Platitudes and empty promises go over like lead balloons in the B2B world, where people expect results. While emotion can often play a key role in turning prospects into leads – after all, the customer has to like you – B2B customers are visiting your site with an objective. Too much fluff can end up burying the sale. Effective copywriting delivers a message that lets customers know exactly how to meet their goals and compels them to take action.
Here are tips for persuasive B2B copywriting without the frills.
Know Your Audience
The tone, style, language and vocabulary you use depend heavily on the people who are using your site. You may have a typical clientele, but you must still narrow your audience down to the actual person who is making the online search, ending up at your website and taking action. This person could be a business owner, a product manager, a VP of marketing, a buyer, a salesperson or an assistant. Identify your users and write content that speaks to them. Using the word “you” helps you further communicate directly to your readers.
Headlines, Bullets and Menus
These areas of text may have the smallest amount of content, but they play an important role and require powerful language. Strong headlines are brief and to the point – don’t waste space with language that leaves readers wondering what the page is about. Use bullets to outline the benefits of your products or services, making it easier for users to find what they’re looking for without having to comb through heavy text. The content on your site’s menu bars must navigate users to where they should be on the site; if they get lost, they’re likely to give up and move on.
Ask Questions
Asking your users questions helps them identify their needs and even discover challenges they weren’t aware of. Just be sure to provide solutions. For example, a marketing agency that provides digital display advertising services might ask “What Makes an Ad Effective?” in its headline. This gets readers wondering if their current advertising campaign is as effective as it could be, and compels them to read on for the answer.
Call to Actions
One of the main goals of a B2B website is to convert leads into sales. A successful call to action creates a sense of urgency and value that triggers an immediate response from the user. Vague call to actions, such as “Buy now” or “Click here” lack the detail required for an appropriate response – buy what now? Click here for what? Write call to actions that have a clear, concise message: “Sign up now for a 30-day free trial!” or “Contact us today to make an appointment!”
Case Studies and Testimonials
Rather than make promises and guarantees that aren’t for certain, tell your readers about true success stories. Testimonials help to build your company’s credibility. With case studies, you can highlight specific challenges and how you worked to meet them – proving to your readers that you have the resources and expertise to walk the walk.
Do you have any other tips for B2B copywriting that really works?
Author:
Jacqui MacKenzie is a writer for Straight North, one of the leading Web development companies in Chicago that specializes in Internet marketing, social media and SEO. She writes for a wide range of clients, including audiologist website providers and companies that help book a tee time online. Check out the Straight North blog! @ straightnorth
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business
Four Secrets Every Freelance Writer Should Know
Finding the right balance between writing what you want and writing for a living can be a difficult challenge for freelance writers. There may not be a 
good target market for the style and subject you would prefer to write about, but there is an endless supply of work for social media, technology and business experts, online. Here are four ways you can increase your chances of finding the right balance and earning enough money.
1. Finding the right publisher
You can choose to write material and seek a publisher to sell your work to, or you can agree to write what a publisher requires. The two sets of work are often miles apart in subject choice unless you are one of the lucky writers who happens to live in an online social networking and SEO world.
However good your own work is, if you cannot find a suitable publisher, you will not be paid for your work. Your research hours may have reduced your pay per hour too far. Also, you need to consider the constant flow of rejections and your underlying stress levels.
If you are given an assignment you must complete on time or preferably, sooner, so you can guarantee payment. Of course, it must meet the brief offered and be suitable work for the personality with the check book.
2. Finding jobs that pay enough
The jobs are out there and you need to find out how to locate them if you want to earn enough to extend your standard of living, at the very least.
Often the work offered by organizations will be mind-numbingly boring, but there is enough of it to ensure you can pay your bills. There isn’t always sufficient work in the area of your expertise, so you will spend time online researching the subject so you can write as an authority, taking care not to copy work directly from another source.
3. The competition is fierce
You are not the only writer out there who has found they can work from home to avoid long car chases and the endless office politics that prevented real work at the office.
You are in competition with many countries where English isn’t the first language, but they can write for figures you wouldn’t dream of taking for a job. Just because others will work for the price of an expensive coffee each day, it doesn’t mean you should try to compete. You need to fight with your skills to not only write to the brief, but to ensure you meet all deadlines and are easy to work with.
