The Next Great Web Filter

Time to cry information overload – again!

how we've filtered the web....what's next?

Way back, in the early days of the Internet, there was lots of excitement about all the information available online. Organizations quickly learned that having a website was a requirement to operate a successful business, and people began turning to the Web for most of their information needs. As websites multiplied, people struggled with how to make sense of it all, sort through it, find what was most valuable to them. An exciting new communication channel soon blossomed into information overload with no effective filters.

Enter search engines. Google, Yahoo, AOL rose to fast prominence by giving people a way to navigate through the morass of websites and find what they wanted quickly. Then SEO, blogging, and content marketing were born, and smart marketers started feeding the search engines to get them to point people their way. It started with link buying and swapping, then moved to a content creation craze. Now, instead of website overloading, we’re inundated with “7 Lessons Learned” “10 Best Ways to…”, “6 Tips for…” headlines intended to lure people and links. An exciting new search marketing field soon blossomed into content overload with no effective filters.

Enter social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ all rose to fast prominence by connecting people, establishing online relationships, and giving people a way to chat and share information. Now, in addition to search engines navigating and giving meaning to web content, friend recommendations are helping people to filter and discern what’s worth paying attention to. But what happens when you gather 500+ friends and you’re following their lives, their interests, their shared links? An exciting new communication channel soon blossoms into information overload with no effective filters. Hmmm…sound familiar?

Enter… what’s next? I don’t know about you, but I’m now yearning for the next great filter that will save me from drowning in all my social media activity. Too much information. Too much wasted time. What new technology is going to help me navigate through all the social clutter and find my way to meaning – and still leave me time to live my life?

What are your thoughts?

The Filter Bubble Within Social Media (searchengineland.com)
The Pros and Cons of the Internet, As Taught to Students in 1996 (technologizer.com)

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Content Marketing: What Should I Write About?

September 13, 2011 Filed under: Content Marketing,SEO — Tags: content marketing, content strategy, SEO —

If you are actively pursuing an SEO strategy for your website, you are most likely aware of the need to create unique, compelling, and original content on a regular basis. Any SEO practitioner will tell you how critical content publishing is if you want your website to get found by the search engines. Content is King has become the mantra of SEO.

You probably also know that you need to think like your target audience in order to be found by them. This means using words they’re likely to be searching for, and addressing needs they can relate to. Nothing new for anyone in sales or marketing, right?

Actually, it is new — especially for many small businesses. Compelling online content needs to go beyond traditional sales & marketing speak; it needs to provide standalone value, not just sell your products. It needs to speak like a journalist, not a sales person. It needs to be educational, not promotional. In short, it needs to be about your audience, not about you. Sounds simple, right?

Making the Content Leap Easier

Creating online content can be a tough leap into new territory, even for experienced marketers. Many business owners have plenty to say about their own products and plans, but are challenged when it comes to creating audience-focused topics. “What else can I talk about besides the subject I know best?” a small business owner asked me recently, meaning, of course, his own products. I asked him to think about what publications his customers read every week – and then become one of them. He gave me a blank stare.

If you’ve been in business a long time, it’s tough to step outside the traditional selling mindset and begin thinking like a publisher. But if you want to be found in organic search results, publishing – not selling – is the best approach. Here are some steps to make the transition easier:

Keyword research. Every business knows what its customers’ needs are in some form, since they’re in business to satisfy a need. But you might be surprised to find your customers don’t use the same words you do to talk about it. Google’s Keyword Research Tool will help you find words and phrases your target visitors actually search for, and how many other websites are competing for those terms. Use this tool to find the ‘sweet spot’ of popular phrases, relevant to your business, and least competed for as a starting point for your content topics.

Customer interviews. If you have trouble stepping out of your selling mentality, try interviewing a handful of your customers. Take the conversation away from your product area and find out more about their business, what challenges they face, their current frustrations and needs, their longer-term plans and dreams. This will help you think bigger-picture, write from a sympathetic perspective, and address topics they care about.

Freelance writers. If you’re too busy to struggle through writer’s block, or find you can’t step out of your own perspective, hiring a freelance writer may be the best way to produce content. If you’re selling to a consumer market, a freelance writer can master your content readily and bring some fresh creativity. If you’re a B2B company, you may need to train a writer on your industry specifics, but you’ll find that many freelancers are former (or current) journalists and will come up to speed quickly. If you’re busy running your business or writing fills you with dread, this is your best option.

