Nick Nelson

Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers

Nick Nelson on Jun 24th, 2019     B2B Marketing, LinkedIn, Social Media

Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers

It’s plain to see that B2B marketers, at large, see the value in social media. The latest B2B benchmarking research from CMI and MarketingProfs found that nearly two out of three respondents (61%) increased their usage of social media for content marketing purposes in the previous year. Another new report shows that social content is atop the list of focal areas for B2B marketers in the coming year.

It’s also fair to say, based on various data points and conversations with folks in the biz, that most of us feel we could be doing better with social. The size of the audiences on these platforms make them essential to any digital strategy, but breaking through suppressive algorithms and showing clear ROI is a perpetual challenge for brands.


Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: B2B Video & Social Usage Studies, LinkedIn’s Brand Refresh & Photo Tagging, Growing Digital Ad Sales

Lane Ellis on Jun 21st, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 June 21 Vidyard Chart

Social Media Usage Statistics for 2019 Reveal Surprising Shifts
A look at the latest Edison Research and Triton Digital Social Habit study shows largely unchanged social media usage over the past four years, growth for Instagram among young Americans, a drop in Facebook’s popularity, and several other statistics of interest to digital marketers. Convince and Convert

Silence is golden: preparing for the sound-off mobile ad ecosystem
A look at optimizing video ad creative for silence, the impact of HAVOC (Human, Audible, Viewable On Completion), and measuring viewability in an age when some 85-90% of branded videos are viewed with audio muted. The Drum


Digital Marketing News: B2B Video & Social Usage Studies, LinkedIn’s Brand Refresh & Photo Tagging, Growing Digital Ad Sales
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Nick Nelson

Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility

Nick Nelson on Jun 20th, 2019     B2B Marketing

Avoiding Unintended Brand Trust Fractures

Recently, we’ve been running a series of posts here on the TopRank Marketing Blog called “Trust Factors,” where we explore techniques that modern brands can use to build trust and credibility with digital audiences. There are numerous examples of companies building trust with best-answer content and boosting credibility with influencer marketing for this purpose.

Marketers are always seeking creative ways to forge genuine connections while standing out from the pack. New research from Edelman shows that consumers now have higher expectations than ever when it comes to brand responsibility. However, it’s worth pointing out that these efforts (even with the best of intentions) can backfire.

When steps taken to strengthen trust instead have the opposite effect, we call these “Trust Fractures.” A recent example got me thinking about the subject, and why marketers everywhere should be cognizant of its lurking danger.


Trust Fractures: How to Avoid Accidentally Eroding Your Brand’s Credibility
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Lane Ellis

Key B2B Takeaways From the 2019 Internet Trends Report

Lane Ellis on Jun 19th, 2019     B2B Marketing

Colorful swirling tunnel image.

Mary Meeker, founder of venture capital firm Bond Capital and former Kleiner Perkins general partner, recently released her highly-anticipated 2019 Internet trends report, a slide deck she has produced since 1995 covering the state of global technology in the business world.

The report provides more data than ever — weighing in at 333 slides, topping last year’s count of 280 — and presents plenty for B2B marketers to think about when strategizing and planning budgets as we push towards 2020.

Let’s dig in and take a look at some of the insights relevant to B2B marketers contained in the new Meeker report.

General Challenges & Opportunities Ahead

The report paints a picture of a world where it’s more challenging than ever to find new growth in certain areas, but one that also shows very real opportunities in others, as we’ll explore.


Key B2B Takeaways From the 2019 Internet Trends Report
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Tiffani Allen

5 SEO Mistakes Killing Your Content Performance and a Fix for Each

Tiffani Allen on Jun 18th, 2019     SEO

Common SEO Mistakes

Even the most seasoned content marketers make mistakes. In the world of SEO-driven content, with constant algorithm tweaks and changing search patterns, it’s nearly unavoidable. However, those same mistakes can often lead to discoveries that enable even better content performance.

The key is being able to recognize those easy-to-fix SEO mistakes and address them. As a result, your content will become an optimized, integrated network of metaphorical highways, leading searchers to best-answer content in a strategic and purposeful way.

So, what are the most common SEO mistakes, and how can they be addressed? Below, I’ve singled out the ‘usual suspects’ along with guidance on how to fix them while setting yourself up for long-term SEO success.


5 SEO Mistakes Killing Your Content Performance and a Fix for Each
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Debbie Friez

Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs

Debbie Friez on Jun 17th, 2019     Social Media, Video

Social Media Video

Native social media video is a marketing darling, with emerging new formats and increasing availability across platforms. Mainstays like Facebook prioritize native video posts over other content types. But how can marketers showcase the impact of native video tactics to clients? With variable analytics available for the different platforms, setting a benchmark for reporting in advance is smart but complicated.

Today we’re giving you the ultimate native video guide to set you up for success. Let’s look at the primary social media channels, outline the specs for your video, and list the available metrics for measurement.


Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs
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Lee Odden

Infographic: 5 Must Have Ingredients for a Great Content Marketing Strategy

Lee Odden on Jun 14th, 2019     Content Marketing

ingredients content marketing strategy

If you’re still struggling with establishing your content marketing strategy for 2019, you’re not alone. Only 12% of respondents to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute felt successful at their current efforts to strategically manage content. What’s particularly striking about this is that the vast majority of organizations surveyed – 91% – used content marketing to sell their products. Where’s the disconnect?

To help answer that question, I’ve collaborated with the folks at Oracle Marketing Cloud to create an infographic featuring 5 must-have ingredients for a great content marketing strategy. You can download the full infographic here.

We could talk about the talent gap or the technology gap, but I believe that content marketing success really comes down to five basic ingredients:

  1. Goals
  2. Operations
  3. Insights

Infographic: 5 Must Have Ingredients for a Great Content Marketing Strategy
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, New Mary Meeker & Adobe Trends Reports, Google Buys Looker, & AV Studies

Lane Ellis on Jun 14th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 June 14 Bond Capital Chart

Mary Meeker’s Annual Tech Report Outlines Coming Shifts in Social Media and Digital Marketing
The highly-anticipated Internet Trends report for 2019 has been released, including data of interest to digital marketers. For more than 21 years venture capitalist Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins, has researched and put out the report, this year weighing in at 333 pages. Social Media Today

Voice Search Study: Factors Influencing Search Engine Rankings in 2019
20 percent of Android Google App searches now come from voice, and a new SEMrush study examines ranking factors including the importance of first-page placement and other facets of voice search. SEMrush


Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, New Mary Meeker & Adobe Trends Reports, Google Buys Looker, & AV Studies
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Joshua Nite

B2B Demand Gen: The Next Evolution of 5 Tried-And-True Tactics

Joshua Nite on Jun 13th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Digital Marketing

New Demand Gen Tactics

B2B demand gen used to be easier than B2C. Because, let’s face it, so much B2B marketing was deadly boring. A cool concept, a little creative design, or a dash of humor were like water in the desert.

Now, though, it’s the norm for B2B marketing to be every bit as visually and emotionally compelling as B2C. Suddenly we’re selling water by a lake, not a desert. There’s no shortage of cool content. Audiences expect more, and marketers (including your competitors) are keeping up with demand. So it’s time to take B2B demand gen to the next level.

B2B Demand Gen Tactics: The Next Evolution

What follows are some logical upgrades for some of your favorite time-tested tactics. That’s not to say, of course, that you should stop doing things that are already working. But it’s worth testing these evolutions out to see what works for your target audience.


B2B Demand Gen: The Next Evolution of 5 Tried-And-True Tactics
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Lane Ellis

5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action

Lane Ellis on Jun 12th, 2019     Content Marketing

Mountains and wildflowers image.

Remarkable content marketing is able to inspire us to reach out and try for newfound levels of success, through powerful storytelling and the kind of compelling and relevant information that provides best-answer results.

Here are five recent examples of how this kind of remarkable content marketing wins minds, hearts, and wallets — utilizing tactics that are memorable, well-targeted, and helpful.

#1 — Sigstr’s Customer-Fueled E-book

Sigstr Example Image

Email marketing platform Sigstr prominently incorporated some of its brand customers into a fashion-styled e-book for a recent campaign, a unique twist on a tried-and-true format that garnered the campaign the first-ever B2B Choice Award at B2B Marketing Exchange’s eighth-annual Killer Content Awards — The Finnys — in addition to the event’s customer lifecycle marketing award.


5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action
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Anne Leuman

When & Why Net-New Content Creation Makes Sense—And When It Doesn’t

Anne Leuman on Jun 11th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

When New Content Creation Makes Sense

1996: The year content was named “king” in a burgeoning digital world.

2001: The year “content marketing” was officially coined and the modern content revolution began.

130 trillion and counting: The number of webpages currently indexed by Google.

One zillion infinities: The number of pieces of content you stand to create during your B2B content marketing career.

Zero: Perhaps the number of times you’ve asked yourself, “Do I really need to create a new piece of content?”

If the last one strikes a little too close to home, we’re not passing judgement — rather we’re reminding you that you don’t always have to start from scratch.


When & Why Net-New Content Creation Makes Sense—And When It Doesn’t
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Caitlin Burgess

Ally or Adversary? How Our Marketing Fears Can Be Wielded for Good

Caitlin Burgess on Jun 10th, 2019     B2B Marketing

Now Fear This: Kicking Fear to the Marketing Curb

B2B marketers are a special breed: We’re relentlessly self-improving.

We look to our industry peers and thought leaders for wisdom. We scour data for opportunities and insight. We keep tabs on rising trends and emerging tools. We tirelessly strive to adapt our strategies to the evolving needs of our customers and prospects.

Without a doubt, we’re ambitious. But despite that ambition, we’re only human. Fear can easily creep in—which can become a helpful tool or a crippling bad habit.

Fear Itself

Fear is the most natural human emotion in my opinion. The presence of fear in our marketing minds not only signals self- and spatial-awareness, but also benevolence. We deeply care about what we do and who (i.e. our brands, co-workers, and buyers) we serve, and we want to do our absolute best to drive results and offer solutions.


Ally or Adversary? How Our Marketing Fears Can Be Wielded for Good
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