A lot has changed in the past year so I think it’s worth revisiting that list.

Blogs continue to represent highly effective content hubs for integrated SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing programs for all kinds of companies and industries, not just internet marketing. I’ve traveled to the UK many times and between my discussions with practitioners at conferences and the clients TopRank has in London, it’s clear that while there are many amazingly talented internet marketers in the UK, many companies are not as progressive in their approach.

Blogs are a great way to draw attention to solving that disparity and I’d like to draw attention to these useful internet marketing blogs covering everything from SEO to Social to Analytics to the intersection with other marketing channels.

Here’s that list of 35 UK internet marketing blogs below, organized alphabetically, for your consideration and comment.

Are these still the top blogs on digital marketing topics for the UK? What would you add? Which would you take out? This post is also an open invite for the authors of these blogs to do a review of Optimize.

• Apple Pie & Custard
• Blending the Mix
• Blogstorm
• Chris Garrett
• Clicky Media
• David Naylor
• Digitales
• Distilled
• Dixon Jones
• Econsultancy
• Epiphany
• Fresh Egg
• Fresh Networks
• Froggblog
• Hobo
• Holistic Search
• iCrossing
• Latitude Blog
• Liberate Media
• Malcolm Coles
• Murray Newlands
• Receptional
• Return on Digital
• SEO Chicks
• SEO Wizz
• SEO Gadget
• SEOptimize
• SEOUnique Blog
• Smart Insights
• State of Search
• Tamar
• The Wall
• Tim Nash
• Vertical Leap
• We Are Social

I will be in the UK again next week 4/18 at the ionSearch conference in Leeds, which has a great line up of speakers ranging from Matt Bush of Google to Kevin Gibbons of SEOptimise to Ralph Tegtmeier of, well, if you have to ask it’s better that maybe you don’t know

Dave Snyder from the U.S. will be there as well as Andy Atkins Kruger from WebCertain in York. There will be plenty of folks from Blueclaw Media, who is running the conference there as well.

At ionSearch I’ll be talking about the evolution of SEO in the form of Optimize (of course). I’d like to invite bloggers in the UK that are attending to do a review of Optimize.  We’ll feature any reviews on our book site with links and all.  To do  review of Optimize, just contact us at mail at optimizebook dot come for details.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Top UK Internet Marketing Blogs 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

How to Twitter? A common question many businesses ask.

Whether you work for a large or small business, in BtoB or BtoC, or are just interested in growing your marketing and sales network, you may have been faced with a common issue:  You’re fully on board with social media, but your employees may not be.

Many organizations have done their due diligence to put together a policy which includes all the ways that employees may not use social media in connection with their brand.  However, what are some simple steps you can take that will not only take the fear out of social media, but will encourage participation?

5 Tips for Taking the “FUD” out of Twitter

As with any new task there is a reasonable amount of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) associated with reaching out and interacting via Twitter for many employees.  How can you help your staff overcome this fear?  By making it as easy as possible for them to participate and engage.

Tip #1 – Cover the Basics
Before teaching employees the best practices for utilizing Twitter for business it’s imperative that you have an understanding of their core knowledge base.  Some of the basics that it’s important to cover include:

• Do your employees have a Twitter handle?
• Do they need help setting up their account information?
• What is considered spamming?
• What is a good follow/follower ratio?
• How to re-tweet
• Character limits

Looking for some general best practices for re-tweeting?

Tip #2 – Provide Lists to Get Employees Started
Putting together a list of Twitter users for your employees to follow is a great way to jump start their Twitter experience.  You may want to consider creating some lists within Twitter that include the following groups of individuals or companies:

• Industry influentials
• Clients
• News & Media Sources

Below is an example of a list of marketers created by TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden (@leeodden).

Tip #3 – Consistency is Key
I would recommend starting with a goal number of tweets, RT’s, or interactions that you would like your employees to participate in on a weekly basis.  If asking them to interact each day is unrealistic instead suggest that they set aside 5-10 minutes 2-3 days a week to find something interesting to post with their followers.

A tactic as simple as finding a news article related to your business or interests and sharing it via Twitter can be a one click process.

Tip #4 – Recommend Tools
Remember, we’re thinking ease of use.  Another way to make the transition to Twitter as easy as possible is to provide free tools to your staff that allow them to instantly post, schedule posts, and monitor activity on Twitter.  Some of the tools that I recommend include:

• Buffer
• Hootsuite
• TweetDeck

Hootsuite has proven to be very user friendly and provides a great scheduling function for sending out tweets throughout the week. You can also view your home feed, Twitter mentions, and sent tweets at the same time in an easy to read format.

Tip #5 – Event Best Practices
If your organization is participating in, hosting, or attending any events there is a prime opportunity for your employees to spread the word and provide live coverage of the event.  Prior to the event you should determine:

• The event hashtag (if there is one) and make sure to share with your employees what that is as well as the best way to use it.
• The Twitter handles of the speakers/vendors who will also be participating in the event.

During the event encourage your employees to tweet highlights from sessions or speakers as well as track any mentions of your brand.

While Twitter is just one of the many ways that you can encourage your employees on board as advocates for your brand, it is a start.  Remember, to always start small and ensure that you are providing as much direction as possible to set your staff on the right path.

If you have any additional questions relating to encouraging office participation please feel free to comment on this post or send me a tweet (@azeckman)! Of course, if you have some of your own ideas about how to get your co-workers on the Twitter bandwagon, please share in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 5 Tips for Taking the “FUD” out of Twitter for Employees | http://www.toprankblog.com

Now I’m turning the questions from those chats and my answers into yet another (unique) blog post full of practical tips.

The questions and answers from those chats provide tips for bloggers that want to provide a more meaningful and measurable experience for their readers. These tips range from process and efficiency advice to ways of inspiring more user generate content, content repurposing and growing subscribers.

Q: Do you think blogs are influential in building community – in other words, if you build it, will they come?

A: Blogs as a hub surrounded by spokes of social participation are excellent for building community

A: The key is to empathize with what motivates people to discovery, engage & share content. Mesh that insight with your editorial & promotion

A: Great content isn’t great unless people read and share it. Blogs must promote content to grow community.

Q: How do you determine the niche solution your market needs to develop “go to” resources for that solution?

A: Developing resources for niche solutions can start by understanding audience pain points. Know your customer & make things that help them.

A: Monitor popular niche content in your category to see what topics are not being covered, problems not addressed, then make & solve for your niche.

A: Create a resource that you would want to use yourself & others will want to use it too. Be editorial not self promotional.

A: Niche list blog post resource example: 25 Women Who Rock Social Media (4,291 RTs)

A: Niche list blog post resource example: 22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools (2,599 RTs)

Q: A keyword glossary and editorial plan keep content on track, but does it create community?

A: Re: keywords and community – why make it hard for interested people to find your content?

A: Search keywords & social topics data come from real behaviors & conversations. They inspire editorial that resonates with readers & search engines alike

A: Bloggers writing purely for self expression with no monetization goals don’t need to bother with keyword glossaries and editorial plans

A: If bloggers have commercial & business accountability, then empathizing with desired audiences by creating editorial that speaks their language is good business

A: Two useful resources: SEO or Social for business blogging? & Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize

Q: Is it better to gather a community on social media and drive to your blog or directly on your blog itself?

A: Where you gather community depends where they want to gather. Understand customers, implement & promote content accordingly. Adjust.

A: A hub and spoke mode allows both blog community & off blog community in social channels. Spoke communities help promote blog content.

Q: What other tips do you have for driving blog traffic/readership?

A: Create content people can’t find anywhere else

A Tips: Create comprehensive collections of resources – unique

A: Give to get. Praise others, give kudos and recognize others in your industry. Never underestimate the power of ego.

A: Engage – ask questions, respond quickly and qualitatively. Engage off your blog too – 10 min a day, every day

Q: What are some ways we can make their blogs more interactive for readers?

A: Interactions with blogs starts with interesting content. Empathize with audience interests, prompt them with ?s. Ask!

A: Collect the best comments and curate that into blog content. Spend time on other blogs too. 5-10 min a day.

A: Surface participation to recognize those who display desirable interaction behaviors. eg top commenters, top shares, etc

Q: What is the best way to go about sourcing user generated content?

A: To be efficient, I maintain 10-20 blog posts in development & add to them a few min at a time

A: As mentioned, guest posts work well. Create contests where content contribution is an outcome. Recognize “winners”.

A: Ask questions on social channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or G+ & compile the answers. Make it easy to answer.

Q: What is a good way to attract industry influentials to guest post on a blog?

A: Make valuable comments on their blogs, RT their tweets, get on the radar. Build your credibility & what you stand for.

A: Industry influentials tend to be BZ so make it EZ to contribute. If a guest post won’t work, offer an email interview.

A: Try asking 10 thought leaders 1 easy question and compile that into 1 post. Follow up with a guest post offer.

Q: Should you respond to all comments on your blog or only questions?

A: Responding to comments depends on opportunity to create value. Questions need answering. Adding to statements OK too.

A: I don’t think you need to reply to every “great post, thanks” comment, no. But when opportunity for opinion arises, take it.

Q: Do you find there is a difference in engagement if you ask more questions in your blog posts?

A: Asking questions does inspire more feedback in the comments – but only if natural & genuine vs. “gimmick”

A: A history of asking & answering questions with your blog community will create momentum, an expectation of conversation

Q: How can I get more social shares on my blog posts?

