by tradespeopleinsights | May 4, 2010 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
LinkedIn has a new tool, “Follow Company,” which, like it says, lets you follow companies. What a great way to get current activity levels at your customers or competitors. Learn what the latest competitive promo is or what the customers are talking about.
It’s simple to use.
- You can either go the search box at the top right and scroll down to company and enter who you want to follow. Once the company profile comes up, there will be a place for you to click the box and you’re done. To unfollow is just as easy.
- The other option is go to a member’s profile and where it talks about who he’s working for, you can scroll and click “Follow Company” and you’re done.
I can’t believe it took them as long as it did to put this feature up there. The “Follow Company” function has truly made LinkedIn social.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 29, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
That’s the $64,000 question. Marketers are split on whether social media will deliver measurability according to a recent study by Datran Media’s 4th Annual Marketing and Media Survey. 87% of those surveyed said that accurate online measurement was at least somewhat important for driving increased brand awareness, revenues or performance.
According to eMarketers’ CEO and co-founder, Geoff Ramsey, in his insight brief, Seven Guidelines for Achieving Social Media ROI, most marketers today do not invest sufficient time, effort or money on social media measurement.
The leading metrics used to measure social success focus on increased site traffic, but on its own, it cannot justify heavier investments in social media.
Of those respondents, those who are heavily invested in Facebook and Twitter were most likely to track online.
For the B-to-B sector, they are having a tough enough time finding justifications and budgets to do social media. After they cross that hurdle, then they’ll have to start monitoring their activities.
If you like this post you might like:
Why Do People Ignore Social Media Metrics?
B-to-B Marketers: Analytics Key To Your Internet Success.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 28, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Those of us who have been blogging for sometime may be under the assumption that once someone finds our blog they become a groupie and read every one of our posts. Well, here’s a wake up call.
Would you believe that 80% of the people who come to your site are first-timers?
This is true for most bloggers. Even the big boys like Jay Baer and Jason Falls have 65% plus who come to their sites for the first time. Jay Baer wrote a recent post, 5 Ways to Make Friends with Strangers on your Blog, where he outlines his suggestions on how to capitalize on your blog.
This comes from new research from Compendium Blogware (I recently attended a webinar from them) that shows that for more than two-thirds of corporate blogs, new visitors comprise more than 80% of blog traffic. So once your ego gets over the fact that the number of groupies following may not be as large as you thought, what do you plan on doing?
I’m a believer that the glass is half full and that this provides all of us with an opportunity to convert those first-timers to regulars. Here are some things you should consider doing:
- Make your site easy to navigate – 80-95% of all clicks to your blog are organic which means they didn’t come directly to your URL.
- Make sure your blog is focused – so the new reader can easily identify what it is you are focusing on and make it personal (put up your photo).
- Keep talking about your key ideas over and over – Just because you wrote something last week, it doesn’t mean they see it especially with 80% plus being first-timers.
- Keep them on your site by referring them back to other posts you have written on the same subject – this helps you build thought leadership quickly.
- Make it easy to subscribe to your RSS feed – if they like what they’ve read, make it easy for them to read you regularly.
These are my thoughts. Do you have any to add?
Here are some other posts you might find interesting:
10 Engagement Tactics That Will Help B-to-B Marketers
Forrester Report: Most B-to-B Blogs Fail.
If you like this post, please pass it on.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 27, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
“Build it and they will come,” is not the answer to generate traffic to your agency’s blog. You must employ proactive tactics to create awareness and interest among prospective tradesmen. The more traffic that you can generate from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.
Denise Wakeman, Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad, has created an excellent list of tips to generate traffic to your blog. I would encourage you to create a list of “to dos” from her suggestions. For more details, be sure to check out her article, “19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog.”
Here are 6 suggestions:
- Make your target audience crystal clear. If you can’t clearly and narrowly define your audience, you won’t build significant traffic.
- Optimize your posts’ content for search. Identify and dominate a few key words that your target audience will most likely use to find you. Use these words consistently in your posts’ titles and copy.