4. The editor is not always right
Editors vary in how they wish to see a finished product. If you write for several editors you will need to remember and apply each individual’s choice of style and composition. Otherwise, you run the risk of your work being returned for a re-write.
Even when editors are wrong in their choices, you must still apply to their terms and not fight an editor over your preferred alternative to writing sentences, paragraphs or layout. If they prefer short sentences while you maintain that long sentences make for better English, you will lose out in the long term. You might win the battle, but you won’t win the war which means they won’t offer you further work if you become a nightmare to work with.
Author:
Tim Brookes is the Managing Director of Storage Concepts a UK-based mezzanine floor & suspended ceiling company @storageUK
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How to Budget for Marketing
Whatever it is, the budget you put in place for your marketing for the year ahead will shape the results you achieve. Now is the ideal time to define your marketing approach and the budget that will support it. In a recent Toluna survey of businesses, 40% of businesses surveyed stated that they did not feel that their marketing budget met all their marketing needs.
In tougher times, the marketing budget is often the first thing that is cut. Yet it is commonly known that companies which consistently market themselves in a recession perform better than those that don’t. So:
- How can companies budget better to create the results they want?
- What can companies do to budget effectively for the year ahead?
Fit your strategy around your target market
Strategy is everything in marketing. But a separate strategy for your marketing and your sales approach will not deliver the best Return On Investment (ROI). Now is the best time to review your marketing approach in 2011 and identify what worked – and what didn’t. Then, apply this important data to your overall sales and marketing strategy. Which markets are you trying to reach? Which audiences do you want to grow in the coming year? Match this with your marketing approach and plan your marketing spends in careful stages, so that each part of the plan flows from one stage to another. Use inbound marketing technology to track the behaviour of your target markets and ensure that you are using the most appropriate marketing channels to reach them. This will help you get more from your budget in 2012.
Track your ROI on marketing spend
Your marketing data from the past year will provide a valuable insight into what will work over the next 12 months. So carefully track the ROI you’ve gained this year and identify the activities that have created the best results.
Be ruthless in assessing what is paying you back and what is proving to be a drain on your resources
Would these areas work better with a different approach, perhaps using inbound marketing to accelerate results and make them more profitable? You can also use inbound marketing technology to closely assess and analyse the exact payback from each area of your marketing plan – and feed this knowledge into the year ahead. Put a plan in place for tracking your ROI. Inbound marketing allows you to do this continuously and consistently, letting you to adapt and refresh your marketing activities accordingly.
Create a cross-channel marketing budget
Are you currently using all the appropriate marketing channels? Did your approaches in 2011 feed across the different channels to maximise results – or did you only focus on a couple of areas?
Recent research suggests that companies using social media or “collaborative Web 2.0 technologies” are achieving higher profits. (Source: McKinsey)
Are you one of the companies missing out on a better marketing ROI by neglecting or misusing social media and other technologies?
By using inbound marketing you can connect up all your marketing channels much more effectively, making it easier to retain any potential customers – whatever stage of buying cycle they are at. You can create a cross-channel presence that reduces the cost of building a receptive and responsive brand profile. This approach also makes it much easier to budget for the year ahead. It gives you a core strategy which then feeds out across all the channels – bringing you a better ROI for 2012.
Adapt and update
While it is important to develop a clear strategy to get the best from your marketing budget, it is also important to continuously review and analyse your results. More conventional marketing approaches have traditionally made it quite hard to view the results as you go along. But new inbound marketing technology allows you to view the impact of every single aspect of your marketing approach – as it’s happening. Use this invaluable and on-going insight to adapt your strategy and ensure you make the most of your budget throughout 2012.
What is the secret to budgeting right for marketing in the year ahead?
Everybody wants to make their marketing budget work harder. So how can you ensure you do this in the months to come? Focus on your target market and what they’re doing. By using inbound marketing technology you can get closer to buyer behaviour and demand. You can use this insight to create more meaningful connections by building relationships across all the different marketing channels. This enables you to accelerate the relationships you build with your prospects. Instead of waiting for months to view the results, you can see who’s responding – and adapt your strategy to meet the demand there and then. This ensures that your marketing spend is continuously matched with where it is most effective and that it feeds right back into your company’s sales and marketing strategy. Create your strategy, use advanced inbound marketing approaches to maximise your marketing impact and assess its impact while it’s live. Keep it consistent and targeted and you can look forward to a better ROI on your marketing budget in 2012.