A: Make interesting content (defined by readers not just you), optimize for social share, promote it & shares will come.

A: It’s also worth asking “why” you want more social shares. Make a distinction between quantity (social proof) & quality.

Q: What types of posts typically get the most re-shares, comments, traffic, etc.

A: Reshares, comments, traffic are all different KPIs (key performance indicators) There’s no blanket “type” that hits all.

A: Start w/ content that solves a problem for readers, resonates with interests, trends & that’s easy to share.

A: People will rally around decisiveness, so take a stand. Be a leader on key points & your blog will attract shares & attention.

Many blog readers are bloggers themselves, so what are some of your best tips for creating a more meaningful and measurable experience for your blog audience?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Practical Tips to Make Your Blog More Useful & Interactive | http://www.toprankblog.com

As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.

In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.

Why should small businesses blog?

Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:

1. Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
2. Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
3. Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.

Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:

• Prospects
• Existing customers
• Potential employees
• Marketing partners, investors
• The media: journalists, bloggers

What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?

Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.

The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.

At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.

When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.

How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?

The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.

When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.

There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)

Here’s the video version of the interview:

Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.

Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers | http://www.toprankblog.com

• Finding a way to connect with their audience
• Moving prospects through the buying cycle
• Growing their network and lists

Marketers often talk about their prospects being overloaded with too much information which can lead to an indecisive audience, causing marketers to miss projections and sales goals.  Lets face the facts, consumers are engaging online.  Recent studies show that over 53% of active social networkers follow a brand.  If there are that many people actively interacting and engaging with brands online what changes can be made to reach and engage target audiences?

Sign #1 – The Sounds of Silence – No One is Commenting On Our Blog

The first item to audit when trying to figure out why your blog is not getting the traffic and engagement that you want is to take a hard look at your content.  Is the content being created too broad, too specific.  Does it effectively address the pain points of your audience.  If so, take some time reviewing existing customer research or begin surveying existing customers to determine what type of information they like to consume and share.  Consider adding questions in the conclusions of your blog posts that encourage interaction.  Another tactic involves promoting blog content on your company website and other social channels.

Sign #2 – Is Anyone Out There? – Activity Without Engagement

The key to increasing engagement is to be engaging.  Have you made a point of reaching out? If not spend some time identifying key industry influentials as well as organizations or individuals you are looking to target directly.  Your social engagement will not improve if you are constantly in self-promotion mode.  Put some “skin in the game” by sharing original content which mentions those you would like to connect with, or re-share information they have distributed on their networks as a sign of good faith.

Sign #3 – Our Website is Awesome – But No One is Visiting

First question, is your content optimized?  Is this content optimized for search engines and customer experience?  Optimizing for search engines will undoubtedly increase your visibility online.  However, if you aren’t getting the number of inquiries or even the organic traffic you’re aiming for there could be a variety of reasons.  Take some time to review your Google Analytics and analyze your website bounce rate.  Perhaps you’re ranking fairly well but once people get to your site they aren’t finding what they want or need and are exiting the site immediately and moving on to the next.  It is also a good idea to assess the websites of your top competitors and identify what they are doing that is working and not working to draw in your target audience.

Sign #4 – A Sound Investment – Content Creation Without Representation

Before investing in the creation of white papers, infographics, videos, guides, or research you must first consider your audience.  What type of information do your customers and prospects typically consume and share?  Which websites social or otherwise do they spend the most time on?  By identifying these key pieces of information it should help guide you down the path to creating content that is in the proper format and set up to receive adequate exposure.

What is the moral of the story?  If  you want your audience to engage with you and listen to what you have to say it’s time to do the same.  Work to identify what topics and tactics work best for your audience, and evolve these strategies as their preferences change.  Spend just as much time if not more monitoring conversations as you do releasing information on social sites.

What hurdles have been most difficult for you to overcome as an online marketer?  If you could give one piece of advice to other content and social media marketers what would it be?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Stuck In A Marketing Rut? 4 Signs That It’s Time To Add Engagement To Your Online Marketing Strategy | http://www.toprankblog.com

An ego-centric approach to business blogging misses the opportunity to create meaningful connections with people empowered to publish, share, refer and buy. Blogging is a publishing platform that allows both one to one and one to many communications so content should take advantage of those engagement opportunities by thinking about content that’s interesting from the reader’s perspective.

So, what can companies that are planning on setting up a blog or that would like to improve the performance of their blog do?

The first thing I’d recommend is to find a niche related to the major problems your business solves for customers and make a plan to dominate it. Develop a matrix of topics and media types that map to the intersection of target audience needs and the key messages your brand is trying to promote. What’s the one thing your company, division, department or product is absolutely the best at?  Think of  blog posts, videos, images, presentations, infographics, polls, interviews, liveblogging, reports, reviews and other types of content that you could create to be the “go to” resource for that category.  Once you’ve achieved dominance of conversation, referrals and search visibility for that key topic, document what has made your niche efforts successful and duplicate that process to other topics relevant to your business.

What are the mechanics of growing a blog community? It can differ a bit according to your industry, goals, target audience and resources, but here are a few simple tips that have helped our agency at TopRank Marketing gain an online footprint and brand credibility that is equal or better to agencies that are many, many times larger than we are.

1. Tell Stories. Whatever it is that you’re trying to communicate, always think of what “the story” is. If you were a journalist assigned to cover a beat, what unique angle, hook or perspective would you use to make the information you’re publishing interesting to a particular audience? With practice, you can find good stories in anything.
2. Empathize with whatever market or audience you’re after. Put yourself in their shoes when thinking of topics. What are your target audience’s pain points and goals? Write about the journey to solving those problems.
3. Engage and Recognize. Find ways to ask your readers, subscribers, fans, friends and followers to interact and participate directly on your business blog as well as the other social media and networking channels used to grow community and promote useful content (including your own). Reward and recognize the kind of participation you’re after. Repeat. The simple satisfaction of contributing and being recognized is one of the most powerful when developing a strong blog community.
4. Quality for the win. A quantity of quality is what wins with blog content. There’s a lot of competition in the blogging space so it’s important to produce high quality, relevant and sharable content on a regular basis. At TopRank Online Marketing we help companies plan and implement this but with a good plan, it’s entirely possible for companies to figure it out on their own over time. Provide something your readers can’t find elsewhere online and do that consistently.
5. Easy to Search and Share. Blog content that is easy to find on search engines and that is often shared by credible sources within relevant social networks can grow your community in very meaningful ways. People that search are often looking for something specific and when your blog content “ranks” well for those phrases, it lends instant credibility that can manifest as an increase in traffic, readership and growth of your community.

Many companies start blogging because competitors are doing it or because it seems a necessary piece of the online and social media marketing mix.  Hopefully those companies are thoughtful about what they want to achieve through blogging and understand both the necessity of planning and commitment to make it work. We’ve been blogging for over 8 years here at TopRank and with nearly 50,000 blog subscribers, almost 20,000 Twitter followers, 14,000 Facebook fans and a growing community on Google+, we’ve been able grow a network, readership and community that many of the world’s largest internet marketing agencies can’t come close to matching. On top of those social KPIs we can attribute millions in $ of new business, amazingly talented employees, speaking opportunities and partnerships to the content and relationships built from our blog. I think that kind of impact is possible for any company that wants it and is willing to make the commitment.

For me this is a short post, so there are many other things a business could do to grow community, readership and traffic to their business blog. What are some of the tactics or approaches you’ve taken to attract and engage your blog readers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | How to Increase Business Blog Traffic, Readership, & Community | http://www.toprankblog.com

What does it take to go viral?

This recent video from Salesforce.com covers what it takes for your content to spread as well as the formula for success.  The video also includes a checklist marketers can use to increase their likelihood of going viral.

This Week in Online Marketing News

“Getting Socially Optimized with Mobile Marketing” As mobile marketing continues to expand marketers are still searching for the best way to reach their audience through the development of applications for smart phones, ads, and mobile optimized websites.  This article provides some insight into the benefits and challenges of a mobile marketing strategy. Via BtoB Magazine.

“How Twitter is Pairing It’s Interest Graph With Ads”  While Facebook’s social graph provides information on connections, likes, and demographic data Twitter is taking a different approach.  Twitter’s interest graph will focus more on users likes, what they read, and generally what topics they are interested in.  Via Techcrunch.

“Facebook Revamps Pages For Businesses”  In order to create consistency between profiles and pages, Facebook has now rolled out the new timeline for branded pages.  Facebook is encouraging businesses to make the shift from pure advertising to storytelling and hopes that the new timeline will push companies to make the transition.  TopRank recently rolled out the updated timeline, what do you think?  Via the brainyard.

“Foursquare Says Farewell to Google Maps, Joins OpenStreetMap Movement”  Foursquare has decided to part ways with Google Maps saying that “as a startup, we also often think about how we can make life easier for other startups.”  Curious to know why Foursquare chose this particular product?  Via Mashable.

“Posting From Pinterest To Your Facebook Fan Page”  Tabfusion recently released a Facebook app that allows users to display their “pins” to their Facebook page.  The company shares that once Pinterest releases their application-programming interface there will be further integration.  Be sure to take a look at the clever cartoon attached to the bottom of the article.  Via Marketaire.

