Content marketing is part art with a touch of science.

Creating great content requires a word smith or a creative video producer. The better this foundation is, the more attractive the content is to the viewer and increasing its chances for sharing on the web.

That’s the art part.
So we all know that high quality content and social media sharing and engagement are the driving force behind traffic and conversions. Yet most people don’t have a clear strategy for tracking and analysing performance.
This is the simple science.

Most of us periodically check our Google Analytics to find the number of visitors, or referrals from Google or Facebook, but few know how to use other data available in analytics to maximize their social media and content marketing strategies.

Do you know how to use Google Analytics data to come up with ideas for new articles? Or how Pinterest analytics can help you learn more about your buyer personas, thus helping you shape your message?

In this article I will discuss 6 simple ways to use analytics data to assist with your content marketing strategy.

1. Using long-tail keywords for keyword research

Keyword research is an easy way to brainstorm content. While you might optimize your site architecture with your primary keywords, you also probably know that these should be used sparingly in order to avoid picking up red flags by Penguin.

However, the long-tail keywords you find during your keyword research can still be incorporated into your content. Keyword buckets and competitive research should yield hundreds of potential keywords that can be used as inspiration for content.

If the content is going onto your site, use keywords as the base for article titles and organize them to create a flow for an editorial calendar. High-value keywords can be interspersed with diverse and low-competition keywords, all of which will benefit your site, while allowing you generate large amounts of content and keep to a regular posting schedule.

Start by going to Google Analytics, and pulling a Search report by keyword (Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Overview). Change the number of keywords displayed to 100. Then take those keywords and use them to run a ranking report. Identify keywords that have brought you traffic but you are not ranking in the top 5. Then use those keywords as part of your content marketing efforts.

2. Creating personas 

When publishing content you should always have a target audience in mind, but within that audience you can develop buyer personas that will help you understand who you are writing for and what their interests will be. You want to consider which stage of the purchase funnel they belong to as well as what questions they may want answered.

As you move along your publishing schedule, you will begin to see which personas respond to your content. Perhaps those in your top-of-the-funnel persona comment most on general advice articles, while those toward the bottom of the funnel are more likely to share your latest company updates on social media. You want to be aware of what they are responding to and react accordingly.

You can track social shares with a tool like TrackUr, or of course, Google Analytics.

3. Studying pinterest

When it comes to content marketing, Pinterest is a valuable social media platform. Pinterest is based solely on unique, shareable content, which makes it the perfect pool for brainstorming and testing out ideas.

Determine what category your content falls under and at a quick glance you can see what types of content are trending and getting the most repins. Look at sites like Repinly which tracks the most popular pins and boards on Pinterest to get ideas of what content will perform well on Pinterest, and what you should be pinning to gain your own Pinterest following.

Once you’ve begun pinning you can delve into analytics data with tools like PinLeague, which I use to look at the statistics of images that Iíve pinned as well as what images have been pinned from my website. You can see what images and pins are getting shared and by whom, which can give you insight into your audience demographics and help further develop your buyer personas.

4. Benchmarking real-time data

Benchmarking is also extremely important to keeping on top of your content marketing efforts. These tools can help you grasp the popularity of your content and what direction it should take by providing a range of metrics.

Cyfe is the benchmarking dashboard Iíve found most useful as it allows me to track a variety of metrics on multiple social platforms, and displays that information all in one place for quick, real-time analysis of social followers, visitors, leads and customers.

Comparing this data to a site-specific tool like Pinleague will allow you to better understand what content your audience is responding to, and the better you understand your audience, the sooner you will be able to produce content that is valuable and relevant to that audience.

Cyfe is a tool that i refer to on a daily basis. It allows me to, at a glance, see how all of my sites and clients are performing. I can see traffic trends, social shares, and much more. From this view, I can then investigate if I see a major spike or decrease of traffic. For example, if there ís a spike in traffic and social shares, I will then go to Google Analytics and find the landing page that generated this traffic and social shares. Then, based on the content, I wíll write more content specific to this topic.

5. Sharing site-specific content

Now that you have an understand of exactly what content your audience wants, you can begin to create strategies specific to each site you intend to share it on.

Pinleague will give you an idea of what content is most shareable on Pinterest. If, for example, a company that sells study guides posts an infographic on the college acceptance rates, and gets 10 unique pins and 500 repins, then any future content they develop on college statistics should be accompanied by strong graphics so that it can be easily integrated into Pinterest.

At the same time, fans of their Facebook page might prefer study guide updates or the latest discounts, which reveals that Facebook might be the best site for attracting traffic and conversions. By paying attention to analytics data you can convert them from followers to potential clients to sales.

6. Repurpose content 

Now that you are tracking and investigating the success of your content, you have access to a wealth of data about the performance of your content. Let’s say that one of your infographics gets tons of repins. Why not convert this infographic into a video? Or write an article based on the content for the infographic, or vice versa?

Repurposing content, especially content that you already know is successful and your audience really likes, is an excellent way to increase your reach without taking much of a gamble. Youíd be maximizing your resources to create more opportunities for conversions.

How to get started

So I have given you the theory, now let’s get to practicalities:

1. Set a weekly task for yourself to visit your Google Analytics account and check the performance of your content based on Landing Pages and Keywords. Check out bounce rate, engagement, conversion rate, etc for these so you can determine how your content is performing.
2. Set up a ranking tool. If you donít already have keyword tracking in place, go to AuthorityLabs and create an account. Enter your most popular keywords, as well as keywords that are bringing you the most traffic from Google. Plan on creating more content around keywords that are bringing in traffic but not ranking in the top 5.
3. Set up social media analytics software†to track your social shares and in-depth statistics for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest. Cyfe is also a great dashboard to set up as an overview.
4. Use the data from all the sources mentioned above to modify your editorial calendar and content marketing strategy.

