Online Marketing Blog

A Dr. Seuss-Inspired Guide to Twitter - Dr. Seuss, the writer and illustrator behind children’s classics The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and The Lorax, would have turned 110 on March 2nd. We think that if he were alive today, he would have been a social media master. So to honor his wit and wisdom, here’s our interpretation of the Seuss guide to Twitter. HootSuite

Now Official: Google Adds Restaurant Menus To Search Results - Google announced that it’s now showing restaurant menus as a OneBox-style answer at the top of its search results. It seems to be primarily triggered by searches that involve both the restaurant name and the word “menu,” although Google’s example involves a query that starts with “show me the menu for….” Search Engine Land

A few years back while vacationing in Oahu, we decided to take surfing lessons. Well, everyone but me.

I made up all kinds of excuses but when I saw my 8 year old daughter pop up like it was nothing, I had to try. The guy running the lessons had really been around and the young men helping him were clearly “all-in” for the surfing life. They were experts. With their help and my daughter’s example, I quickly went from disinterested to being eager to go again.

That story reminds me of how a lot of marketers take a turn with their digital and social media marketing skills. Getting inspired and then connected with people that really know what they’re doing can be a direct line from zero to social media hero.

Most businesses are aware of the importance of social media marketing, but the number of companies really succeeding at it represent just a drop in the ocean.

When you think about it, the world of social media is a lot like the ocean actually – constantly moving and evolving due to trends and feature updates. Those who really want to to succeed at social media marketing are like expert surfers, continuously swimming in the seas of change, riding the waves of trends, finding the best tools to keep their boards working well and keeping a close eye on the horizon for new best practices.

The more relevant readers of your blog content, the more opportunities to attract, engage and convert those readers in your online sales efforts.

Content marketing, brand publishing, media sites that blog, and consumer publishing are all competitors for the time and attention of your target audience.

So how can a company increase the number of readers of its blog content?

Here are 5 tips I’ve implemented with many companies and for ourselves over the years.

1. Facts tell, but stories sell. Tell stories! Whatever it is that you’re trying to communicate – boring, exciting or neither – always think of what “the story” is. You can find good stories in anything.  Use metaphors and analogies as inspiration for stories. Facts and statistics do have their place of course and can provide some very compelling logic behind an interesting story.

“Can we increase our blog readership by 50% in the next 6 months?”

If you’re a digital marketing or social media professional, questions like this are probably pretty familiar.

For many companies, specific goals are a godsend since social media marketing is still a bit of an uncertainty. It gives those who are responsible for implementation something more tangible to focus their efforts on. I’ve seen it happen many times where an objective like this is communicated by a marketing director or VP and the marketing team jumped all over themselves and each other to provide compelling answers.

But I have to just shake my head when that happens.

I’ve always said, “The best part about Minnesota Winters is leaving for somewhere warm.”

Over the next 2 months or so, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing and I’d like to invite you to join me at one or more of these 6 upcoming events in cities that range from San Francisco to New York to Denver to learn about integrated marketing topics with a particular emphasis on the role of influencers and content.

Beyond content and social media marketing, these events and conferences will cover a wide variety of essential digital marketing knowledge, so there’s plenty to learn, numerous smarties to network with and in some cases, a little warmer weather to be enjoyed.

All marketers need actionable insight to make important decisions. As the internet reaches a crescendo of voices all vying for their customers’ short attention span, the need for quality citations and third party industry research becomes even more important to stand out.

Therein lies an opportunity: Companies that create credible surveys, reports and playbooks on a regular basis can become known authorities and trusted resources – ahead of the competition. Such authority leads to trust and in the content marketing world those are essential characteristics to attract a target audience whether they are buyers, journalists or investors.

Ironically, it’s this exact labor-intensive exercise that provides some of the most sharable, citable content. The ability to attract substantial citations, social shares and attention is a very powerful capability for agencies and corporate marketing marketing departments to have right now.

Like many other digital marketing agencies, we’ve been on the hunt for digital and content marketing talent on a continuous basis over the past few years. Increased demand and competition are driving the need to find people with skills that can actually create impact, vs. fuzzy “potential”.

Companies looking for agencies are in the same boat, challenged to find partners that can actually affect business goals. Sadly, there are few knights in shining content marketing armor, like our friend to the right.

In both cases, the ease of publishing online makes it easy for individuals and agencies to present expertise – whether they really have it or not.  There are a few ways to sift through the fluff and puff and one of them is knowing what skills, capabilities and experience your business actually needs.

How Location-Based Marketing Delivers Ads to In-Store Shoppers [Infographic] – Micro-location and proximity targeting are happening in brick and mortar stores right now. This infographic explains some of the location-based marketing systems out there and how they tap into wifi, GPS, NFC and other technologies to detect location and help deliver ads. Marketing Land

LinkedIn Unlocks Influencer Program – LinkedIn has expanded their influencer blogging program from 500 to 25,000 this week. The blogging function will extend to more members in the future. Enabling LinkedIn members to blog will give LinkedIn substantially more content and engagement opportunities to drive pageviews and website visits. It should also provide more value for members. LinkedIn Blog (client)

An important part of developing skills and expertise is to understand where you fall on a continuum of what’s possible and then take action to evolve and advance accordingly.

With so much digital marketing advice and information on the web, it’s easy to follow along with the latest best practices. But what about 1 or 2 years from now? How valuable would it be to anticipate the challenges and opportunities beyond the current 6 or 12 months of marketing planning?

What is in your future for content marketing?

Along these lines, I’ve been developing a model of content marketing maturity to help companies better understand where they are and where they could be with their own content marketing and as a guide for using outside content marketing services. This is especially relevant as the need to develop more integrated strategies has become the minimum to compete.

Conferences, symposiums, summits, trade shows, roundtables and world expos. From intimate, invitation-only events to sprawling Las Vegas-style exhibit halls, most of us have attended at least one industry-specific event.

While the business value has been debated off and on over the years, and it was predicted that webinars and other digital forms of online training would eventually replace live events, there is just no substitute for face time when you want to establish rapport with people who share your interests and business goals.

As content marketing strategy continues to gain momentum, an interesting phenomenon is occurring – real-world, in-person events are starting to edge out trendier content tactics, like video. In fact, according to Content Marketing Institute, in-person events have been ranked as the most effective content marketing tactic over the past four years by B2B marketers.