Content Marketing Minds: 7 Ways to Make Your Content Amazingly Edible

Wouldn’t it be great if all the hard work you put into your content paid off?

All the prep. All theTLC. The reward comes from seeing it devoured, receiving positive feedback, and knowing your customers will surely tell their friends where the tasty stuff comes from. 

So today, let's look at content like a meal. I’ll give you some of the ingredients to use when the goal is to compel people to eat it up.

Munch on the numbers

The massive heap of numbers Google Analytics (or your favorite metrics machine) collects and reports might make for nice ego food, but it should also be a major key to feeding the needs of your audience.

Data that reveals page views, time-on-page, and time-on-site indicates the tastes of your audience. Conversion rates for gated content such as eBooks, guides, webinars and videos also strongly suggest what is and isn’t satisfying the appetites of your patrons. 

In addition to extracting lessons regarding the topics with the most appeal, realize your user data can help inform you of:

1. Popular writers/contributors
   
2. Style preferences (e.g. lists vs. opinion pieces)
   
3. Media preferences
   
4. Preferred time of day, week, or year
   
5. The most effective calls to action

Serve the Kool-Aid

Marketers are coming around to understand content that best serves the interests of the company is the content that best serves its prospects and customers. As fundamental as this may sound, far too many content creators feed themselves. They bake what they want, which is often self-serving and self-promotional. 

If we’re talking about a plate of food, it goes largely uneaten. Make the content tasty and “good for you” and it will not only be consumed—it’ll be shared. And your customers will keep coming back for more. 

One great way to figure out what pleases your customer’s is to ask. And when customers’ call for Kool-Aid, don’t drink it, serve it.

#CMMinds
Let's hash this stuff out together. Use #CMMinds anytime to make comments or counterpoints, add your ideas and ask questions.
I'm listening. 

Make it fresh

In content marketing, “evergreen” is the term usually used to describe content intended to be timeless. It can be consumed the day it’s baked or years later, because it won’t get stale.

But then there’s the timely and topical stuff that must be served fresh. Like bread, the fresher, the better. Consumers crave it.

As a content creator, if you’re capable of being nimble and responsive, you’ll draw a crowd with content that connects to current events and the conversations happening now.

Decorate the plate

There’s no denying our eyes send signals to our brain before we dig in. Take a lesson from a delectable looking plate. Notice the attention to detail. Savor its color and visual sex appeal. Typically, you’ll find some negative or white space on the plate leading your eye to the good stuff.

These principles apply to the content you create. Make it look delicious and you’ll gain a  great advantage. 

Get “TIPS”

Heard this one from the restaurant biz? “TIPS” means “to insure prompt service.”

The user experience is all-important in content marketing too. Make your site quickly serve everything customers have come for and they’re far more likely to hang around and eat it up.

Keep the place clean

Just as no one wants to dine at a dump, no one wants to be bombarded with clutter and junk at your website. Streamline your site by extracting the distractions and focusing on the content that matters most to visitors.

Give it flavor 

Oh sure, you can serve the bland stuff no one dislikes, but the ho-hum you get won’t compare to the reaction you get from the spicy stuff. To get remembered and talked about, you have to do something daring.

Don’t let it bother you your dish isn't for everyone. The people whose taste buds you excite will be excited enough to tell their friends, which will ultimately more than make up for the customers that balk.

Socially Driven Collaboration: How Social Business Is Changing the Role of Marketing and IT

This week we held another webinar in our Best Thinker webinar series, this time on the topic of Socially Driven Collaboration: How Social Business is Changing The Role of Marketing and IT. This webinar included a pair of really great speakers:Vanessa DiMauro, the CEO of Leader Networks, a research and strategy consulting company and Erika Jolly Brookes, the Vice President of Product Strategy for Oracle, working on the Oracle Cloud-Social business.

This webinar was sponsored by Oracle and was showcasing some research that Oracle and Leader Networks collaborated on. The research was both qualitative and quantitative in nature and spanned 662 marketers and 263 IT professionals from companies 100 person or more with at least one social platform in place. The research is a two-part series on the Social Business; part one was delivered to the SocialMediaToday audience at the Social Shake-up Conference and you can find part one of the research here, part two was previewed exclusively for SocialMediaToday only on this webinar.

Erika Jolly Brookes, the Vice President of Product Strategy for Oracle, working on the Oracle Cloud-Social business, started us off by talking about the changing role of the CMO. Erika started off with a stat from Gartner that detailed by the year 2017 that the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO. And interestingly enough both the CMOs and CIOs agree that technology is essential to marketing in delivering on its primary purpose of gaining access to customer insight and intelligence. This spawned the idea that both marketing and IT needed to collaborate more was the genesis of the research study.

