Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• 6 Facts About Social Media Marketing
• Common Myths About Digital Marketing (Infographic)
• 7 Steps to Successful Content Marketing [Infographic]
• 20 of the Most Important SEO Blogs Online
• Social Media 101: How To Structure Updates for Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter
• B2B Social Media Marketing: Measure What Matters
• Content Marketing Tools to Improve Your Content Marketing Campaigns
• The 7 Key Elements to Creating Successful Infographics
• Social Media Engagement: 9 Reasons Why Less Is More
• Content Marketing Strategies for Driving Organic Traffic to Your Website

6 Facts About Social Media Marketing Posted: 06 Dec 2013 05:30 AM PST Is your business using digital and social media marketing? Are you getting the most out of your social media marketing campaigns? Are you on the RIGHT social media platforms to reach your target market? Is your social media marketing strategy clearly articulated and complete? Do you feel overwhelmed in trying to optimize your social media marketing? Facts about social media marketing I created this video using PowToon — which is a really easy way to create all kinds of videos. I got the data from a variety of sources, but much of it came from a great post on Business 2 Community on 103 facts about social media marketing. Summing up the data, here are the trends to watch for in 2014: Social networks continue to grow and fragment. Worldwide growth in social media use now crosses country and demographic lines with social networks moving into developing nations and is no longer the realm of young people. In fact, growth among 65+ on social networks, especially Facebook, has been dramatic. Businesses follow suit. While Facebook is still the big tuna with over 1 billion users, it's only 1 of many social platforms drawing users. Younger folks are now mostly OFF Facebook and on to sites like Snapchat and Vine. Older users tend to be on LinkedIn more than other platforms and Pinterest is primarily female. Internationally, major differences exist with little Twitter usage outside the US, compared with other social networks. And, dedicated social platforms such as QQ in China and VK in Russia. Online visibility is critical for sales Huge numbers of consumers and businesses start their purchase search online and most use results to inform purchase decisions. If your brand isn't online or isn't optimizing where your brand shows up in search results, you'll likely see huge declines in sales and the problem will likely become worse before it becomes better — if it ever does. Social media is a disruptive change. Online search and the impact of social media on brand image have forever changed the nature of marketing and advertising. And, word of mouth has gone viral on social networks. Ignore customer complaints about your brand online at your peril. Lack of systematic planning and monitoring Despite the vast opportunity presented by digital and social media marketing, firms run online campaigns like a bunch of undergrads. They jump right into execution without the necessary planning and don't bother with the numbers. Even firms using advanced monitoring tools often have little idea WHAT to measure and drown under the deluge of data coming at them so fast and from so many sources that it's hard to draw valuable insights. Your turn I've summed up 6 facts about social media marketing in the video. But, I'd like to hear your opinion. What do you think are the most salient facts about social media marketing? Need Help? Whether you need a complete social media marketing strategy or some consulting to optimize your existing social media marketing, we can fill your digital marketing funnel or developing a market information system that matches your needs. We can help you do your own social media marketing better or do it for you with our community managers, strategists, and account executives. You can request a FREE introductory meeting or sign up for my email newsletter to learn more about social media marketing.

Common Myths About Digital Marketing (Infographic) Posted: 05 Dec 2013 02:11 PM PST The marketing industry's has evolved into a very complex and globally encompassing entity offering players with a wider and even broader range of options and channels where they can reach and connect with consumers on a global scale. This would not have been possible without modern online tools like the Internet and Digital Marketing. But just like all things wonderful, some aspects of Digital Marketing are shrouded in myth and misconceptions perpetrated by detractors who really don't know any better. Many who have led to believe in these myths continue to grope in the dark, missing the vast opportunities available to them through Digital Marketing. This infographic attempts to debunk some of the more popular and more common myths related to Digital Marketing in the hope of providing fresh insights to business owners wanting to take their brands, products or services to a higher marketing plane. Embedded from Digital Marketing Philippines