How do you use Analytics for content marketing? What has helped you maximize the efforts of your content marketing strategy? Don’t be shy….share!

YouTube has become a hot site for businesses looking to promote their products and services. But not every business gets acceptable results from their YouTube marketing videos.


Success on YouTube depends on what you want to accomplish with your online videos. So, before you press the record button your video camera, answer some key questions about your YouTube video strategy.

1. Should your business even be on YouTube?

Not every type of business is a good fit for YouTube. Put simply, if you can't show your product or service in action, don't put it on YouTube.

For example, if you sell or manufacture power tools, it can be easy to show how a power drill works in a short video. But if you offer college-tutoring services, you don't have much to demonstrate on camera, so YouTube might not make sense.

Even if you can demonstrate what you do in videos, you still need to set a clear goal for what you hope to accomplish. Your goal will help you determine what type of video to produce.

2. Do you want to attract new customers or support existing ones?

For many companies, YouTube is an ideal medium for attracting new customers. You pull them in by showing them your product and how it works, and then direct them to your website for more information or to close the sale. Since you can't link directly from a video, you'll need to superimpose your URL onscreen and include the URL in the video's text description.

You also can use YouTube to provide additional information and support to existing customers. For example, if you sell children's outdoor playsets, you might produce a video showing how to assemble them. A how-to video can be much more effective than printed instructions, and can cut down the volume of post-sale customer support calls.

3. Do you want to inform or educate with your video?

The most successful YouTube videos tend to accomplish one of three things: inform, educate or entertain. While entertaining videos are the most likely to go viral, they're also the most difficult to pull off. That's why most businesses focus on either informing or educating with their videos.

An informative video can provide details about a specific product, your company or industry, or simply topics of interest to potential customers. For example, if you're an attorney, you might produce a series of videos that discuss important legal issues. If you run a bed and breakfast, you might offer video tours of your facilities.

An educational video shows customers how to do something, typically in step-by-step fashion. For example, if you sell computer-networking equipment, you might produce a video that shows customers how to set up a home network -- using your equipment, of course. If you sell musical instruments, it's a no-brainer to offer a series of music instruction videos.

Some businesses naturally gravitate to either an informative or educational approach, while others can go either way. For example, if you run a restaurant, you could produce informative videos that show your top dishes in attractive settings, or you could produce educational videos that show customers how to cook their own versions of some of your favorite recipes.

Whether you take the informative or educational video approach depends a lot on your company's image and your own personal style. But whichever approach you take, remember that YouTube is a soft sell medium, meaning viewers tend to reject direct commercial messages. Offer potential customers something useful, however, and you'll help to build your brand over the long term.



































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Social media marketing is often seen as the quick fix for marketing your struggling business.



Obtain some Facebook likes, even buy some fake Twitter followers, tell customers you are the best company in the world in your blog articles and start blasting away. The cavalry will then show up on white horses and save the day.

The truth.
It takes time, effort and persistence.

The real premise of social media is adding value with content that engages your customers which inspires, educates, informs and maybe even entertains. This means forgetting about “you” and thinking about “them”

This means adding value to your audience by solving their problems with content that includes “How To” articles,white papers and ebooks on your blog and website.

Small businesses see the potential of tapping into Social Media. They come with different expectations that are built on the foundations of traditional marketing which include one way conversations, email blasts with only sales messages and  not willing to listen to negative comments.

Here are three common mistakes you should avoid with your social media marketing.

Mistake #1.  Delete unwanted comments

Some businesses think of social media as a free platform to broadcast commercial messages which will somehow go viral very quickly. Yet they have been slow to embrace this media due to one major concern.

The dreaded “negative” comment.

They are aware that this same channel can be used by the public to spread less desirable comments about the brand.

So instead of planning strategies that engage with the community, businesses have social media police on standby who are ever ready to delete unwanted comments or queries.

This is not necessary nor desirable.

Getting social is about making connections that would lead to further actions. That includes getting to know and listening to the views of your guests. It is in observing what your market likes, shares and comments that you get a better sense of what’s on their minds.  And these insights help you adapt your products and services to cater to their needs.

A business that only wants to receive positive comments is not ready to go into a deeper business relationship with your audience. Your brand will be perceived to be defensive or narrow minded and conversion cannot take place. This fear-base mentality does not attract raving or loyal clients.

I recommend instead that clients be engaging and respond to comments in a positive and timely manner, and turn every conversation into an opportunity that builds trust.

Mistake #2.  Auto-Post the same message on all social networks.

Many small businesses do not have the time to tend to their social media accounts. They want  a magic button that would post their messages across different social media channels and give them unlimited coverage.

I tell them this magic button does not exist.

I suggest instead that businesses focus on one or two platforms and take time to show up authentically to connect with their market. People hang around Social Media networks looking to chill or have a conversation. They do not respond well to robots that auto post messages from other Social Media channels.

If you would not say the same thing in a board meeting as you would in a social party, why then would you auto post the same message across different social media platforms?

By the way, hash tags look really ugly on Facebook.

Mistake #3. Blast first, control damage later

This is one of the most popular mistakes that businesses make. They want to broadcast emails with commercial messages to contacts without first getting their consent such as via an optin on their blog. Some would happily buy or exchange email lists so they can reach more people in a shorter time.