“12 important steps bloggers should never forget”  Writing a blog is a serious commitment.  Many bloggers get wrapped up in creating the content and forget some very simple optimization and promotional steps.  This article provides some good insight into steps that bloggers should incorporate into their blogging routine.  Via ragan.

TopRank Team: Search & Social News

Brian Larson – Google Images Adds Previews to Related Searches
Let’s face it, some searches are just inherently more intent on visual content. Google gets it and is making access to relevant images even more convenient. For businesses, this update reinforces the importance of optimizing images as part of an overall online marketing strategy.  Via Search Engine Watch.

Shawna Kenyon  - Clock counts down as Google privacy change looms
Google’s new privacy change is their solution for combining 60 privacy policies for different services. For some Google users this change is unfavorable as there is no way to “opt-out”.  However for those who favor all of Google’s services this will be a way for the user to be presented with content that is similar to what they are already looking for. Google continues to reaffirm its commitment to preserving privacy stating the change will only serve to “simplify” the user experience.  Via Cnet.

Alexis Hall – msnNow Is Driving More Traffic To Bing, But Is It Artificially Inflating Searches?
msnNOW, a new service which aggregates content around trending topics, launched just two weeks ago, but already seems to be having an effect on Bing traffic numbers.  While new traffic to Bing has jumped in the past two weeks, this post suggests that those numbers may be inflated due to how msnNOW links are structured.  We’ll have to keep an eye on this trend to determine how search engine market share may shift, as well as how msnNOW may impact the search and social landscape.  Via Search Engine Land.

Ken Horst – LinkedIn Launches Follow Company Button
Here is something every company with a Linkedin profile should jump on right away.  According to execs at LinkedIn, there is a finite limit to how many brands people will follow per channel.  Companies that drag their feet with the LinkedIn “follow company” button may find it more difficult to find willing followers later in the year.  Via AdWeek.

Time to weigh in:  Do you consider the new Facebook timeline for businesses a positive or negative change?  What impact do you think this will have on your business?  Have you integrated mobile marketing into your online marketing strategy?  What have been the results?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Tips for Going Viral, Socially Optimized via Mobile, Facebook Timelines for Business, LinkedIn Company Follow | http://www.toprankblog.com

Software development continues to become even more valuable in today’s social, mobile and overall digital world as companies begin to migrate what were once offline industries into SaaS and cloud based services.  It wasn’t too long ago that recruiting, sales, and marketing relied heavily on meeting in person or over the phone. With advancements in software and devices, organizations are now able to accomplish the same if not better results at a drastically reduced cost.

Here is where software companies are met with a compelling challenge:  With so many new and previously established software solutions available for easy download and implementation, how can you compete in the marketplace?  It is no longer just a price or feature based conversation.  Companies are struggling just to get their brand front and center with potential customers.  Take Google for example, how often do you search and stray farther than the second page of results before you begin contacting companies to setup a demo of some sort?  Chances are you (and your prospects) don’t go past that first page.

Our internet marketing agency works with many companies that are facing similar struggles: How to attract people looking to buy in such a competitive market?  Companies know that they have a great product but don’t know how to go about getting in front of decision makers and influencers within organizations.  By this point we know that an integration of marketing and sales is necessary for success.  In fact, companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. Here’s a great guide to lead nurturing from our SaaS client, Marketo.

Before making software marketing consulting recommendations, it’s important to do some due diligence to figure out key information about the software/technology company and their customers including:

• Current Situation:  Where are they currently marketing? Sales performance? Leads, sales, order volume, length of sales cycle, cost per lead/sale?
• Objectives: Where do they want to be both short-term and long-term?
• Target Audience:  Define customer segments, characteristics and preferences. Who is the customer?
• Pain Points: What problems are solved for both the prospect and the company they work with if they buy your software/service?
• Differentiation:  What makes your software or technology different from the competition? What is the value proposition?

Agencies working with internal client marketing teams is an essential part of a successful online marketing engagement.  When the agency can work with internal marketers on strategy and planning together, they are able to determine top ranked objectives and can then tailor the solutions to meet the unique needs of the situation. That’s how top agencies (like TopRank) work with clients vs. providing ala carte or commoditized services.

One of our clients is a leading software company in the recruiting industry.  This client wanted to increase their qualified lead inquiries by at least 100% a month.  A qualified lead was defined as a prospect submitting a request for information, setting up a demonstration, or contacting the company directly.  Through a combination of what we call a “push and pull” communications strategy we were able to significantly exceed initial projections.

Push communications were implemented with the intention of increasing brand awareness of the client as a leader and respected source within their industry.  Pull communications included a series of tactics aimed at educating and encouraging prospects to begin making inquiries regarding their software solutions.

The tactics that were used to draw in prospective customers included:

• Social Media & Networking:  to begin interacting with customers in a format and on platforms that they were already using for improved engagement
• Search Engine Optimization: for increased visibility when prospects were looking
• Blog Content Creation & Promotion: to educate and prompt prospects to take action
• Email Marketing: as a means to nurture warm leads and move them through the sales process

Many corporate marketers can get tunnel vision when it comes to marketing their software. They may prejudge integrating channels like search or social media and discount the value of outside expertise because of concerns about effectiveness or the idea of change. Whatever the barrier to getting outside expertise is, there are many situations where it can make a world of difference – especially with situations like the one above where a division of an international software company spiked sales and now has processes in place that would have taken years to do on their own. Ongoing online marketing consulting continues to provide value and more than pay for itself with increases in performance, efficiency and effectiveness.

The simple approach of Situation, Objetives, Audience, Pain Points and Differentiation seems straightforward but so many companies are still on the “Features and Benefits” hamster wheel. An outside online marketing service can break free of those confinements and duplicate outcomes with less effort in the long run.

The process and marketing mix above isn’t limited to software and technology of course. What approach does your company take towards software and technology marketing? Are you integrating channels like SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing Best Practices: Software & Technology Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

The Social Job Seekers

The social media job market is hot! This infographic visualizes the 2011 Social Job Seeker Survey that was conducted by Jobvite.  It examines who the job seekers are and how they are utilizing social media to find jobs.  Some interesting statistics you may not be aware of:

• 61% of all employed Americans are open to a new job or actively looking for a new one.
• 4 out of 10 job seekers are “Super Social” and have 150+ contacts on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin.
• 1 in 6 job seekers found their last job through an online social network.

This Week in News About Google

“How to Get Actionable Data Out of Google Analytics”  Proper goal setting is second to none when running a website or blog.  If your goals are not properly setup then you are missing out on the most actionable metrics of your website.  This article provides some great tips on setting up and measuring your website goals.  Via KISSmetrics.

“Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm”  Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages? Think again.  The “page layout algorithm”  takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads. Via Search Engine Land.

“Google+ Now Lets You Share Straight From Search Results”  Aimed at making it easier for users to join or start discussions on particular topcis, Google+ has recently beefed up their search capabilities.  Additionally, Google+ will automatically attach search terms to your posted items.  Via Mashable.

“Google Real-Time Insight Finder”  This tool helps users make sense of data and spot emerging trends more quickly.  It also allows companies to gain insight in to attitudes, perceptions, and needs of your consumers so that you can adjust your strategy quickly to meet their needs.  Via YouTube.

“Google+ brands growing faster than brands on Twitter?”  A statistical comparison by Socialbakers shows that brands are growing their fan bases faster on Google+ than brands on Twitter.  How is this happening?  Read on to find out.  Via Socialbakers.

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Content Marketing for the Masses

“3 Content Marketing Ideas You Should Steal from Coca Cola” Heavy hitter Coca Cola has realized that a 30 second advertisement will no longer cut it.  They have instead turned to content marketing , which aims to double Coca Cola worldwide consumption by 2020.  Via copyblogger.

“3 (more) business blogging tips for beginners”  If you are one of the many bloggers with a new years resolution that includes doing more with your blog, then this post is for you.  What is the first step?  Be realistic!  Via SEO Copywriting.

“How to Overcome the 7 Most Crippling Blogging Challenges”  Time to take the “but’s” out of blogging.  This article does a great job of providing solutions for many of the excuses would be bloggers have today.  Via socialmediatoday.

The Social Media Beat

“7 Ways To Improve Your Social Media Skills and Influence” Social media sharing is still a very new role for many employees.  This article helps prepare newbies and social media dabblers for life in a social world.  Via Forbes.

“9 Small Business Social Media Success Stories”  Case studies speak for themselves.  Applying a real life example of success can make a large impact on your perception of a tactic or marketing strategy.  This post provides 9 great examples of how social media has helped small businesses grow.  Via Social Media Examiner.

“Facebook Expands Service That Lets Users Share Online Activities”  Facebook announced this week that they are adding over 60 new partners to a service which will allow users to let their friends know what they’re doing online from listening to music to news articles they are viewing.  Via Bloomberg.

“Twitter Acquires Social Aggregation Start-Up Summify”  Following Twitter’s other recent acquisitions it was announced today that Summify, a social news aggregation service has also been acquired.  If you’re a Summify user beware! Services will shut down in a few weeks.  Via Wired.

From the TopRank Newsroom

Alexis Hall – “Average Viewer Watched 23.2 Hours of Online Video Content in December”
According to the latest research from comScore Video Metrix, the average viewer watched 23.2 hours of online video content in December 2011.  That is a lot of time people are spending online, engaged with this channel. This post from Search Engine Watch discusses the impact of this research on marketers, including the reach of video advertising on YouTube.  Via Search Engine Watch.

