What Are You Doing to Adjust to All the New Changes in Marketing?
If you’re an old-time marketer like me, there’s been lots of changes over the past several years as to the alternative ways to reach your targeted audiences. So what do you do so you don’t go the way of the dinosaurs?
I recently read an article in CCO Magazine where they interviewed Brian Kardon, the CMO of Lattice Engines. The interview focused on the making of a modern CMO and what he had to do in order to adjust and thrive in his new environment. Here are some good points he brought up that might help us all:
- Get out of your comfort zone – Look at alternative ways to communicate with your potentials. Keep an open mind.
- There is no substitute for doing – Jump in and get your hands dirty. The best way of understanding something is by trying it.
- Learn from the best – Identify people who are out in front. Those that are risk takers and their passion is contagious.
- Don’t fear mistakes – Consider them chances to learn.
- Partner with specialists – With all the alternatives out there, hire folks that are good at what they do and then let them do it.
- Don’t look back – The things that were successful in the past may not be the best option moving forward.
So I think we can all learn from these pointers if we keep an open mind. I’m finally getting comfortable with most of the new digital and social options available. What I’m not afraid of is asking questions and trying things out. What I found out is I can’t break things like Twitter or SlideShare.
What kinds of challenges are you facing with all these new options?
Spring Clean Your Social Media
Since the social media scene developed many years ago, it’s become cluttered. There are accounts on all social platforms that sit, gathering dust for years. Do any of those accounts belong to you or your company?
Today Rachel Kerstetter, our PR Engineer, is sharing some pointers on how you can spring clean your social media.
When I entered into the realm of public relations with a broad social landscape, I was a little surprised that much of my social media consulting and instruction wasn’t about getting social programs started or operating them, it was a lot of clean up.
It doesn’t take much time to get your social media back on track if you know what to do.
1. Take a look at what you have. How long ago was your last status, tweet, post or picture? Do you have messages or invitations that are waiting to be read? When you look at an old account, try to see where/when things went stale and identify what may have been the cause. Did you have an intern running your social that has since left? Did you “run out” of content or ideas? Do you need help?
2. Check your branding. If anything in your company’s branding has changed, all of your social accounts should reflect that. Get your logos, profile pictures, covers and banners up to date. Make sure that you have a Twitter cover, a LinkedIn banner and a Facebook cover for your company. Use your own company and product names correctly.
3. Is your profile complete? Fill out the boxes with information about your company. Make sure there isn’t a blank spot where an About section should be and make sure that you have links to your website and contact information on there. Here’s what the About Section on Sonnhalter’s Facebook Page looks like:
4. Don’t stand alone. If you only have one person in your company with the Facebook or LinkedIn admin rights or the passwords to your accounts, you’re in for some trouble. What happens if that person leaves your company, takes vacation or falls ill for an extended period of time? You may have one main point person on social media, but always have at least one other person in your organization with social access.
5. Approach the rest of the year with a plan. If you’re having trouble with content, consider setting up a schedule monthly, quarterly or annually with the general topics you want to address on your social media and recruit help if you need it.
You may also be getting overwhelmed on your personal social accounts because your connections are active. Here are just a few tips to save some personal sanity this spring:
- Take advantage of lists, circles, etc. to organize your connections into logical groups. That way you can easily check information from one group at a time (or find information you’re looking for).
- Change your email preferences so you don’t end the day with 50 Facebook email notifications or opt to receive daily or weekly digests from your LinkedIn groups.
- Use your readers. Put all of the blogs you read in one place to minimize jumping around from site to site. We’ve recommended a couple of options in a previous post.
How Do You Repurpose Your Content?
We all work hard developing content and sometimes forget to spend as much time promoting it. Repackaging and republishing in different ways to drive traffic to your website – these are the driving forces on the internet. Our content is relevant around the world and we need to re-share.
I was reminded recently by an article from ASM, The Association of Strategic Marketing, that there are easy ways to share content. Among them:
- Syndication – RSS feeds are the most common way to re-share content. That little button that you put on your site or blog makes it so easy for people to share your content with their group of contacts.
- Summarized reports – Group previously published articles to create a report that can be shared by PDF or other downloadable formats.
- Social Media – Share on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+
- E-mail – Don’t forget about the old standby. Your contacts, both customers and prospects, will welcome good content.
- Multi-media – Repurpose into a podcast or video. This media has its own benefits in that we all like to listen and look as opposed to read all the time. Not to mention that YouTube is the second most search engine behind Google.
What are you doing to make sure your content is shared?
Webinar: Social Media in Manufacturing – Why it Should Matter to You
If you’re a manufacturer that either doesn’t use or think social media should be a part of your overall marketing plan, this webinar is for you.
We will discuss why social media is not only relevant but crucial to your overall marketing initiatives. I will be joined by Greg Habermann, COO of SageRock, a digital marketing agency and a strategic partner of ours. We will show you real examples of what manufacturers are doing right and give you tips on how you can too. We’ll focus on YouTube, Slideshare, LinkedIn and Blogs.
When: Tuesday, April 9th at 2PM EST
This webinar is available for viewing on our YouTube channel – click here.
Why Do You Use Content Marketing – Do You Think it’s for Branding or for Selling?
You can’t turn around today and not hear the words “content marketing.” You would have thought that someone had discovered the holy grail! Content marketing isn’t anything new, it’s just called something else. There can be arguments for both I suppose, but I feel the primary role of content marketing is to position yourself to have an advantage and sell something!
Why do people do business with you? It probably has something to do with your having something they find useful and need. It also probably has something to do with them finding you helpful, informative and an all-around good guy. They can count on you for troubleshooting or advice on best practices. Now I haven’t mentioned the term content marketing, but don’t you think that’s what you’ve been doing all along? Now they call it something different.
Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and known as the Godfather of Content Marketing, describes it “as a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable actions.”
Content Marketing should be helping you in some way to move a prospect down a sales funnel. I’m not saying they need to be hard selling but you need to able to satisfy a need of a prospect in order for them to take the next step. Always answer the question – WIIFM – What’s In It For Me? If a prospect can’t easily answer that question, there will be no next steps.
Chris Brogan, in a guest post on Copyblogger, Why content marketing is not branding, highlights why the end game in any content marketing efforts have to be helping someone make a decision of some kind. He goes on to say that marketing and sales are not evil and that content marketing, if done correctly, will give the advantage in the long run.
What do you think content marketing is and how are you using it?