7 Steps to Successful Content Marketing [Infographic] Posted: 05 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Content marketing is a way of communicating with your customers and prospects without pitching your products or services. Also known as inbound marketing, content marketing is non-interruptive. Instead of overtly trying to sell something to your audience, you consistently create and deliver valuable information that educates them. Ultimately they reward you by purchasing your products, recommending them to friends via social media channels and word-of-mouth, and acting as brand ambassadors. It is the opposite of interruption marketing, also known as outbound marketing, a traditional method of product promotion which interrupts a person's flow of activity to grab their attention and tell them about what they should buy. This form of marketing may create recognition, but it's rejected by consumers about 90% of the time. In today's marketplace, people often search for reviews and recommendations when they're evaluating products. A strategic, well-researched content marketing strategy will help you create content that resonates with your target market while increasing engagement, social shares, and the size of your audience. The more your content is shared and recommended, the more you build trust and thought leadership. The result? More leads and sales. Intergage, a full-service digital marketing agency, created the infographic below to illustrate the steps you should take to create a focused content plan. It also presents some statistics about how brands are using content marketing and why: On average, marketers spend more than 25% of their budget on content marketing Marketers use content marketing for: Brand awareness (79%) Lead generation (71%) Customer acquisition (74%) B2B companies that blog regularly see a 67% increase in leads per month than those that don't 60% of consumers feel more positive about about a company after reading custom content on its website Interesting content is a top-3 reason that people follow brands on social media 7 Steps for an Optimized Content Marketing Strategy 1. Define your business goals: What do you want to accomplish? There is a sense of urgency about content marketing, which is leading many brands to jump in without setting clear-cut goals — a recipe for failure. Don't fall into this trap. Do you want to land new business? Would you like to cross-sell by suggesting related products or services to a customer who is considering buying something from you? Have new products to launch? Do you want to be a thought leader in your industry? 2. Research What does your target audience want? What types of content would help you gain their trust to the extent that they recommend your products? It's important to research: Buyer personas and their relevant segmentation Keywords that they likely use to research products in your category Your competitors' search engine strategy (SEO) and results The use of social media marketing platforms by other companies in your industry Formats your target audience prefers 3. Plan As I wrote in a recent post, it is vital to plan, manage, and optimize your content marketing initiatives. Managing the workflow is an important element of success. I created a content marketing planning template that you can use as a starting point to: Map out your plan Create a content marketing calendar 4. Create Your content should answer some unmet need or question for your customer. It must to be useful in some way to them, over and above what you offer as a product or service. Create content in the various formats that resonate with your audience Create content for each stage of your buying cycle Optimize your content via SEO and keyword optimization 5. Publish Publish your content on platforms that suit the formats you have created: Your website Your blog Flickr Pinterest SlideShare YouTube PR Web 6. Promote Once you've published content, it's important to promote it. This improves its viral nature and puts your brand on your audience's radar. Use social media marketing platforms to distribute your content Build internal links to create authority Manage comments and feedback Use social bookmarking sites such as Reddit and StumpleUpon 7. Analyze In a previous post, I emphasized the importance of distilling data in ways that are relevant to your marketing plan. This is a key part of figuring out how to resonate with your audience. Use social media analytics tools Use Google Analytics Monitor performance with marketing KPIs (key performance indicators)

20 of the Most Important SEO Blogs Online Posted: 05 Dec 2013 09:37 AM PST Outstanding SEO Resources Nowadays every person with a computer, an Internet connection, and an opinion has a blog, declaring themselves an authority on whatever topic or segment of an industry strikes them. What authority on that subject do they really have? Some actually do, but most do not. For the ones that have genuine authority and knowledge, which ones are the best to read? When it comes to SEO blogs, here are 20 of the most important search engine optimization (SEO) blogs available online that you should be reading. ViperChill – Created by Glen Allsopp, this site covers more than just SEO. It includes viral marketing and blogging advice, and more. Kris Roadruck – SEO and content advice are sprinkled with various rants. Portent – SEO topics intermingled with Internet Markting, PPC tips, and humor. SEO.com – As the name states, this covers everything regarding SEO including the lastest news, current topics, and upcoming events. Ranking by SEO – SEO news, tips, and tricks can be found here to help you optimize your website. Internet Marketing Ninjas – The latest news, trends, notes, and chat within the SEO industry. Lawmacs – Gary Lawood shares his blogging and SEO tips he’s developed over the past ten years. PointBlank SEO – Helping ‘ordinary’ marketers to build extraordinary links through SEO development. SEO Copywriting – Web copy advice, tips, and strategies for great SEO copywriting. Hubspot – They pretty much wrote the book on inbound marketing and SEO. No one does it better. Outspoken Media – SEO consulting company that can help you expand your market share and attract new business. Matthew Woodward – Internet marketing and SEO tutorials can be found here. Kikolani – Tips and advice for bloggers interested in blog marketing, SEO, social media. Jeff Bullas – Social media