Vanessa DiMauro, the CEO of Leader Networks, a research and strategy consulting company, then showed the latest research. Some of the highlights were: 20% of marketers classified their relationship with IT as “poor or non existent”, 47% of marketers do see a benefit to collaborating with IT but their company culture doesn’t enable it to happen, and 74% of marketers that do collaborate with IT say that they are more effective because of the collaboration.

After the research was presented we had a lively discussion on the top 5 tips to keep in mind and we took live questions from the audience. If you have ever been on a SocialMediaToday webinar before, you know they are very “participant-driven” and we love to ask your questions of our panelists.  Many of the questions from our audience revolved around topics such as: What’s the best way to collaborate with IT and why does marketing have to always bring the olive branch to IT? Is Big Data the perfect opportunity for Marketing and IT to finally collaborate?

4 Tips to Make Your Content More Sharable on LinkedIn

Content creation is only part of the inbound marketing equation. Another critical component that is often overlooked is content promotion. With Google's recent move to hide keyword data, we feel like content promotion in social communities like Google + Communities and LinkedIn Groups is more important than ever.

This new industry reality brings to the surface an unignorable fact about lovable marketing: you have to add amazingvalue. Your posts can no longer just be optimized for keywords. They need to add real value in real life if they are going to have any legs. There are four tips that will teach you how to make your content more sharable on LinkedIn.

Make the post industry specific

If you're a B2B marketer in a boring or unsexy industry, take heart. LinkedIn is your playground. If you haven't, do a quick search for groups with your target keywords or industries. I guarantee you that you will find a tribe of passionate and engaged people out there talking about it. Doesn't matter how boring you think it is, your target market doesn't find your industry boring.

Curation is a great way to quickly and easily put together blog posts that are highly relevant to a LinkedIn group. Use a tool like Scoop.it or Spundge to create streams of content around specific topics. Grab some good ones, curate them in a blog, and share the blog in a group.

Include an image with a call to action

When sharing an article in a group or on your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn will automatically pull in the featured image from the post. This shows up in the preview to the left of the text. This image is a great place to add a call to action telling the reader to click for more information. Here is an example of how we use this feature here on the GuavaBox blog.

Share your guest post, less spammy

On social media, particularly in LinkedIn groups, slimy marketers have ruined the fun for all of us. By "spamming" groups with links back to their website, they have made community moderators extra wary of any links shared back to a user's website.

It doesn't matter if your article is extremely valuable, there is still a good chance the moderator will flag it as spam. One way to share your content and still make the moderator happy is to focus on sharing your guest posted content.

Write about how to better use LinkedIn

People see that LinkedIn is a valuable tool for business, but most don't feel like they're getting the most out of the tool. One great way to get your content shared on LinkedIn is to write more content about using LinkedIn. This can be highly valuable if it is paired with industry expertise.

This unique perspective helps cut through the clutter out there and drive your target readers to action. An example of this approach would be to create a blog post that lists healthy LinkedIn groups within a specific vertical.  

A great example is Cerasis, a freight and logistics software and service company.They created a great blog post that shared the top supply chain, logistics, transportation, distribution, and freight groups on LinkedIn. As you can see, it was shared over 100 times on LinkedIn.

 

Fitting LinkedIn into the Bigger Picture

Want to produce amazing content that is going to be shared on LinkedIn and other sites? Well, it needs to exist within a larger strategy that will help increase traffic, leads, and sales through your website. If you're interested in setting up a repeatable and scalable system that delivers marketing ROI, check out The B2B Marketing Checklist. Insides you'll find all the steps, tips, and tricks you need to great a lead generation machine on your website.

A Fun (Successful) Way to Promote Social Engagement

Once I got into the world of marketing something changed in my day-to-day life.  Well, a lot of things changed, but I’m talking about the thousands of marketing messages I was hit with a day. They stopped passing me by without recognition.  I started analyzing the aspects of them; what worked and why.  The same thing continues to happen as I get more and more invested in social media and inbound marketing as a whole.

The other day I stumbled across a piece of content that donned an untraditional way to promote social engagement.

Instead of this:

I saw this:

These social engagement options came at the end of a LinkedIn piece by Steve Tappin titled, “Who Has 1 Billion Users and is About to Overtake Facebook?” The post is about emerging social messaging platforms that are seeing a tremendous increase in users.

At first, I thought Steve was trying to cheat the system.  Trying to get more likes, comments, etc. in some sort of voting scheme.

