Making the time to execute on a social media strategy can rattle even the most experienced marketers.  Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing can present many different challenges and distractions.  According to a study by eMarketer 73% of marketers say finding the time to create content as their biggest marketing challenge.

I recently ran a poll of @TopRank Twitter followers to get a sense of how they spend their time online.  I asked “If you had only 20 minutes a day to spend on social media what would you focus on?”  Some of the answers we received were:

• @henryroominates – “I would try to connect with powerful Twitter users and Tweet content from my blog.”
• @SebastianX – “I’d read my Twitter Followanyday List.”
• @Paco_Belle – “Look at 2-3 Twitter lists, couple circles on G+, scroll Facebook timeline & look through my RSS feeds for new things.”
• @Paramountbuzz – “Engaging others…doing it now.”
• @GreenDolphin_ – “My RSS feed, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.”

If you are involved with implementing social media marketing, you know that 20 minutes a day just won’t cut it.  On top of implementing social media tactics, there’s also the task fo staying current. Lee’s post “11 Ways to Get Smarter & Stay Current in a World of Social Information Overload“ outlined how much time can be involved using social tools to collect, filter and curate social media marketing knowledge.

Avoiding Shiny Object Pitfalls

Reuters estimates that the average worker loses 2.1 hours of productivity every day to interruptions and distractions.  To avoid wasting time begin by prioritizing your week.  While it’s true that unexpected issues can come up plan for the best and the worst.  If you have 3 hours per day on average to complete tasks related to social media strategy what will you get accomplished in those 3 hours?  If you were only to have 1.5 hours per day what would you want to get accomplished?  Proper planning will lead to improved productivity and efficiency.  Also, take some time to determine what your top distractions are and eliminate them.

Optimize for Productivity

Focus on what will have the largest impact on your productivity. Determining what time of day you are most productive, and which activities are most significant will help you to stay on track.  Are you an early riser, night owl, or somewhere in between?  Creating a daily schedule and routine can significantly improve your productivity.  You will also want to keep in mind statistical data which points to the best times of day and days of the week for engaging in social media activity.  A recent infographic by KISSmetrics on “The Science of Social Timing” provides valuable insight into the best times of day to share or engage on sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Some of the findings include:

Twitter

• 5pm – best time to Tweet for re-tweets
• 1-4 per hour – most effective frequency of Tweets
• Midweek & Weekends – best days to Tweet
• Noon & 6pm – best time to Tweet for increase Click Through Rates

Facebook

• Saturday- best day to share on Facebook
• Noon- most effective time to share on Facebook
• .5 per day – best sharing frequency

Tips for an Optimized Focus

Now lets talk about some no brainer “don’ts” that the many of us “do”.  Let me know if any of these sound familiar to you:

• Your best friend is having problems with their significant other so you keep your phone close, just in case…
• It’s baseball season and your team is playing but you don’t have the day off, thank goodness for internet radio right…
• You have email anxiety which forces you to check email every couple minutes because you never know what you might miss…
• One of your colleagues is obsessed with chatting online and pings you every couple minutes with a question or joke…
• You’re scheduling Tweets, posting on your personal facebook page, and reading Psychology Today all at the same time, because after all you are a master multi-tasker…

I too have often thought that I could do everything at once.  A balancing act acquired from years of having too much to do, and not enough time.  I considered multi-tasking an art form and a higher form of organization than my counterparts who only focused on one thing at a time.  I could not have been more wrong.  In recent years I’ve had to buckle down and force myself to devote all of my attention to one task at a time.  I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved and the level of my stress has decreased significantly.  Some tactics that have worked for me include:

• Closing my email when I’m working on social media tasks
• Close all Internet windows and tabs except for the one I need to work on
• Disabling chat or closing chat windows to avoid distraction
• Pick 15 minutes a day to indulge in activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, or chatting with friends.
• Spend 30 minutes to an hour each morning reviewing emails and responding, do the same thing before leaving at the end of the day.
• It is significantly easier to stick to your schedule if you are working ONLY on the tasks you have scheduled in the time allotted.

Tools for Optimizing Your Time

Depending on your available time and social media content strategy, there are many tools that can help you accomplish more with less time.  Below are three different types of tools that social media marketers can use to get the most out of their time:

Curation Tools – good for quickly gathering and automatically sharing content

• Scoop.it
• Storify
• Pearltrees

Social Aggregators & Management Tools –  follow and engage with multiple platforms

• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Seesmic
• Here’s a list of 22 social media management tools

Social Bookmarking – effective means of organizing and storing social bookmarks

• StumleUpon
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Evernote – not a bookmarking tool exactly but very useful for curating

Next Steps

I’m sure you’ll agree that focus and time management are something that most of us can relate to.  Based on what was covered in this post, consider the following questions and determine what you can do to better focus on the tasks at hand:

• What are your top 3 social media goals and do you have a plan for reaching them?
• How much time can you dedicate each day to using tactics to reach these goals?
• What steps can you take to improve your focus while completing social media activities?
• Which type of tool: curation, aggregator, or social bookmarking can you use to help save time?

If  you are looking for additional tips on Optimizing your SEO, social media, and content strategies be sure to take a look at the new book: “Optimize: How to Attract & Engage More Customers By Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing.”