marketing and search engine optimization tips for both businesses and personal brands. GetElastic – #1 Subscribed Ecommerce Blog featuring ecommerce best practices and better ways to manage digital relationships including mobile, search, social, and multichannel marketing. Eugen Oprea – Technological side of SEO, and more. Distilled – SEO topics sprinkled with marketing, mobile, and social media topics. Copypressed – Helps you drive up your conversations, tighten your SEO with quality content and building brands. Small Business Search Marketing  – Created by Matt McGee, he shares knowledge of blogging and social media for SEO. CognitiveSEO – Benchmarking tips and ways to outrank the competition. With these blogs on your list, you will have the best and most pertinent information for your SEO goals. Whether you are new to SEO or just wanting to stay on top, this SEO blog list will be the best resource for you and your business. Are there other SEO blogs that you read that aren't on this list? Share it with us below. image credit: stuart miles/freedigitalphotos.net

Social Media 101: How To Structure Updates for Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter Posted: 05 Dec 2013 06:32 AM PST Does the way you structure a social media update have a significant impact on clickthroughs, shares, and overall engagement? Data shared by digital marketers Jon Loomer and Dan Zarrella appears to answer this question with a resounding, "Yes structure matters!" Before diving into how you should structure social media updates, I want to emphasize the following: Your updates should be crafted to ensure people engage your update in a way that is in line with your goals. What do I mean? You'll likely be sharing content on your social channels with a variety of goals in mind. With each of those different goals comes better and worse ways to structure social media updates. It's up to you to determine that goal, and then structure your updates in accordance with that goal. Do you want engagement on social media? Are you trying to build awareness of a new product? Are you attempting to drive traffic to your blog post? Is the goal to quickly drive revenue? Choose your goal, then read on! Structuring an Effective Facebook Post After Facebook made significant changes to their News Feed algorithm, marketers quickly jumped on the photo-sharing bandwagon. "Photos receive more engagement than standard links. If you want engagement, you should share more photos." So, naturally, everyone started sharing photos all the time. Even when they were only sharing a link, they would attach a photo to that update. Why? Because engagement. (I was guilty of this as well). That's where the connection between the goal of the update and the structure of the update fell apart. Hear me out… When you share a link on Facebook for a new blog post or your website, what's the general purpose of doing so? Your goal is to drive traffic. You want people to click the link. Sure, getting a Like or Share is nice, but it's not your ultimate goal. You're shooting yourself in the foot when you share a photo and include a link in the caption, as that link is now less likely to be noticed and clicked. Here's what you might see as the caption on a photo update. All the focus goes to the photo and you're left with a tiny link in the middle of your photo caption that fewer people will notice. Compare the likelihood of someone clicking that tiny link in a photo caption to the likelihood of someone clicking anywhere in this link preview. People are much more likely to click a large link preview as shown above compared to a tiny link buried in other text on a photo caption. But maybe this is all conjecture? Think again. Jon Loomer did an analysis on almost 600 of his updates and found some remarkable data. Jon looked at 588 recent Facebook photo updates (included a link in the caption), link updates, and status updates. He then sorted all of the updates by the number of clickthroughs. Of these 588 updates, the top 356 updates that received the most clickthroughs were all link updates (no photos attached). That isn't to say sharing photos on Facebook is a bad strategy. It definitely isn't, assuming your goal for the update is to increase engagement — that qualifier is extremely important. To reiterate the point, make a conscious effort to align the structure of your social media updates with your goals. Simple Formatting Tricks on Google+ There's much less research about Google+, so much of it comes down to personal experimentation. However, there are some simple formatting tricks that can help you break through the noise on Google+. Personally, when I'm sharing a new article or post I always bold the first line of my update. This increases the chance of catching peoples' attention as they're scrolling down the Google+ Stream. I also usually include a brief summary of the post, then, at the bottom of the update, I'll write: *Read the Full Post Here:* [insert link to post] (Note the asterisks being used to bold the call-to-action phrase in an attempt to draw more attention). Also, notice the placement of hashtags at the bottom. I find this allows you to keep your post appearance "clean", while still taking advantage of the utility of hashtags. Structure Matters When You Seek Retweets Dan Zarrella of Hubspot has built quite a reputation for his "social media science", much of which is focused on Twitter. How many retweets and clickthroughs you receive on Twitter can be drastically impacted by how you structure your tweets. For example, according to Zarrella's research: Tweets between 100 and 115 characters are 34% more likely to be Retweeted than tweets outside that range. [Click to Tweet This Stat] Tweets that contain one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be