by tradesmeninsights | Apr 13, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Content is king as I’ve learned from mentor Michael Gass. He says it doesn’t matter how great a writer you are, if people don’t read it, then there’s no benefit to anyone. I’m sharing his 10 tips which I try to live by when writing for social media. I’m a living testament that if you follow the rules, your writing will be read and shared.
According to a social media study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42, original content, both branded and expert, is by far the most employed tactic for social media.
And … “businesses that blog get 55% more website traffic than those that don’t.”
Creating valuable content increases website traffic that will equate into new business leads. But writing for the web can be daunting, even for experienced copywriters. They are often the ones that struggle the most with making the transition from print to web.
“Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Jon Buscall
You need to think carefully about structuring and formatting your online content to ensure your readers find it and read it. Here are my 10 tips to help you write better for the Web:
- Provide a Reader’s Digest or Executive Summary version. Readers love bullet pointed and numbered lists. That’s why so many readers are attracted to post titles that offer 10 tips or 25 ideas, etc. The work you do on behalf of your readers to simplify will be greatly appreciated and keep them coming back for more.
- Key words in every post titles. Write for SEO. It doesn’t matter how great your article is if no one can find it. A simple tip to help boost your rankings in Google search is to identify and use certain key words in every post title. 90% of my posts will contain ‘ad agency new business’ in the title. It helps not only for search but will also help drive ‘targeted traffic’ as your posts are repurposed through Twitter. With only 140 characters that you can use for Twitter, that’s not much more than your title and a shortened URL.
- Lead with the conclusion. I advise that you begin each post by starting with the conclusion, a take-away or benefits statement. Just answer this question, ‘what is my benefit if I commit to read this post?’
- Break up long paragraphs. A reader’s attention span online is much less than for print. Readers tend to scan instead of reading word-for-word. Keep paragraphs concise and short.
- Be sure and provide hyper links to your sources. Don’t be afraid that you will lose your audience if they go to another source. Your blog should become a repository of helpful resources for your readers.
- Make your content scannable to the eye. Use bold, italics, quotation marks, indentation, etc. to make copy pop. A person should be able to quickly scan through your article and get the most important parts.
- Write in an Inverted Pyramid style. Similar to the way a newspaper reported would write, the most important copy should be at the top of your post.
- Use common language. This is an opportunity to do away with industry jargon and agency speak and write content that resonates with your intended audience.
- Get to the point, quickly. Online readers are extremely impatient. If you wade into a story and it takes 3 or 4 paragraphs to show how it relates, you will have lost your audience before you’ve made your point.
- Make your post visually pleasing. I always include a nice photo or graphic to further drive home the main purpose of a post. Using them will create interest and help draw in a reader.
Follow these 10 tips and it will help get your message delivered.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 12, 2011 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
I’ve alway been a big supporter and advocate of B2B companies engaging social media with LinkedIn.
According to a recent article in eMarketer.com, social media Gigya saw a 17% increase of logins using LinkedIn in a six-month period from July 2010 to Jan 2011.
This indicates a trend to keep the personal apart from the business activities. “Although LinkedIn has always had the professional social graph, they’ve really made some great moves over the past year especially to encourage more communication and collaboration among people using the service,” according to the Gigya company blog.
If you like this post, you might like to read:
LinkedIn:5 Ways to Make the Most out of Your Connections.
2010 Highlights of the State of Social Media for Business.
What’s Changing with Social Media.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 7, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Social media may be the hottest topic around the water cooler at work, but when it comes down to generating sales, direct marketing still fills a need. We all need to remember that there are many tools in the marketing tool box and we shouldn’t dismiss or forget about what’s been successful in the past.
You may have been bombarded by DM in past years to the point of oversaturation and were kind of turned off by it. Then there are e-mail campaigns that also began to bombard us and we either tuned them out or our IT department put enough filters on that nothing or next to nothing comes in.
What do you want to bet that the same will hold true of social sometime down the road? That happens when everyone hops on the newest thing. Ironically, we have had for both ourselves and for clients great success of late with DM because very few people are doing it!
I recently read a post by Chris Cottle in BtoB magazine that highlighted 5 best practices to help guide your DM efforts and I wanted to share some highlights thant might help you:
- Invest in your list – The old adage “garbage in, garbage out.” Don’t be concerned so much about the size of the list, but the quality. Your best list is an internal one that’s a combination of leads from traditional marketing efforts, as well as input from your customer service, outside sales and warranty cards. Segment the list by markets, job function and if you can, where they are in the buying cycle.
