by tradesmeninsights | Jul 21, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
If you’re a blogger, you know that it takes a lot of time to continually write posts, and once it’s on your site, you have to start on the next one. You may be overlooking ways to “reuse” the content across other medias to generate new conversations. Here are some hints:
Repurpose existing content – collect all thought leadership you have created over the past few years that isn’t time sensitive. This goes beyond the posts you’ve done. Look at white papers, articles, presentations, webinars. You get the idea. Once you have a stack, organize them by various topics or themes that’s appropriate for your target audiences.
Repackage your content – there are so many different options. Here are just a few suggestions:
- Powerpoints – can be converted to an online slide show and put up on slide share.
- Case Studies – can be used as a series of “Best Practices” and can be delivered by way of podcasts or webinars.
- Industry News/Trends – use as mobile SMS alerts where folks can subcribe to your updates.
- White Papers – turn into podcasts or a series of forum topics.
- Position Papers – turn into podcasts, and if you haven’t already done a post on them, it’s an ideal way to reuse content.
- Use Other Social Media Outlets – post comments on your Facebook wall, tweet about them and use the content on the appropriate groups on your LinkedIn account.
Refine content – optimize your content using your keywords to increase your site ranking. If mobile marketing is an important target for you, you need to reformat content so it’s reader friendly. Here are some helpful hints from Christina Kerley.
These are some of the ways I try to reuse content. I’d like to hear what you do.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 20, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
60% of companies using social media have no plan. Shooting from the hip does not make sense. Your purpose should dictate strategy.
Companies are going about social strategy backwards, by first concentrating on the tools and technologies instead of focusing on what they want to achieve. My understanding of social media and how to use it was greatly expedited because my rifled focus on applying it for new business.
A survey conducted by marketing firm Digital Brand Expressions found that 78 percent of client companies responding to their survey said they use social media, but only 41 percent said they have a strategic plan in place to direct their social media efforts.
Other key findings from this survey that should be of interest:
- Of the companies that have no plan in place, 88% agree that it is important.
- Of those companies that work from some plan, 94% said that marketing activities are included in the plan.
- 71% of those with a plan said their Marketing Department is the group with the primary responsibility for creating and maintaining the firm’s social media presence.
- Of the planners, 71% indicate they use social media for public relations communications while 55% said that they used social media for sales-related activities. A surprisingly small percentage (16%) say their HR team is using social media for recruiting, employee retention, training and development, etc. and 26% use it for customer service.
- Social media efforts are being led primarily by Marketing (71%) and PR (29%) departments.
- Even among those with a plan, few (29%) have written policies and communications protocols in place, leaving the organization exposed to problems arising out of employees communicating in ways that inadvertently hurt, rather than help, their company brands.
“It’s fairly well established that social media is a channel that businesses must participate in, leaving CEOs with the new challenge of planning and implementing brand aligned initiatives enterprise-wide,” said Veronica Fielding, president and CEO of Digital Brand Expressions.
Click on the link to download a PDF copy of: Corporate Social Media Report
If you like this post, these others might be of interest to you:
Social Media Catching on in the B-to-B Markets
Social Media Marketing Continues to Grow: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 7, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
Twitter is one of the most useful social media tools we use to drive traffic. For it to be effective, you first need to determine key words and phrases that fit into your space.
Twitter has tools as well as third parties that can help. I recently read an article by Adam Holden-Bache in Social Media B2B where he outlines some tips on fine-tuning your audience searches. Here are some highlights:
- Determine key words and phrases – Go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool and enter some key words. For example, air conditioning heating gets an average 550,000 monthly hits and 450,000 are local searches
- Search Twitter by key words – Twitter Advance Search, take what you find on Google and plug into Twitter
- Optimize tweets for inbound opportunities – Use Google Reader and select Twitter Search Feed. When you click on “show details,” it tells you when most activities are taking place so you know when to Tweet
- Use Buzzom.com to search Twitter Bios – Search key words that would describe the people that buy your products, such as remodeling contractors
- Use Twellow.com to search business categories – This is a directory of Twitter accounts and you can search broad categories to identify people who are in the energy market, aerospace or green
These are some great tips. Do you have any to share?
If you like this article, you may like:
How to Engage the Professional Tradesmen on Twitter
Awareness of Twitter has Exploded: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 6, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
We all use e-mails as part of our marketing strategy, but have you considered adding social sharing options? If you haven’t, you should and here’s why:
A recent study by GetResponse showed that e-mail messages that included social sharing options generated 30% higher click-through rates than e-mails without a social option.
Messages with 3 or more sharing options generate 55% higher click-through rates.
These findings make sense if you consider that Twitter posts 55 million tweets a day and that the average Facebook user has 130 friends. This is Viral at its best, and if you give your audience an easy way to share your info, they will.
So next time when doing an e-mail campaign, make sure you include social sharing options.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 1, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter
Twitter is often one of the most misunderstood and underutilized social media tools. I use it all the time and it’s one of the best lead generators for my blog.