Retweeted than tweets that did not. [Click to Tweet This Stat] The phrases "Please Retweet" and "Please Help" yield more retweets. [Click to Tweet This Stat] If you're interested in more statistics of this nature, Dan Zarrella's blog is full of them. You'll also find him frequently posting on Hubspot with similar data. With all that information, how does a well-structured, engaging Tweet look? First, include a headline that catches attention. This is the most important aspect of a tweet that generates clickthroughs since Twitter moves so rapidly. Keep in mind, the length of your tweet makes a significant difference (see data above). Second, include a shortened link to the article or post you're sharing. I recommend using bit.ly, Buffer, or Hootsuite's built-in shortener. Third, if applicable, include "via [author's Twitter name]". Fourth, add in relevant hashtags if there's room. Again, keep an eye on the length of your tweet if you're seeking retweets. With all that, you'll see something similar to this: If you want to get really fancy, here are two more tips to spice up your tweets. Upload a photo. Recently, Twitter began showing photo previews directly in the feed. This breaks the monotony of giant walls of text the Twitter stream used to be. Use line breaks. Twitter also recently started allowing line breaks in tweets. This makes it possible to add blank lines in your tweets. Surprisingly, not many people are using line breaks, but it does make your tweet stand out more as people are scrolling down their stream. Gary Vaynerchuk, who played a significant role in development of digital marketing business, uses this method often. Coming Back Full Circle Everything described here should lead to more activity on your social media updates. But that's not the key takeaway from this post. As I mentioned earlier, the activity you desire should be aligned with the goals you're trying to achieve. How you structure a social media update should be different when you're seeking Likes or retweets vs. when you're seeking clickthroughs, subscribers (in the case of Twitter Cards), or rapid increases in revenues (flash sales, for example). Determine your goals, then decide how to structure an update that encourages people to take the action you desire. Hopefully, these examples and best practices give you a starting point.

B2B Social Media Marketing: Measure What Matters Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:13 AM PST Likes, Followers and B2B Marketers Adoration for Shiny Things Let me ask you a question. If you lead a business and/or you are responsible for the marketing of your company, what is the return on 1000 Facebook likes? Perhaps a better question is… Did you know that only 1-5% of the people who "Like" your Facebook page actually see what you post on Facebook? Better still, only about 1.5% of those who like your Facebook page will ever return to your Facebook page? Yet marketers clamber to get more likes. Almost obsessively as if these "Likes" can be traded in for revenue. Guess what, they can't. At least not directly. What about Twitter Followers. How important are they? What exactly should a business expect from increasing there followers? While many businesses will tell you they have generated a lead or an opportunity through engaging with someone that follows them on Twitter, few can say that a higher volume of followers directly led them to more opportunities or revenue. Measurement is Important, But We Must Measure The Right Things Paying attention to the analytics is important. However, the key to B2B marketing is measuring the right things. For instance, would you rather have 500 people read your blog that are in your industry and are potentially consumers of the product or service that you sell. Or… Would you prefer to have 50,000 readers that are just eyeballs because they have no need to consume what you are selling? The answer is obvious, but everyday I hear marketers and business owners saying we need more people to read our content. Really, you just need the right people to read your content. This is especially true in B2B because your audience is usually very targeted. Make Sense? What Should B2B's Be Measuring? It all starts with understanding your purpose. Why are your engaging in Social Media? Why is your company blogging? What are you trying to accomplish? This is your digital marketing strategy. However it is important to understand these things before getting caught up in how many followers you have, who is liking your page and how many readers you have. Those things matter once your strategy is in place, but before that it is just throwing "Stuff" at the wall and hoping something sticks. So here are a couple of things to focus on. Target the Right Readers/Followers: You know who the ideal customer is for your business. Focus on connecting with them through social channels and content. With the right audience your conversions will grow at a much greater rate than they will by just pursuing volume. Don't Count Followers and likes, Build Relationships: The counts really don't mean that much. While they may feel good for your brands ego, a huge volume of "Window Shoppers" or worse yet unengaged followers will likely translate into nothing that matters for your business. With so much data and information available to us, it is easy to get caught up in the hype. But our role in the digital sphere is to drive meaningful relationships that translate into customer advocates and revenue. Make sure that your actions directly support the real goals of your business and not appearances and metrics that don't matter. Hey B2B businesses and Marketers! How is your business measuring content and social media marketing success? We'd love to hear from you!