While businesses are aware that response rate in these cases will be low,  some are still willing to go ahead. Why? They see this as a quick and cheap way to get their messages into the mail boxes of thousands of people.

I tell them these mails may not never reach any inboxes let alone be read.

Businesses need to be reminded that their reputation is at stake and that relationships can be easily damaged with unsolicited emails. I spend a lot of time explaining the importance of permission-based marketing to potential clients.

Some would argue that since they are receiving this sort of mails they should be able to do the same.
But common practice does not necessarily represent best practice. I  recommend that clients ask for specific consent from prospects before sending any commercial newsletters. After all I don’t want my clients to be flagged as spamming.

Forcing messages onto others, even if you provide them with the unsubscribe link, does not show respect and will not give you the happy loyal clients you are looking for.

So how do you use social media for marketing?

Social Media Marketing is not about putting up a Facebook page or blasting email messages. It is an additional tool in your total marketing plan. To better understand what Social Media is and how it can help your business you’ll need to invest time in learning this or hire someone who knows how this thing works.

Work with the specialist so you don’t end up losing more in the long term







































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With so many concerns about the current economic climate, allocating resources and planning a budget have become increasingly important. Although many businesses are facing financial hardship, nearly half of marketers in the B2B space have decided to increase their budgets for 2013. Specifically, 67.2% of marketers plan to increase their digital marketing spending, and 52.5% of content marketers will up their search marketing budgets.

This infographic, compiled by Ambassador, a service that helps turn your customers into brand ambassadors, illustrates where B2B marketers plan to increase their spending in 2013.

Check out the full infographic below, and tell us in the comments where your business will stretch the cash this year.


Image via istockphoto, RapidEye

























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Call it an epiphany: Social is officially mobile.

Several weeks ago, I was looking at the user data for one of the brands that I manage and one statistic stuck out more than others. Nearly 60 percent of the people who interact with that brand do so via smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device. I started checking other brands, and the numbers were all similar.


The majority of people interacting with our content were doing so from a mobile device.

Nielsen’s State of the Media: Social Media Report confirms that our brands aren't alone.

In 2012, the time spent accessing Facebook via mobile increased 85 percent, Twitter 140 percent, LinkedIn 114 percent, and Pinterest 4,225 percent. That’s a staggering increase. Forty-six percent of social media users say they use their smartphone to access social media; 16 percent say they connect to social media using a tablet.

Here are a five easy tips to help you optimize your social media content for mobile readers:

1. Be much more thoughtful about when you’re posting.

The average Facebook post gets 50 percent of its reach and engagement in the first 30 minutes of being posted, according to Socialbakers. It’s all downhill from there.

Start asking yourself: Where is my audience going to be in the hour or so after we post this? Is there an opportunity to capture them where they are at that moment and inspire action or tap into an emotion that you know a large number of your fans are experiencing at that time?

Don’t limit it to experimenting with when you post, either. If you have an assumption about where your audience is consuming your content (specifically, where they are on Earth), you can create some calls to action and inspire them to engage that way.

For instance, Instagram, where the mobile engagement is close to 100 percent, is great for this: “Show us what you’re doing now and how our product fits into that.”

2. Add value to the mobile experience -- which differs from adding value to the desktop or laptop experience.

The greater the distance you make your fans travel in mobile, the worse the experience becomes. No one wants to hop from one app to another—to another—to download your app that, let’s be honest, isn’t all that cool in the first place. On a desktop or laptop, people are more forgiving when it comes to bouncing around the Web. You have to be more respectful of the mobile experience.

Similarly, if you’re in the Facebook or Pinterest app and you click on a brand’s link, it’s going to send you to a website. Unless you’ve checked that link in social, you’re not 100 percent sure where you’re sending them. It might look great on your laptop, but on mobile it could look like a Geocities site and do your brand a huge disservice.

Keep your posts simple and undeniably specific to your brand.

3. Design for mobile first.

Keep your font sizes legible on your graphics. If you’re tapping through to a photo, you don’t want to have to zoom in on something just to read it. If you’re taking the time to design an asset, make sure you’re taking the time to design it so that mobile users can read it.

The default has been to design social assets for the desktop or laptop experience and back into mobile. Reverse that. Design for mobile, and it will back into the desktop experience.

4. Test different mobile platforms to understand the differences.

If you post a photo album on Facebook, you can’t click on the links that you've put in the captions of the individual photos if you’re using an iPhone or Android phone. However, those links work when you’re using most tablets. That’s good to know if you want to drive traffic in mobile.

Of course, that’s just one of the many quirks and intricacies when it comes to presenting social content in mobile. Understanding the user experience across devices is important in making sure your posts are accomplishing their desired outcomes.

5. Check your analytics.

Every brand is different, and every audience is different. Before you completely shift the way you’ve been creating and posting content, take the time to dig deep into your metrics and understand where your engagement is coming from. Certain demographics will use mobile more than others.

For the brand I mentioned earlier, males 18-34 had the highest instance of engaging with our content through mobile (nearly 75 percent). We were able to make some assumptions based on that and test some content around those assumptions.

Test, measure, analyze, optimize, rinse, repeat.

















This story originally appeared on PR Daily

Any marketer waiting for the world to get back to normal hasn't been noticing the new reality. Every day, a new headline, book, TED talk or coffee shop conversation proves anew that customers, products, markets and marketing approaches aren't just undergoing change -- they've changed already.