Brian Larson – “PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills”
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is on the minds of many marketers. From image sharing and content curation, to linking and keyword research, SOPA has the potential to drastically change the way we create, share, promote and optimize content. With the co-sponsor’s abandoning the bill, is this a sign that the public outcry was heard?  Via Mashable.

Ken Horst – “Twitter is adding 11 new accounts per second and could pass 500 million in February, says report”
If anyone is still holding out on starting a Twitter account, now would be the time to start thinking about it.  When Twitter hits 500 million, it will be very hard not to acknowledge Twitter as a strong channel for online marketing.  The trick is how to leverage Twitter and you can learn that by reading our post from earlier this month; 4 B2C Examples of How Companies are Using Twitter to Attract & Engage Customers.  Via The Next Web.

Emily Conley – “Yahoo’s Co-founder Jerry Yang Resigns”
Just weeks after the announcement of new CEO Scott Thomson joining Yahoo, the company’s co-founder Jerry Yang has announced his resignation.  Thompson called Yang’s 17 years with Yahoo a legacy of innovation and customer focus for the iconic brand.  2012 is shaping up to be an eventful year for Yahoo.  It will be noteworthy to follow how these changes trickle down to impact the world of SEO!  Via Search Engine Land.

Time to Weigh In:  What do you think of Google’s new search tactics?  Have they taken it too far?  Also, what other newsworthy items did you read this week that you think should be shared with our readers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Say NOPA to SOPA, Google+ Strikes Again, Coca Cola “Gets It”, Twitter Gobbles Up Summify | http://www.toprankblog.com

Curation is essential for sorting through the mass of data published online and with the closer integration of social media and search, each of us is becoming a mini-search engine for the benefit of our networks and for sites like Google and Facebook. Essentially, Google, Bing and even Facebook are just elaborate and massive content curators. The question is, how can we as marketers take advantage of mass curation and crowdsourcing for the benefit of our own online marketing?

One answer is to become a great content curator. Plenty of business websites and blogs are making lists this time of year, reflecting on the past 12 months as well as predicting what 2012 has in store. There’s something about seeing a sorted collection of useful information that motivates people to read and socially share. A well-sourced and thoughtfully-written list can evoke a strong emotion that inspires commentary and engagement.

Like them or not, credible, sorted lists and collections of resources are powerful blog content and social media marketing tools. Unfortunately, many marketers are overusing the same old tactics ala “link bait” for a quick hit and not looking at the longer term benefits or impact. Through trial and error, we’ve made the same mistakes but with good web and social media analysis, we’ve been able to make some great improvements.

Who doesn’t want to increase traffic and engagement in their blog and social media marketing programs? I thought so. Here are three types of curated lists and resource collections bloggers can use to efficiently create useful content that attracts, engages and inspires their readers to action.

Curated Resource Collections

Think of much needed resources in your industry. Are there tips, how-to’s, reports, examples, tools, events, networks, or something else that could be aggregated and made useful? Think about different formats including text, image, video, audio, or something interactive. Use bookmarking to save interesting things as you go vs. trying to create a list in a single effort. I have 20-30 categories of resources I add to every few days. Spread your resource collection effort over time and across your team when researching larger collections. You can also crowdsource them from your own social network.

Here are a few examples of the Resource Collections we’ve published that have attracted tens of thousands of links, visitors and by association, attention to our online marketing agency:

• List of of 100+ Blog & RSS Directories
• 100+ Search Marketing Resources
• 22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools
• 5 Reports on B2B Social Media Marketing & New Media Trends
• Free Tools for Social Media Optimization
• 5 Must Read Reports on Social Media & Public Relations

What exists in your industry that’s highly valued but not easy to find in one place? Bring those things together in a list. Also, think about what you can do to creatively involve your community with the sorting of the list. What can you do visually to make your collection stand out?

Curated Lists of People or Blogs 

While you’ve seen many lists of the most popular individuals for a particular category (especially in the social media realm) on just about every blog online, they fact that many of them are arbitrary or playing industry celebrity favorites means there’s tremendous opportunity to do something unique and more interesting.

We’ve been active creating lists of people to recognize their contribution as well as crowdsourcing content from individuals into lists of tips for many of the 8 years this blog has been publishing online. Some of the more popular examples in terms of search traffic and links include:

• 2010, 2011 Women Who Rock Social Media
• What are the best UK Online Marketing Blogs?
• 10 Most Subscribed Search Marketing Blogs
• BIGLIST of SEO Blogs

Some of these lists are a one time effort, but some of them are annual, such as the Women Who Rock Social Media list. Qualitative lists inspire those included to help promote and with a collective effort more exposure to the list brings more attention to each individual. The key is for the list to be relevant, well sourced and written.

Crowdsourced Lists of Tips and Insights from Industry Experts

Another way to include disparate, useful resources into one collection is through crowdsourcing. By that I mean asking a group of subject matter experts the same question or similar questions and curating the results into one, topically specific (and keyword optimized) list.  You could also make sure that when you interview industry experts, that some of the questions are the same same for all interviewees. Then you can re-purpose the different answers to single questions as a meeting of the minds post that brings together different, well-respected thought leadership in a single topic.

Here are a few examples of tapping a network of awesome people I’ve come to know for insight into topics that are consistent with our editorial plan:

• Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips from 25 Social Media Experts
• Social Media Strategy – A Definitive Guide from 44 Social Media Experts
• 10 Thought Leaders Share Their Definitions of Content Curation

When asking well known and influential people to contribute, be respectful of their time and make it easy to contribute. Don’t ask for them to write War and Peace. Ask one simple question via email and offer to capture it verbally over the phone/Skype if that works better. When you publish the curated collection of tips, be sure to give participants an individual (as in personalized/unique) heads up that the list is published as well as to thank them for their participation. Recognition is important to everyone, whether they’re well-known or just starting out.

Surely there are unrecognized people or resources in your industry. What or whom could you recognize in an original and thoughtful way that aligns well with your own unique selling proposition and key message? If your business sells Kindle Fire Cases, then couldn’t you curate a list of Kindle resources? Clever reasons to use a Kindle case? Book suggestions from Authors? Game, App or Movie reviews? Use a metaphor in your list title that includes target SEO keywords: Authors on Fire: Kindle Style, One the Case with Kindle Apps. They’re not a direct match, but that’s the art and science of SEO copywriting – a topic for another post.

Tips on Sourcing, Promoting, and Repurposing Curated Lists

As with any marketing endeavor, think about the purpose and intended outcome of your list first. What search keywords and social topics represent interests, needs, and goals of the influencers and end customers that you’d like to connect with? Pick a topic and stick to it.

Sourcing. As you understand your community, what are the unmet needs in information that you could satisfy? What unrecognized individuals or companies with powerful networks could be resources for, or included in the list? How will it fit in and complement your content marketing and social media strategy? Incidentally, I have an entire book dedicated to this topic coming out in March.

Creation. Put qualitative effort into creating your collection or list. Make it special, useful, and unique. Make it snarky or funny and by all means, make it shareable! Gimmicks are not nearly as important as quality and relevance to the community you’ll be promoting to. That said, you do need to think of what will make your collection promotable. Great content isn’t great until it’s consumed and shared.

Repurposing. Lists of things like people, books, reports, quotes, or just about anything can be repurposed as a PowerPoint on SlideShare or made into a video with bumper messages, narration, and music to be promoted on YouTube. If you’re smart about sourcing and making the collection promotable, then don’t just do it once. Plan on making the list annually, quarterly, or monthly.

Understand that with collections and lists, people and companies have an inherent desire to be included and recognized. At the same time, lists are exclusionary, so offer your readers an opportunity to add to the list you’ve created. Encourage them to participate and think about the group social needs, not just your own. A qualitative approach that focuses first on relevance of a collection to the community you’re promoting to will result in much better reach and engagement for you.

By the way, if you like this post, then you’re going to LOVE this book: Optimize. Published by Wiley, it will come out mid-March this year and is full of ideas, tips and insights.

A distant version of this article originally appeared on my Social Media Smarts column for ClickZ.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Social Media & Blogging Listmania with Curated Resources & Lists | http://www.toprankblog.com

If you are a B2C company, interaction on a social platform like Twitter can increase engagement and even sales if executed properly.  Small businesses like Tender boutique in Birmingham, Michigan have promoted special offers on Twitter and sold out in just a few days.

Social interaction via platforms like Twitter allow companies to gain a true understanding of their prospect base and serve as a real-time source of market research.

Customer engagement is a key benefit of executing a B2C Twitter marketing strategy. A recent survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey found 67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from or recommend a brand they follow.  Twitter is also a great resource for crowdsourcing new ideas, getting feedback on current products or campaigns, and figuring out what it is that your customers really want.

Still not convinced that Twitter has potential for impacting your business?  The four examples included below provide insight into how other B2C businesses both small and large have used Twitter to attract and engage new customers.

San Francisco’s Creme Brulee Man

Photo from @cremebruleecart

Curtis Kimball began selling crème brûlée from a food cart in the Mission District of San Francisco in 2009.  At the time, the  crème brûlée cart was not licensed, so his only way of communicating with potential customers was through the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  After only a few years, The Creme Brulee Man has over 20,000 followers on Twitter alone.  Curtis still uses his Twitter account as a means of letting consumers know where he will be on a daily basis.  What started as a small meager cart has now become thriving catering and food cart business in the heart of San Francisco, largely due to one man’s innovative use of Twitter.