Industry publications. Read your industry publications. Notice the trends, tips, and general topics they cover. This is probably your best research for what topics readers find interesting, since publishers are in the business of selling content to your target audience, and they know what sells. Follow their example and you’ll be off to a good start.

The new age of content marketing is just beginning and most marketers are trying to find their way with limited guideposts and no experience. Several websites – Hubspot and Copyblogger being my favorites — offer volumes of good advice on how to do it well. But if you don’t want a full course on the topic and just need some pointers on creating good online content, try these approaches and learn for yourself. Web analytics will give you real-time feedback on how well you’re doing and allow you to adjust as you go.

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Does Your Business Have a Story?

August 16, 2011 Filed under: Content Marketing,Internet Marketing — Tags: company narrative, content marketing, Marketing, Public relations —

Source: bcarsonradio.wordpress.com

An editorial in last week’s Sunday New York Times, called What Happened to Obama? got me thinking. The article, by Drew Westen, talks about Obama’s failure to ‘tell us a story.’ The author describes his disappointment when he listened to the president’s inauguration speech back in Jan. 2009, disappointing because there was no story told to give context and meaning to the financial calamity people were experiencing:

Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety.

While I found the claims about Obama to be compelling and thought-provoking, it got me thinking more generally about story-telling, that form of art and entertainment that goes back as far as human history. The article’s key point is that stories matter because they speak to people in a way that straight facts do not. Stories appeal not just to the rational mind but to the heart, and that’s ultimately what reaches people, what causes them to act, to care, or even to change their mind.

Story-Telling Your Business

So what does this have to do with small business marketing? The same thing it has to do with marketing anywhere. Marketing, if done well, is all about telling stories. There are short-term stories – why a new product matters, how your customers are using your products to solve their problems, what trends are shaping your industry, etc. These are the stories companies generally issue press releases about and, if compelling enough, get press or blog coverage for. Then there is a company’s primary, defining story – the story that sticks in customers’ minds about who the company is. Some would call this a ‘brand narrative’; I would call it a company’s story. If you want your company to be remembered and your brand to ‘stick’ in the minds of your target audience, you need to have a strong story. And your marketing – both online and offline – needs to consistently tell that story.

What Kind of Story?

What does it mean for your company to have a story? Does it mean you have to create a fairy tale around yourself? Does it simply mean reciting your company history? Do you need your employees or executives to be colorful characters? The answer is a partial yes to all these questions, but those are not the questions to start with. The first question is the one that all sales & marketing folks know the answer to: what is your unique selling proposition? Start with that, and you can begin to build a story around it.

For some help with the story part, I return to Drew Westen’s column again, where he says (rightly) that “our brains evolved to expect stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought.” Any good PR person or journalist knows these basic rules about story-telling. But many marketers do not; those who don’t often default to just relating facts about what products they offer and why you should buy. Here are some great examples of companies whose brands tell a story:

Apple Computer. The villain was drab, boring business computers in the 1980’s and too many look-alike cell phones in the 2000’s. Apple’s ‘cool’ products entered the scene, gained recognition from creative advertising and wildly loyal customers, and achieved market share and profit victories because of its ‘insanely good’ product design. That’s a good story.

Facebook. The villain was “your parents’ computing approach” – namely, email and Internet search. Facebook, designed for the college crowd (who then grew into the GenX & GenY workforce) defined a new approach to communication and networking and fueled the next tech revolution of social media. This story was good enough to merit a movie and win an Academy Award.

Subway. The villain here is high-fat fast food chains, and the victims are health-conscious consumers. Enter fresh, healthy Subway, who’s been around for years, under-appreciated, and now getting a second look from obesity-sickened Americans. This well-timed story found fertile ground in the health-food movement.

Does your business have a story? Are you telling that story, or is it being told for you? Now is the time to seize your own narrative and cement it in your customers’ minds so they can retell it for you.

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Bring Out Your Dead — Content, That Is

January 26, 2011 Filed under: Blogging,Content Marketing — Tags: content marketing, SEO —

from Wikipedia

If you’re old enough to remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you may remember the “bring out your dead” scene (it still cracks me up!). I don’t want to draw too strong an analogy, especially since the ‘almost dead’ guy gets whacked in the movie, which is not what I’m suggesting. But I would urge you to think about bringing out your dead. Content, that is. If you’re a content marketer, blogger, or Social Media chatterer, you may sometimes wonder where your next idea will come from. Perhaps you’ve felt that knot in your stomach when gazing at a blank WordPress screen and no blog post topic comes to mind. Or maybe you feel like you’re just repeating yourself or regurgitating what you’ve read on other blogs.

