmenting their strategy using social media.

Image via Shutterstock.

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When you work in the digital world, there are insightful, smart and good people you “meet” online that you really look forward to meeting in real life.  Ekaterina Walter is one of those people who I finally met at a BlogWorld conference 4 years ago.

Since then “E” has really made her mark as a social innovator at Intel. When I presented at Intel’s first global social media conference a few years ago,  Ekaterina had everyone leaning forward and focused on her approach to enterprise social media. She’s a force to be reckoned with for sure. “E” has continued her advancement and sharing by becoming an author: “Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Today’s guest post outlines Ekaterina’s practical advice on how to publish content on Facebook that results in better engagement with fans. Fan counts mean little if there is no engagement so read these though and put them into action today.  Then pre-order Think Like Zuck to get even more strategic lessons about doing business on the social web.

Besides being a part of the community and hoping to get discounts on your products, information is one of the most important reasons why your customers become your fans on Facebook, follow you on Twitter or engage with you on other networks. So add stickiness to your communities through great content and engaging status updates. Use 80/20 rule: 80% of status updates should provide value to the fan and 20% can be around your products or services.

There is a number of great ways to keep them interested as well as encourage interactions:

1. Share pictures. Pictures, images and photo albums are rather popular with the fans. For example, one of the top five Intel Facebook posts of 2011 wasn’t even technically a post; it was the photo album featuring images of new Intel museum in Santa Clara. In the community of over 4 million people then (now it is over 14 million), the post was liked over 17,000 times with over 1,000 comments.
2. Posting simple to follow how-to videos and useful tips can prove much more effective than posting a link to a specific product or service.
3. Fill in the blank posts are great, because they invite your fans to share their own perspective with you. Example would be “I love technology because _____”
4. Questions. Asking fans to share their story or point of view always is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement on your page. Though simple, this type of post is often overlooked by community managers. “Real or fake?” “What do you think?” “What is your story?” Or just plain “PC or Tablet?” would do.
5. Videos. This one is a no-brainer. Videos, especially the atypical or funny ones, are always welcomed by fans and shared a lot more than links.
6. Holiday wishes. Show the human side of your company by wishing your fans happy holidays throughout the year. Intel’s simple “Happy New Year! Cheers to an amazing 2012!” post garnered over 14,000 likes, over 900 comments and over 140 shares.
7. Celebrate milestones and say thank you. Did you reach an important milestone? Celebrate with the fans! When Intel reached 500,000 fans, 1 million fans, etc. we celebrated on our Intel page by changing the profile picture and thanking our fans for being a part of our amazing community. The response was overwhelming.
8. Encourage mentions, shares, likes. If you want your content shared or your posts to be liked or commented on, ask! Simple “Click Like if you agree” or “What do you think?” would do the trick. Likeable Media study showed that when you ask questions or asked fans to like the update, the engagement rates were up to 6 times greater than regular updates.
9. Offer interesting challenges. Quizzes or trivia questions might be interesting to your fans. Every now and then we post a comment within Intel communities written in binary code (hey, we are geeks and we are proud of it). Our fans/followed love it!
10. Bring experts for weekly chats. Offer an hour every Friday with an expert on a particular topic. Encourage your communities to post questions for your expert to answer in real time and help foster the discussion.
11. Run polls and ask open-ended questions. Your Facebook page is the best focus group out there. It’s free and real time! If you want to know something jusk your fans! And if you run out of ideas or if your content calendar suffers from the “boring bug” just ask your fans what they would like to see on the page and deliver on their expectations.
12. Draw attention to the most engaged members of your communities and share their creations.

Want more great tips? Pre-order “Think Like Zuck” today and receive a free copy of Ekaterina’s 100-page e-book “Social DNA – Becoming a Social Business: a practical guide to social media adoption within any organization” (the above was an excerpt from the e-book). 

For more great Facebook marketing tips, pre-order “Think Like Zuck” today and receive a free copy of Ekaterina’s 100-page e-book “Social DNA – Becoming a Social Business: a practical guide to social media adoption within any organization” (the above was an excerpt from the e-book).

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After an amazing three days at a recent conference, it was time to head back to Minneapolis.

One crucial pre-flight ritual: downloading enough new content to my Kindle Fire to stay entertained during the 3+ hours of flying and airport time.