- The offer matters – “What’s in in for me” should be the first thing a prospect should see. Make offers instantly relevant and show them the benefits.
- KISS – Keep it simple. You don’t have to have an “award winning” piece, but one that gets the prospect’s attention. Simplicity implies confidence.
- Frequency matters – Depending on your audience, you’ll have to test to see how often you can touch them without getting pushback. If you’re using e-mail as part of your program, you will find out very quickly where the opt-out rate start to increase.
- Prove your business case -You only have a few seconds to get their attention and then you need to quickly convince them of the value of your proposition. In most B-to-B cases, there are multiple buying infuences and you want to get this person on your side to be your advocate with other colleagues.
I hope these have spurred some ideas for your next direct marketing program.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 6, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Business has changed. Are you keeping up with the best practices to keep you ahead of the curve? A study by IBM stressed that we will see more changes that will impact our businesses in the next 5 years than in the last 50!
These changes aren’t about technology of social media, but about how businesses adapt to their audiences. The new era is one of open communications and real-time 
online participation.
Jay Baer and Amber Nashlund co-authors of The NOW Revolution do a great job in simplifying the steps a company needs to change its culture to deal with the current business climate.
The book introduces 7 key shifts that business leaders need to address along with laying out a plan for each.
- Strip away silos and overgrown business processes
- Hire and empower a new type of employee
- Organize internal teams for maximum external impact
- Listen at the point of need
- Travel the Humanization Highway and respond effectively to customer inquiries
- Plan for, find, and manage real-time crisis
- Redesign success metrics in a business world that’s increasingly instantaneous
If you’re serious about social media and how it’s impacting your business now and in the future, you need to read this book.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 5, 2011 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
For those that follow me, you know I talk about how Twitter is one of my best lead generators. Most people are either afraid or intimidated and there really is no reason to be.
Understanding how your prospects are using Twitter and what personal data they are willing to share can boost its use for new business.
Sysomos is the leading provider of social media monitoring and analytics technology. They have analyzed more than a billion tweets generated by over 20 million Twitter users in 2010. This included bio, website address and location information (both textual and lat / long) disclosed in their profile pages to see how many details Twitter users were divulging.
Here’s some of the highlights of Twitter usage in 2010:
- The number of Twitter users offering personal information within their bios has more than doubled to 63.3%, compared with 31% in 2009.
- 82% of Twitter users now provide a name, compared with only 33% in 2009.
- 73% provide location information compared with 44% in 2009.
- 45% of users submit a website address versus 22% a year ago.
- From January 2010 until mid-August 2010, new users accounted for nearly 44% of the total Twitter population.
- Only 0.05% have more than 10,000 friends they follow, and only 2.05% have more than 1,000. The vast majority of users – 95.8% – have less than 500 people they follow.
- Only 0.06% of Twitter users have more than 20,000 followers, and only 2.12% have more than 1,000 followers. Meanwhile, 95.9% have less than 500 followers.
- More than three-quarters of Twitter users – 80.6% – have made fewer than 500 tweets, 2.7% have made more than 5,000 tweets.
- A small hard-core group (2.2%) have accounted for 58.3% of all tweets, while 22.5% have accounted for about 90% of all activity.
Click on the following link to read Sysomos report: Twitter Statistics for 2010: An in-depth report at Twitter’s Growth 2010, compared with 2009
Some Twitter tools to help you measure and improve:
- TweeterGrader: a free tool that allows you to check the power of your Twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.
- Tweetstats: a free tool that will graph your Tweets and show how many retweets.
- Bit.ly is a universal url shortener that not only provides a handy service in shortening urls but also allows you to access analytics to see how many people are clicking on your link.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 31, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Think about it. Wouldn’t you want to model your company around the most successful company in the world? We all use Google in our everyday lives, but have we really thought about what makes them so great?
Recently my son gave me a book by Jeff Jarvis from Buzzmachine.com titled What Would Google Do? I have to tell you, it’s the most interesting business book I’ve read in some time.
Jeff gives his insights on what makes Google so successful and practical examples (from service businesses to manufacturing, government and even religion) of how we should reposition ourselves to be more like Google. He highlights the “10 things Google has found to be true.”
Here are some highlights:
- You need a new attitude – to build trust, listen and don’t try to control.
- Customers are in charge – you’re better off ceding control to them.
- The mass market is dead. Mass niches are where you need to be.
- Free is a business model.
One of the challenges he gives us all is answering the question – What business are you in? Are you in the knowledge business, data, networking? Where is your value?
This books makes you think and re-evaluate your own business model. I highly recommend it.