JetBlue Tackles Issues via Twitter

Photo from @JetBlue

JetBlue Airways has taken a customer focused approach to Twitter since first signing up in 2007.  The airline company is focused on solving customer issues, providing flight information for concerned passengers, and receiving feedback.  The flow of communication almost reminds you of talking to an actual employee at the ticket counter.  JetBlue will do everything from looking up your flight number, to providing refunds or credits via the communication on their Twitter account.  With over 1.6 million followers JetBlue is keeping customers happy and encouraging interaction.

Frozen Yogurt with a Twist

Photo from @tastidlite

Tennessee based frozen yogurt company Tasti D-Lite has been in business since 1987.  Recently, the frozen yogurt company has taken social innovation to a new level.  In addition to an active blog and social networks the company has created a loyalty program that is linked to customers’ social profiles.  A swipe of the card in-store can create a check-in, Tweet and Facebook status update. A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine said that Tasti-D-Lite has found 1 in 5 TastiRewards members are generating connections to at least one social network, and 18% of those are generating automatic check-ins on foursquare.

Sharpie Attracts a Younger Generation

Photo from @sharpie

Sharpie recently ran a campaign to attract teenagers via their Twitter network.  The campaign was aimed at self expression through creativity using the product.  Through a combination of promoted Twitter accounts and a tweet campaign targeted at users with interests in music and writing, Sharpie was able to increase their follower base 600%.  Users also began using the hashtag #Sharpie which reflected positive brand association with conversations about creativity.

These four B2C companies are only a fraction of the consumer focused businesses online who are seeing an impact on customer acquisition and engagement through the use of social media sites like Twitter.  As you can see there is a common theme of:  listening to the customers, providing information customers need, and rewarding customers for their loyalty.

What B2C companies do you think have done a good job of engaging their followers?  Which companies do you follow?  Are you following @toprank on Twitter? You should!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 4 B2C Examples of How Companies are Using Twitter to Attract & Engage Customers | http://www.toprankblog.com

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.

Tip #1 – Become a Blog Follower

Starting in the mindset of a consumer is key in determining need.  I recommend you take a look at the list of blogs that you read and ask yourself some questions about why you read them.  If you aren’t currently following any blogs I suggest that you see if some of the newsletters, magazines, or newspapers that you are already reading have a blog.  This will help you kill a couple birds with one stone.  You are still consuming the information that you already enjoy but you are also doing some research for your own blog.  What are some questions you should ask if you are looking to start a blog?

• What blogs do you follow?
• Why do you enjoy them?
• Do you believe they help solve a problem for you as an end user?
• Does the blog have one or multiple voices?
• How often do you read these blogs?

Tip #2 – Work Smarter Not Harder

In a tough economy marketers are being forced to do more with less.  The same strategy can be applied to business blogging.  If you have an understanding of content that works well and the mindset of your target audience you can easily create different forms of blog content to keep information updated regularly and efficiently.

Newsworthy items can be a great source of blog content.  You are presenting your audience with information that is important to their business while utilizing statistics and content that has already been created.  Reviewing current business blogs is also a great vehicle for creating content.  This allows you to create a scoring criteria and share with readers what you like and dislike about the blogs that are being reviewed.  Interviews and guest posts can also be a source of content curation for your blog. If you can convince others within your industry to participate in your blog they will be likely to share it with their audience as well.  Guest blogs also add some additional creativity and voice to a business blog.

Tip #3 – Tap Into Available Resources

There may be members of your team that could be a great addition to your company blog.  Contributors from different departments can position themselves subject matter experts and your readers may look forward to the variety that is being provided in the blog content.  While the overall responsibility of the blog may fall on the shoulders of one person or department, that doesn’t mean that other team members cannot contribute.  Multiple authors allows you to tap into multiple networks and is much more sustainable from a content creation perspective in the long run.

While business blogging is not always easy it can be a great project to inspire creativity, teamwork, engage your audience, and improve your brand visibility.  If you are interested in more tips on business blogging please take a look at some of the following posts from the TopRank Online Marketing blog.

• 5 Tips on Crowdsourcing Content for Marketing
• The Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize
• Need Great Ideas for Blog Content? Start With Questions

I am curious to learn a little bit more about the experiences of our readers.  What are the biggest challenges that you have faced as an online marketer as it relates to business blogging.  What are some additional areas of blogging that you may not understand and would like TopRank to provide more information on?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Blogging On A Budget: 3 Tips for Bigger Impact | http://www.toprankblog.com

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.

The Business of Optimizing Social Media

Social Media Optimization involves optimizing social content for topics of interest to both the brand and the communities they seek to engage. SMO also focuses on the ability for social communities to share links and media they find interesting.  Links to content shared on social networks and media sites can drive direct traffic to blog content and serve as a signal that search engines use for ranking blog web pages.

Essentially, socialized and optimized blog content can drive traffic through search and those visitors can share that content through social channels, driving even more traffic. Social sharing can also impact better search visibility, providing  more relevant visitors that are actively looking.

Search and Social Media Friendly

As Internet marketers have emphasized making websites search engine friendly over the past 10 years, the importance of making websites and blogs social media friendly is also important. Great blog content isn’t really great until it’s consumed and shared, so consider how your customers find information online that is most likely to inspire them to do what you want them to do.

A Better Business Blog Strategy

To get more out of the opportunity to improve online discovery of business blog content, here are a few key questions to ask for an “Optimize and Socialize” blog strategy:

• Who is the blog intended to influence? Prospects, customers, employees, industry analysts, reporters, bloggers.
• What content will your blog offer that will meet target audience needs?
• How will addressing those customer needs and telling the brand story manifest as a blog content plan?
• What search keywords and social topics are relevant to your target audience?
• Where does your blog content fit in the customer lifecycle of communication with the brand?
• If the blog content is properly optimized and socialized, how will it influence (directly or indirectly) measurable business outcomes?

Interest In Your Blog Is Related to Your Blog’s Interest in Readers

One of the reasons business blogs fail as being optimized and socialized, is that their content tends to be very brand-centric. Most business blog posts talk about the brand, it’s products and services without a lot of consideration for customer perspectives and language.

A self-centered business blogging approach tends to push ideas out, hoping to get a reaction in the form of search engine rankings, fans, friends and followers.  Many SEO centric blogs share these characteristics.

The problem with a mostly brand content focus is that there usually isn’t as much sharing, engagement or direct influence on business outcomes because the content is all about the brand, vs. empathizing with customers and the language customers use.

To Be Great, Your Business Blog Must Participate

Conversely, a search and social optimized business blog develops and participates in social communities online, offline, internally and externally. To do that, blog editors need to figure out where the great ideas and stories are in the company.

All this said, it’s not enough simply to have an optimized and socialized blog content plan that aligns brand solutions and ideas with those of your target audience. To tap into a high quality stream of customer-centric content ideas for your business blog, it’s essential to engage relevant social communities. Ask them questions, crowdsource content ideas, give those who participate recognition and repeat.

By shining a light on the awesome within your community, you’ll provide the fuel of positive reinforcement to motivate fans and customers to partake in both content creation and promotion.

Walk the talk by telling your brand stories and those of your community. Lead by example and your community will start to tell your stories for you. And so will their friends, and their friends’ friends. That’s the benefit of optimizing your business blog beyond search to include social media, networks and communities.

A version of this post was originally published on my ClickZ Social Media Smarts column.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | The Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize | http://www.toprankblog.com

#1 – Winning! Measuring Social Media Success

While I doubt that Eli Goodman and Tami Dalley will be channelling Charlie Sheen I am still very interested to hear their take on measuring the success of social campaigns.  I would recommend having your social media metrics handy if possible ( I know I will), so that you can apply the speakers instruction on estimating the value of your fans and followers in real time.  Who knows, we may find that we score better than anticipated.

#2 – Information Architecture for the Modern Website

This session featuring Shari Thurow really caught my attention.  Why?  As marketers and SEO professionals we are mostly aware of best practices for optimizing a site and making it search friendly.  But what about the site structure and content flow?  Is it user friendly? Does it allow my audience to get to where they want to go as hassle free as possible?  As the online landscape evolves I for one intend to learn as much as I can to help my company engage our audience.

#3 – Conversion Tools of the Master Crafstman

Having the right tools in your arsenal can quantify a companies social media strategy.  However, when shopping around the question always arises: do I use the tools that are free and might have limited capabilities, or go for the Ferrari that may be outside of the current budget?  Author Bryan Eisenberg will be providing the audience with the lowdown on tools (free and paid) that assist with identifying and fixing web conversions.  Also, be sure not to miss Bryan’s guest post on the TopRank Online Blog next week which will have a preview of some of the tools he recommends.

#4 – The Convergence of Search, Social, and Content Marketing

Working with Lee Odden I’ve come to realize just how important the combination of search, social, and content really is.  I am curious to hear the methods that the panel moderated by Anne Kennedy and featuring Aaron Kahlow and Arnie Kuenn recommends for combining the three to target and engage an audience.  I am also very interested in the step-by-step case studies that will be provided as examples for compiling a list of our own successes for our clients.