The old paradigm -- where businesses produced, marketers talked, consumers listened and sales followed ­-- has given way to an economy where customers co-create, marketing involves two-way interactions, and customized product offerings move into the marketplace via channels unheard of even a few years ago.


Thought leaders haven't even settled on a single term for the world marketers face.

America Online founder Steve Case, commenting on the acquisition of Zipcar by the Avis Budget Group, describes the deal as evidence of a new sharing economy, adding, "And fasten your seat belts: It's just beginning."

Seth Godin, in his newest book, "The Icarus Deception," names it the connection economy, in which "the value we create is directly related to how much valuable information we can produce, how much trust we can earn and how often we innovate."

Social media consultant Gary Vaynerchuk calls it "The Thank You Economy," which he describes as "a fundamental shift in how businesses behave," prompted by how the Internet has empowered customers, requiring businesses to either "scale the caring their grandparents exhibited towards their customers or watch their competition pass them by."

For businesses marketing with outdated approaches, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Normal has left the marketing arena

Any marketer resisting change should simply wave a white flag. No business sector is immune.

As evidence, pull up coverage of the 2013 CES, the giant 46-year-old consumer electronics trade show, and you'll see phrases like "waste of time" and "a vestige of a bygone era." ZDNet estimated that "half the products introduced won't actually materialize," in part because 68 percent of people are satisfied with the technology they already own, and in part because consumers are more interested in solutions to what The Washington Post terms "seemingly intractable problems such as sanitation in the developing world, sustainable agriculture and data privacy."

And by any name, consumer opinions are driving the new economy. Their voices are amplified like never before, and marketers need to be tuned in and responsive. As proof, look at how outrage over new Gap and University of California logos prompted withdrawal of both redesigns, a nod to what New York magazine called consumer dislike (it also used the word hatred) of "change for change's sake forced upon them without consultation."

Don't get crowdsmashed

Attune your business to consumer interests by addressing these three questions:

• What do customers love about your business and what one change could make them love it even more? Example: Disney is replacing its popular decade-old FastPass, which allows visitors to skip long lines, with an RFID-encoded MagicBand bracelet that unlocks the resort experience with a flick of the wrist.
•  What aspects of your customers' experience cause annoyance and what one change could eliminate that point of irritation? Example: Starbucks addressed public pressure to reduce trash by rolling out $1 reusable plastic cups, along with the incentive of a 10 percent discount each time the cups get used.  
•  What attributes or values make customers choose your business over others and what one change could deepen or reward their commitment?Example: Nearly a million small businesses have started using Square card readers, enabling them to complete purchases on the spot while also responding to customers' preference for a charge payment option.

The big question that is often asked about social media when it comes to investing money, resources and time is “what is the return on investment?”

Some pundits will say that is not the right question because it is like asking “what is the ROI on your phone?”. Others will say social media should stand up and be measured in its own right. The challenge though is that we live in a multi-channel marketing world and the path to your sales door for your product is not a straight path and easy to measure.

It is not unusual for a company or brand to have the following digital channels and tactics that are all engaging, marketing and selling.

• Email
• Paid search ads
• Organic search results
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog
• Slideshare
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest

And I have only just started and haven’t even mentioned Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr or a multitude of other channels.

These are all working to drive the prospect to your business and buy your product or service.

But there is also another question.

Should the first click or the last click get the credit?

In our social and online world seeing that your friend  liked a certain brand could lead you to visit that Facebook page and click on a link that offered a discount for their product that took you to their online store. You didn’t buy but left the site.

A week later you do a Google search for the brand, visite the site and buy the product.

Who gets the credit? Google or Facebook?

Research by Adobe analyzed 1.7 billion visits to the websites of more than 225 U.S. companies in the media, retail, and travel industries. It shows that the ROI for social increases significantly if the first click attribution is accepted.

“Using first-click attribution for the retail websites we analyzed, the average visitor from social media sites delivered $1.13 in revenue. In contrast, when using last-click attribution, the average visitor from social media generated $0.60”

In the end both contributed.

Is social media about engagement or selling?

“Social media’s” main role in this online marketing game is revealed by the first word in the  phrase. It is about engaging first and selling second. It is human and social. Do this well and selling your product becomes easier. Your content will define your brand. It is achieved with images, videos and content that humanizes your business.

Social media’s value is not always captured by first-click or last-click attribution models. This value includes:

• Brand awareness
• Customer loyalty
• Engagement through social conversations
• Engagement due to content
• Offline channel transactions
• Personal referrals due to awesome content that adds value

These are hard to put a value against but they are real but soft metrics and should be in your marketing tactics tool box.

10 Examples of Social Media ROI

So what has been the results achieved from social media marketing? Here are a few examples.


Infographic source: psoshul.com

So what about you?

How do you use social media? Is it more about engaging than selling?

Does your CEO need more hard facts and wants to see the ROI before they commit the resources and cold hard cash or is creating brand awareness and customer loyalty valued?

Look forward to reading your stories in the comments below.




































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Twitter is underwhelming at 140 characters. Any sane person would say “What do you do with that?”

Why limit yourself to so few words when there is a dictionary
and an encyclopedia available and limitless communication at your disposal.

Its brevity is both an enigma and its charm. It has been its weakness and strength due to that simplicity.

Keeping it simple is not without success precedent.

One of the most successful children’s books of all time was written with only 50 words. It was a challenge thrown down to Dr Seuss by his editor when he was about to write his  next book “Green Eggs with Ham“.

Simple is good.