Author: Sookie Shuen is the community manager at Tomorrow People, a leading UK inbound marketing consultancy. You can read more of Sookie’s content on inbound marketing by subscribing to the Zoober Inbound Marketing blog here. You can also find her on Google+ and Twitter.
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The Two Things Every Piece of Web Content Should Lead With
When you’re crafting Web content, it can often feel like there are so many factors to consider, so many things to get caught up with, that it’s hard to ever 
prioritize what really matters most. You think about the style of your writing, specific conversion goals you’re working towards, promotional strategies for helping you to bring more eyes to your content—and yet one of the simplest parts of writing good Web content is often one of the most overlooked: do you know what your Web content should always begin with?
The secret about good Web copy is that it should always begin by stating who should read it and why they should read it. It’s that simple.
Why You Want to Say Who Should Read It
Whatever you’re writing, start by saying whom it’s for—Bloggers? Copywriters? Business owners? Stay-at-home moms? Whatever audience you’re targeting, let them know. Here’s why:
- Shows That You Know: Addressing your audience builds credibility. When readers see you’ve put the planning and thought into creating content to meet their needs—and that it does—they begin to trust that you’re a worthy source of information.
- Addresses the Right Audience: While of course you want people to be reading your content, the fact is that not everyone will find it helpful or interesting. But by stating your audience upfront, you automatically target those individuals who are most likely to find value in what you’re saying.
- Increases Effectiveness: Here’s the biggest reason to state your audience: it makes your content more effective. You’ve got to know your audience in order to reach them, and this is true in any industry, whether construction or travel, transportation or fashion.
Why You Want to Say Why They Should Read It
The very next question in a reader’s mind after knowing Web content is for them is this: what’s in it for me? Here are the benefits of answering that question:
- Engages Your Audience: Writing to a specific audience is only half the battle—it’s just as important that you engage with them. And in terms of Web content, when readers know what’s in it for them, they are much more interested and willing to respond.
- Communicates Value: Saying why someone should read your content is basically the same thing as sharing the benefits it offers. Maybe your content is going to answer a question or explain a topic thoroughly; maybe it will show how to do something or provide life-enriching stories that touch readers’ hearts. Whatever the case, make the benefits clear to communicate value.
- Sets up Expectations You Will Meet: Giving readers a reason to read your content and then delivering on that reason gives them satisfaction, as well as the sense that you are someone who meets expectations. Likewise, it helps them track with you as they’re reading, staying interested throughout your writing.
Tips & Examples for Putting This into Practice
Maybe you’re reading the above tips and wondering what this looks like in actual Web content. Should every webpage start with the same, “This page is for X and you should read it Y”? Not exactly. Here are some tips for putting the two most important parts of content leads into practice.
- Address the Reader Early: Begin your post by talking to the audience you’re addressing, kind of like this post does by starting with “when you’re crafting Web content.” As soon as you see that, you know this post is for Web writers and by the end of the first paragraph, you know what it’s going to give them—the two key elements to starting any piece of content.
- Use Your Title: Sometimes you might use the title to state your audience and why they should be reading, like Jacqui MacKenzie does in “How to Write Great Web Content If You’re Not a Writer.” In it, she says whom she’s writing to and why they should care all in that initial title phrase: non-writers, to learn how to write great Web content.
- Through an Interesting Intro: Some webpages and online articles are most powerful not through a super-direct title but through a more vague or nuanced one, used to build interest and anticipation. In Craig E. Yaris’s post, “The Need to Blog,” for example, the title alone doesn’t give his specific audience or intention away. Will this be about why people should blog? Why they need to blog? What to do about it? He opens with a story that leads into a more clear audience and purpose statement in the fourth paragraph, phrased as a question, “But, where does the average small business owner find that good information to write about?”
What other strategies have you used or can you think of for implementing these two important keys to beginning Web content? Or if these ideas are new to you, how could they impact the effectiveness of your Web writing?
Author:
Shanna Mallon is a writer for Straight North, a leading Chicago SEO firm. She writes for clients in various B2B industries, from broadcasting equipment suppliers to flame resistant apparel. Check out the Straight North blog! @straightnorth
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The Hard Truth about Facebook: Why the Facebook IPO looks like a Bad Investment
- Facebook Does Not Produce any Content
- Facebook May be Maxed Out!
