Online Marketing Blog

A few weeks ago, @aknecht and @SocialMichelleR had me on their #socialchat and as I am prone to do, I ask for questions in advance and try to answer them so when the actual Twitter chat comes, I’m ready with robust content and links instead of thinking of everything on the fly. The result is a richer experience for all I think. It’s also a source of content that one can use for a blog post. Like this one

According to Hashtracking, that #socialchat was quite active, with 523 tweets, 76 contributors, a reach of 291,000 and 3.2 million impressions. It’s amazing how much potential reach is possible through a well attended chat on Twitter.  I did a #blogchat with @mackcollier before BlogWorld LA and we posted huge numbers: 4k tweets, 800+ contributors, reach of 3+ million and over 29 million impressions.  Twitter chats are growing in popularity and such scheduled gatherings have extended to other platforms like Facebook and Google+.

Blogging is one of the top sources of online content creation for many companies. Blogs are a great vehicle for interacting and engaging with current and prospective clients.  Blogs are also an effective way for prospects to associate stories, anecdotes, and personalities with a company or brand.

Taking on a blog can be a large undertaking.  There are many things that should be considered including cost, availability of resources, strategy creation, time commitment, and measurement.  Simply creating content and expecting instant success is not realistic.  If you have recently decided that you would like to start a business blog, or have started a blog and are not seeing the success you had anticipated then the tips below are for you.

A recent study “State of Digital Marketing Report” indicated that for both B2B (57%) and B2C (41%) websites, search engine optimization was the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation over paid search advertising and social media marketing. Keep in mind, the study was sponsored by a provider of SEO services and had a conservative sample size. Despite that, the findings are consistent with what many successful SEO practitioners have known for years.

There are a number of additional studies that have supported the notion that Search Marketing (PPC and SEO) are the most effective and efficient practices for improving website traffic, leads and sales. In fact, Google has compiled a number of case studies and examples of how online search has driven substantial offline sales. Earned, Owned, Paid and Shared Media all drive search as search drives both online and offline outcomes for business.

Blogs are often rated one of the top content marketing tactics for attracting and engaging customers and eMarketer has reported blogs reach over 50% of the internet audience. But many companies fail to combine two of the most important tools for boosting relevant traffic and reach: Optimization for search engines and for social media.

Most marketers and bloggers understand the basics of a good business blog and the notion of search engine optimization but often focus more on keywords than the customers that are actually searching.  Adding keywords to blog posts is a common SEO tactic but developing a blog content plan around both search keywords and social topics that represent what customers care about can result in content that is inherently more search, social and customer media friendly.

For many people who have grown up celebrating Thanksgiving, the holiday for giving thanks has a underlying theme: Winning the wishbone. Besides the mounds of wonderful food and extended family gathered at many US households, there might be plenty of turkey to go around, but there is only one wishbone.

Believe it or not, competitive pursuit after a Thanksgiving turkey’s wishbone is a perfect metaphor for understanding better customer centric content marketing.  Prepare yourself for a Thanksgiving themed post without the tryptophan side effects.

5 Steps of A Wishbone Strategy Applied to Content Marketing
Here’s how the wishbone strategy works and how you can apply it to your content marketing strategy.

With SES Chicago over, we’re picking up our Wednesday guest posts again. This time with my friend David Meerman Scott, best-selling author of numerous books including The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Real-Time Marketing & PR and a new book called Newsjacking (Wiley) created specifically for the Amazon Kindle. David is someone who has always been a forward thinker and a few steps ahead of most marketers. This post gives some perspective and an example of newsjacking that opportunistic marketers are increasingly tapping in to due to availability of trend, buzz and social stream monitoring tools. 

With Google now indexing new content in real-time, there is a tremendous opportunity for clever people to rank at the top of the results for emerging keywords. One great way to accomplish this is to engage in what I call newsjacking.

Press Release SEO has been one of the most popular topics to attract Google search traffic here on Online Marketing Blog.  In fact, Lee told me he’s been using PRWeb (a TopRank SEO Client) to promote content in a news format since 2001. We’ve seen the ups and downs in the Public Relations industry over the years and have helped inform many Public Relations professionals on the finer arts of SEO by speaking at events like PRSA, providing training for PR agencies and corporate communications departments and writing about the topic here.

After seeing the nice write up by Adam Sherk on Ragan on how to write press releases Google will love, I decided to curate a list of our own Press Release Optimization tips and share them with you. Plus Lee’s added a few more at the end of this post.

This year was my 5th attending the SES conference in Chicago. While smaller than SES New York or SES San Francisco, the Chicago show serves a significant number of client side marketers, agencies and consultants in the Midwest and according to Incisive Media who run the event, attendance at this year’s SES Chicago was the best ever.

This was the first SES for our new Marketing Manger at TopRank, Ashley Zeckman, who stepped up to the plate and liveblogged the event for us. She did a great job and her posts were well received by Online Marketing Blog readers as well as other online publications that picked up her posts. Below is a summary of her blog posts, an embedded TopRank Online Marketing presentation on Social, SEO & Content Marketing, responses on Twitter and a few of my favorite photos from the event.

As SES Chicago reaches its final sessions the audience is still alert and ready to learn at TopRank CEO Lee Odden’s afternoon presentation on “Content Marketing & Optimization.”  According to Google’s Eric Schmidt, every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of time to the year 2003.  With so much information being shared what can we do as marketers to make our content easy to spot and easy to consume?

Can Customers Find Your Content?

Content creation is so much more than marketing, it is a way of engaging and enticing potential customers to take action.  Optimized content can make sure that customers interact with your brand.  There are many types of content that companies publish and many different audiences that a company should interact with.  Content creation is one of the most effective form of online marketing, it also happens to be the most difficult.

Proper execution of a local and social media strategy is still a head scratcher for many internet marketers.  The session on “Local + Social: the Future of Promotion” featuring Gregg Stewart and Benu Aggarwal at SES Chicago was a must see to answer several important questions.

A Best Practices Approach with Gregg Stewart

Did you know that roughly 20% of all Google searches have local intent?  When you look at mobile data that number is even higher.  These statistics alone should show us as marketers how important a online local strategy is for improving engagement.

Checking the Box Won’t Work

While website All Facebook says that 96% of small businesses are on Facebook, Mashable.com says that 64% of small businesses think that social media is unnecessary.  Part of what this data tells us that many companies are simply checking the box, but aren’t sure how to properly utilize social media marketing channels.

Wednesday morning’s panel discussion on search, social, and content was flush with information that was easy to digest and provided helpful tips for implementation. The session was moderated by Anne Kennedy from the SES Advisory board and featured speakers:

• Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit & SES Advisory Board (@omconnect)
• Arnie Kuenn, President, Vertical Measures (@arniek)
• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing & SES Advisory Board (@leeodden)

Kahlow Presents the What, Why, How, and Who of Search, Social, and Content

Aaron Kahlow focused on some very basic but essential areas that all marketers should focus on when creating a campaign either online or offline. In regards to search, social, and content he had this to share:

Michael DeHaven’s presentation at SES Chicago on “User Generated SEO” started with some actual user generated content from the audience. Before the session DeHaven gave 5 volunteers a bite sized Ghirardelli chocolate bar. In exchange for the treat he asked that each of the volunteers write a review of the chocolate and then share it with the rest of the audience.

What Was the Response?
The chocolate was called everything from waxy, to too sweet, messy, and melt in your mouth goodness. In contrast the packaging created by the Ghirardelli marketers was quite different, “take time to slow down and feel yourself melt with each bite.” As you can see the professional marketers took a much different approach than the consumers.