'Net Features : facebook, blogging

Content Marketing Your Way

Linc Wonham — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:00 GMT

You have a strong, well-defined brand identity that suits your company’s values and serves the image you wish to portray. Your products and services are valuable, well-researched and carefully aimed at a specific audience.

You have all the pieces in place to succeed in your business venture, so there is no better time to begin a successful content marketing campaign to attract a potential client base to your company, your brand and your products.

What is Content Marketing
The Content Marketing Institute has put together a fantastic definition that I will borrow here: To engage in content marketing is to create and distribute “relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience, with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

In other words, content marketing is the act of communicating with your target audience in a way that does not involve selling to them directly. Rather than pitching your audience on your products and services, you are providing them with informative content that allows them to decide for themselves that your products and services are exactly what they are looking for. Content marketing represents an invaluable opportunity to educate and inform your potential client and customer base, allowing for a more engaged and intelligent interaction with your brand.

Forms of Content Marketing
Content marketing is composed of many aspects, and in a successful content marketing campaign, these various parts of the campaign work together to engage your target audience. Content marketing can take the form of blogs, social media strategies, e-books, whitepapers, case studies, newsletters, reports, custom publications, podcasts, videos, webinars and infographics.

The most successful content marketing campaigns involve several of these forms, all working together in tandem to communicate a consistent message to your audience. Members of your target audience will each engage with your brand in a variety of different arenas, so using several different forms and techniques ensures that your content marketing strategy reaches the widest possible audience.

It is also advised to tailor your content and corporate message subtly, depending on the form that the message is being delivered, to more successfully and accurately target the needs of certain constituents of your audience. For example, you may find that you fine-tune your blog content slightly to appeal to a specific online community, such as mommy bloggers, whereas the content you present via social media may be designed for younger, single professionals.

Effective Content Marketing
The key to an effective content marketing strategy is to make sure that the content you produce will engage your audience, will be valuable to them and will ultimately increase their ability to intelligently interact with your brand and the products and services that you offer through it. The content that you offer should be easy to read, relevant to the interests of your audience, and provide them with valuable information that they are actively looking for. Well-written, thoughtful and well-placed content is essential to the success of your content marketing campaign.

Content Marketing as a Call to Action
Content marketing is essentially about ideas. Your brand, your company and the products and services that you offer are essentially extensions of that idea.

The content that you create and offer to your target audience should engage with the ideas that fuel your company's mandate and products. Always keep in mind that the end goal of any content marketing is to spur your target audience to action.

You have a unique opportunity through content marketing to communicate your company's vision to your target audience. The more that your audience learns about the concepts behind your products and services, the ideas that inform your corporate mandate, they should be all the more inspired to engage with those ideas.

The Practical Benefits of Content Marketing
Many of the quantifiable, palpable benefits of content marketing are laid out beautifully in this infographic (which is a fine piece of content marketing in itself). First and foremost, content marketing drastically increases your brand's visibility. Having a blog on your company's website will increase your traffic 55 percent. Even more impressive, the number of inbound links you will get will increase by 97 percent.

Your brand, and your brand's message, is also given a much wider reach via content marketing. A blog with regularly updated content will give your site 97-percent more indexed links and a staggering 434-percent more indexed pages, increasing your Google page rank and SEO profile very positively.

Perhaps even more importantly, content marketing campaigns have a tangible impact on the way that your target audience behaves. Sixty percent of Facebook and Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand that they follow on social media. Sixty-seven percent of Twitter users are more likely to buy from brands that they follow, and blogs are shown to influence purchasing decisions 63 percent more than magazines.

Content marketing is an invaluable tool when it comes to not only influencing the way that your target audience perceives your brand, but also in the way that they then choose to interact with your products and services. With a thoughtful, well-executed content marketing strategy built on high-quality content, your brand and your business will succeed online.

About the author: Matt Goulart is the founder of and lead consultant at Webstar Content, and can be reached at Matt@webstarcontent.com.

WM Radio: Affordable Market Research, Apple's Big News

Mike Phillips — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:15:00 GMT

Apple made some announcements today, some of which is addressed on this week's edition of Website Magazine Radio. Also, we talk with Lev Mazin, CEO of AskYourTargetMarket.com, a nice tool to conduct market research at an affordable price. Finally, we address our reader question of the week about how to get your organization noticed - for free.

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If you would like to have your questions answered on Website Magazine Radio, please send email to mike@websitemagazine.com with "WM Radio" in the subject field.

Off-Site Development Tops Holiday Retail Objectives

Mike Phillips — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Shop.org's annual eHoliday Study points to a growing trend among merchants this holiday season - off-site Web development. According to the study, retailers are taking social media seriously. They are developing their presence outside of their own websites to help attract consumers. Or - more to the point - to help consumers find their businesses.