- Facebook Lacks Innovation
- Facebook Does Not Replace a Conversation!
Facebook DOES NOT Produce Any Content!
We have been told time and time again, “Content is King”. As an avid digital user, I have found this to be absolutely true. You may be hard pressed to find many who disagree. If this holds true, then Facebook is the biggest flakey investment you can make, in fact, it shouldn’t even survive much longer.
Facebook capitalized on technology – it was a place for people to come to connect and learn. This was at a time when content was still struggling to make its way to digital avenues. In fact, iTunes was in its infancy and did not even hit the top spot until 2008. This gave Facebook the edge as The Place to interact and learn. Think about content producers like the NY Times, they too, were late to the digital era.
What is Facebook and how does it generate revenue?
Users that create content! Every time you participate in Facebook you give them content. This was a fair tradeoff in 2008, perhaps even in 2011, but times are changing. If 2012 is the year of content, then Facebook may be in trouble. While there is likely not going to be a wild withdraw from Facebook at this moment, trust me when I say content providers are starting to see the value in limiting their content and perhaps even withdrawing future content from social sites like Facebook.
If the NY Times stops posting on Facebook, the NY Times will still have increases in readers and perhaps an increase in viewers. It’s arguable about whether or not the NY Times has made a terrible error in posting anything to Facebook. If I know that I count on the NY Times for my “content” but also know that I have the NY Times in my Newsfeed on Facebook, than I am much less likely to visit the NY Times app, website or open the email because I am counting on seeing the NY Times content on my stream. In fact, I even get a small preview that will likely let me know what the “content” is about and so there is no reason to visit the NYTimes.com or their app on my iPad. This is arguably a terrible business model for the NY Times!
The same can be said about entertainment – TV shows, Movies and Artists (i.e. musicians) that get little or nothing for producing “content” for Facebook. Why should Britney Spears keep placing “content” on Facebook? It’s not like Britney Spears needs 910 Million people to be introduced to her, does she? In fact even if only half of her “likes” turned into paid subscriptions at $1, she would have a entirely new revenue stream just based on the “content” already being produced.
Facebook May be Maxed Out!
We all know there is a peak in every business and venture but at 900 million how much further can you really grow? In fact, by recent number indications, Facebook may already be slowing down. Getting 900 million to pay attention to you is one thing, getting them to stay is another. As a Facebook user I admit I already spend a massive amount of time on Twitter and LinkedIn in comparison to Facebook. When Pinterest came out I gave up more of my Facebook time, not the other two!
Why are other Social Sites stronger then Facebook? They have a niche! Facebook has tried to be all things to all users and that’s gotten them lost! LinkedIn is where we go to do business and professional networking, Twitter is the top choice for news and chatting – after all you’ve never heard of a FacebookUp have you? Ever attended a virtual conversation on Facebook? In fact, Facebook completely dropped the ball when GooglePlus captured the world’s attention with Hangout! When you try to be everything to everybody you end up being no use to anyone, that’s Facebook’s grim future right now.
Note: Google may be the exception (Search and Social Come Together)
Facebook Lacks innovation
Let’s face it, when you fail to innovate you tend to open the door and show yourself out, Facebook showed early signs of that when Twitter was released. That was arguably the start of Facebook’s Why didn’t we think of that? Well lets copy it or better yet buy it!
The list goes on and on, Facebook got its status updates from Twitters innovation, Facebook Places developed from FourSquare and GoWalla, which was such a failure that later they bought GoWalla. Google Plus quickly trumped them with Video Chat and so Facebook tried to copy it. Once Facebook realized that Google was way too big and they could never compete with the inbound marketing of the search Giant, we then had a short lived Bing/Facebook Social Search integration. You love Google Video Ads, well Facebook copied that too. Fan of being able to Pin It! so is Facebook. If you really love the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words, then that’s the equivalent of a billion dollars as that’s what Instagram was acquired for, by Facebook!
We could talk about the business model, but after all the news about retailers flocking to Facebook pages and then running away clearly it’s not a primary place for business, no matter how many times they try to tell you it is.
Facebook is clearly over extended and in complete chaos with its inability to innovate beyond its checkbook. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value in marketing and advertising, after all 900 million emails is a safe list, just one that might not be quite as valuable as we have been lead to believe.
Facebook Does Not Replace a Conversation!
