Monthly Archives: April 2011

The real reason you need to create content

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Why does my business need to be creating content?

This is a critical social media marketing question and one that we get asked often. The short answer is: Because Google loves new content.

But this is not the only reason anymore. Let’s look beyond Google and online marketing. Last week I wrote about what you can do to protect your online reputation; there is a reason for this:

Your content (be it blog posts, status updates, tweets, conversations, contributions, videos, audio, or photos) is your reputation.

Influence is the new marketing

Actually, influence has always been key, the nature of the web makes it more obvious. It’s increasingly evident that the idea of publishing content so it can be found by Google is mainstream, and sharing on social networks is becoming equally useful and important for organizations.

Because people seek out recommendations from others, your online presence becomes your reputation.

It also becomes clear why there is a surge in online reputation management systems and influence scores. Marketers are increasingly using these tools to manage their brands but also to find the ‘influencers’.

When I say that your content is your reputation, I don’t mean you have to do all the above tactics. Whether you blog or tweet, but don’t do video or audio, doesn’t mean you can’t become an authority. As long you contribute and add value with your content and people find it useful you’ll become an authority.

By contributing your ideas you are already ahead of everyone else. You are anticipating the next evolution of the web and business. An organization that’s contributing content not just to appear on Google, but to influence the ecosystem.

The organizations and people who see the web through this lens are already ahead of the game.

Are you?

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Don’t be afraid to sound like you

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So, do you talk to search engines or do you talk to people?

Keyword stuffing your website for Google is not going to get you noticed by people. And it will most likely get you banned from Google. The other problem…

The thing about writing for search engines (algorithms) is that your content sounds like it was written by a robot. This is not ‘reading friendly’ for people. It also makes your blog less personal.

First impressions are important, and people know when a first impression is accurate. This not only applies when meeting someone physically, but also in digital form. That means your social network profiles on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, but also where you have content about you: Your blog, presentations, interviews, email, etc.

While the usage of video will increase with time, the language you use to articulate your ideas is the first impression people will make about you. Talk to customers like you would talk to friends. Explain things as if you were sitting next to them.

With a blog you have the ability to communicate simply and directly to your readers.

Don’t be afraid to be you.

Write to be read, don’t just write to write

The holy grail of SEO is inbound links to your blog/website and people (bloggers) will not link to content that was created by a robot. They will link to content that was created by another human that adds a thoughtful angle to a topic that interests them. The value is how you articulate it in your own words, not how good it sounds to search engines.

The same principle applies to Twitter, people won’t follow a robot. You better have a picture of yourself and a thoughtful bio (your own words) that gives people an idea of who you are.

Again, don’t be afraid to be you.

It’s the best online marketing principle there is. Period.

 

 

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Should marketers outsource social media?

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According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Report, 72 percent of marketers who use social media do not outsource it. However, farming out various aspects of social media marketing has gained traction in the past year. The study found that the percentage of marketers outsourcing social media has doubled, jumping to 28 percent from 14 percent in 2010.

These are the tasks that marketers are outsourcing to third parties:

social media outsourcing

So, should marketers outsource social media?

Not all of it.

Outsourcing all activities is almost like saying that your company should outsource it’s creativity to someone else. That’s a BIG no-no!

Content creation certainly falls into this category because creating content that matters is a creative endeavor. Big companies that have the resources and people to do the majority of these tasks in-house will do so, and maybe have some consulting assistance to refresh their knowledge.

Medium sized businesses that don’t have the capabilities to do social media in-house are at an advantage because there are an infinite number of resources available as well as specialized agencies that most if not all of these tasks. The key is getting through the noise in selecting which to work with.

For small businesses there are an infinite number of ways to do most of these tasks themselves, there are free tools that help you start doing social media immediately.

The key task organizations should think about outsourcing is analytics. Why? Because, though the internet has become mainstream, most businesses are not yet capable of translating analytics data to insights. And with social, it’s become a whole different.

Translating analytics data into valuable insights has become a key factor of success for businesses of all types. With so much data being generated daily on social networks and on the web in general, this is a critical task that organizations need to become competent in.