One antidote to content cramps may be to look backward. Previously published content may seem like it’s history, used up, or dead. But it can actually have plenty of life left — if you know how to revive it and make it relevant to your readers. After some practice at reviving existing content, you’ll learn how to create new content in ways that are designed for reuse from the start. Here are some ideas:

Company presentations. You can reuse company slide presentations in their entirety or break them up into digestible snippets for multiple reuse. We have a tech client who uses their executive presentations from tradeshows and posts them on DocStoc and SlideShare, re-narrates them into videos for YouTube, and re-casts them into multiple blog posts for the company blog. That’s extended mileage! Instead of reaching only a room of people, the content is spread across the Web, bringing links, traffic and leads to the company website, where visitors can take the next step in the selling cycle.

Educational materials. If your product or service requires instruction, this can be a great source of educational blog posts, helpful tips on Facebook or Twitter, or demonstrations on YouTube or Webinars. Also consider guest blogging on complementary blogs. We have a client that sells beautifully handcrafted furniture and they guest blog on interior design blogs so they can educate readers on how to beautify their homes with classic furniture. And, of course, this builds links to enhance their search ranking.

The voice of the customer. Testimonials. Case studies. Customer reviews. It’s likely you already have some form of written feedback directly from your customers. What else can you do with it? Place it on your website. Feature it in a video and post it on YouTube or your Google/Bing Place Page. Share it on Facebook. Quote it on your blog or e-newsletter. And if you know someone is a fan, engage with them on Social Media and invite them to say more about why they like you.

Press releases. If you have news worthy of a press release, don’t stop there. Make sure you optimize your press release, include links to your website, and post it online. Then re-cast it as an article or a guest blog post on partner websites or blogs. Embed a video and post that to YouTube. And, of course, contact news reporters and bloggers to encourage them to write about your news – then you can feature their article on your blog.

White Papers. A single white paper may be the source of multiple blog posts or an article series for distribution to article directories. A skilled editor will know how to pull out the key points and build each one into a single blog post, optimized for the right keywords.

Ebooks. These work as a source or a destination for content reuse. You can package a group of related articles or blog posts as an eBook and offer it for download on your website as a qualifying call-to-action. Or, if you started with an ebook, you can break it into smaller pieces and run it as a series of blog posts. Either way, a bit of re-wording and selective updating can revive and freshen up old content so you don’t need to start from scratch.

Industry articles or blog posts you’ve saved from other sites or publications can be used as a jumping-off point for your own commentary or to initiate discussions on Twitter or other Social Media.

Support Forums. These will give you a good idea of what your customers are concerned and talking about, and give you fresh ideas for what topics they’ll want to read about on your blog or Facebook. You can quote their comments or questions as your starting point, and turn to your Support department for help with the answers.

So, if you find yourself short on ideas for what to say on your blog or social media, return to the well of existing content. If you pay close attention, you just might hear it whisper “I’m not dead yet.” If you understand the value of content marketing, you’ll realize that existing content can come back to life in many forms, be reused in many channels, and work on many platforms – all of which can help generate traffic and links to your website and build your reputation online. And you’ll never run out of things to write about.

For some great examples of how to re-purpose existing content, see the book by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks and Webinars.

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How to Manage Your Search Marketing Agency: No More “Go Do It Please”

October 27, 2010 Filed under: Content Marketing,Internet Marketing,Social Media Marketing — Tags: content marketing, Search Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing —

There’s no doubt about it – marketing as a profession is undergoing massive changes, right now, in real-time. When you’re in the midst of change, it’s hard enough to shift your perceptions, and even harder to alter long-established practices. But in marketing as in anything else, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, you need to acknowledge that things aren’t what they used to be, and then be willing to reset your expectations as well as your plans.

I’ve been a marketing professional for over 20 years, and for the first 17-18 years, the practice of marketing didn’t change much. Companies determined their product (or service) strategy, created marketing materials, attended conferences, hired ad agencies to run ad campaigns and PR agencies to pitch stories to the press. (Gross generalization, I admit, but roughly true). When you hired an agency, you expected the ‘creative types’ to go off, think creatively, and come back with some cool-looking ads or some punchy story ideas to pitch to journalists. The implicit expectation: “just go do it for me, please.”