The history of short and simple

Just over twenty years ago on December 3, 1992 the message “Merry Christmas” was sent by software engineer Neil Papworth to the Vodafone director Richard Jarvis.

That was the world’s first text message. It was short and it was simple.

Who would think that 20 years later that:

• 6  billion messages would be sent every day in the USA
• 2.2 trillion texts would be sent every year in the USA
• 8.6 trillion SMS messages would be created every year around the planetText messaging would be a $150 billion a year industry

It is the messaging of choice for most teenagers. The adults have also realized its time saving capabilities.

People have also understood that having a conversation is maybe not something you always want to do.

Twitter wants to transform video messaging

Twitter has just announced a smart phone app called “Vine” that allows you to take a video that is limited to 6 seconds and continues to loop.

It is not alone with the idea.

There are competing apps called Viddy and Tout that do much the same.

So what can you do with a 6 second video and it raises this question again.

Why bother?

Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to put the boot in. Twitter took texting to a new level and put it on steroids. Maybe a short and simple video is enough to get a powerful message out that is memorable.

Is less more?

How could you use Vine for marketing?

Viddy thinks that 15 seconds is the right length for a video short message while Vine has chosen 6 seconds. Maybe there is some science behind both but let’s look at some possible ideas for marketing with a short video.

Here are 6 ideas:

1. The brand elevator pitch

Want people to understand what your brand is all about. The elevator pitch is where you wrap it up in one sentence or two. 6 seconds is maybe enough.

How could you make it visual and viral.

2. Product demonstration

One to two minute video reviews of products in your online store are now maybe too long. Why not experiment with six seconds?

3. Launching a new product or service

Explain your new product in six seconds if you can. (If you don’t then use YouTube). Maybe your messaging will  get better as you learn to communicate the key features and not the unnecessary.

4. Give your brand a personality

Social media allows and wants you to give your brand a personality. Use Vine to make it real and authentic. Make it quirky or innovative.

Many brands want an image that goes beyond bland.

5. Marketing a promotion

Use a 6 second Vine video to market a new promotion. This could  be a new book, song or  a movie or even an event. How long do you need to communicate something new. Remember the power of simple.

6. Announcing a special offer or discount

50% off. How long does it take to announce that special offer for your clothing store?  Make it visual, aural and shareable.

If you want to look at how 15 businesses are using the Vine video app for their brand. Check out this post over at Hubspot.

What about you?

How do you think you could use a six second video on Vine to market your business and brand? Do you even want to?

Do you think this idea will stick or do you think it is a fad?

Look forward to your comments below. Tell us your thoughts and ideas.








































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If you have a website or a blog, you engage in content marketing every time you publish a page or post – whether you realize it or not.

As the business world continues to evolve with the Internet age, content blogging has become a booming market. However, many small businesses are making a lot of avoidable mistakes or simply missing out on an opportunity to get the most out of their expensive content.

If you own a site or blog, you know how expensive and time-intensive getting quality content published can be.

So get the most out of your content and avoid these costly mistakes.

 #1. No Plan

The first and most obvious content marketing problem is the complete lack of a plan. Most firms have a short term plan at best – they might know what the next few blog posts will be or what pages on their site need to be added.

But what about the big picture? How is your content adding value? Does your content coach a potential customer into and through the sales funnel? Are you tracking responses to your content so you can improve as you go?

These are just a few questions to get you started. The point is to get a plan on paper that goes beyond the next few weeks’ worth of content.

#2. Wrong Purpose

Content writers can fall into many traps that steal them away from the actual goal of content. Content writing is not about the writer, a random topic, or a selling point. All of these types of writing will frustrate and alienate your readers. The goal of content writing is to spread valid professional advice about a topic that relates to your business. Think about your audience. Who do you want to read your content? Then ask this audience what topics they wish to read about. Your readers might then become customers if you establish yourself as an expert in your business field.

The purpose is not to make a quick sell. Content comes in many forms, but the goal is to create value. This can look like a FAQ section on your site, how-to guides for troubleshooting, or general industry information. Avoid salesy content at all cost.

#3. Unprofessional

Businesses sometimes forget to make sure their content writing is professional. Content writing does need to be grammatically correct, clear, and valid. Your content should be interesting, engaging, and meaningful to your readers. Hiring an ad agency or PR firm is not always a good way to solve this problem unless they have specific training in content writing. Invest in a service or writer who will be worth your time and money.

 #4. Social Media

Publishers will have one of two problems with social media. Either they will never use it and lose all the potential marketing benefits or they will rely too heavily on it to do all the marketing for them. Content needs to be consistently spread through social media outlets, but it must be valuable to your readers and be professionally written.

Encourage readers to share your content using social media buttons on your site by using Twitter and other social media techniques to share your news. But you must understand, they will only share high-value content.

#5. Search Engine Optimization

One of the many reasons to engage in content marketing is to improve your search engine rankings – a process called search engine optimization (SEO). But a common problem with a content marketing campaign is that it does not properly incorporate the latest SEO techniques.

This is an industry in and of itself. Very few inexperienced staff will be able to fully take advantage of up-to-date SEO information. At a minimum, you’ll want to engage an SEO professional to get you some policy in place regarding how to publish your content and best-practices for any social media content you publish. Ideally, you can have an SEO expert involved from start to finish so they can monitor progress and adapt your campaign on the fly.

#6. Untapped Resources

Another common content marketing mistake is failing to use your company’s resources. Get creative with your content and find ways to incorporate your business’s specific strengths and expertise. Have your employees come up with ideas and even write articles for you. The more you set your company apart, the more likely your customers and readers will get behind your content and eventually your company.