As I flipped to the Kindle book store, the first place I started was my recommended list. I will say that, overall, I am always pretty impressed by how well Amazon “gets” me.

In less than two minutes I had made my purchase.  Without personalization, faced with the  1 million+ books which are part of the Kindle library, there is a 75% chance I would have never made a purchase at all.

When I think about a company that is personalizing my online experience well, I tend to go right to Amazon. But personalization extends far beyond product recommendations to devices, reviews, calls to actions, and more.  This is a subject which aligns well with TopRank’s approach to optimizing for customers. If many people can find your content through search but it’s not engaging, or if the content is hard to find but highly engaging, no one wins.  Optimizing customer experience and discovery through search is essential for a win all around.

Leveraging personalization for this purpose was the topic of one of the presentations at the conference I attended: “Personalization: Delivering Customer Content to People and Bots” given by Michael DeHaven of Bazaarvoice and Greg Ott of DemandBase.

I was really interested by the idea of moving beyond product recommendations to other types of personalization, Michael DeHaven outlined four types.

Four Types of Online Personalization

#1: Site Wide Personalization

Site wide personalization refers to serving site content which is personalized to my past behavior on the site, as well as other identifying information the site may know about me – like gender, demographics, etc. An example of this would be customizing the Webinar titles I see on the side bar based on webinars I have attended in the past.  A user is much more likely to convert if the content and call to action on the page is customized to them.

#2: Product Recommendations

As mentioned above, personalized product recommendations are pretty standard – although sometimes it’s done really well, and other times it’s not.  One of the best examples of doing this well is Amazon.

#3: Evaluation Personalization

Consumers today are highly likely to make decisions based on reviews.  Consumers hope that reading reviews, rather than just polished marketing speak, will give them the full story on a product or service. However, customers only want to read about 7 reviews.

As marketers we are charged with making people feel like they have received the full story after only seven reviews. This means that the typical strategy for sorting content – recency or votes of helpfulness – is likely not the key to providing the 7 best reviews.

It is best to serve reviews based on factors which are most compelling to users:

• Sufficiently long
• Inclusive of rich media – like images, video, etc.
• Inclusive SEO targeted keyword phrases
• Use of search terms

Personalization in the evaluation phase can have big results. Michael DeHaven shared an upward lift in conversion rate of 4% for big box retailers and hotel/travel businesses.   Of course, different types of reviews were more effective for different types of businesses.   For example, rich media was impactful for the retailer, but  not essential. Images and videos were key to conversion for the hotel/travel industry.

So don’t generalize.  Testing is key to personalization is all phases.

#4: Device Personalization

Personalization goes beyond content and extends to the device.  Delivery is very, very important to conversion rates.   If you don’t personalize the experience of an iPhone, tablet, etc, then you are likely missing an opportunity.

So now that you know the types of personalization – here are four steps to get started from Greg Ott.

4 Steps to Online Personalization

Step 1: Determine who you are Personalizing For

Personalization for every single visitor who consumes your content is difficult and inefficient. The best course of action is to determine who your best customer is and focus on personalizing their experience.

Step 2: Determine What you Know About Them

Once you know who you are targeting, then you flesh out what you know about that customer, from key attributes, 3rd party data, correlation studies, etc.

Types of Attributes:

1. Behavioral  (measures short term interest and intent): includes past purchases, previously views, keywords, traffic sources.
2. Identity based : includes gender, psychographics, company industry size, customer status (existing, competitive, etc.).

Step 3: Decide what to Show

Based on what you know about your customer, then you decide what you will show them. Use optimization tools, AB testing, and predicative modeling in order to optimize your content. This will be an iterative process, continuously optimizing content based on measurement and testing.

Step 4:  Find out if it Works

Use Google Analytics or another testing platform in order to determine if the content is working. Don’t be afraid of bad results.  A test isn’t always going to work, but you should publish the results so that your team can see the benefit of the ongoing process of personalization and optimization.

Personalization makes life so much easier for consumers. With each extra click the consumer has to take in order to take the action they want, the more likely they are to drop out of that funnel.  So look beyond product recommendations and consider all the aspects of a site you can customize and optimize for your customers.

So what’s your verdict on personalization? Convenient or creepy? Have you started personalizing content yet?

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