- Knowledge is power. Get in the habit of checking your blog’s analytics frequently. Keep it simple, but know at least daily the number of unique visitors, page views, top posts, how people got to your blog, search terms and incoming links.
- Don’t be afraid to re-purpose older blog content through multiple social media channels. Posts that I’ve written a year ago are still pertinent and continue to generate traffic to my blog.
- One thing to not do that will impact traffic. Don’t sell! The moment you start to sell on your blog is when you will most likely LOSE your audience.
- Identify who your audience is in your post titles. This is especially helpful when you re-purpose your content on Twitter and an important part of SEO for your blog.
These are some of my ways. What do you do to make the most out of your blog? I’d like to hear from you.
If you like this post please, pass it on.
Here are some other posts that might be of interest:
5 Quick Tips to Promote your Posts
How do you Find Readers for your Blog
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 22, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
This is the second part of a two-part article on the plant engineer. Here’s a link to the first part (Part 1). For those of you who are targeting the plant engineering function, you should read a new study that was just released in April from Plant Engineering magazine, called, “The Changing World of the Plant Engineer.” From the study, you’ll gain insight on the changing role of the plant engineer, what they’re thinking about for 2010 and beyond. So next time you’re talking to a plant engineer, think about what’s on his mind.
The second part has to deal with 7 changes they would make about the manufacturing operation:
- Decrease Outsourcing/Keep Manufacturing in this Country – They want to not only keep what’s left of manufacturing in this country, but want to bring back what’s offshore. They don’t believe this country can survive as a consumer society.
- Increase/Improve Automation – Replace aging equipment with automated machines with vision inspection to reduce costs and improve productivity.
- Educate/Train Employees – More operator training and involvement in predictive/preventative maintenance. Training of future techicans and engineers. Keep up-to-date on new technology.
- Aging Equipment/Facilities – Invest in systems that would help reduce costs and improve quality.
- Decrease Regulations – Reduce tight environmental and OSHA Regulations. This will help level the playing field with China.
- More Efficient/Lean – Increase improvement and LEAN culture for all employees.
- Tax Incentive/Tariffs – Make the playing field level so we can compete. There should be tax breaks for companies that keep their manufacturing here in the States.
These are interesting insights as to what’s on their minds.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 21, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
For those of you who are targeting the plant engineering function, you should read a new study that was just released in April from Plant Engineering magazine called, “The Changing World of the Plant Engineer.” From the study, you’ll gain insight on the changing role of the plant engineer, what they’re thinking about for 2010 and beyond. So next time you’re talking to a plant engineer, think about what’s on his mind.
Part 1 – We’re going to review the highlights of their top 10 biggest job related concerns:
- The Economy – No big surprise on this one, but beyond what’s happening in Washington, they are worried about economic factors they have no control over like global competition, currency fluctuation and environmental issues.
- Job Security – Will my plant close, will I be asked to retire early, will I get fired. A lot to think about when they’re trying to do their job on a daily basis.
- Knowledgeable Employees/Aging Workforce – They’re concerned that most of the experienced workforce will retire in the next 5 years leaving them with less skilled replacements.
- Aging Equipment/Facilities – How do they keep the facility running at or above production targets with a reduced workforce and aging equipment that will need more mainteinance.
- Safety – Not a priority with upper management. They are more concerned with increased productivity.
- Plant Closings – Will their plant survive 3-5 years? Will they lose production to India or China?
- Budget – Meeting cost targets in a downturned economy. Where to best spend their limited budgets so they don’t have a major failure.
- Doing more with Less – Increased workload, reduced budgets and limited resources on all fronts.
- Government/Environmental Regulations – A growing government with more burdensome regulations.
- Outsourcing – of jobs overseas and the shrinking importance of manufacturing to our economy.
These are interesting insights as to what’s on their minds. Next up, changes they would make about their manufacturing operation.
LinkedIn has a new tool, “Follow Company,” which, like it says, lets you follow companies. What a great way to get current activity levels at your customers or competitors. Learn what the latest competitive promo is or what the customers are talking about.