There are agencies that manage this function for organizations with the intent of helping the client make better informed decisions by uncovering hidden insights. But,  final decisions must come from the organization.

These are my thoughts and would love to know what you think. So, should marketers outsource social media?

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How you can protect your online reputation

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You cannot control what others say about you, but you can choose what you write about yourself that you want to share. Today, your reputation precedes you. Whether you have a business or are self-employed, a new contact is likely to run a search before officially asking for a resume so it is necessary that you make a good first impression by having a positive online presence.

Here then, are a few things you can do to protect your online reputation:

Build up your social media presence

One of the simplest strategies to protect one’s good name is to purposefully put good content on the web– on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, etc.. In other words, the best defense is a good offense. Selecting to post on sites that get higher rankings improves results and helps the good reputation-building content appear near the top of search results.

Use testimonials of satisfied customers

There are people who are already saying great things about you: your customers. Use your testimonials.

Turn unsatisfied customers into satisfied customers

The best way to get people saying good things about you is to make them happy. A formerly unhappy customer who is made happy tells ten people. With that said, apologize for mistakes and solve problems fast.

Listen and respond

Track what is being said about you. Lots of people will say negative things, some justified, some not. You can’t win every argument, you can’t stop perpetual complainers, and some people will have legitimate issues. This is ok, as long as far more people are saying positive things.

You want to make sure that most of what is being said is positive; that you’re responding as best you can to the negative; and you’re doing all you can to encourage your fans to support you.

 

Bottom line: It all comes down to building credibility before you need it.

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3 Ways to guarantee you’ll get amazing PR

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If you’re a small business your marketing budget is quite limited, so you need to get really creative. Effective PR is a cost-effective way to gain editorial exposure for your product, get more leads, generate more sales and build a great brand.

Getting a mention from the media makes you look more credible than traditional advertising. So having a PR strategy is a must.

But before you do that, you need to make sure you have a few things covered first.

What’s your market?

Be very specific about the community that will benefit from using your product of service. This helps you choose which media to work with based on the impact it will have.

What are the benefits relevant to my market?

People don’t care about features, they care about what those features do for them. Believe it or not, we subconsciously ask ourselves ‘So What?’ every time we are pitched a new product or service. How do you answer the ‘so what’ about your product or service?

If the product or service you are promoting does not benefit them in any way, you need to go back and reevaluate your value proposition. This is not just important for you but also when pitching the media and it has to backed up by some numbers.

What media does my market use?

Do you know which media outlets your target market typically reads, views or listens to? You need to know. If they are not so obvious you will need to do some timely research.

 

Look at these questions as a checklist of key factors you need to know cold before pitching your services or product to the media.

What would you add?

 

 

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Should your business have a Facebook Fan Page?

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If you’re not asking yourself this question, you’re in trouble. This question often comes up when contemplating what social media tools are the best for your business and Facebook is one of those tools that makes it easy to be influenced by what everyone else is doing and just jump in with no idea as to what you want to do with a Facebook Fan Page.

According to a recent report from Forrester, the use of Facebook is not translating into cash for most e-commerce-based businesses.

social networks rank last among customer acquisition tactics

social networks rank last among customer acquisition tactics

Still, more than 70% of small businesses use Facebook, according to a recent Merchant Circle survey. (This number may be a little misleading though)

What Facebook is great for is brand visibility, everything else will fall into place eventually. You just have to look beyond the cash register. This was also one of the main benefits highlighted on Social Media Examiners 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Posting updates, asking questions and engaging with your customers, Facebooks is probably the best free marketing tool on the web because ; even better than Twitter where attention spans are shorter.

Right now the jury it’s still not clear how this brand visibility translates into actual sales.

What do you think?

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Business exposure still top benefit of social media marketing

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The number-one advantage of social media marketing (by a long shot) is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.

These and other findings are from Social Media Examiner’s 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Below is a video summary of the report which is 41 pages long and you can download here free of charge!

Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2011 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

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