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Optimize Your Social Media Schedule: 4 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck | http://www.toprankblog.com

Optimize Your Social Media Schedule: 4 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

Julien Smith, author of The Flinch and co-author (along with Chris Brogan) of Trust Agents, is pondering a question in this week’s episode of Marketing Smarts. I am curious to know why he thinks that so many books, supposedly about marketing and business, seem more focused on self-actualization and personal empowerment.

“At the core of it,” he says, “after talking about it in so many different ways, you just realize that the only thing that really remains, that stands as an obstacle in front of people, is people … Each person is their own largest obstacle.”

It’s an interesting notion: There are a finite number of proven marketing strategy and tactics; it’s not hard to find out what they are. Because everyone has the same tools at their disposal, success or failure depends on one’s willingness to put in the effort, apply them, and do the work. Therefore, effective marketing books need to focus on enabling the will (Julien calls it “[creating] the emotional state that will make the thing work”), rather than detailing step by step what needs to be done. (After all, you can get that stuff from the web!)

That being said, Julien points out that, in some cases, “People really do want to be told exactly what to do.”

I lived the truth of this last statement years ago when in charge of a new employee training program. I discovered that, when you are starting a new job, you don’t want a general framework in which you can figure things out on your own (and thus armed, “sink or swim”). You want someone to tell you what works and to help you organize your time and activities until you’ve your footing in the new role.

Finding your footing, however, is just the beginning. As Julien and Brogan emphasize in Trust Agents, the only way to “get to the next level” is to stop working strictly by the rules of the system and to start figuring the system out … so you can hack it.

Hacking the system—what they call “making your own game”—doesn’t mean ripping people off or taking advantage of others. On the contrary, it means finding points in the system that allow you to use it in ways for which it wasn’t initially intended.

To illustrate, Julien uses the example of people like Brogan and Robert Scoble “hacking” the social web by accumulating hordes of “friends.” The guiding assumption of most social platforms, at least in the early days, was that people would only connect with actual friends—people they really knew. By expanding the definition of “friend,” as some pioneers did, in a way the system allowed but didn’t anticipate, some people were able to create surprisingly large and complex networks, and then use these networks to achieve unprecedented power.

What does such power look like? Julien describes the people who have achieved it as, “almost like ‘Ghost in the Shell‘ type, really powerful, highly leveraged individuals that can go anywhere, can get anything for free, and they can make tons more money than anyone could ever make, without batting an eyelash.”

The technology produces this power—”The internet really does change everything”—and once we realize this power is possible, the only real question becomes: Will this new power be used for good or evil?

If you’ve read Trust Agents, you’ll recall that the authors go to great and frequent lengths to explain that they’re not talking about gaming people, taking advantage of them, or ripping them off. As they state early on, “In this chapter, we’re talking about taking advantage of systems, not people,” and then later acknowledge ” … how tricky it is to write about this stuff without running the risk of sounding like leveraging your relationships is the equivalent of using people.”

To navigate this trickiness, Julien says that he asked Dan Ariely at one point, “How do I talk about the social norms and the fact that they’re exploitable while saying, ‘I’m not unethical and I don’t intend to take advantage of people’?

I think that the only way you can do that is a) by actually being ethical, but also b) by realizing that it is not unethical in itself to take advantage of a systemic weakness just because others ignore or don’t see it. You might even go so far as to say that you have something like an ethical imperative to act on your insight once you’ve had it.

“Systems are exploitable,” Julie insists,”If you don’t exploit them, it’s almost like you’re wasting your life.”

Now, if you’d like to immerse yourself in such ethical conundrums and even uncover the “secret message” of Trust Agents, check out the podcast in its entirety here (or in iTunes):

If you’ve read a business book that has changed your personal life as well as your professional life, I’d love to hear about it!

Podcast Transcript: Marketing Smarts, Episode 15 featuring Julien Smith

Marketing Smarts Podcast: Are You the Problem? is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

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

Social Media & Blogging Listmania with Curated Resources & Lists is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

Is your social media strategy sending your customers mixed signals?

As a B2B organization with a focus on technology, you may believe that you are facing additional obstacles that your B2C counterparts are not.

Many of you have tried to implement social media in the past without much success.  However, you may still believe that B2C companies have it easier because they have a direct line to their consumers.  The good news is, you do too!  In fact, 58% of IT buyers use social media to make tech buying decisions.

Getting in front of the proper decision makers and influencers when selling SaaS, IT, or any other technology is not as hard as you may think.  It is imperative that you follow a series of social media best practices directed at finding, engaging, and motivating your social network to take action.

Developing Social Media Personas

The first rule of social media for technology companies is to know your customers.  How can you connect with your customers if you don’t know who they are?  Well developed personas will help you answer a variety of questions about your customers including:

• Where they spend time online
• How they interact on social chanels
• What type of information they share most frequently
• What motivates them to interact, buy and refer

Establish A Voice & Stick With It

The growing pains associated with implementing a social media strategy often include finding a defined voice and direction for your brand.  While you may be working with an internal or outsourced team to execute your social media strategy, you must find consistency.  A good first step is to sit down with your team and discuss your company mission, goals, offering, and pain points of your customers to determine how information should be presented.  Then take some time to research your top 5 competitors and see what type of interaction and success they are having with their campaigns.