However, what Steve has done is tie those social engagement options into the actual content of the piece. He’s basically telling you how to use the traditional engagement options in relation to himself as a content creator and his article. He’s promoting positive engagement and letting readers know where they can go to find similar content.

Social sharing options are almost like those thousands of marketing messages we see everyday; they are everywhere now so they don’t have as much of an impact.

What Steve has done here is pull them out of the piece and add some instructions next to each creating captivating content that draws you in.

I stumbled across this post while perusing my suggested LinkedIn news.  (FYI- I find LinkedIn provides incredibly valuable content if you are looking for expert information in your industry.)  You can see why the catchy title caught my eye. Clearly Steve knows what he’s doing when it comes to marketing his content.

Did Steve’s technique to promote social engagement work?

The numbers speak for themselves…

         

How Non-Profits Can Leverage Social Media Marketing

How Non-Profits Can Leverage Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is becoming ubiquitous with global brands and consumer-oriented companies. As more and more people interact online, social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are being used by brands and businesses to reach their target audience. It's about reaching potential customers to boost return on investment  and improve customer engagement. So what about non-profits? Is there a place for social media marketing for non-profits and what is its role?

When people think "nonprofit” or “charity” they tend to think either about the causes they represent or to focus on the organisations as “fundrasing” organisations. Because of the financial pressures they face, it’s easy even for non-profits themselves to focus as much energy on the fundraising as the cause.

When people talk to us about social media the two most common drivers are:

• An interest in using social media to raise money
• Wanting to avoid being left behind when everyone else is doing it

Both of these, to a degree miss the point.  In the same way that company social strategies tend to fail if they focus first on selling through social media, non-profit social media strategies will fail if they think first about fundraising through social media.

Successful social media strategies focus first on building networks and relationships to engage people in the cause the non-profit stands for.  With an engaged audience you can call for volunteers, call for engagement with your cause and occassionally call for donations.  But make engaging with people and getting people emotionally connected with your cause the major focus.   

A recent study from the Nonprofit Social Network says that the top three priorities for nonprofit organisations are to improve fundraising, increase their followers, and engage current volunteers. With this in mind, it becomes clear that nonprofits are using social media not only for fundraising but recruiting advocates and volunteers as well.

So how exactly can nonprofits use social media to increase engagement around their cause, engage volunteers and grow their supporter base? It's about establishing a set of best practices through content marketing and user engagement strategies. Every nonprofit has a mission and vision, build a relationship with people that helps them emotionally connect with your cause and be willing to make a contribution to achieve it.

Here are 4 ways to get started:

1.) Establish your Voice. Become a Thought Leader.

The great thing about social media is that it enables any organisation to engage with their audience anytime. This is where the value of branded content like quotes and infographics comes in to increase engagement and improve online awareness. It's about conveying your brand story and sharing it as branded content. A branded quote can go a long way if a volunteer with a broad network shares it with his or her network. The core idea – volunteers and supporters can be enticed by current volunteers and supporters because they are brand advocates already.

2.) Post Regular Updates

Real-time marketing is crucial, it makes your followers feel that they are actually accomplishing something by volunteering or donating. Events and meetings are ways to then convert this online interest into offline results. When followers meet, they build a community in an instant. Connecting beyond Facebook gives potential volunteers and supporters an opportunity to get acquainted with one another, learn more about a nonprofit's cause, and to feel a part of a bigger movement.

3.) Visual Engagement

Being social requires a deeper sense of engagement, using Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest helps in reaching potential volunteers and supporters. It's always about sharing relevant content through photos and videos. A photo itself is a call-to-action already, people almost always have a comment or two about a photo. Share something a little different or with a humeours or uplifting angle and even more people with engage.  Share actual volunteers having a great time while being involved in your activities. Share successes that have resulted from donations.  Remember, your social media strategy is building a community, the more different ways you enable that community to interact online and offline, the deeper the relationships between supporters and with your organisation will become. Post shareable content and every new supporter is a potential advocate who can bring more volunteers and more support.

4.) Inject Humor

Nonprofits don’t have to be boring. While brands can make fun stuff using like memes or funny user-generated content, nonprofit organisations can also inject humour as long as it is aligned to its brand story or cause. Creating a content plan for every social media page allows the right target audience to receive these types of content. Remember that you instantly connect with people when you make them smile!

So get your social media strategy underway. Build networks and relationships and strengthen the community that supports your cause.  A great community will result in opportunities to grow your supporter base – whether as volunteers of donors.