Content Marketing Tools to Improve Your Content Marketing Campaigns Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:21 AM PST Who said content marketing is easy? It is not. It is not only about writing epic posts and valuable content. It is also about marketing and promotion. Hence, content marketing. Furthermore, most businesses nowadays are going for inbound content marketing and competition is tight. Add the fact that you are competing with millions of people who are doing the same things as you are and after the same market. That makes content marketing much harder. How can you make content creation easier if you just have a small team or if you are all alone in managing your content marketing campaigns? Aside from that, how can you jumpstart business promotion if you have a limited budget or no budget at all? One remedy to that age old problem is to look for tools that will help you improve content creation and will somehow automate some processes in your content marketing campaigns. So without further ado here's a list of free and useful tools for your content marketing campaigns: Content Marketing Tools for Idea Generation 1. Feedly – After Google Reader's shutdown, Feedly became the best RSS-feed alternative. You can look for websites that you want to follow via its built-in search. You can also organise the websites accordingly. Like any RSS feed readers, you don't have to go to each site and look into all the articles. You can see what topics and articles are getting the most shares. There are social media buttons as well if you find a topic particularly interesting and want to share it. 2. Quora – A social media platform for question and answer discussions. There are consistently asked questions that you can look into to identify the hottest topics that a certain community is interested in. 3. Inbound – It's an online tool for sharing worthy and awesome articles. You receive good karma and "upvotes" for articles that you share and from the response of the community. You just have to be careful with the quality of your content because you can be banned from the site. 4. Twitter – You can gain insight by searching for trending topics worldwide or in a particular region. You can also search using hashtags for a particular niche or interest or those that are relevant to your industry. 5. Reddit – A news aggregator with real-time updates of what's happening around the world. Redditors can push a story up. It shows the hottest and trending news worldwide. The hottest topics are always on top so they are easier to find. 6. Alltop – This site collects headlines of the latest and hottest topics from top websites. It's also a news aggregator site that filters news relevant to different categories like work, heath, culture, interests, tech, people, news, geo and sport. Tools for Content Planning, Management and Organisation Trello – An online organiser where you can keep ideas, keep track of things with its to do lists, and organise content, projects, and your own team. Evernote – You can jot down ideas and take down notes, you can share them you're your team, you can use it to collaborate on ideas, content planning, blog posts, and many more. You can also use it together with clipper to curate content. Toodledo – Not only a task organiser, you can also use this to create notes, collaborate with teams, and track projects. Aside from that, you can organise tasks according to the degree of importance. It has a hotlist where you can have an overview of all the things on your lists. WordPress Calendar – One of the most popular plugins from WordPress is the Editorial Calendar. It is easy to install with just one click. You can properly plan your content posting and make things more diversified. Further, you can streamline your content planning and promotion using this calendar. Remember that Milk – It's an organiser and a to-do lists. However, the best part is that it integrates with your Gmail, Evernote, syncs with Google tasks, uses Siri to add to-dos and more. It has been around for a long time and is still great especially when adding notes and ideas from your Evernote. Google Drive - Okay, this isn't the most thrilling tool you can use for content marketing campaigns but for safekeeping of files, it's one of the best tools around. I love the fact that you can open files and view them online without the need to download. It's also good for collaboration. Changes to documents can be seen real-time. Mind Node – is a mind mapping tool for visualising your ideas. You can organise ideas in a creative and intuitive way. Tools for Content Creation Issuu – An enticing tool for creating online publications, lookbooks, and magazines. It is also a publishing network with millions of avid readers and fans. By creating striking publications from this site, your content can easily reach millions of eyeballs. Animoto – This tool allows you to make videos and share them online. It is complete with designs and soundtracks that you can use for creating quality videos that you can add to your blog or share in social media sites. Visual.ly – A site with more than 30,000+ infographics created by infographic designers. You can create your own infographic or buy from their list. Piktochart – An excellent tool for creating infographics. It has a drag-and-drop feature which makes creating a content easier. You can also upload images specific to your needs. Gimp – An image enhancing and a simplified photoshop-like tool. This is powerful for photo retouching and one of the best tools to have around. Meme Generator – Do you want to put a funny twist on images for your content? Meme Generator is your thing. You can also check out which memes are getting the most attention through their most popular page. Tools for Automating Content Promotion and Sharing Twitterfeed – A popular tool to automate and share posts in different social media sites Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. You can configure to show only a snippet of text to appear before the automated posts. It also includes analytics to know what posts or tweets are getting more clicks. Buffer – An amazing tool to schedule your posts. It streamlines posting to different social media channels efficiently. Posting is quick and manageable when using Buffer. It's an antidote for over sharing. Mailchimp – A great tool for reaching out to your list and leads using your content. You can segment your list and send targeted content with this tool. Viral Content Buzz – A tool to revive a dead content . By sharing other people's content you get to earn credits. You can also add your own project and use the credits. Currently, sharing is through Twitter and Facebook only. However, it's a great site to keep your content buzzing for a long period of time. Hootsuite – You can manage a whole lot of social network streams using this tool. It also supports brand and company pages in social media networks like Google+, Linkedin and Facebook. You can also edit posts, attach photos, shorten links and more. This amazing tool is a must have especially when you are managing multiple social media accounts. Do you know any other tool that can help improve content marketing campaigns? We love to hear from you. You can also follow and connect with us on Twitter and Linkedin for updates and news.