Confusing Content Kills Network Growth

While there is nothing wrong with providing a variety of information on your business profiles it is key that you remain consistent.  If you are targeting CFO’s responsible for technology purchases at large organizations, it is important that the content provided is helpful, informational, and aimed at solving their business problems.  It can get tricky when you are targeting multiple decision makers and influencers like the buying groups often associated with B2B purchases, so be mindful of exactly who your audience is and what type of content and context will have the desired impact.

Facts Tell & Stories Sell

When selling a complex solution or service, sharing stories about customers that you have helped can be of enormous value.  It’s true that your typical CFO or purchasing manager will be very mindful of the ROI associated with purchasing your product. But do not underestimate the power of a well written client case study or testimonial.  A client story will add validity to your message, which is of enormous value when marketing via social media.  Keep in mind that you are asking for an investment, and in order to gain the trust of that customer you may need to provide additional information that builds trust.

If you have a more traditional marketing background try to remember that many of the same basic marketing principles apply to social media marketing.  It is extremely valuable to  research your customers, find consistency in branding, create cohesive content, and share meaningful customer stories.

If you are just beginning to develop an online marketing strategy or are a social media networking professional I would recommend running a social media audit of your existing social media marketing program and incorporating the tactics included in this post.  Not sure where to start?  You can always contact the team at TopRank for additional information on what is involved and where to begin.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Technology Marketing: Is Your B2B Social Media Strategy Sending Mixed Signals? | http://www.toprankblog.com

Technology Marketing: Is Your B2B Social Media Strategy Sending Mixed Signals? is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

I was talking with a small business owner recently who was lamenting not updating his website and also that his competition was showing up “all over the place” online.  The nature of his product requires some education and an effort to dispell common mis-perceptions. The rapid advancements in technology of his particular product category are not very well known amongst his target consumer market. But there’s a substantial amount of search volume and interest in the solutions his product provides.  He’s also a small business with limited time and budget.

To me, this was a classic opportunity for the power of persuasion through storytelling.

My tip for him was to start a blog that answered the most common questions prospects and customers ask. And to do so in a compelling way that his competitors were not:  with video, images and text. Each new blog post would be another potential entry point to his website via Google and social networks where people share links. With 1 post a week, he’d have 52 more pages and videos on his website in a year, each offering interesting, useful content that could position himself above competitors. Along the way, he’d be able to gather insight from web analytics, social shares, comments and interactions with the blog posts to refine message effectiveness.

A few key questions to start with his blog content plan:

• Why do current customers buy your product? This can come from sales people and/or the business owner.
• What are the mis-perceptions & objections? Document the things that are education opportunities.
• What type of information helps them change perception?  What are the tipping points from skepticism to confidence? Is it demonstration, 3rd party data, credibility of the company, word of mouth?
• Where do prospects look for information on this solution? Talk to sales people, look at website stats and any logged information about lead sources.

By answering these fundamental questions, this small business owner can create a blog content plan that specifically addresses the questions, concerns and triggers that will influence prospects to trust, buy and refer.  Understanding the key features of the product most relevant to the target customer as well as prospect tendencies towards finding a solution of this type can literally translate into topics for him to write or talk about on the blog.

Those topics can be run through Google AdWords Keyword Tool to identify the keyword phrases that people are searching for most often. Relevant search phrases can inspire blog post and YouTube video titles, categories, descriptions and tags.

Some basic next steps might include:

• Set up a WordPress Blog, template and hosting (Genesis, StudioPress & Synthesis make this a no-brainer). Plan to write one blog post or publish/upload 1 video per week (2-3 minutes) that answers a key question prospects and customers ask.  The video can be captured using an iPhone  or other smartphone and iMovie can be used for editing. If you’re on PC, you can use Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.  For people not comfortable just talking to a camera, have an employee ask the question(s) and answer them while being captured on video.
• Create a YouTube Channel and start connecting with other channels and video publishers on relevant topics, 5-10 min a day. After uploading a video, embed on the blog, and share on existing social channels like Twitter and Facebook as well as through email to existing customers or opt-in prospect list. Ashley posted some great examples of SMB Twitter promotion yesterday. When embedding the video on the blog, write a description of what is talked about in the video so search engines can make it easy for people to find.

The initial focus for a basic video and photo blog should be on getting used to the habit of creating useful content on a regular basis.  I know many readers might be thinking that more substantial SEO and social media tactics should be setup as well, but without good content, social networking and optimization won’t work to convert prospects to customers anyway.  Time is usually limited for small businesses, so getting a small base of content built is a great starting point.

Creating a cycle of listening for questions, answering them through content and refinement can go a very long way for small business content marketing. Once things are setup, 20-30 minutes per day can be spent interacting with blog comments and social networks. Establishing a feedback loop means you’ll always have ideas to blog or talk about. It also means you’re connecting with real people, interacting with them and providing something of value that they can share and act on.

In time other promotion channels can be added starting with Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as well as SEO best practices with more specific keyword research and link building. If the initial customer research identifies Twitter as a substantial opportunity, a Twitter Marketing strategy might be involved at the same time the blog and YouTube channel are created. The reason I’m keeping these suggestions simple and basic is that I know how much small business owners can get overwhelmed. As needs grow, outside online marketing consultants or training can always be used to speed things up.