#5 – Keynote – Search: Where to Next?

I have my own ideas on where search will be within the next year or two, but five to ten years?  No clue!  Thursday morning’s keynote moderated by Anne Kennedy and featuring speakers Eli Goodman, Zephrin Lasker, Alan Osetek, and Dana Todd will provide insight into the next generation of search and what it means for marketers.  I would be prepared to take great notes during this session so that you can begin dialing in your strategy for not only 2012 but what you should be on the lookout for in the years to follow.

#6 – Content Marketing Optimization

If it can be searched it can be optimized.  Makes sense right?  So much of the social web has become focused on content creation, promotion, and optimization.  What is the point of creating all of this useful content if your audience can’t find it?  This session by Lee Odden will provide strategies and tactics for executing on a successful content strategy while keeping optimization and search in mind.

And Don’t Forget To Network

As a conference attendee I’ve found that I often learn just as much while networking as I do during the sessions.  While I wouldn’t recommend charging at the presenters from across the room when you spot them I would ask that you keep a couple things in mind:

1. If you have a question that you would really like answered be sure to write it down during the session so that if you do catch the attention of a presenter you have a clear and concise question to ask.
2. Attend the conference organized meals if possible.  This is a great opportunity to get to know other people within your industry and learn from their experiences.

I hope to see all of you at SES Chicago in a few weeks.  Be sure to follow the conference buzz on twitter under hashtag #SESCHI.  Check out SES Chicago’s information page for a full schedule of sessions and training.  TopRank will also be live blogging and tweeting at the event @toprank, @leeodden, and @azeckman for those of you who don’t already follow us.

Are there some great sessions you’ll be attending that I didn’t include?  Feel free to share your top picks for SES Chicago by commenting on my post.  Also, if you’re a foodie like me and you have an opportunity to explore the city, Chicago Magazine recently released a list of the 22 best new restaurants in Chicago.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Grab Your Jacket – The Windy City Blows In Big Talent For SES Chicago 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com

When Mack Collier asked me to join #BlogChat to talk about liveblogging in anticipation of the upcoming BlogWorld Los Angeles conference, I had no hesitation. Liveblogging has helped TopRank Online Marketing and myself personally achieve numerous business and marketing goals at a fraction of the cost and far more effectively than many traditional marketing, advertising and content creation tactics.

Despite the practice being around for quite a long time, many people have no idea what liveblogging is. In fact, technology and tools have evolved to change much of what it means to liveblog events. It used to be that you’d sit in on a session, write notes into an article and file the story/blog post within 1/2 hours or so after the presentation ended. Now, liveblogging can take the form of live tweeting and then taking those tweets and compiling them into a post later or curating tweets through tools like Storify.

During the #BlogChat focused on Liveblogging on Sunday night, Mack wanted to focus on two key questions. I’ve taken a stab at listing insights, advice, processes and suggestions for each.

What are the Top 2-3 things you should know before you attempt to live-blog an event?

Thanks Mack! Appreciate the opportunity & really looking forward to this. I have a lot more than 2 or 3 (fortunately and unfortunately) I’d like to split my 2-3 things answer into suggestions relevant to pre, during & post even liveblogging. This is by no means a comprehensive post about liveblogging – but a summary and elaboration of what came up during the #blogchat about it.

Let’s get a handy link out there right away: 12 Live Blogging Tips for Better Event Content Creation

Pre Event Live Blogging:

• Answer why, who, what, when, where – Plan for specifics but be open to spontaneity. It’s really useful to have firm ideas about the purpose of liveblogging. For some it’s just a way to capture content for personal use. For others, it’s a way to create content for a blog or even repurpose into a compiled guide of tips for conference attendees. Or it might serve multiple purposes as in my case where I needed to build my writing skills, attend events on a budget and create content. Also, liveblogging can create connections with speakers.There’s an expression I’ve used many times – If you want to get into the media, become the media. Liveblogging was the proxy for me to do that here with Online Marketing Blog.
• Create suspense - Write a pre-event post, reach out to session speakers for tips, crowd source sessions to cover. I learned this from Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. Create a grid of sessions you (and/or your team) will be covering during an event.  Pre-event posts will inform your readers and subscribers what’s coming. This can be important if your blog posting frequency goes way up. It also gives you the opportunity to mention the speakers in the post. Their Google Alerts for their names will put you on their radar.I’ve had success with reaching out to speakers beforehand, advising that I’ll be liveblogging their session and to see if they have any tactical tips to share for a pre-event blog post that will promote their session.  A small number of tips from each speaker is easy for them to do, and results in a great compilation.  Here’s an example of where I’ve done that: 37 Tips for Optimizing Blogs and Feeds – SES New York. Obviously it helps if you a c0-speaker or moderator, or if you know at least one of the presenters.
• Be a media sponsor. TopRankBlog was the 1st Blog Media Sponsor for SES, Pubcon, SMX, eMetrics. Although, we are currently only sponsoring SES and OMS. Being a media sponsor is more than a press pass. It’s mutual exposure for the blogger and the event: online, offline and through email. Advertisers pay huge $$ for sponsorships and media sponsorships used to be reserved to print magazines and large email lists.Not just any blog can become a media sponsor. You really need to be a credible blog in the category with a pre-existing audience. Size and quality of other social networks come in to play besides blog subscribers as well as a healthy email subscriber list. However, getting started liveblogging events that you’re already attending is a great start.
• Duplicate yourself. There’s only so much you can cover on your own, so recruit other people to liveblog with/for you and you’ll provide mutual exposure as well as another source of great content. Find out if other people are already going to attend the conference or if you have secured a media sponsorship, see if you can give away a free pass as part of your event promotion. Then require the winner to liveblog with you.
• Be open minded about what “event” means for live blogging. “Real world” conferences, workshops, press events and training sessions are common situations for liveblogging, but also consider virtual conferences, webinars, tele classes (where allowed). There’s a ton of archived content that’s never been blogged. In fact, if you can’t afford to attend conferences, get started with free webinars.  Video archives of conference presentations are also a great opportunity to practice liveblogging skills with the added benefit of being able to replay the video as often as you want.  With webinars, be sure to mention speakers, the event and link to the brand site that hosted the webinar in your blog post. That can get you on their radar.As a speaker in webinars, I’ve suggested to participants that there’s nothing wrong with liveblogging the presentation I’m giving and that has turned into blog posts (and links).
• Identify specific sessions, topics, approach and a “hook”. Think about style: transcription, running commentary, pure reaction, real time article. There are a variety of formats for liveblogging, so pick a format and even an angle to the session beforehand if you can. This will provide structure to fill in the blanks, providing you know about the topic and the speakers.
• Live tweeting running commentary can be used as liveblogging. It was suggested during the #blogchat that maybe live tweeting has replaced live blogging. That is true to some extent. As you’ll see from the links at the bottom of this post, curating those live tweets has also replaced roundups and liveblogging to some degree.  It’s easier to do, but not quite as valuable as summarizing highlights and takeaways.  There’s no reason you cannot mix a little of both live tweeting and blogging together.
• Pre-write portions of the post such as intro, speakers and other language that is fairly predictable.  Having static information pre-written can save time and also adds to the format you’ve decided to follow for liveblogging.
• Use Evernote then post to WordPress or your blogging platform of choice. Evernote is awesome because you won’t lose your work as can happen with a WordPress glitch or bad internet connection – an inevitability at most conferences. Plus Evernote synchs between devices, which can be handy.
• Have the right equipment – charged laptop, camera or phone, backup internet source and a power strip. A computer that runs out of battery power just as the keynote speaker finally says something interesting can ruin your entire morning. Same for internet access if posting in a timely manner is important to your liveblogging goals.

During Event Live Blogging:

• Get yourself in the right frame of mind and bring the skills. Focus on what you’ll be doing and type FAST. If you don’t type very quickly, then learn. Or you’ll be miserable. Same goes for multi-tasking. Taking photos (and resizing them), live tweeting and writing a 800 word liveblog post within 45 minutes is very doable, but only with lots of practice.
• Sit in front, take photos, (video is usually a no no at conferences). Smart speakers love livebloggers and may even call you out during their presentation, which helps when you network with others. I’ve never left a conference thinking I’ve taken too many photos or networked with too many new contacts.  I have however, regretted not sitting closer to the front to get a decent photo.  Most people are afraid to sit up front and those are the best seats. Do what others are unwilling or unable to do and you’ll create a competitive advantage from the start.
• Follow a format. Trying to capture everything that’s said can be boring & impossible, especially if speakers don’t follow any kind of structure. To get a good liveblog post from a session with speakers that ramble, or a topic you’re not super familiar with, just listen for the best quotes, stats and highlights for a “10 tips about topic XYZ post”.
  You can also use some of those nuggets to live tweet with the conference hashtag during the session.

Post Event Live Blogging:

• Share your post via social channels & use the event hashtag in the title tag and the body copy. Great content isn’t great until it gets consumed and shared. Over and over again. Help that along by promoting your liveblogging efforts and of course, make it easy to share.
• Do a roundup post of all that you covered each day or at least at the end of the conference including images, video interviews and tweets. Link to other livebloggers that are covering the same event.
• Add a post-session video of yourself giving commentary. Do an interview with speakers or with attendees.  Adding multiple media formats can really spice up your liveblogging efforts.

What are the advantages to live-blogging an event versus simply doing a recap post once you get home?