The 7 Key Elements to Creating Successful Infographics Posted: 04 Dec 2013 03:30 PM PST Communication has changed so fast in the last decade that it is almost another language. Tweets, likes and shares were not in the marketing lexicon. If you said to someone a few years ago that you would send them a "DM" on Twitter or "mention" or retweet them, their eyes would have glazed over. And it not just Twitter language, it extends to Pinterest, and "pinning" has also been added to the dictionary. The visual web The change extends not just to the words and platforms but the visual communication. We are rapidly moving to a visual web that communicates with 6 second videos captured on mobiles using social visual platforms like "Vine". We have fast growing social networks that destroy the communication (photos or videos with a text) after the receiver has read or viewed the message. That ephemeral and temporary service is provided by the exploding social network, SnapChat (which has just turned down a $3 billion cash buyout from Facebook). We all know the importance of images and photos to drive sharing on Facebook. Twitter has just added images to the stream and research show that it increases engagement. That is why infographics creation and sharing has exploded in the last couple of years. Short attention spans require optimizing communication that tells a story in a glance. Creating successful infographics Infographics are the combination of text and images to create maximum impact. There are two core activities to infographic success. Great design Successful promotion and marketing Designing an infographic that isn't marketed properly is like building a great car but not telling anyone about it. It remains parked and hidden in the garage. Here are the 7 key elements to creating successful infographics that has been put together by Donna Moritz at Socially Sorted. #1. Story Tell a story that isn't about you but your audience. You need to work out what is an area of interest that will be relevant to your audience. Listen to what blog posts resonate, what gets shared the most and what drives the most traffic. Don't make it about your product! #2. Style Style is subjective but a good designer will know from experience what works. Chunk it down so you are capturing the main points. It needs to be hierarchical and digestible. Less is sometimes more. #3. Simplicity Minimalist design is an art form that limits the types of fonts, shapes and image styles. It means avoiding confusion by creating flow and connection #4. Size Optimizing for size means considering the number of pixels (735 pixels is best width for Pinterest) and also the size of the file. You don't want the infographic to take a long time to download. In terms of length you don't want it too long. Try creating an infographic that is 1,500 to 2,000 pixels in length. #5. Statistics If you want to create impact about growth and have lots of stats then infographics are perfect for that. Make sure they are factual and reliable, current and helpful. #6. Shareability Make your infographic easy to share. Provide an embed code. You also need to make sure it gets shared by letting influencers and your fans on social networks know about the "awesome" new infographic that you have just created. Success is not set and forget. #7. Source Make sure you attribute and let your audience know where you got the facts and figures from. Credibility is an important factor for a successful Infographic. Infographic source: Socially Sorted Want to learn how to make your blog a success with social media marketing? My book – "Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media" – will show you how.

Social Media Engagement: 9 Reasons Why Less Is More Posted: 04 Dec 2013 01:39 PM PST Summary: In the time-crunched, information-overloaded, do-more-with-less world we work in, maintaining the right level of social media engagement is a daunting proposition. For individuals and organizations just getting started, it can be completely overwhelming – there's so much to do! This post strives to reduce some of the barriers to social media engagement by illustrating the importance of the "less is more" principle. It may also offer an opportunity for those with higher levels of activity to reconsider and refine their own engagement. Since at least 2009, both individual professionals and organizations have felt growing pressure to increase their social media engagement. Organizations are exhorted to set up blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube and SlideShare channels, etc. – often under the threat of obsolescence if they don't. And in addition to being invited to connect with organizations via all these channels, individuals are told that effective social media engagement is critical to their professional success and career management. In spite of the pressure, threats, and exhortations, many professionals and organizations with low (or no) social media engagement continue to be very successful. But that doesn't mean they should dismiss these platforms as irrelevant. The risks of not leveraging available communication channels to pursue one's goals and objectives (aka the cost of inaction) are real, and they will continue to rise over time. Simply put, increasing social media engagement lowers risks by enhancing the ability to pursue opportunities and manage threats. That doesn't mean, however, that later adopters have to participate in social media in the same way and to the same degree that early adopters and enthusiasts do. In fact, many of the practices employed to date by some of social media's biggest advocates and users have become examples of what not to do.  