What else? An email newsletter that re-purposes blog content and the Q/A that happens on Facebook, the blog and Twitter can be delivered to existing customers. Viewing every channel of participation as an opportunity to interact and share will help grow networks, trust and credibility as the “go to source” for the product category being promoted. It’s important to create value, but also to not lose sight that this is business. Don’t be afraid to suggest solutions or promote offers. Just do so in a relevant way.

Finally, make sure web analytics (Google Analytics is free) and basic social media monitoring (Trackur starts at $18/mo, search.twitter.com is free) are set up to assess how people are finding and interacting with blog content. Watch for trends in network growth like fans, friends and followers but especially with quality of interaction through comments, likes, shares and the effect on blog/website traffic that drives inquiries and sales.

For a lot of small business owners not used to online marketing, SEO or social media, these suggestions might be out of their comfort zone. But with the way consumer behaviors are changing and increased competition, getting out of the comfort zone and into a place where direct customer interactions drive content and inspire business outcomes is an essential investment.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Social Media Helps Small Business Boost Sales, Keep Customers | http://www.toprankblog.com

Social Media Helps Small Business Boost Sales, Keep Customers is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

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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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

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

4 B2C Examples of How Companies are Using Twitter to Attract & Engage Customers is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

We’ve all read about or seen favorite examples going back to Dell Outlet selling a few million dollars worth of discounted computer equipment through Twitter, to Blendtec selling more blenders because of its YouTube videos showing what happens when a Blendtec meets an iPhone, or a rake. Of course, there’s also the famed Old Spice example of selling more body wash because of Isaiah Mustafa on a horse on a beach.

It’s About the Customers 

Besides those very viral and frequently shared social media ROI examples, there are also marketers that realize that it’s not always about selling widgets on Facebook or YouTube. It’s about the connections they make with customers being instrumental for recommendations and serving as inspiration to buy. It might not mean purchasing at the moment of social media interaction, but at some point in the future as the customer navigates the search, social, and mobile web.

It’s About Relationships

The value companies can get from investment in social media is directly tied to the relationships they build with customers and a relevant community. If a business wants to sell more widgets through Twitter, they could certainly achieve that goal providing they understand what information and experiences trigger those purchases and respond with an appropriate customer engagement plan. Whether Twitter is the sales channel or simply a proxy to the sales experience depends on the customers – not the brand’s objective of selling widgets on Twitter.

ROI is Also About Cost Savings

Sometimes realizing measurable business value from social media investment is a matter of creating efficiencies as some companies have by developing internal social network platforms that result in more effective collaboration and operational effectiveness. Those efficiencies often translate into better, faster, and more useful information for customers that result in cost savings or even more sales.

Measure What Matters

The better connections brands have with consumers, the more likely those consumers will be positively inclined to buy. Many social media ROI models are based on a direct marketing approach with an offer and response approach. The problem is that companies are chasing after a platform where relevant customers might be vs. understanding how to influence those customers through a social experience. The ROI from social media investment doesn’t have to come from direct sales through social networks, but that’s exactly how most companies evaluate.

It’s About Inspiration and Influence

A lot of productive social media marketing efforts are more likely to influence business outcomes than be the channel where those outcomes occur. Public and media relations, for example, isn’t that different. Positive media coverage creates awareness and inspires search or discovery of the brand and the sale occurs on the company website. Social experiences can provide brand-advertising benefits and inspire consumers to buy sooner, more quantity, or more often, as well as to choose one brand vs. another. What company wouldn’t want to sell more products, more often, more quickly?

Here are a few interesting data points and examples that suggest a correlation between social engagement and consumer buying behavior:

• eMarketer - Over 50 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow.
• USA Today - Coca-Cola Facebook fans are two times as likely to consume product and 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans, according to Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing.
• Yahoo - Brands who sponsored content with social features increased purchase intent by 13 percent.
• Mashable - “Following Brands on Twitter Increases Purchase Intent.” A study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey reports that 60 percent of brand followers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after following the brand on Twitter, and 50 percent of brand followers are more likely to buy from that brand.

The missing piece to many assessments of what value social media participation provides is that most marketers are chasing popular platforms with their own interpretation of what will motivate customers to buy. What they should be doing is understanding customer preferences and optimizing for the kinds of social experiences that will not only inspire purchase, but social sharing, advocacy, and loyalty. Social media is a communications platform that can help businesses serve customer needs across the lifecycle, not just at the top of the sales funnel. Understand that and an entirely new opportunity is revealed.

This post originally appeared in my Social Media Smarts column on ClickZ.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Social Media ROI as Return on Influence #Optimize | http://www.toprankblog.com

Social Media ROI as Return on Influence #Optimize is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

Thousands if not tens of thousands of new companies are formed every month in the U.S. and one of the most common problems to be solved relates to creating awareness, interest and motivation to buy.  Is buying Google AdWords, throwing up a blog and a Facebook Fan page the answer? What about sending out Tweets, press releases and investing in SEO?  If your start-up is executing content marketing tactics without first hand insight into the market and target customers, those tactics are a crapshoot. The irony is that most start-ups don’t have a lot of money to waste on marketing and advertising. But they do, every day. And so do many of the people reading this blog post.