3 Rules of Engagement for Successful Social Selling

Are your sales teams actively engaged on social? They should be. For B2B buyers, up to 70% of the buying process has been completed before they even talk to a salesperson, and their research is primarily done online. How can your sales people reach your buyer before they ever even come to your website? One way is by leveraging social media and by powering sales to engage in conversations and spread your brand’s message in social channels.

What is Social Selling & Why Sales People Should Engage on Social?
Social selling is the practice of engaging in social networking throughout the sales process. Social selling involves the process of networking, answering questions, and providing valuable information for prospective customers in social channels. There’s been lots of research recently about the benefits of social selling, but check out some of these statistics from Jim Keenan, social sales specialist:

- 78% of sales people using social media to sell outperform those who don’t use social media.
- 54% of sales people who use social media can track social media usage to at least 1 closed deal and 40% report closing 2-5 deals as a result.

3 Rules of Engagement for Social Selling
1. Stop Selling. Add Value. Rule number one may sound a little backwards to sales teams. How can you effectively engage in social selling if you stop selling? However, that’s exactly the point. When it comes to social media, no one is looking to be sold to. People are on social networks to be entertained, get information, network and meet people so it’s essential that sales people do the same. Don’t harass people with sales pitches. Instead be helpful by answering questions and engaging in conversation. Most importantly, be human.

2. Build relationships. People want to do business with people they trust. Interacting and engaging on social media helps build the relationships and trust that is essential in facilitating a business transaction. The beauty of social media is the opportunity to communicate with people all over the world so take advantage of it by meet new people and participating in conversations that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to engage in.

3. Listen First. Listening on social media can be extremely valuable for sales people. By monitoring keywords relating to the brand and industry, sales people can uncover valuable insights about the industry and prospective customers. Another place sales teams can glean valuable information is through listening to the competition and staying aware of what they are doing and who they are communicating with.

5 Writing Tips to Jumpstart Your Business Blog

There's been an influx of inquiries by friends and acquaintances on the best way to set up a business blog and to start writing posts. Some of these people are planning to start a business in the near future, and others have already had their companies for a while. Whatever state they are in, if they don't have an active business blog, they should get one up as soon as possible. The competition is growing as more business owners realize the value of adding a blog to their marketing assets. Well written articles pertaining to a business owner's industry, published throughout the Web, helps establish them as an authority in their field.

Business Blog Writing Tips to Get Started

Here are some writing tips to help you get started with your business blog. (For advice on what platform to use, check out this article, Best Blog Sites.) Keep in mind,  there are other considerations, such as SEO (search engine optimization), and promoting your blog with a  strong social media network. I'll be focusing this post on the act of writing, and how to prepare yourself for the task.

1. Brainstorm and Target

You must decide who your audience is. If you're in the real estate business, your target audience would be people who want to buy or sell homes. But perhaps you have a niche market. Using the real estate example, if your main focus is luxury real estate, then most of the content will focus on luxury homes. Getting more specific: if your business serves a particular area,  you might want to include content that is relative to that region.

2. Set up an Editorial Calendar

Use a spreadsheet to set up a daily, weekly or monthly calendar to keep your articles in order. Having a calendar will set a clear editorial path for your business blog, and keep you deadline-oriented. In the schedule, make sure you have columns for due dates, post dates, and, if you hire freelance writers, you can create columns to keep track of who wrote what. It's also a good idea to include a column for the main keyword used in the article, and one for the post link. This helps you keep track of how the well the keyword is ranking for the post. Most importantly--stick to the schedule.

3. Now Write

Writer's block hits everyone. The first thing to do is to stick to the schedule you created. If needed, add another column to your editorial calendar--the day and time you should write your post. Dedicate that period to writing. Go to the library or somewhere quiet and without distractions if necessary. The point is to sit down and write. Questions to ask yourself to get started: What is my story about? Or, what is the main point I want to get across? Don't worry about the headline right away, type in whatever comes to mind. You can change it later. When you are ready to title your post, the headline should be short and tell the reader exactly what the article is about.

4. Remember Your Audience

Who is your target audience? Keep this in mind when writing your business blog post. Put yourself in their place--what would you want to know about your product or services? What kind of information is important to know about your industry? Again, the real estate model: what should a person know and do before buying a home? Perhaps it could simply be a home buyer's checklist. Remember, there are tons of generic articles out there: make yours unique and specific to what you and your business offers.

5. Proofread, and Proofread Again

After you write your blog post, set it aside for a few hours, or even a day, and come back and read it with fresh eyes. Don't rely on spell check. If possible, ask a coworker or friend to be your proofreader. If you really want to make sure you're article is in tip-top shape, hire a freelance editor to proofread and edit your blog posts. The positive impact on your brand will be worth the cost.