Unbridled enthusiasm and an "anything goes" mentality are classic hallmarks of early adoption, but as things continue to mature it becomes increasingly clear that the mania isn't sustainable. We need to strive for a better balance between quantity and quality – and for many that boils down to the principle of less is more. This principle should certainly lower the barriers and make it easier for later adopters to increase their social media engagement, but it's also worthy of consideration by individuals and organizations that are already actively engaged. Especially for those who are trying to extend their reach to people who are just starting to explore and experiment, it may be time to dial things back a few notches… Why Less Social Media Engagement is More Not every platform makes sense. New social media platforms emerge regularly, and there’s usually a strong bandwagon effect after each launch. And of course early adopters and enthusiasts are always singing the praises of their personal favorites, exhorting others to join as well. But neither individuals nor organizations should join a social media platform just because someone says you should, or because it seems like "all the cool kids are doing it." It's not all about you. For both individuals and organizations, it's important to show your value and highlight your offerings, but too much self-focused content is another big turn-off. For individuals, it can come across as desperate, egotistical, and/or narcissistic. And organizations can sound like carnival barkers, Crazy Eddie the electronics sales guy – or worse! Your social media engagement should be driven by your goals and objectives, as well as by the nature of the individuals/organizations with whom you want to interact. You can cannibalize your own activity. It's tempting to try to put a fine point on your social media engagement by having multiple Twitter handles, and/or a variety of LinkedIn groups/sub-groups, Facebook pages, Google+ pages/communities, YouTube channels, etc. Slicing engagement too finely can be very confusing to the people you're trying to engage, however. And since many of them will pick only one of the options, they will end up concentrated in one property and/or too spread out, which impairs your effectiveness. Trying to do too much is a recipe for failure. Both individuals and organizations who try to engage on too many platforms will find that it's almost impossible to maintain that engagement without increased and/or dedicated resources. If they don't increase their resource commitments, they are very likely to end up with abandoned digital properties and other digital detritus. Develop a clear sense of what you're going to share on each platform, as well as how often and when – and make sure your social media engagement plan can be easily maintained given available resources. You don't want to be part of the signal/noise problem.  Many early adopters and enthusiasts (over)share – A LOT – on all kinds of platforms. The sad irony for many of them is that even though they presumably have so much to say, the more they talk the more they decrease the likelihood that people will want to listen to them (particularly when they come across as narcissistic, post banalities and old news, and/or engage in what I call cluster posting (i.e., posting several items in quick succession on a single platform)). I have digitally tuned out hundreds of people on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook who talk too much and say too little – and I'm sure many others have done the same. You look like you don't have enough work to do. A hazard for individuals in particular is that high levels of social media engagement can be perceived as low levels of actual work engagement (even when social media engagement is part of your job). Don't feel pressured to be a big talker on any social media platform. Say enough to be heard, but focus more on saying things people want to listen to. It's not true that "anything goes." Each platform has its own language, customs, and normative expectations. Individuals and organizations who participate without learning what sound social media engagement practices look like run a serious risk of undermining their own credibility – not just with respect to social media, but in general. A high volume of activity isn't acceptable on all platforms. There's a much higher tolerance for a high volume of shares on a fast-moving platform like Twitter (up to 10 per day for most individuals and organizations). The acceptable volume of status and sharing activity on Facebook and Google+ is probably no more than half of what's acceptable on Twitter – and on LinkedIn one individual status or company update per day is probably plenty. Too much cross-posting can seem spammy. On the one hand, because you likely have a different network/followership on each platform, you need to cross-post to ensure your content reaches the maximum possible audience. On the other hand, if people see the same content several times in a short period of time, it's more likely to be off-putting than enticing. Learn and adhere to social media engagement best practices by platform. Don't assume a one-size-fits-all approach is appropriate. More Social Media Engagement Thoughts If you have other ideas about how less social media engagement is more, I'd love to hear them! In a follow-up post – Digital Engagement: 12 DOs and DON'Ts for Rookies - I offer additional recommendations for effective social media engagement. If you have specific questions not addressed in either post, please add a comment. Original post on the Denovati SMART Blog.