Never fear, that’s why Optimize is here.

Start with What’s Important: While there’s plenty of great marketing advice out there, it will never solve the problems of an imperfect product. Creating great products and customer experience is probably one of the most important marketing investments a company can make. Outside of that, identifying compelling stories about how the product or service solves problems, meets a need or adds value for customers are essential steps for start-ups and established companies alike.

A great example of a company that inspires marketing by it’s fans and customers because the product quality and experience is so good, is Evernote.

There are over 76 million references to Evernote on Google.com and over 8 1/2 million references on blogs. On Twitter there are positive references every hour like “oh wow! I love Evernote and use it everyday” and “Evernote ftw. it’s not just about the list, it’s about the sync as well – smile”. That steady stream of unsolicited endorsement (and social content) is a tremendous marketing asset.

You Can’t Score Sales Without A Goal.  The framework for implementing a holistic and strategic approach to Content Marketing starts by answering key questions including establishing goals ranging from overall revenue to cost efficiency of marketing and advertising tactics.  Then identify what methods of measurement you’ll use as well as Key Performance Indicators to track progress towards your goals. Forecast or hypothesize what measurable impact on the business there will be and how to track progress over time.

BTW, some great people and resources on measurement for search and social media marketing as well as online media and communications on Twitter include: Katie Payne, Chuck Hemann, Shonali Burke, Jim Sterne, Marshall Sponder, Eric Peterson, Avinash Kaushik. There are more I know, so please share your faves in the comments.

With that foundation of establishing goals and identifying an approach to measurement, follow through these steps:

Get to Know Your Customers:
It’s one thing to optimize content using specific keywords researched for SEO purposes. But rather than start with keywords, what about starting with customers? In the advertising, content and direct marketing worlds (even web development and user experience) there’s specific attention paid to understanding customer segments and creating profiles or personas to guide the most successful approach. By empathizing with customer categories of interest, pain points and behaviors, a qualitative picture emerges of what kind of content, topics and optimization can be focused on in order to achieve business goals.

That insight into what customers care about can be translated into search keywords and social topics used for specific content optimization on a start-up’s website. It can also be used to inspire social content creation for sharing on sites like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit where customers spend time and are influenced. Which keywords to use and which social channels to spend time on depends on your research. And that research is ongoing – something that is iteratively and continuously refined.

David Meerman Scott has explored buyer personas quite well in his book, New Rules of Marketing and PR. Vanessa Fox has some great advice on searcher personas in her book, Marketing in the Age of Google.

Where Does The Money Come From: Keywords or Customers?  Most SEO practitioners focus solely on keywords, popularity and relevance to the brand’s website content and rely on the brand to figure out relevance to customer needs.  The problem is, many companies simply don’t do that homework. They decide internally what content to publish online without consideration of specific customer-centric perceptions of the problem that the brand’s product and services are to solve. That causes a disconnect and performance issues when the SEO practitioner achieves top keyword visibility but corresponding increases in sales don’t follow.

Few things are more frustrating for a SEO consultant (and the client) than to deliver top keyword visibility and traffic as promised, but only to be deemed a failed program because there was no corresponding increase in sales. That’s a conversion optimization issue in many cases, but also a disconnect in how keyword research was conducted relevant to actual customer needs.

Identify Search Keywords & Social Topics:
Understanding the drivers for why customers seek information online will help marketers identify what topics are the best reflection of meeting those needs. From a SEO and content marketing perspective, that means keywords. Keywords are a reflection of what customers care about and should serve as a guide for on-page optimization and link building efforts. At the same time, customers are not just influenced by search in their journey from discovery to purchase. Social media influences are increasingly a part of the buying cycle.

Another way to manifest what customers care about into actionable marketing is to understand what social topics are relevant for your business. Find out what people are “talking about” on the social web through comments, blog posts, tags, updates and tweets as it relates to your business and the customers you’re after.

As search keywords are managed with a keyword glossary, social topics can be managed or tracked as well. See this post on fixed list keywords and dynamic social topics for more.  The combination of search keywords and social topics can keep start-up marketers on track and efficient with their editorial plans and proactive efforts towards ongoing optimization and social content creation. The tie-in to social media monitoring and web analytics will help refine messaging to be more effective at generating leads, sales or whatever your objectives might be.

Ron Jones just came out with a book dedicated to the task of keyword research called Keyword Intelligence that is worth checking out. Also, Bill Hunt has an awesome presentation on Advanced Keyword Modeling that he’s given at SES events.

Create a Content and Promotion Plan:
Once you have a solid keyword glossary, a next step is to create an editorial plan to identify and manage what content you’ll create when and for what topics, customer segments and intended outcomes.  Sprinkling keywords in the right places on existing content is technically SEO, but it’s simply not enough to be competitive. Becoming the most relevant answer for a search query means ongoing creation and optimization of content that supports the topic. This extends to social content and networking/sharing channels as well.