It is possible that in the near future society will hinder Facebook forever, a status update is not a conversation. Networking, Learning and Communications are greatly hindered by the existence of Facebook and its just a matter of time before our nation and communities around the globe shun Facebook as a major contributor to health issues and conflict. Facebook has little if any reality in it, it is a place for people to share what they choose, trying to showcase themselves, their family and their lives in the best light possible even if it is the furthest thing from the truth.
One might enjoy the idea that grandparents can see their grandchildren through the curation of an edited and extremely biased feed, the truth however could range from basic struggles to life threatening abuse that fails to get discovered from a lack of real world contact.
If you’re a friend, family member or loved one, I hope you don’t mistake the value of real life contact with the purpose of a feed. I most especially hope it’s not at the cost of a future or a life.
The Balanced Truth
While I spent most of the time looking at a few of the issues that will impact Facebook’s survival, I don’t want to be unfair. Facebook is a great tool, but it’s just that, a tool! Facebook has connected people like never before, contributed to the free dissemination of information and pioneered Social Media into the revolution of digital communications. However, it’s just software.
Facebook cannot replace real life communications or the desperate need we have for them as part of our existence. No child will be born because of Facebook, no war will be stopped, no product will be manufactured by it, and no business will grow simply because they were on Facebook.
Children come from physical contact, wars are averted through communication that requires we hear, see, touch and smell each other. Facebook is not going to get on the assembly line and build your Ford, stove or Mobile Phone. Facebook will not report the news, and ask the tough questions. Facebook will not repair your roof or rescue you during an emergency. Facebook will not raise a child, nurture them, inspire them and provide for them. No business will be successful because they got on Facebook, that’s up to the entrepreneur, their vision, passion and hard work.
I am taken in awe by Facebook’s Innovation to come to existence and serve a purpose, it has changed lives, some for better some for worse. Facebook has value and can be used as an effective tool, just not one that a reasonably educated and experienced person can see growing much further. Facebook has been a consumer of great ideas and innovative content, but that’s the problem, it consumes, it doesn’t create.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
Sources:
- Facebook: Why is Nobody Listening?
- Facebook Not Getting Into Content Creation
- Almost No One is Seeing Your Content on Facebook
- Is Facebook dying? What the Statistics Say
- So is Facebook dying or isn’t it? IPO investors need answers!
- Is Facebook Dying? A Prologue
- Is Social Rank Dying Already?
- Facebook Dying But Not Dead Yet
- Google+ vs. Facebook: See How They Compare
- Here is why Facebook bought Instagram
- Conversation is the New Connection
***Disclaimer, The article is meant to share the opinion of the author based on availble informations and data, it is not an investment tool.***
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2012 NY [Event]
The BlogWorld Social Media Conference and Expo returns to New York again this year from June 5th through 7th as a must-attend social media networking and educational event. They are expecting thousands of attendees from over 50 countries with more than 200 speakers for the event. With a great trade-show planned this may be the only industry-encompassing event that will help bring together those in the content creation and publishing businesses together.
BlogWorld Speakers
There will be many notable speakers attending the BlogWorld Social Media Conference and Expo in 2012.
Greg Cargill – VP of Client Services for Social & Media, Blitz
Greg’s professional career is focused on helping celebrities, brands, and products develop awareness through strategic and internet partnerships. Greg 
and his team at bigMethod have worked with some of the world’s largest brands such as City of Hope, Harley-Davidson, and Honda. They have successfully brought these organizations to the online social media marketing landscape. bigMethod was recently aquired by Blitz agency.
Greg will host a session called What Makes Big Brands Spend Money on Your Blog. He will share key points such as:
- What makes brands decide to spend money on a blog
- How much do they spend?
Linus Chou – Product Manager, Google
Product manager for Google Analytics, Linus Chou focuses on social attribution as well as real time analytics products. Before arriving at Google, he was 
an engineer for display advertising at Amazon.com.
Linus will host a session called Measuring Social Media Using Google Analytics. His key points will be.
- Always measure ROI
- Understanding how social channels are generating conversions for your business
- Learn the difference between upper and lower funnel social channels and what that can mean for your social media marketing campaigns.
Katie Richman – Director of Social Media Strategy , ESPN / espnW
Director of Social Media Strategy for ESPN Digital Media, Katie Richman is part of the startup team that is building ESPN’s women’s sports business. 