Content Marketing Strategies for Driving Organic Traffic to Your Website Posted: 04 Dec 2013 12:25 PM PST A common problem for many clients of web agencies is driving traffic to their website. Although as web agencies you can optimise your clients' sites for search engine indexing and ranking, still quality organic traffic is hard to come by. As a web agency how can you help your clients? Or what do you do to remedy their concerns? To help you out, here are some content marketing strategies that you can share with your clients to boost their website traffic. Everything Starts with Relevant Content Content is king. It's the heart and soul of marketing. It's there to create a positive experience to website visitors. As part of your content marketing efforts, it must be relevant enough to engage visitors and customers. According to Halvorson and Rach in their book Content Strategy for the Web, "Relevant content must be useful and usable" The primary purpose of providing relevant content is to engage your customers and potential customers by building trust and confidence with your products or services. Branding becomes the end result through continuous engagement. Content Forms that Engages Individual Tastes Since content marketing focuses primarily on customer engagement, it must come in forms that web visitors are after. It means that you shouldn't limit your content into the written form. There are many forms that you can use to deliver your content. These forms may be through: 1. blog articles 2. videos 3. infographics 4. slides or powerpoints 5. podcasts 6. whitepapers 7. webinars 8. social media posts 9. ebooks 10. newsletters 11. microsites If you want to target different kinds of audiences in one niche then don't limit you content with written articles. Since everyone has a unique way of learning and digesting information, using different forms can target a large audience who have different wants and needs when it comes to how they want content delivered to them. Key Components to Optimised Content We all know about SEO. However, we often forget that keyword research is not the only component. There are other key components that shouldn't be missing from your content. What are these? 1. keywords or keyphrase research 2. internal links 3. metadata including title, description 4. rich snippets 5. alt tags for images With the constant changes in search engine algorithms, it is imperative to use long tail keywords or keyphrases. Since search engines are also moving towards a conversational way of searching and indexing pages, inclusion of a variety of keywords in your content is becoming a must. Furthermore, even images and videos should be optimised if your content is in these forms. Otherwise, you risk losing your chance of getting indexed even when you have great content. Create Clearly Defined Roles for Key People Nobody pays attention to who will handle the content creation and content marketing aspect. Proper delineation and delegation is all it takes to have a clearly defined and effective content marketing strategy. If no one in your company can focus on content creation, then its better to outsource. Outsourcing content creation has many benefits. Read about the Five Benefits of Hiring a Web Content Writer to find why outsourcing is a good option when generating content as part of your content marketing strategy. Content Discovery through Different Kinds of Marketing It's a fact that relevant and valuable content engages your target market. Nevertheless, how do you drive this market to your content? How do you get as many eyeballs as possible? Derek Halpern of Social Trigger advocates the 80/20 Rule for Building a Blog Audience. He tells us that successful content marketing is 20% creation and 80% promotion. Promotion is the key to amplifying your content's reach. What's happening, however, is that we neglect to do the promotion part. Where do you start with promotion? How do you do promotion? 1. Promotion through Social Media There are many channels where you can promote your content. For one, social media is a powerful channel because of the reach. The top social media channels to distribute your content to are: • Facebook • Twitter • Linkedin • Pinterest • You Tube • Google Plus However, don't spread yourself too thin. Choose the channel where your target audience is. If you are looking into B2B transactions use Linkedin or Twitter. If you are after B2C transactions, a good platforms are Facebook and Pinterest. 2. Promotion through Publishing Sites There are so many free publishing channels that curates content. You can use these channels to feature your content, at the same time, add other valuable content from other sources. Some of these are: • Paper.li • Rebelmouse.com • Issuu.com • Scoope.it 3. Promotion through High Traffic Online Communities, News Aggregators and Business Sites There are many high traffic websites that allow article and news submissions and guest postings. Getting your content on these sites is like winning a grand prize because of the instant traffic that it could bring. These includes: • Problogger • Content Marketing Institute • Copyblogger • Moz • Search Engine Land • Social Media Examiner • Business2Community • Social Media Today • Think Traffic • Lifehacker • Mashable • Digg 4. Promotion through Forums Forums have a high engagement level. The audience in these channels are often more willing to help starters and like-minded individuals. The best part about them is that if there are new tools relevant to your business you get a head start to see if they work. How do they fit in your content marketing anyway? The audience in forums are not afraid to try new innovations and are willing to spend as long as you can provide valuable insights to what you are selling. This is perfect because your content is your way getting messages across to these audiences. 5. Promotion through Blog Directories There are many blog directories where you can get listed for free. This is a good traffic generator as there are many bloggers who are also going after traffic for their own blogs. Here's a good list by Search Engine Journal. Do Your Content Marketing Strategies Work? Analytics have become an essential part of website development. It is also an essential part of formulating your content marketing strategies because it gauges your strategies' success. If you are doing content marketing without measuring its success, it's a waste of time. Integrate analytics into your website. Know the pages or posts that get high traffic and work on them to bring in more. If you are looking for top of the line but free analytics, here's a great list: Google Analytics Statcounter Going Up Piwick Awstats Tracewatch What content marketing strategies work for you? We would love to hear your successes in driving organic traffic to your site. Connect with us on Linkedin and follow us on Twitter for more news and updates.

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