Chris Brogan, one of the industry’s gurus, has put together a list of tips that I thought would be useful, so here they are:
Intent (Human Artist)
- Don’t read EVERY tweet. It’s perfectly okay. You have permission.
- Follow anyone who follows you (and unfollow spammers/jerks).
- Promote other people 12x to every 1 self-promotional tweet.
- Build lists to watch people who matter to you more closely.
- Retweet the good stuff from others. Sharing is caring.
- A lot of @replies shows a lot of humanity/engagement.
- Robot tweets are less sexy than human tweets.
- Promote the new/less followed more than the “names.”
- Set an egg timer. Twitter is addictive.
- Everyone does it their own way. You’re doing it wrong, too – to someone.
Technical
- A non-standard background and face avatar means we believe you may be human.
- Leave 20 characters or more space in each tweet to improve retweeting.
- Use Seesmic or Tweetdeck or Hootsuite so you can see more.
- Linking one update to several communities is technically possible. It’s just not respectful of each community’s uniqueness.
- Tools like http://bit.ly let you see stats. Use them.
- Make hashtags small and simple. We need room to tweet.
- If software allows you to “post updates to Twitter” as well as to the app, don’t do that. We rarely want to see them.
- If you develop software that pushes updates to Twitter, be VERY explicit how that works.
- Every time you use OAUTH to give apps permission to use your account, you open a potential security hole. Check your permissions monthly.
- The best mobile app is the one that you feel comfortable using. We don’t know better.
Business
- Spamming us repeatedly is okay. We just unfollow you.
- Spend more time in search than in chatting us up about your stuff.
- Finding people who need what you’re selling trumps advertising to us.
- Retweeting someone’s nice words about you is lame and doesn’t buy you more attention. Let it stand.
- If your link is an affiliate link or a client, say so (in parentheses).
- Your customers might not be on Twitter. Use rapleaf to find them.
- Invite your customers to Twitter, then make it worth it for them.
- Use Twitter as a personalized communication tool, not another blast.
- Having different accounts for everything seems like the right move, until you realize it’s hard to grow multiple followings.
- Just make money and then the boss won’t ask about ROI any more.
Integrated Usage
- Twitter makes every event better. Post the hashtag everywhere. Make every speaker sign/label/name include a Twitter ID.
- Apps like TweetChat.com make following event chats really easy. Put in a hashtag and go.
- Tweeting the content of events is nice, but so is occasionally making a real live connection with the speaker.
- It’s okay to tweet your blog posts, but try asking a question that leads readers into the post.
- Can you invite Twitter followers to your other social platforms, like LinkedIn or Facebook? Sure you can.
- I’m not into mixing my location apps with my tweets, but if you do, do it FROM the location app into Twitter, not the other way around.
- Getting others to tweet your posts or news or registrations is useful, but sometimes comes off as a barrage or spam. Be prepared for that perception.
- Tweets that point us to photos and/or video and/or music, etc., are always a great way to enhance the experience.
- Please remove Twitter from LinkedIn. Use the #in tag instead and be selective.
- Spammy or no, events that tweet their attendance registration seem to drive attendance.
Off-Twitter
- Are your tweets really what you want to show in your sidebar? Doesn’t that direct people away from your site?
- Think of Twitter as a guidance system to what you think is interesting. A lot of that is likely off-Twitter.
- Apps like VisibleTweets.com are neat, but can be very distracting at events.
- If you use tweets on a screen at an event, be warned if you moderate. Angry crowds can happen.
- Don’t forget to invite people from off-Twitter to follow you on Twitter. Include your actual Twitter ID (I see lots of “follow me on Twitter” with no details).
- Asking questions on Twitter makes for very interesting commentary and opinions for blog posts.
- Tweetups are awesome, especially if you make them about more than just drinking and saying hi. (Though, hey, drinks can be nice.)
- Outside of the Twitter app, keep “Tw” names to a minimum. We’re not your “tweeps.”
- If your only marketing efforts are on Twitter, start building an email marketing list. Never put your eggs in one basket.
- Start thinking in 120 characters (remember? save 20). Every bit of this advice is tweetable.
Your mileage may vary. Some of these might be really helpful and others might not be that useful at all, given your own situations. In fact, feel free to make your own version, add and subtract at will, and comment on where you disagree or agree. It’s all up for discussion. Besides, you’re doing it wrong.
If you like this article, you might enjoy:
How to Engage the Professional Tradesmen on Twitter
Awareness of Twitter has Exploded: Great Way to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
B-to-B Marketers: Tips on How to Optimize Twitter
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 30, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
I recently had the chance to catch up with Georgia Foley, Executive Director of STAFDA, to get her read on what’s happening in their industry and what STAFDA is doing about it. You can hear the entire interview here.
Highlights include:
- What the biggest challenges facing members are. Health care lines of credit and overall government policies top the list.
- Key issues facing the manufacturing sector.
- Employee Free Choice Act – What it means if it becomes law.
- What the manufacturer’s role moving forward should be to support distribution.
If you like this podcast, please pass it onto a friend.