Real time isn’t a luxury, it’s expected at events. People are going to get the information from somewhere, why not from you? If you can consistently provide quality live blogging coverage, you’ll win many new friends: speakers, event, media, subscribers and maybe even prospective clients and employees.

Live coverage meets a need for event attendees, speakers/brands (they view as news coverage) & those not attending However, there’s no rule that you can’t do some kind of real time coverage AND do a recap post once you get home.

Liveblog coverage is treated as media coverage by many Public Relations departments and that means a link from company newsrooms.

Live blogging events can take many forms and there are so many ways to gain value from it that there’s really no “right” or “wrong” way to do it. Like anything, if you set goals, make a plan to reach those goals, execute and evaluate the results to refine future efforts, you’ll undoubtedly discover what flavor of live blogging is right for you.

More about press passes: Since 2005 I’ve been able to attend numerous events due to liveblogging. Initially, I was able to get “sponsored” to liveblog on a press pass. Once basic credentials were established, I was able to secure a press pass for several other events in exchange for pre-show promotion and liveblogging during the event. Then Matt McGowan agreed to have TopRank’s Online Marketing blog as the first blog-based media sponsor of the SES conference and we’ve been working with SES in this regard longer than any other blog. Media sponsorship agreements allow me to bring 1 -4 of my staff to each event to liveblog.  These passes are not a given and must be earned through quality work. The agreements must be renewed each year.

Today, I rarely ask for (or get) press passes because I speak at nearly all conferences I attend.  However, we do still send staff to liveblog events as part of our media sponsorship agreements.  Over nearly 6 years of liveblogging events, my team and I have benefitted from about 54 press passes. This was not a steady number over each year, as it has fluctuated like a bell curve. 2007 through 2009 were highlight years and the number of staff we send has decreased since. We do plan to increase again in 2012.  I wanted to clarify this from the #blogchat thread, since the 50-60 press passes mentioned includes my team and I.

Thanks again to Mack Collier for having me on #blogchat and also for everyone that participated. I was great to see friends like @copyblogger, @heidicohen, @ed & @rochelleveturis stop by

Here are links to a few creative curation and recaps of the Live Blogging #blogchat:

• Mack Collier Tweet stats, contributors & transcript via Hashtracking
• Socialscraps curated and organized tweets from the #blogchat via Storify
• Kristof Top links shared via Tweetreports
• SmartCollegeVisit collection of tweets from the #blogchat via Storify

Are you a conference live blogger and what are some of your live blogging tips?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Liveblogging Tips from #BlogChat | http://www.toprankblog.com

Blogging has been cited as one of the most effective forms of social media marketing for achieving top visibility in search and on the social web and corporate investment in social media is growing significantly. This is as true for agencies like TopRank Online Marketing as it is for any business with a good story to tell. We’ve promoted blogs as the centerpiece of a hub and spoke model that has been adopted by many other agencies and corporate marketers.

While there are numerous success stories and sources of best practices, most companies handle their business blog in a way that disappoints. Even those corporate blogs that do manage to implement a customer-centric editorial plan, neglect to leverage key discovery and engagement channels like content optimization for search engines and social media optimization.

On November 5th, I’ll be giving a presentation to help business bloggers solve that problem and more, with “Optimize & Socialize for Better Business Blogging“. This presentation  will identify key principles and specific tactics that I’ve learned over the past 8 years of blogging here and for other sites, plus working with numerous client blog consulting projects. The session will provide hard won insights into leveraging SEO and Social Media as key tools for blog content planning, creation and promotion from the editor of the only 3 time #1 ranked Content Marketing Blog (Junta 42), #2 Social Media Blog (Social Media Examiner), top marketing blog (Advertising Age).

Key takeaways for the session include:

1. Plan your way into an infinite number of compelling and relevant content ideas that boost search traffic & engage readers
2. Create campaigns that incorporate blog content with other marketing tactics for extended search & social visibility
3. Promote blog content that inspires social sharing, link building and search traffic

In each area I’ll break it down into:

Blog Content Ideas & Planning

• Key Problems:  Running out of ideas, Lack of effective ideas, Difficulty in sourcing contributors
• Solutions: Tapping into front line staff, community and the competition using a feedback loop that will boost effectiveness and motivate others to join in.

Blog Content Creation

• Key Problems:  Corporate narcism, inconsistent publishing and quality as well as content that does not result in the desired outcomes.
• Solutions: Audience empathy and guidelines for content strategy that result in content that inspires action and sharing.

Blog Content Promotion

• Key Problems: Great blog content with low subscriber counts and poor engagement.
• Solutions: A process to integrate blog content distribution and syndication as well as engagement that will leave readers waiting to see what will come next.

As I’m prone to do, I’ll pack as much actionable information as possible into the session and provide a copy of the PPT deck to attendees. I hope to see you there!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | BlogWorld LA: Optimize & Socialize For Better Business Blogging | http://www.toprankblog.com

One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type in to search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.

For example, with derivatives of ”social media” as a group of target keyword phrases for this blog, I noticed that numerous visitors each month literally typed in to Google: “what does a social media manager do?” and “what does a community manager do?” sending them to a post, ”A Glimpse at What a Social Media Community Manager Does” that ranked well for those questions.

After looking in our web analytics to see which pages those visitors viewed and any goal pages reached, it has served as inspiration to explore other related questions by providing content in the form of answers. ”

Be careful with chicken before the egg advice. I’ve heard advice from other marketers that looking at your own web analytics is the best way to find keywords to use for search optimization. Please understand what a “cart before the horse” idea that is.   This only works if a website is to some degree optimized and attracting a diversity of search traffic. That means it has numerous, relevant links pointing to it (with new links shared on social media sites on a regular basis) and new content is being published regularly. Without some kind of pre-existingrelevance to search engines in the form of new content and links, web analytics is only going to reveal what you already know in terms of keyword topics.

Give them what they want to get what you want. Using questions is simply a matter of literally finding out what information people want and giving it to them based on data that is easily discovered through web analytics.  This can be as simple as doing a search within your web analytics dashboard on the referring keywords that sent visitors to your website from search engines to find instances of words like “what” or “how” in conjunction with keywords and topics that are a reflection of the interests and needs of your target audience.  You could also just search for instances of “?” in conjunction with target keywords or “?” alone to reveal the kinds of questions people are using as search queries that result in visits to your blog.  I happen to use Clicky real time web analytics “filtering” options for this. All Clicky data is real-time, not just one report as is the case with Google Analytics.

Sourcing questions for new blogs. This particular tactic of extracting topic ideas is for refinement of a blog that has been in play for a while, not establishing a content plan for a new blog. For a new blog here are a few other ideas about how to leverage questions for developing a content plan:

• Survey your customers using a tool like Zoomerang or Survey Monkey
• Survey front line employees working in your Customer Service and Sales departments to get an idea of the common questions that come up in their interactions with prospects and customers
• Visit Q/A sites like Quora or Yahoo Answers for common questions related to keywords you’re tracking
• Tap into niche sites for aggregated questions. LinkedIn Answers and Focus Q & A are good examples for business and marketing related topics.
• Use Google Suggest as a way to anticipate what questions people are asking. Just start typing in a question in any Google search box to see how Google tries to complete it. What Google’s Autocomplete feature is a reflection of popular search phrases and potentially your own web history so be aware whether you’re logged in to Google or not when you do this. Since you can’t copy the text from Google’s suggested search queries, check out the free and easy to use Ubersuggest which will provide you with a txt file.
• Use SEO tools that compile questions like Wordtracker called Keyword Questions. This particular tool requires registration and I’ve not had the best luck finding suggestions for niche topics without a large search volume, but it’s an option.

Hopefully these suggestions provide you with some useful ideas for sourcing blog content through sourcing questions to answer. It’s a great formula that I’ve been using and advising clients to use for years. If you have an existing blog with some degree of diversity in new content and active inbound linking, then you may find a rich store of ideas in the keyword referring data from web analytics. If you have a new website, then start by literally asking your customers about their top questions and review some of the industry websites that aggregate Q & A to gain insight into what topics are hot and worth addressing in your content plan.

The fundamental takeaway: Create the kind of content (with SEO keywords as inspiration) that people are actively searching for and you can shorten sales cycles, inspire more social shares and be more useful to your community.

Have you used question sourcing tactics to build or complement your blog content plan? What have you tried that worked? What didn’t work?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Need Great Ideas for Blog Content? Start With Questions | http://www.toprankblog.com

Is it great because the author thinks so? Or because the content was retweeted 700 times and shared 150 times on Facebook?  Was it great because there were 70 comments? Those are all things most marketers would feel satisfaction from in regard to content they created and published. But there’s a common disconnect with this idea of “great content”.

What’s the problem with 700 retweets, 150 Facebook shares and 70 comments? Nothing if you’re trying to win a KPI contest.  The lost opportunity is that most content that aspires to be “great” is created following subjective interpretations designed to achieve KPI outcomes.  ”Let’s create an infographic!”, or “Let’s make a viral video!”. These content creation efforts are often mechanical, albeit often creative, efforts to produce something “great” but don’t necessarily answer the questions of “For Who?” or “Why?”.

As marketers, “great content” isn’t just defined by me or you is it? It’s defined by the people the content is intended for – prospects, customers & influencers. It’s defined by the people we’re trying to attract, engage and influence.