Over 60 percent of retailers reported making enhancements to their Facebook presence this year, and over 58 percent have done the same for their Twitter profiles. In addition, more than 65 percent have updated their blogs and RSS feeds.

So what can you do enhance your off-site presence for consumers? Below are five places to develop your brand this holiday (and beyond) and a few pointers to get the most out of your efforts:

Discount sites: Consumers are quite adept at finding discounts online. One trend with staying power is coupon sites. RetailMeNot.com attracts more than 6 million visitors per month and that number will rise sharply over the next 45 days or so, just like it did in 2008. Consumers come here to find coupons to your products - give it to them. Other sites to consider are Groupon.com, FatWallet.com and CouponCabin.com.
Facebook and Twitter: Millions of Facebook users update their statuses with news or offerings from brands. But you can't just announce products on Facebook; you have to give people a reason to share. That means special offers and discounts. Also, make sure your Facebook presence is customized to your brand - with your logo and special sections of the page specific to your brand and industry. Don't limit yourself to your own page - there are plenty of special interest organizations and other "clubs" on Facebook where you can make your presence known. Want to make friends on Facebook? Try a paid ad - they are highly targeted. Search Facebook advertising coupon code and you can likely find a $100 or so voucher.

Twitter is an excellent place to connect with users who are accustomed to spreading messages. This is where you want to "tweet" a special promotion - as long as you can handle a possible influx of interest. One of the nice things about Twitter is the prolific use of small URLs. They are non-descript and people click them without too much thought. So, you can direct them to your Facebook Page, a product page on your website, a YouTube video ... just about anywhere. Like Facebook, make sure your Twitter ID is representative of your brand, your logo is consistent and identifiable and that your messages provide true value. Also, with the recent announcement of Twitter lists, your tweets can extend far, far beyond Twitter itself and onto blogs, websites and other social profiles and networks.
YouTube: Online video is appearing in search results more these days and easily shared through channels like Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and more. And the main stage is YouTube. Create videos for your products and services. They can be video instruction manuals, product feature explanations, or even ways to use your product that might not be immediately apparent to a consumer (how many packs of Mentos and liters of Diet Coke do you think were sold from that one YouTube video?) Make sure to optimize your videos with keywords in the title and links to your website or product page in the video description.
Q&A sites: The Internet provides one of the easiest places to research products or services. Take a hard look at your industry and your products and think about the questions consumers might have before purchasing. Check out Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers and industry forums. Be sure to include your brand message (tactfully) in answers to your target audiences' questions. Also consider guest-blogging on an industry leader website - it positions you and your brand as a trusted authority figure.
Blogs: A blogger's lifeblood is his or her network. Catch the attention of just a few highly-regarded bloggers and your brand will end up on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and possibly thousands of other blogs and websites. Identify top bloggers in your industry and send them some free products. Of course, you must follow-up relentlessly (preferably without badgering.)

Your website is the most important touch point for consumers this holiday season and every other season of the year. But more and more, consumers seek out and expect to find your brand at their convenience, wherever they might be spending time online. Be sure they can find you, that you deliver an experience worthy of their attention, and - more importantly - the attention of their friends.

Also read: Get Your Brand on Every Social Network with KnowEm.

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Top Marketer Trends in Social Media

Mike Phillips — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but a new study surveying 900 marketers and sponsored by Social Media Success Summit 2009 shows that marketers are heavily invested in social media, to the tune of 88 percent using at least one social outlet. What is a little surprising is that 72 percent of respondents claim they have only been using these resources for a few months or less.

According to the study, the top social sites in use by marketers are Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, and Facebook, in that order. This suggests that long-standing rumors are true, that Twitter is flooded with marketers marketing to other marketers. While there are plenty of "normal" users out there, this is something to keep in mind when developing your Twitter strategy.

It's also interesting to note that the longer a business has used social marketing, the more time they spend promoting on these sites. Of those just getting started with social marketing, the median weekly time commitment is two hours per week. For those who have been active with social marketing for months, time spent grows to 10 hours per week. And for those reporting using the venue for years, time spent is 20 or more hours per week. This suggests these companies are seeing value, and possibly great return on their time investment. That said, the second most open-ended question asked by survey respondents was "How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?"

Some other notable findings from the study include:

The biggest group of those new to social media marketing are sole proprietors.
Those aged 60-69 are more likely to be just getting started, while those aged 30-39 are most likely to use the tactic.
Respondents cite "gaining attention for the business" as the number one benefit of social media marketing, followed by improving traffic and growing marketing lists.
More than half of respondents reported a rise in search engine rankings as a major benefit of social marketing. (See Twitter as Google SEO)
A significant majority of respondents believe that social media marketing reduces their their overall marketing costs.