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Once upon a time, you could launch mass email campaigns with the assumption that a significant portion of the emails would find their way to a desktop computer. But no longer.

Smartphones have changed the game. To better understand the challenges you now face, let’s carefully consider the perspective of the smartphone user.

Enter Pete, your typical smartphone user. Pete is a thirty-something male who purchased an iPhone last October. He uses it frequently to change his Facebook status, upload vacation pictures, tweet witty opinions, check the weather, browse YouTube videos, text his friends, and check his email—all while he drops off dry cleaning, picks up a latte, walks to the office, and eats a burrito for lunch.

As you can see, your message in Pete’s inbox has a lot of competitors for his undivided attention. In fact, there are so many competitors that nothing wins Pete’s sustained attention for long, and you have to be smart to get a slice of it. This is the new game.

Here is what you need to know to play it well.

#1: Pete Will Read Your Pre-Header

When Pete receives your message on his smartphone, he is going to see three things, one right after the other. The first is the sender (you), the second is the subject line, and the third is the preheader (the first few lines of your email). If you don’t make the most of it, the preheader may be all that Pete reads of your email before deleting it.

Your goal is to get Pete to open the email based on what he reads in the pre-header. Come up with something catchy, or link a plain-text version of the email in the preheader (remember that not all mobile devices can read HTML). The preheader does not have to be fancy, but it should be inviting.

#2: Your Email Is Under Pete’s Thumb

After Pete has read the preheader and then opened your email, he is open to encountering any number of frustrations. Maybe that important cheeseburger image didn’t load. Or maybe your double columned newsletter is difficult to navigate now that it has been shrunk to microscopic proportions. Or maybe you stacked three links right next to each other and his giant thumb can’t open the middle one.

You do not want Pete to face any of these problems. The best way to avoid them is to check what your email will look like on a variety of mobile devices. There are websites that will provide demo versions for different mobile devices. Find one and test your design before you send out a mass email. In short, your email should be understandable, readable, and clickable no matter what screen Pete uses to read it.

#3: Pete Is Probably On the Go

This means that he doesn’t have time to read a novel on his phone while running to catch his flight to Chicago. In other words, keep your email short and sweet. Have a tightly focused call to action to which Pete can easily respond. Make it simple for Pete to go to your landing page (which should also be compatible with his iPhone). Make it even simpler for Pete to share your product through his social media networks.

After all, Pete is not just another potential customer. Pete represents a highly connected network of potential customers. He’s compulsively addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—they never leave his thumb or his pocket. By reaching Pete with your mobile email marketing campaign, you can possibly reach his friends too. But only if you play the game.





































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Whatever it is, the budget you put in place for your marketing for the year ahead will shape the results you achieve.

Now is the ideal time to define your marketing approach and the budget that will support it. In a recent Toluna survey of businesses, 40% of businesses surveyed stated that they did not feel that their marketing budget met all their marketing needs.

In tougher times, the marketing budget is often the first thing that is cut. Yet it is commonly known that companies which consistently market themselves in a recession perform better than those that don’t. So:

• How can companies budget better to create the results they want?
• What can companies do to budget effectively for the year ahead?

Fit your strategy around your target market

Strategy is everything in marketing. But a separate strategy for your marketing and your sales approach will not deliver the best Return On Investment (ROI). Now is the best time to review your marketing approach in 2011 and identify what worked – and what didn’t. Then, apply this important data to your overall sales and marketing strategy. Which markets are you trying to reach? Which audiences do you want to grow in the coming year? Match this with your marketing approach and plan your marketing spends in careful stages, so that each part of the plan flows from one stage to another. Use inbound marketing technology to track the behaviour of your target markets and ensure that you are using the most appropriate marketing channels to reach them. This will help you get more from your budget in 2012.

Track your ROI on marketing spend

Your marketing data from the past year will provide a valuable insight into what will work over the next 12 months. So carefully track the ROI you’ve gained this year and identify the activities that have created the best results.

Be ruthless in assessing what is paying you back and what is proving to be a drain on your resources

Would these areas work better with a different approach, perhaps using inbound marketing to accelerate results and make them more profitable? You can also use inbound marketing technology to closely assess and analyse the exact payback from each area of your marketing plan – and feed this knowledge into the year ahead. Put a plan in place for tracking your ROI. Inbound marketing allows you to do this continuously and consistently, letting you to adapt and refresh your marketing activities accordingly.

Create a cross-channel marketing budget

Are you currently using all the appropriate marketing channels? Did your approaches in 2011 feed across the different channels to maximise results – or did you only focus on a couple of areas?

Recent research suggests that companies using social media or “collaborative Web 2.0 technologies” are achieving higher profits. (Source: McKinsey)

Are you one of the companies missing out on a better marketing ROI by neglecting or misusing social media and other technologies?

By using inbound marketing you can connect up all your marketing channels much more effectively, making it easier to retain any potential customers – whatever stage of buying cycle they are at. You can create a cross-channel presence that reduces the cost of building a receptive and responsive brand profile. This approach also makes it much easier to budget for the year ahead. It gives you a core strategy which then feeds out across all the channels – bringing you a better ROI for 2012.

Adapt and update

While it is important to develop a clear strategy to get the best from your marketing budget, it is also important to continuously review and analyse your results. More conventional marketing approaches have traditionally made it quite hard to view the results as you go along. But new inbound marketing technology allows you to view the impact of every single aspect of your marketing approach – as it’s happening. Use this invaluable and on-going insight to adapt your strategy and ensure you make the most of your budget throughout 2012.