Not ALL content needs to be customer defined of course, because many people simply don’t know what they want or like. There are plenty of opportunities to produce content in support of defining a new market, category, concept or way of thinking.

I should mention part of the inspiration for this past was from a Tweet that Scott Stratten shared yesterday morning:

He’s right. Great content, I mean, “great freaking content”, is indeed what people share/spread/link to.  But there’s more to the story to make that work.

1. In order for the content to be more than superficial SEO Linkbait, the idea of “great” should consider customers – their interests, needs, pain points and preferences for media formats and sharing . So find out what that means in terms of customer-centric topics, the types of content they best respond to, social channels and even keywords.

Of course we’re not after a filter bubble effect, so there’s plenty of room for creative content that isn’t entirely sourced from customer personas and preferences, but re-framing what “great” means in terms of the final audience is important and often overlooked.

2. Promote the content to people who have influence over distribution (Tell 2 friends, who tell 2 friends, and so on).  The ability for your message to propagate is directly related to relevant social networks and community connections. Great content without an audience is pretty damn lonely.  As I like to say, “Great content isn’t great until it’s consumed and shared.”

In today’s competitive content marketing environment, promotion of content is essential to get traction. Then it will flourish or not on it’s own merit with the networks of interest that consume it. If you have an interest in sharing your brand’s ideas and affecting influence, then can you really afford to leave “great” content distribution to chance?

There’s a cycle to social and SEO for content sharing that shows some of the most valuable aspects of content marketing. Promoting great, customer and influencer centric content helps grow your network and attract links, which exposes your great content to an even larger universe of people who can share and link, and so on and so on. Each step of the way you can collect data that helps further refine your subsequent content efforts.

An additional reason for considering SEO and Social Media Marketing with great content is the increased weight on links within social content like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus as influencers on search engine visibility.  Great search ranking of content isn’t just about keywords in title tags and links between web pages anymore.  A quantity of quality references and links within social channels (as well as the authority of those sources and rate of occurrence) are also important and are a big part of what happens when content is promoted.

So, if you want to create great content, maybe the first step might not be to decide which infographic designer to hire or which tabloid-inspired title tag to write for that monster list of resources you’re going to compile. The starting point is in understanding what it is that your target customer or influencer considers “great”. How does that manifest as topics, search and social keywords? What does it mean in terms of content format? Does it mean images, video, short format tips, long format lists, cartoons, infographics, user generated content and so on? What has worked before in the channels where your customers and influencers spend their time? What hasn’t?

Figuring out what your customers care about along with strong creative, social and SEO execution, means you can create content that is valuable, useful and far more likely to inspire specific business outcomes than something based on a personal, subjective definition of “great” and leaving it to chance to spread.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | What Does “Great Content” Mean, Anyway? | http://www.toprankblog.com

There are numerous apps one could use to modify photos, but what I find interesting are apps that use photos to create an end product like a Comic, Collage or even an Infographic – all from your iPhone. Below are 5 examples of graphics (using my very limited creative skills) and the iPhone apps used to create them – each with some level of social sharing built-in.

ComicBook! (1.99)

Conference Comic from Content Marketing World

This is a feature rich app that is only limited by your own creativity. While I’ve only ever used this app for “Conference Comics” with single graphics, I could see someone creating multi-page comics with the app and putting them together into an interactive experience (using some other tools) that would allow viewers to turn pages, tag people and share easily on social sites. As it stands, I’ve really just started experimenting, but my running “Theme” is Conference Comics.  What theme could you see using using Comic Book?   Here’s more info on ComicBook!.

WordFoto (1.99)

Ann Handley of MarketingProfs and I in San Francisco

This is a fun app that uses word sets to re-create images that you import. You’re unlikely to achieve “a picture made of a 1,000 words” but the words you do use, can add context to the photo.  This app works best with images that have balanced contrast and simple segments of color. A complicated group shot of 20 people isn’t going to work as well as a portrait shot of someone’s face.   Here’s the info page for WordFoto.

Postale (.99)

Dreamforce Keynote with Marc Benioff 2011

You’re on the road, so why not send a post card from the event you’re attending? Well, maybe not a “snail mail” postcard, but a virtual card using this handy tool. I don’t find the card options outside of “AirMail” very interesting, but that’s enough for a few creative uses of this app to highlight a photo and message for use in email or as an illustration in a blog post. Here’s more info on Postale.

ToonCamera (.99)

Lee Odden & Brian Clark at SXSWi 2011

I wouldn’t exactly call the images and video you can shoot with this app a cartoon exactly, but it’s an interesting effect – especially since you can shoot both video and images with it. Images in your photo library can be converted one by one as well. There are also varying effects in color and black & white. You can get these effects with several other apps but they don’t offer the video option. Here’s more info on ToonCamera.

Pic Collage (Free)

SES San Francisco 2011

This is a very simple tool for creating a collage from various photos, slightly similar to Comic Book! but without the comic effects. It’s a great way to summarize key images from an event. Photos can come from your photo library or Facebook. What’s lacking is the ability to overlay a title, but there are other iPhone graphics programs that you can use to do that. Sometimes a super simple app is all you need and for those times Pic Collage fits the bill. Here’s more info.

Hopefully I can do another roundup of creative iPhone apps that focus on interesting video effects.

What are your favorite creative iPhone apps for graphics and photo editing?  If anyone has iPhone infographic creation apps they’re aware of, please share.  If you have examples of creative graphics generated from an iPhone app on your blog, please describe and link to them in the comments. (Excluding spammy stuff of course)

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 iPhone Apps for Creating Fun Social Media Graphics at Conferences | http://www.toprankblog.com

The B2B Track during day one of Content Marketing World in the “Gold Room” was jam packed for each session. That includes this session about Corporate Blogging and Globalizing your Editorial with two speakers from SAS and Intel. Since the topics were so different, I decided to split the liveblog post into two. This is part one.

Speaker: Alison Bolen @alisonbolen Content Editor SAS
Presentation: Results-Driven Blogging for B2B Brands

Alison’s presentation focused on corporate blogging and the blog program at SAS (a $2 billion business analytics company).

The history of SAS and social media started in 1976 with the first SAS Global Forum, 2004 internal blog program, 2006 SAS communities launched, 2007 the first external blog launched and in 2011 the transition to the WordPress platform. You can find SAS blogs here: blogs.sas.com

Alison works in the Public Relations organization at SAS along with 8 other corporate journalists.

How to Grow a Corporate Blogging Program

Develop a strategy: Find out where the current corporate strategies are and find a hook into them. For the SAS blogging program, there were 3 main goals: to align with PR, Marketing and Customer Support.

Blogging supports each stage of the funnel:

• Identify the problem / opportunity
• Research solutions
• Evaluate
• Consider
• Purchase

SAS blog efforts are meta data enabled: by persona, by category, by industry. For content to be relevant and valuable it must be persona based and aligned with steps in the buying process.

The next step in corporate blogging strategy development is to find the right content. Ask these important questions: Where do stories live? (Word Docs, PPTs, Videos, Live Events) Where does knowledge live? (Sharepoint, White papers)

Now it’s time to find the right people. Alison gave the example of two SAS bloggers that write for distinct audiences.

Blog Planning with Monthly Assignments. All posts are due on a specific date each month. The most timely posts are published first. Breaking news and fillers are published as relevant. A schedule ensures there is content to work with each month.

Another planning option is to focus on one specific topic. For example, each Quarter, focus on a specific topic for each blogging contributing to that particular blog.

Another angle on corporate blog planning involves themes every week. Example: Monday (Getting Started Articles) Wednesdays (Topics the Blogger is Trying to Learn & Documenting that Process) Friday (Posts in reaction to a particular topic from other blogs)

Tap Internal Subject Matter Experts: If the organizational structure supports it, you can divide blogging assignments by areas of specialization. Example: 16 Think Tank team members for healthcare at SAS that includes authors who specialize in specific areas. They are assigned to blog on their area of expertise at least once a month.

Have a blog that new bloggers can contribute to in order to show their commitment. SAS also has an internal blog network of 700+ bloggers that also acts as a testing ground.

If you have a group blog, you must have an editor. No assignments and nobody in charge = NO CONTENT. A blog editor is a content chaser, people watcher and project manager – not necessarily a corporate communications person.

For events, plan across blogs as needed. Map topics and aspects of the events to be covered by the different blogs in your organization to ensure coverage.

If blogs don’t work out, retire them.

Coach and advise, don’t micromanage. Be patient with different learning styles. Don’t pre-judge and expect too much.

Results: Customer Support – Positive comments and links to your blogs.
Results: Marketing – Bloggers invited to speak at conferences, getting calls from journalists, posts picked up by industry publications and bloggers getting invites to write books
Results: The New PR – Journalists contacting SAS after seeing blog posts. It’s the new PR.
Results: The Blog is the top news source on the sas.com website. In fact. compared to other news pages on the SAS site, the blogging effort is blowing other content out of the water in terms of traffic.

I think Alison gave some really useful ideas for blog content and planning. One of the most common objections I hear from companies that really should be blogging (and not all companies should) is that they have difficulty with creating content on an ongoing basis. It’s a big mind shift and kudos to SAS for having 8 Corporate Journalists on staff.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | SAS on Results-Driven Blogging for B2B Brands #cmworld | http://www.toprankblog.com