Think of it in terms of signals of credibility. Wherever your customers can be influenced along their journey from awareness to decision to advocacy is where you’ll want to create optimized and socialized content.  A content promotion plan includes dates, topics, keywords, categories, tags, media types, promotion channels and where the content will be re-purposed in the future.  Here are two work horses for such a task: keyword glossary and editorial plan (blog).

Implement Optimization, Socialization & Promotion:
This is where the rubber hits the road and content is created, optimized and socialized.  If you think of each piece of content as having a purpose for a particular audience segment, then it follows that you’ll want that content to be relevant at communicating your brand’s unique selling proposition (USP) as well as relevant for keywords customers are searching on.  Unfortunately, creating really fantastic and relevant content isn’t enough. Promotion of that content is important in order to gain the visibility that results in broad based sharing.  You know: tell 2 friends who tell 2 friends, and so on.

When it comes to great resources for SEO Copywriting and Content Marketing, I have to mention: Heather Lloyd Martin’s SEO Copywriting class, Joe Pulizzi’s Content Marketing Institute, Content Rules by Ann Handley & CC Chapman, Content Marketing by Rebecca Lieb and Accelerate by Arnie Kuenn. Last, but not least, is my own book about Content Marketing, SEO and Social Media Marketing that’s coming out in March of next year called, Optimize (Wiley).

Not all content is created equal when it comes to promotion, so be realistic about expectations and the resources you’ll need.  Also, don’t treat your promotable content like a one-night stand.  For most start-ups, the goal isn’t just to get a sale here and there, but to build a successful business. That means a persistent effort to stay top of mind and relevant amongst a growing community of customers and fans. Feed that community with themes of social content and participation and they will reward your start-up by interacting and sharing to networks beyond your reach. Interacting with a growing community will also supply an infinite number of relevant topics for future content.

Limited resources and a rush to revenue can cause many start-ups to make rash decisions about their online marketing mix. When it comes to content and better connections with customers, making an effort to develop customer-centric content with an optimize and socialize approach to promotion will help grow momentum, sales and referrals for short and long term success.

If you work with a start-up on marketing, what are some of the most common challenges you’ve faced with regard to content? What about social media and SEO?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
4 Step Content Marketing Framework for Start-Ups | http://www.toprankblog.com

4 Step Content Marketing Framework for Start-Ups is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

I think I just might!

It is no longer a question of IF companies should execute a social media strategy.  The question for most companies is HOW to best execute a meaningful and engaging approach that generates results.  With so many social media marketing options available, marketers must also decide best practices and what tactics to avoid.

We all make mistakes as marketers and it’s important that we not only learn from those mistakes but share  with others so that they can avoid them.  I hope that the 20 Social Media Marketing Do’s and Don’ts that I’ve provided within this article not only entertain you but make you think about your current social media strategy. Which tactics are you happy to say you’ve implemented and which mistakes will you admit to?

10 Social Media Marketing Do’s

#1: Save Time, Re-purpose Content.
While this is a great tactic it is important to be thoughtful about the way that you are re-using content.  Simply spitting out the same information over and over again will not work.  Be sure to change elements of your posts in order to either highlight different information within the post or target a different segment within your audience.

#2: Interaction is Where It’s At!
True interaction via social media can be a tough tactic for many marketers to master.  Finding the correct balance of self promotion and intriguing content that inspires action can be very instrumental in using social media appropriately.  Take some time to comment or interact with your current clients and prospective clients to show that you’re there, and you care about what they are saying.  A simple tactic is to ask questions that inspire a response.

#3: Try Multiple Media Types.
Social media users are interested in fresh new ways of presenting content and ways that they can share it with their networks.  In fact certain forms of media such as infographics or videos have a tendency to be much more sharable and appealing.  Try to incorporate some new media types into your social media content plan for the year.

#4: For Pete’s Sake! Make it Searchable.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you have some sort of optimization in place for your website.  Keep the same strategy in mind for your social media content.  If it can be searched it can be optimized.

#5: Keep Calm in a Crisis
The last thing you need is your social media intern “Sarah” having a meltdown at the first sign of something unfavorable being said about your brand on social media.  By keeping a level head and having an emergency preparedness plan ready should disaster strike you will be able to calmly and rationally tackle the issue.  P.S. Ignoring it doesn’t count as a plan.

#6: Customize the Flow
If you’re like us you have multiple audience members to provide information to online.  This could be different verticals or even different departments within a single organization.  Do your homework,  what sites do your different audience members participate in and what topics are of importance to them?

#7: Don’t Let Just Anyone Represent Your Brand
In the past some companies have encouraged all team members to participate in the promotion of their brands because they worked under the notion that more was better.  False.  While you don’t want to discourage interaction or squash the dreams of your team it is important that the voice of your social media strategy represents who you are and what you believe in as a company.  Trish from accounting that posts on her social network about the copious amounts of alcohol consumed Tuesday night and the terrible time she’s having at work the next day may not be the best resource for networking your company.

#8: What Was the Purpose of This Again?
Remember why you’re using social media in the first place.  By setting a set of realistic and attainable goals you will be able to test what works and what doesn’t and adapt your online marketing strategy from there.

#9: Pull Out the Tool Box and Find Your Measuring Tape
If you create a beautiful piece of furniture but can’t fit it through the front door what was the point?  The same applies to your online strategy.  I don’t want to discourage planning big but make sure that you have an effective means of measuring your success in order to identify the true ROI of your online marketing strategy.