Katie began her career in 2001 with MTV Networks Brand Creative and moved onto Oxygen Media in their startup days as well.
Katie will be hosting a session titled Creation, Curation and Collection: Getting to know Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr with key points focused on providing a good understanding of tastes, metrics and segmentation options as well as information on cutting edge platforms.
Who Should Attend?
Anyone who publishes online can benefit from the knowledge shared at this event. Content creators, publishers, bloggers, podcasters, radio and WebTV broadcasters will benefit from new understanding on topics such as trending strategies, best practices, and trusted techniques to improve content creation and monetization.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
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Turning Downloads into Leads
Do you have an eBook, whitepaper, or newsletter available as a download online? If so, you may want to consider that many business owners have been able to turn those downloads into direct leads and even clients. Downloads can be a great source of lead generation for several reasons.
- At any given moment, tons of people from virtually every industry are on the hunt for educational material for themselves, their businesses, their employees.
- Providing free material can help to build your business’s brand and reach by getting your name, and your link, in various places around the net.
- Often those who use your material will credit you on their site, generating an even wider coverage for your business, possibly in areas even you may have not considered relevant previously.
What are You Offering?
Make sure before you begin trying to generate leads that you have a strategic foundation in place. Will you be sharing a Whitepaper, eBook, Newsletter as a download? All of those are great ideas, but implementing the plan requires great thought combined with aggressive action.
- Choose the industry in which you plan to focus your marketing efforts.
- Develop your marketing message that includes the answer to the problem you are solving with your offered content.
- Get visible.
Whether you plan to offer your material on your own site or to branch out and have it added on any accepting format online you can find, may determine the speed at which your content can spread across the web. There are just as many reasons to promote content aggregation regardless of the content as long as viewers will be brought to a landing page where they can sign up for your free download and grab it via instant download, or even in an auto-email attachment.
Gather an Email List for Future Efforts
These days you can always combine your offered download strategy with your own need to generate a customer list for email campaigns, newsletters, and more. To do so you simply need to require users, whether on a website, a social network page, or even a blog, to enter their email to proceed to the download.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
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Using Social Media for Brand Awareness
Cost-effective and powerful, social media is changing the way companies network. That’s because many businesses today are finding that connections made on sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs are allowing them to better communicate with customers, more effectively draw in new leads and, over all else according to a July 2010 survey, increase customer awareness of their brand.
How does this work? How can you leverage the power of social networks to expand your brand’s influence and reach? Check out these five practical ideas!
- Know Your Brand. Before you can promote your brand, you need to have a solid understanding of what it is. Ask yourself what distinguishes you company from others, what you offer that no one else does, what makes you valuable. Then, find a way to promote those benefits across all your marketing materials, from your logo to your website to your Twitter profile, in order to communicate a strong sense of your brand.
- Establish a Solid, Branded Web Presence. Your website is your single most important online branding tool, the place where all your other marketing tools will direct. With a strong Web presence, your company has a resource that means better search rankings for increased traffic, increased leads and higher conversion rates.
- Go Where Your Audience Is. A big part of being able to effectively reach your audience is understanding who they are. Is your audience active on Pinterest? Instagram? Facebook? Go where they are and join their conversations in order to expose them to your brand—and to enhance your scope of influence, offer something that meets their needs, whether tips, answers or links to helpful resources.
- Connect with Online Influencers. Identify the people in your industry who are most influential and work to build relationships with them. Follow them on Twitter, respond to their posts on blogs and Facebook, email them when you have something valuable to say. By connecting with these influencers, you help expand your company’s reach.
- Keep at It. A strong social media presence isn’t built overnight—in order to develop a loyal following, you have to earn it. Be consistent about posting on your social profiles so that users come to trust and respect your contributions; if you don’t, you run the risk of harming your reputation rather than helping it. If you can’t keep up with a profile, it’s better not to start it.
What do you think—could social media be a game changer for your brand? Take advantage of these tips to watch your presence expand!
Author:
Shanna Mallon is a writer for Straight North, a leader among Chicago marketing firms. She writes for clients in various B2B industries, from merchant processing solutions to Kevlar welding gloves. Check out the Straight North blog! @straightnorth
Sources:
Boosting Revenue with Social Media
For many marketing companies, management of corporate or small business level social media has become a full-time endeavor. For this reason it can be vital to learn what impact your efforts are actually having on your brand awareness. Gaining this knowledge will help you to understand what it may take to boost your business’s bottom line.