The new world of search marketing and social media is much different. If your job is to market your company’s products, you can’t expect an agency to just “go do it” for you. Why not? There are 3 main reasons, as I see it:

Content Freshness. Your online image is only as fresh as your content. While an outside marketing agency may know lots about your company or product, they’re just not as close as you are to what’s new and interesting about it. You’ll need to keep the content coming, and keep the news fresh. An outside agency can, however, be a terrific brainstorming partner, content management advisor, ghost writer, editor, content optimizer, writing coach, and even blog “personal trainer” (ask me about this if you don’t know what I mean). Online marketing is fast evolving into content marketing, and an agency can be a valuable partner in helping your company to make this transition.

The Personal Touch. Social media is all about connecting directly with your customers and prospects, and an authentic voice is critical to establishing trust. It’s therefore a good idea to develop your own company “voice” and to build a credible presence on social media. An outside agency can be a key partner in helping you set goals for your social media strategy, understand the different social media channels and which are best suited to your goals and audience, and coach you on how to get started. They can also help you tie your social media strategy to a larger Content Marketing strategy, and measure your effectiveness across the board.

Quick Response. It’s likely your company is being talked about online. Whether it’s online customer reviews, social media discussions, or blog comments, your company name – and hence your online reputation – is out there. If you want a chance to respond, shape your image, or even just track what’s being said, you’ll need to tune in to this chatter. A company representative is once again your best online voice, although a marketing agency can track and measure what’s being said and point you to the trouble spots that need your immediate attention.

Success for a marketer in the current online environment starts with engagement. Engagement is becoming an over-used word, but it’s an apt one nonetheless. If you don’t engage with your customers, you’ll lose their online attention; and for a growing number of consumers, online is where their attention is increasingly focused.

Does this mean you shouldn’t hire a marketing agency? No, that’s certainly not what I’m suggesting (disclosure: I AM a marketing agency). And you should still expect creative ideas, solid strategic thinking, and excellence in execution, as good marketing agencies have always provided. But I am suggesting you alter your “just do it for me” expectation. To help you succeed, an Internet Marketing agency needs your deep involvement. While there are agencies who’ll encourage you to outsource everything to them, a more effective approach is a partnership.

If you want to portray an authentic online presence, you’ll need to develop your own unique voice in social media, generate unique content on a frequent basis, and respond in a timely manner to your online fans and reviewers. These are big tasks, and an online marketing agency can help – as coach, editor, organizer, strategizer, ghost writer, metrics tracker and analyst, and more. But they can’t “just go do it” without you.

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7 Things To Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

October 12, 2010 Filed under: Blogging,Content Marketing — Tags: blogging, content marketing —

The greatest challenge we find among SEO clients is content creation. Content is the key to a search spider’s heart. All YOU have to do is write it. We call it content marketing. But wait, don’t you also have a business to run? A job to do? And what if writing is just not your greatest talent? How are you going to keep the search engines happy and feed their insatiable appetite for new content? Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

Repurpose Existing Content

Source: IQmatrix

Yes, content marketing means you’ll need to create new content. But this doesn’t have to mean the paralyzing process of staring at a blank screen and coming up with new ideas from scratch. At least not every time. There are plenty of places you can go for what I call “starter-content,” which can then be enhanced or recycled. Whether you’re authoring a blog, creating articles for distribution, or adding new content pages to your site, here are some ideas to help you get beyond writer’s block.

1. Company presentations or white papers. If you’re in a B2B business, chances are you or your colleagues have given presentations or white papers to explain your product or educate customers. These are great pieces to use as a starting point for an article, blog post, or FAQ page on your website. You can either recycle still-relevant content in its original form, write an update, or use an old position as a starting point to argue a new perspective. (more…)

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5 Big Worries of a First Time Blogger – And How to Overcome Them

May 10, 2010 Filed under: Blogging — Tags: blogging, Blogs, content marketing —

What if I blog and no one cares what I have to say?
What if I run out of interesting things to say on my blog?
What if customers post negative comments on my blog posts, in front of all my other customers?
How can I possibly find time in my busy schedule to author a blog?
Aren’t most blogs just insiders talking to insiders? My customers won’t care.

Sound familiar? Have these fears kept you up at night as you weigh the decision of whether to join the ranks of bloggers? These are the very real and understandable concerns of clients we’ve worked with as they face the decision of whether to blog. To blog or not to blog – that is the question.

It’s a good question, and one that any potential blogger should think through carefully. The above list of worries, while they are often just a case of the jitters, deserve serious consideration before taking on the considerable commitment of becoming a blogger. Rather than brushing away these fears, I typically encourage clients to dig in and think them through, as the answers will give them important insights into whether they should blog and what kind of blogger they should be. So, here’s a paraphrased conversation I had recently with a small business owner who is currently wrestling with this very decision. (more…)

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