#10: Be Innovative, or at Least Open to Innovation
You don’t have to be cutting edge to run a successful social media program.  However, it doesn’t hurt to have your eyes and ears open to the latest trends.  Experiment with your strategy to find new and interesting ways to present the same information to your networks.

10 Social Media Marketing Don’ts 

#1: Hello? Is Anyone Listening?
One of the worst things that you can do is ignore your audience.  I shared an example last week of ChapStick’s reaction to unfavorable responses from their network.  Deleting information or simply refusing to answer are a big marketing fail.

#2:Have You Ever Tried to Have a Conversation With a Robot?
If you are like me, at one time or another you’ve found yourself screaming at the automated help desk for your credit card company beyond frustrated that you couldn’t speak with a live representative.  Try to spare your online audience of the same exasperation and create thoughtful and conversational content.  Leave the robots for the other guys.

#3: I Know You Are But What Am I?
As we’ve said before it is difficult if not impossible to take things back once you’ve said them online.  There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with audience members, colleagues, or competitors but there is no need to be impolite.  If you take a do unto others approach you will save yourself and your company a lot of damage control.

#4: Accounts Covered in an Inch of Dust.
You did some research and found 10 new social networking platforms that your company is not signed up for.  You assign a task to your marketing team to sign up for these accounts, and unfortunately that is as far as it goes.  If you cannot commit to utilizing a platform on a regular basis and setting it up in a way that clearly represents your brand then what is the point.  Don’t do it just to do it.

#5: One Size Does Not Fit All.
All social media sites are not created equal.  As marketers we must consider not only the type of interaction that typically happens on a given platform but also the audience we are trying to reach with that platform.  If your social strategy for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all exactly the same you may want to reconsider your plan.

#6: The Nameless &  Faceless Group from Company XYZ
In order to make friends online you need to be friendly.  Part of being friendly means adding a personal note to your social media profiles.  Snap some impromptu photos around the office and share a little bit about some of the key team members.  This is an instance where a little bit of extra effort can go a long way.

#7: Taking Your Relationship To the Next Step.
Romancing your prospects does not end at gaining them as followers.  Sure they’ve signed up to receive updates on your company but is that really enough?If your ultimate goal is to gain them as new clients then it is important to have a personalized and meaningful flow of communication that sets next steps in the relationship.  An example would be recommending that you have a phone conversation or possibly meet in person to discuss some business opportunities.

#8: We Really Care About You.  Just Kidding.
Spending countless time and effort to engage with prospects only to abandon them is a completely useless tactic.  Handle these relationships with the same care that you would your other business relationships.

#9: We Have No Idea What is Important To You.
Our company is great, we have so much to offer you, hire us now!  I consider each of these to be obnoxious and pitiful tactics for engaging followers.  Instead of utilizing your platform as a means for marketing your products and services try instead to offer information that can help solve the business problem of your prospects.

#10: What Are All of These Followers For Anyways?
Now that you’ve built up this community of online followers what can you use it for?  Your online community is a great resource for crowdsourcing content and brainstorming ideas.  If you want to gather a set of your own statistics why not go to your online community and ask them to participate in a study or survey and share the results with everyone.

I know that a lot of these tips may seem like no brainers to you some of you, but in the fast changing world of social media, mistakes can have a significant impact.

I’m curious to know if you have any other “no brainer” social media tactics that you’d like to share?  They can be funny, insightful, pretty much anything you want as long as they’re true.  I look forward to laughing, cringing, and sighing with you.  If you have a moment to fill out the survey below I’d love to get some feedback from you regarding this post and your personal experience with social media marketing.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
20 Social Media Marketing Do’s & Don’ts | http://www.toprankblog.com

20 Social Media Marketing Do’s & Don’ts is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site

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

Different companies and industries may find some variation with the role of search optimization in their mix, but there’s no mistaking that optimizing content and social media for relevant visibility where customers are actively looking has tremendous benefits and cost efficiencies. But despite the benefits, many companies neglect to engage a proactive content optimization strategy and even fewer optimize social media and overall website content holistically.

For a better picture of how to think about holistic optimization (An Optimized State of Mind), I’m going to share one of the key models from the book I’m currently writing, Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing to be published by Wiley in 2012.

For effective optimization as a state of mind, I believe there are three key components of brand and customer interaction to optimize for. Focusing on these three areas can help companies become more relevant and effective in their ability provide meaningful customer experiences that inspire action.

Optimize for Discovery

Customers arrive at the act of searching for a variety of reasons ranging from longer term research for larger or more complex purchases to solving an immediate problem or need.  People search for more reasons than to buy a product or service and companies publish more content online than things for sale. Any content brands publish online is an opportunity for optimization to make it easier and more relevant to connect with intended audiences whether they are prospective customers, existing customers, industry media, job candidates or company employees.

Optimizing for discovery goes beyond search though, since consumers use a variety of channels to find information online.  According to Cross Channel Commerce (pdf), a report from Oracle, “When purchasing a product or service, more than three-quarters of consumers use two or more channels to research and complete the transaction. Nearly one-third of consumers said they use three or more channels.” Optimizing for customer discovery means a 360 degree view of how people prefer to find content.  For search, it means keywords, content and links. For social media it means topics, networks and communities. Knowing how your audience prefers to find information relevant to your business will provide valuable insight for your content marketing, optimization and social media strategy.