The Noisy Social Media Environment
Social media networks are busy places. Once a user has built up a large friend or fan following, the information can stream by at light speed. There are plenty of opportunities to place ads to garner that extra attention from those who may not be able to meticulously pick through their social media networks information, but still scan it for an overall idea of what the internet world had to offer today.
In a recent release of a study by the Adobe Digital Marketing Team, some statistics may have shown why consumers and businesses may not be benefiting from social media like they could.
- 36% of tweets with valuable content are swallowed by a more boring majority.
- 37% of those who do use social media networks say that the ads they see are not very useful.
- 63% of social community managers spend more than 30 hours per week.
- 26% spent 41 to 50 hours on their community administration and management.
Account proliferation seems to contribute to the overload currently experienced on social media networks. The Adobe study showed that many companies with over 1,000 employees, had an average of 178 social media network accounts. Not only can this clog up the networks, but it can also make full brand analytics rather difficult to test in some cases. Many social marketers also report that they feel they lack resources. Many of those also reporting that they often struggle to measure ROI, which ironically, does not help for getting new resources.
Measuring Social Success
There are obviously many business, large and small who are utilizing their Facebook fan pages to great benefit for their businesses and brands. Facebook and YouTube both have emerged as leaders in social marketing successes. These two market leaders dwarf their competition with an unparalleled critical difference in terms of time spent by users on those sites.
The study also showed that recommendations from other social users can affect the level of enjoyment a possible consumer may feel about a video. When it comes to websites and content, the study also showed that users tend to stay logged in more than twice as long when doing so with social plug-ins.
Many other social networking and social media statistics found in the study can also be vital to understanding how to implement
Social sharing increases email click-throughs
CTR without sharing shows up around 26%.
- Twitter – 5.0%
- Facebook – 5.4%
- LinkedIn – 9.6%
People use social networks to find local business
In 2008 4% of consumers reported they used social networking sites to find local business.
- 2009 – 7%
- 2010 – 9%
- 2011 – 15%
Social Drives Sales but Faces Perception Challenges
During a self-assessment of women’s marketplace influence, 73% of young adult women described themselves as influential information sources. It also showed that orders that come in via social media networks are commonly larger than those through more traditional digital means such s email, search engines, or even ad displays. In the same realm, the study showed that social sharing can actually trickle down to orders. A quarter of online shoppers who shop at least quarterly, and log into their Facebook accounts at least once a month have made purchases based on a social recommendation.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
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Display Ads and Tumblr [News]
Technically, display advertising, or banner ads, are graphical advertisements on the web that pop up next to, above, blended into or under content on emails, web sites, or even IM applications. This video is very short but provides a great overall understanding of what display ads are and how they work.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUT5H723Ii4]
What Benefits Will Display Ad Networks Have on Your Business?
Just like magazines or newspaper ads, you can expect to receive the same type of benefit from display ads in exposure for your business and hopefully in an obviously increasing customer base. However, unlike magazines and newspaper ads, the flexibility of the internet lets us advertise to a worldwide community, expanding a business’s horizons endlessly. Display advertising also has distinct advantages over the more traditional formats.
- Businesses can target specific options such as behavioral targeting options or direct choices in demographics allowing them to expertly direct ads only to their most vital audiences.
- Performance of your ads can be tracked as part of your daily marketing campaign to allow you to measure metrics such as clicks, conversions, and impressions which will allow you to calculate your ROI.
Top Display Ad Networks
Although the list is constantly changing, some of the top display ad networks in the country include:
- Yahoo Network
- Google Ad Network
- ValueClick Networks
- Turn Media Platform
- 27/7 Real Media
- Adbrite
News in Ad Display – Tumblr
A couple of years ago, CEO David Karp of Tumblr was asked what his feelings were on display ads. At that time he shared that they turned his stomach. Not something he wanted for his blogging platform. Very recent news shared that he may have found himself eating those words a bit when he shared that Tumblr plans to begin selling ad display units to advertisers. So far, the platform has survived without any ads but users will soon begin to see them displayed on their Tumblr “Featured” section of the dashboard.
Advertisers should be able to pay for ad space beginning May 2nd. Tumblr currently hosts over 52 million blogs with a growth rate of approximately 50 million posts per day.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
Sources: