Putting a Roof Over Your Content Marketing

When we think about content marketing, our thoughts typically turn to articles, blog posts, video, tweets, social media posts on Facebook, press releases – essentially everything external.  While those are all important in terms of content marketing, they are only part of the overall process – your website content has a share in that as well.  That’s why it’s so important for someone to take ownership of your content.

It doesn’t matter how well you strategize, optimized, glamorize, and ‘everything else’-ize your website content, someone has to take ownership of it or it falls into disrepair.  Like an abandoned home, the content within your website begins to lose sync with your external content marketing and will start to look like a run-down property that’s long been left to ruin.

Owning the content on your website isn’t enough though – you need to be excited and passionate about your content marketing.  You need to really recognize the purpose of strong website content within your content marketing campaign and commit to making sure that your content always stays relevant to your target audience. Read the rest of this entry »

Content Syndication – Build Trust When the Traffic Comes Back to You

Content syndication may very well bring traffic flowing back to your site in massive waves but how do your landing pages receive that traffic?  Even if you think that you have a strong sales message and a great opening hook, you need to question whether or not you’re really reducing the friction and anxiety of your prospects when they hit your landing page.  Content syndication can bring the rain but it’s up to you to make sure the crops grow.

Ultimately there are a lot of factors that determine whether or not your target audience is going to convert well (or not) but at the heart of every business transaction there’s a certain level of trust that’s necessary for people to order from you.  Content syndication around quality content is a good start but your landing pages have to reinforce that trust.  Here are 3 ways to build on that trust after the content syndication does its job. Read the rest of this entry »

Climb on the Social Media Marketing and Social Proof Wagon

If you’re involved in marketing and you’ve got your ear to industry blogs you’ve likely seen the surge of content coverage regarding various updates from Google.  The most prominent and discussed is the Panda/Farmer update that put a lot of heavy weight on social proof for ranking.  The other is the addition of the Plus One system from Google to effectively ‘+1′ items in the search results.

Surrounding both of these topics is the emphasis on the fact that social proof is having a massive effect on the way sites are indexed and deemed relevant within a given niche.  While this is important, it’s not the end all be all of social media marketing.

How quickly we forget the obvious… Read the rest of this entry »

If Digg Dies Will Social Bookmarking Submission Go With it?

Not Likely… especially since there are hundreds of networks for social bookmarking submission.

You may have heard of the decline in popularity of Digg since it launched its new version but just because one piece of the overall social bookmarking submission puzzle has a bent corner that doesn’t mean that the whole process has become any less useful.  On the contrary.

With the most recent updates from Google – particular those that focus on social proof and author authority in sharing – social bookmarking submission is getting a leg up and continues to offer a wide variety of benefits. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Buzz – Trust in Your Pal, Sal?  Not Likely.

Ask yourself what you value more – the words of a close friend in their recommendation of a product or service or the rambling hype and trust-statements that are fired at you like projectiles from a mounted machine gun?

It’s hard to take a message seriously when it’s coming from a lobbyist, especially when the person lobbying a product owns that product.  This is the problem that’s been building in search over recent years – product pushing and overwhelming sales content.  It’s also why Google has been ramping up their efforts to put more SEO value on social buzz – but how effective will it be in eliminating junk content in the SERPs and how easy will it be to game the system?

Google Rallies its Forces to Fight for Social Buzz

There’s pretty clear evidence that the search engines – especially Google – have been moving toward Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes Twitter Can Create a Social Media Marketing Twitstorm

As social media marketing blossoms and expands and becomes ever more popular, there are an increasing number of companies that are jumping into the same boat as customers in order to improve engagement and brand visibility.  With that social media marketing however there is the potential for companies to self-destruct.  It doesn’t have to be as intense as a couch-jump or rant on voicemail.  It can be as simple as a self-destructive tweet that slips by the corporate mega-filter.

It’s not a matter of whether or not it will happen to your company – it’s more a matter of what kind of tweet will upset people and who will be the culprit.

You can place those public relations tweet-time-bombs into three different categories Read the rest of this entry »

SEO Takes a Back Seat to Social Media Marketing

Marketers and business owners have been struggling with social media marketing since…. the dawn of social media (we say it like it’s as old as the wreckage of the Titanic) to estimate the value of a fan on sites like Facebook – or followers on Twitter.  They’ve long sought to put a price tag on the fan but ultimately it’s been impossible because of so many factors are involved; especially the fact that every business is different and not all fans are created equal.

Social Media Marketing – Science Says Fans are Worth…

Firms like Millward Brown’s Brandz even compiled data to see if those people in social media that have become “active fans” of a brand spend more money than those who are not “fans” but perhaps just active users.  Not surprisingly those who are fans of their favored brand tend to spend as much as Read the rest of this entry »

Bucking Frustration with Content Marketing

Most of us know that you need to do more online to share through content marketing.  Even small business owners are growing acutely aware of the need for this type of content and user engagement.  What’s frustrating is the fact that they know a change in their marketing is necessary but finding the time to utilize all the social media tools and various routes of content marketing is next to impossible.

At least when you’re staring down a to-do list that looks like a pre-trip checklist for the Titanic.  That one labeled “don’t sink” is probably staring you in the face.

With a great deal of work on the plate of a business owner you can’t imagine even adding more to it when you’ve spent the last few months trying to streamline your business in order to free up personal time.  Now we’re going to add work with content marketing?  Forget it! Read the rest of this entry »

Utilize Content Outsourcing You Shall – One With The Force You Are.

Content marketing is a magic machine that can generate a lot of social oomph, social proof and fuzzy credibility with your target audience.  The downside is that for some business owners it’s just impossible to find the time – or the internal resources – to generate topics, do the research and produce the content.  Beyond that taking the time to inspire sharing and get that content posted can be even more time-consuming.  You don’t need Jedi powers to juggle all the workload – relief isn’t far away as there are numerous options for content outsourcing to keep the referral engine chugging along.

Content Outsourcing From Around the Globe

While there is a variety of sources to use for your content outsourcing, you should recognize first and foremost that Read the rest of this entry »

How To Guarantee A Viral Marketing Spread

There isn’t a guarantee – simply put it’s just not possible to ensure that anything goes crazy with viral marketing.  Anyone who tells you that they can guarantee viral marketing responses in the millions of shares is lying. What you can do however is plan and strategize appropriately to give your content the best chances of going viral.

Traditionally speaking, video has had the most success with popular sharing through viral marketing – often garnering double and triple digit millions on the view count in as quickly as a few days, often in just a few short weeks.  If you want to improve the odds if enhanced visibility through viral marketing then dive into video. Read the rest of this entry »