What is the secret to budgeting right for marketing in the year ahead?

Everybody wants to make their marketing budget work harder. So how can you ensure you do this in the months to come? Focus on your target market and what they’re doing.

By using inbound marketing technology you can get closer to buyer behaviour and demand. You can use this insight to create more meaningful connections by building relationships across all the different marketing channels. This enables you to accelerate the relationships you build with your prospects. Instead of waiting for months to view the results, you can see who’s responding – and adapt your strategy to meet the demand there and then.

This ensures that your marketing spend is continuously matched with where it is most effective and that it feeds right back into your company’s sales and marketing strategy. Create your strategy, use advanced inbound marketing approaches to maximise your marketing impact and assess its impact while it’s live. 


How are you currently keeping your budget consistent and targeted to look forward to a better ROI on your marketing budget?

Guest Author: Sookie Shuen is the community manager at Tomorrow People, a leading UK inbound marketing consultancy.

































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Going mobile with your SEO can make your business sharper, quicker, and more responsive.
As more and more businesses realize the value of SEO, defending and improving client’s visibility increasingly demands constant vigilance.

With these smartphone apps, you can keep an eye on multiple variables at once, and get a better idea of what is working for your clients and what isn’t.

These apps will keep you on top of your game at all times, whether youíre on the subway or stuck in the waiting room at the dentist.

1. Raven Tools

Raven Tools mobile app is a must-have if youíre already a Raven user; it ís easily the most comprehensive toolkit on this list. While the app is free, the subscription cost makes this something of a luxury alternative to Google Analytics or other free tools. Raven covers many SEO indicators that others miss, like social mentions and a clearer connection between marketing expenses and their impact on revenue. If you’re willing to take the plunge and make a big investment, Raven Tools is the obvious choice, and this app is the only one you need.

Cost: Free

Operating System: Apple (iOS)

2. iSEO

This app allows you to skim dozens of rankings, including Blog Worth, Google, Technorati Authority, Alexa, MSN/Yahoo! Indexed pages, and Google Indexed pages. You can also get a snapshot of a pages social media activity, as well as its keyword density. iSEO allows you to examine these indicators over time, so you can isolate the content that generates buzz from the flops. You can also use these indicators to monitor competitors movements, and learn from their successes and failures. The interface is otherwise fairly sparse, but the app does provide email functionality, to share results with partners so you can strategize based on your findings.

Cost: $1.99

Operating System: Apple iOS

3. Ego

Ego is a great way to streamline your analysis if you or your clients use more than one analytical tool. The app aggregates all your information in one app, so you don’t have to constantly switch between SEO apps and sites. While this app provides only broad, shallow analysis, itís a good way to get a birds-eye view of Twitter followers, feed subscriptions, and pageviews across multiple platforms.

Cost: $1.99

Mobile Operating System: Apple  iOS

4. Google Analytics

If you’re looking for free tools, this app is the whole package. From one screen, you can take in a broad, detailed picture of whatís happening on your sites, including average time spent on your site, pageviews per visitor, percentage of repeat visitors, where visitors come from, and who referred them. For a smartphone app, the Google Analytics app is easily the deepest standalone tool you can find; and it is free. Analytics features many ways of comparing your sites data, including measuring different timeframes side-by-side, assessing performance compared with goals, and correlating revenue with SEO expenditures. This app also stands alone on our list as the only option for Android users. Accordingly, performance is shakier on iPhones and some Android devices. Users of Samsung phones reported the fewest errors, while HTC users appeared to have more trouble.

Cost: Free

Moibile Operating System: Android, Apple iOS

5. Link Juice

Link Juice can help you locate and diagnose top-performing pages to make sure that you duplicate successful practices and discontinue failing ones. By comparing your big success stories with your flops, it ís easy to discern where your effort should be focused to improve sites PageRank and draw in more traffic. When you know where to direct your efforts, your expenditures and time can be used much more effectively.

Cost: $1.99

Operating System: Apple iOS

What About You?

How are you using mobile apps as a marketer. Do you use any of these tools?
What are apps that you have found useful to ensure that you are aware of what is happening on your websites?
































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If you think that publishing is going through an evolution then photography is experiencing a revolution. 



There are happy snappers everywhere. The smart phone with the inbuilt high definition camera is turning everyone into a photgrapher. Add some software technology with Instagram filters and an ordinary photo is becoming a piece of art.
Sites such as Pinterest are also allowing us to share this visual art form in glorious color, creativity and ease just by pinning images from the screen with a couple of clicks.
Competitors such as The Fancy.com are  taking these concepts of visual pinning even further into the realm of social commerce and have announced that they have reached a whopping one million users already.

The Rise of Social Mobile Commerce

The Fancy has introduced a few new features into its mobile app offering, most notably the ability to buy products (they are reportedly making an average of $50,000 each week from users snapping up the products they fancy). Up until now users could only collect images they fancied, but now you can buy them with one-click purchasing directly from your iPhone or iPad.
This revolution is changing the way businesses perform commerce online.  Online vendors are realizing that the habits and practices of  buyers online are changing rapidly and that tablet and smartphone users are much more likely to impulse buy with the convenience of one click shopping.

Pinterest has the Numbers

When it is all said and done, Pinterest still has the mind share and the numbers (currently at over 20 million users) but it certainly needs to keep developing its platform rapidly.
Online boutiques such as Boticca have turned their product categories into boards on Pinterest and are generating up to 10% of their sales from clicks from Pinterest. (Read more about that here)
So how do you use Pinterest to market your business?

