Online Marketing Blog

New Research Shows 95% Use Customer Reviews - PowerReviews set out to look deeper at how ratings and reviews are impacting decision making. They surveyed 800 Americans to find out what they thought about ratings and reviews. Check out the interesting stats they found in the infographic above. Socialnomics

Pinterest Was the Fastest-Growing Social Network in 2014 - Pinterest recorded the biggest percentage rise in active users of every major social network in 2014, reveals a new study. SocialTimes

Google Testing A Label In Search Results For Slower Sites - Is your site unusually slow? Google is testing a red slow label in the search results that will warn searchers before they click over to your web site. Search Engine Land

What is the biggest mistake B2B marketers make with content?

It’s all about us (the brand). One of the most common and significant mistakes B2B marketers make with content is to create information and media that doesn’t solve a customer information problem. Additionally, content that is presented out of context and unoptimized for customer experience can result in very poor performance.

The reason for this mistake? A brand or marketer’s ego-centric view of the world. Whether it’s writing branded content to editorialize self-promotion or sticking only to topics meant to inspire end of funnel conversions, simply creating more content isn’t the answer. And yet over 90% of B2B marketers are doing exactly that.

It wasn’t that long ago that most business marketers thought of LinkedIn purely as a place for online resumes and prospecting future hires. Today, with nearly 350 million members world-wide, LinkedIn has become a formidable marketing and sales resource for B2B marketers across the web.

In fact, LinkedIn is evolving as a full marketing funnel solution through it’s mix of content and advertising solutions. In particular, through the LinkedIn Lead Accelerator that serves as a lead generation and nurturing service.

While new product and service offerings are fine and good, there’s a saying I live by when it comes to tools. “A tool is only as useful as the expertise of the person using it.”

That’s why this updated version of The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn is so timely.

From James: Today’s post is the fourth and final in a series of articles on social media marketing – all part of a contest within TopRank Marketing for a chance to attend Social Media Marketing World. Watch for live posts from the winner of the contest March 25 -28.

Boom! Making an impact and making it quickly is a primary goal of social media. You only have a few seconds to grab ahold of the attention of your followers while they’re scrolling through their stream, so impact is important.

From James: Today’s post is the third in a series of four articles on social media marketing – all part of a contest within TopRank Marketing for a chance to attend Social Media Marketing World. Watch for the next post in the series on how to create impact with Instagram.

While many businesses ban social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at work, there are some unconventional social networks that may actually increase productivity, especially for those in B2B. A couple networks really pop out in this regard.
Cyber Dust and Yo App are fringe startup social apps that, while gaining dubious fame for their apparent uselessness, have grown to have very practical utility.

LinkedIn Launches Lead Accelerator, Expands Marketing Solutions Portfolio - Talk to any B2B marketer and you’ll know – the purchase process can be very long and complex. As a marketer and business leader with years of experience in this space, I know that effectively reaching, nurturing and converting prospects has only become harder. That’s why I’m thrilled to introduce LinkedIn’s expanded Marketing Solutions portfolio, featuring the new LinkedIn Lead Accelerator. LinkedIn [Client]

Facebook’s Q4 2014: Mobile is Now 69% Of Ad Revenue - All estimates going into Q4 showed that ad spend on Facebook would rise. Facebook validated this belief Wednesday, showing that the company reaped its all-time high in quarterly ad revenue — $3.59 billion. SocialTimes

More than 7,000 Twitter posts by 1,600+ different users generated almost 28 million impressions during this week’s Content2Conversion Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. For three days, the resort at Gainey Ranch became a genuine B2B content marketing bonanza.

From opening night festivities on the Lawn Court, to the closing panel session, B2B content wishes, wisdom and wit was shared among the more than 400 conference attendees and their social media audiences.

Excellent opening night festivities for #C2C15 – Well done @content2convert !

A photo posted by Lee Odden (@leeodden) on Feb 16, 2015 at 8:06pm PST

How About That Weather?

For those of us who traveled from the Midwest or the East Coast, weather was a common-ground topic, and probably 90% of the conversation starters. Coming from zero-degree Minnesota, the weather was a good way to break the ice (pun intended.)

A lot of presentations at this week’s Content2Conversion Conference touched on theories and tactics related to creating customer focused narratives in B2B content. While some marketers might think of incorporating storytelling in their B2B content marketing as a gamble, Laura Ramos of Forrester Research says it’s time to make that gamble. According to Laura, it’s time to double down on the one key element missing in most B2B content: Storytelling.

B2B Marketing lacks enthusiasm and capability to use storytelling to connect with buyers, Laura said. It’s time to tell stories and it’s time to understand the power that storytelling has on your audience.

SAP’s Celia Brown and Amy Hatch pose for a photo after their session at Content2Conversion

Celia Brown and Amy Hatch came to brand journalism from different directions: One marketing and the other journalism. It’s the perfect mix for setting up a social newsroom, as the two have demonstrated at SAP. 

At the Content2Conversion Conference, the duo offered three T’s of winning the marketing moment by establishing a social newsroom:

Talent

The two skill sets that each woman brought to SAP’s Social Newsroom dovetail perfectly. Amy, who sees the reporter side, said reporters love to get the big scoop. With a reporter on staff in the marketing department, content began to offer a transparency that wasn’t always evident, Amy said, in marketing content.

It’s a big task to move an 80,000 employee organization on to a completely different mode of marketing thought. But that’s what Karen Thomas-Smith and her team at Optum has done, and they did it in the sometimes slow-to-adapt industry of healthcare.

Karen moved Optum — a B2B healthcare software and services organization — from traditional marketing to content-led marketing and thought leadership. Though she was met with resistance at first, she has since transformed Optum’s marketing for the better, as she presented at the B2B C2C conference this week.

Optum’s Journey To Content Marketing Success

Optum’s marketing efforts were once what Karen called “one and done” marketing, meaning trade shows, brochures and other traditional efforts. The focus was on the big sale. If a brochure were a first date, it closed with a call to action that asked for marriage.

At the Content2Conversion conference in Scottsdale, there were a lot of hands up when Lee Odden asked how many in the audience had been tasked with developing substantially more content for 2015.

The hands in the air were far, far fewer when Lee asked how many in the audience had been allocated an equal amount of resources for the development of that additional content.

82% of senior executives are say more content is a significant driver in their buying decisions according to a report from Deman Gen Report. As more buyers are consuming more content, Odden says “you gotta fish where the fish are.”

Today through Thursday of this week, you’ll see posts on TopRank Blog from the B2B Content to Conversion Conference in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.

I’ll be live-blogging a few sessions from the conference, including our CEO Lee Odden’s talk “How to Create a Competitive Advantage by Crowdsourcing Marketing Content with Influencers.” Lee is speaking at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday. If you have any questions on his presentation, be sure to let us know.

For many of us in the Midwest, as well as our friends out on the East Coast, it’s a darn good time to be heading to Scottsdale. Areas like Boston have seen some of the worst snow on record and back home in Minnesota it has been consistently below freezing for days on end.