Companies can get a good start on finding consumer discovery preferences by using a combination of CRM, web analytics, social media monitoring tools and competitive research tools. Data from those sources relevant to your desired audience and outcomes can fuel a more effective approach to Social SEO & Content Marketing. Monitoring and revisiting those sources can provide an ongoing source of insight for iterative improvements as you implement tactics that are more thoughtful about consumer behaviors.

Optimize for Consumption

Search is just a start. Appearing high in search results or being mentioned as a resource within social media and networks is only part of the journey for customers as they navigate the kind of information that leads to a conclusion. It’s important to understand what content formats and media types a target audience prefers. There’s a lot of “one size fits all” when it comes to content creation and promotion because it’s tough to scale or be efficient otherwise.  But how useful is the exact same content format online as mobile or email? Congruency of message and branding can be important, but it’s not the same thing as using the exact same content in every channel.

Content needs to deliver on the search and social promise. In the way that we research how our customers and target audience prefer to discover content, it’s also effective to identify what formats they prefer for content consumption.  Do they respond best to long form articles (like this one) or a series of shorter form tips? Do they like images or video? Do they respond better to infographics or tabular data?  Are they inspired more by case studies and white papers or demos and webinars? What combination of these content formats and user experiences are most likely to resonate with your audience?

Make the case for better user experience as a content marketing tactic. Web developers and interactive media designers often create personas and use case scenarios for the applications and designs they create. Some of that same insight is appropriate with content marketing. If a brand expects the most effective and efficient outcomes form their online marketing investment, then some understanding of content formats and types is essential.

Optimize for Engagement

High visibility in search is just an initial step in the consumer journey for a solution.  Consumers might perform multiple queries on a search engine as they refine their search and possible solutions. With the increase in consumer use of social media, customers increasingly expect to interact with what they find in search results. Most marketers are focused on the shortest route from discovery to revenue. In the SEO world that means optimizing content for keywords most likely to convert. Of course this assumes you’ve solved the attribution problem and then we have the whole Google encrypted search referrers issue.

Is this a date or the honeymoon? There’s nothing wrong with that but website marketing efforts that are solely focused on converting every visitor to a sale without realizing other consumer needs in the purchasing decision may very well be leaving a lot of money and goodwill for referrals on the table. Social engagement is an increasing influence on the decision to buy. eMarketer has reported that over 50% of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow and Coca-Cola has shared that Facebook fans are 2 times as likely to consume & 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans.

Not every consumer that finds brand product and service content is ready to buy, but if there’s useful content provided to help them appreciate the value of the product/service, they might bookmark or share it. Some sales cycles involve a bit more “content romance” and education.  In the way that consumers expect to find a way to contact the company for a sales or customer service inquiry, they expect to find things like a company blog or social media presence. Engagement runs the spectrum from a Google+ share or blog comment to making a purchase, writing a review or making a specific social network recommendation about a product that was just purchased.

Be wise and optimize for great customer experience. Optimizing for engagement means conversion optimization as much as it means optimizing for a great user experience and social sharing. Engaging and useful content that tells brand stories about customer use of products and services is the kind of content that inspire both sharing and conversion outcomes.

A key question for marketers that want to better optimize for engagement is: What messages, topics and contexts motivate your community to interact, share and convert?

What Next?

Holistic optimization of content is relevant across the brand and customer relationship and lifecycle.  Most companies focus on content marketing optimization solely for customer acquisition and sales, which makes sense because the focus is on revenue and marketing departments are most likely to fund and implement such tactics. But it’s entirely possible for companies to realize additional revenue goals as well as improved reach, brand awareness and thought leadership with a holistic content optimization approach.  Additionally, companies can improve efficiency and effectiveness of other content publishing entities in the organization ranging from Public Relations to Customer Service to Human Resources by making sure their content is optimized for the target audiences that are looking (searching and socializing).

I’ve briefly mentioned the notion of optimizing for consumer content when it comes to Discovery, Consumption and Engagement in the past, through blog posts and industry conference presentations without having a dedicated post to link to. Now I’ve solved that problem and also provided more specific insight into these opportunities for readers to evolve their online marketing.

I know from first hand experience, the temptation to focus solely on popular keywords and popular social channels as a means to drive online sales and engagement is more the norm than an “old way” of doing things. But as more marketers realize the importance of content marketing and a more customer centric approach to connecting holistically to brand audiences, I think an effort to extend the notion of what can be optimized will broaden. At the same time, it will become more focused on customer lifecycle and not just the buying cycle.

What are you doing to optimize more holistically in your search, social media and content marketing mix?

Next Monday I will be publishing another glimpse at Optimize, focusing on a framework for Content Marketing and Social Media Optimization that carries through these principles of Discovery, Consumption and Engagement.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Optimize & Prosper: Discovery, Consumption & Engagement | http://www.toprankblog.com

Optimize & Prosper: Discovery, Consumption & Engagement is a post from: How To Get Backlinks To Your Site