10 Tips for Marketing on Pinterest

As with all marketing you need to start with a plan to win and Pinterest is no different.

1. Plan for Pinning Success

When setting up your account make sure it is set up properly and branded with your logo. Create boards that suit your target customers and your industry niche. Also make sure that you have integrated your Pinterest platform with your other social media platforms.

2. Remember Copyright

I was attending an online retailer conference recently and ShopNBC pointed out that it is important to ensure that you are not pinning images that have copyright.   Also remember to attribute your source.

3. Pin Straegically

The mantra is Pin, Repin and follow. Build up a  loyal tribe and they will reward you with significant sharing. Remember when anyone repins the link still points back to your site. Think of Pinterest as a friendly virus.

4. Be a Social Pinner

Don’t forget to comment , like other pins and @tag other pinners by name. Also remember your manners and say thanks when you are repinned.

5. Produce Pinnable Content

The rise of a much more visual web requires you to create and share high quality images. Also remember that you can also pin video as well. For B2B businesses that work in knowledge industries you can also pin images that point to your presentations on Slideshare.

6. Create and Curate

Don’t just post your images curate other quality images and photos from others. Remember to share the love. The power of reciprocation is alive and well and if you share others content they will feel obliged to share yours.

7. Be a Creative Pinner

A lot of business have great images offline that could be placed online to add to your content. Run competitions and include call to action in your pins.

8. Keep Search Engines in Mind

Google notices fresh content and also social signals. So optimize your pins with hashtags, links, categories and keywords. It is very important to pin images and content from your website. Pinterest can drive a lot of traffic to your website if you do this correctly with compelling and contagious photos and images. Infographics work very well on Pinterest.

9. Don’t Forget your Tools

The most essential tool is the “Pin It” button on your browser. Also download the Pinterest app for your mobile devices.

10. Monitor and Measure your Traffic

This will assist you in finding out what works and what doesn’t. Do more of what works. Also monitor what your competitors and other brands are doing and you will be surprised by what you will learn.




Source: Donna Moritz of Socially Sorted on the AmyPorterfield Blog

What about You?

How are you using Pinterest? Is it working for you?
Is Pinterest a waste of time for your business. Should B2B businesses bother with Pinterest?
I look forward to hearing your stories.




































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Ted Rubin is a leading social marketing strategist and the chief social marketing officer at Collective Bias. In 2009, Rubin started using the term ROR, Return on Relationship™, a concept he believes is the cornerstone for building an engaged multi-million member database. His book, Return on Relationship, is out in August. Follow him @TedRubin.


If you want to continue to reach your market in the social media age, the marketing focus needs to be on building relationships, and metrics need to expand beyond ROI. In fact, ROI is simple dollars and cents. But a return on relationship is the value — both perceived and real — that will accrue over time through connection, loyalty, recommendations, and sharing. That’s what any marketer actually wants, and here’s how to do it.

Don’t Just Act Authentic 

This might seem obvious, but authenticity is on the verge of becoming just another buzz word in social media marketing. True authenticity — not just using that word often in your tweets and posts — will set your brand (product or personal) apart in today’s highly competitive market. Followers and advocates can and will sniff out a fake in a heartbeat.

The only way to be authentic is to be authentic. For example, don’t filter out your brand’s negative feedback. No one believes 100% positive claims on a website or social pages anyway. Make all feedback public. Then honestly address any claims around the negative feedback, and give your followers the tools to tell their truth about you and your brand because that is what people trust, and what they trust they will buy.

Be Real to Create Trust

We are hearing so much now about social media creating a shift from ‘the wisdom of crowds’’ to ‘the wisdom of friends’’, but what does that really mean for brand advocacy? A lot. It’s this ‘wisdom of friends’ that brings a new social power to brand advocacy. The payoff is a long-term and personal relationship that creates brand advocates and an emotional connection that drives influence. Brand advocates are those people who are so delighted by your product/service/brand that they can’t wait to tell their friends and their whole social networks about the experience. To achieve such an enriching relationship, communication must be relevant and have a distinct and authentic personality.

Take Care of Your Advocates

Successful social media marketing is all about relationships, with the highest return coming from relationships with your brand advocates. Friends trust friends who are advocates. They will purchase a recommended product and, if that experience is everything they hoped for, a new advocate is born and the cycle continues. Advocates are an incredible asset now more than ever. Treat them as such.

Be an Actual Friend

The way you engage with people makes an impression no matter what tool you are using. Look at your own behaviors and ask yourself, “Would I want to be my friend?” Are you noticing and affirming the value of individuals and groups in your network? Are you genuinely interested and paying attention to the people behind the texts and words on a screen? Are you going out of your way to be of service to others in your network? That’s the kind of friend I would want to have and to be.

For example, it is unbelievable how many people never bother to connect after an event, or even fail to add who they met into their contacts file. What a complete and utter waste of time. So be the one who does. Add people to your contact file, and connect with them via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Make a note with every entry where you met (name of event and date), and anything else you remember or had the presence of mind to write on the card. Then, when and if you have an email exchange, cut and paste that email in the notes section so you will always have a point of reference when connecting again in the future.

Forget the adage Win/Win and make a commitment to Learn/Learn. Win/Win is good, but implies an end. Once you win, then what? Learn/Learn creates a paradigm of ongoing value. This creates a Learn/Learn situation. I learn about you and you learn about me. And we learn from each other.






























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