Coca Cola has been part of popular culture for over 100 years and has been called a “Vision Brand“.

Its marketing and communication is purposeful and connects with its audience in a way that makes it stand out from its competitors.

Its mission is not about selling products but to create significant positive change in the world that makes the world a better place.

Coca Cola’s mission statement

• To refresh the world
• To inspire moments of optimism and happiness
• To create value and make a difference

Recently they have realised that their marketing strategy that has worked well for them for decades needed to evolve and as such they are moving from “Creative Excellence” to “Content  Excellence”

Creative excellence has always been at the heart of Coca Cola’s advertising and they have decided that content is now the key to marketing in the 21st century on a social web.

Content for Coca Cola is is now the “Matter” and “Substance” of “Brand Engagement”

So what can we learn from Coca Cola’s new marketing strategy?

Lesson 1: Create Liquid Content

The purpose of content excellence is to create “Ideas” so contagious that they cannot be controlled this is what is called “liquid content”.

On a social web people can easily share ideas, videos and photos on social networks such Facebook.

So create content that begs to be shared whether that be an image, a video or an article.

Lesson 2: Ensure your Content is Linked

The next part of the equation is to ensure that these ideas create content that is innately relevant to

• The business objectives of your company
• The brand
• Your customer interests

This is “Linked” content…. Content that is relevant and connected to the companies goals and brand.

Ensure that the content communicates your message that is congruent with your mission and values.

Lesson 3: Create Conversations

Coca Cola has realised that the consumer creates more stories and ideas than they do so the goal is provoke conversations and then “Act” and “React” to those conversations 365 days of the year.

The new “Distribution Technologies” of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook provide greater connectivity and consumer empowerment than ever before.

Don’t just publish but interact with your audience and tribe.

Lesson 4. Move onto Dynamic Story Telling

On traditional media in the past, story telling was static and a one way street. Television and newspapers shouted at you with no means of interaction.

Coca Cola has come the realisation that to grow their business on the social web they need to move on from “One Way Story Telling” to “Dynamic Story Telling”

This means you need to allow the story to evolve as you interact and converse with your customers. You need to converse with your customers in many media formats and social networks.

Storytelling has moved on from static and synchronous to multifaceted, engaged and spreadable.

Lesson 5: Be Brave and Creative with Your Content Creation

Part of the new Coca Cola content strategy is applying a 70/20/10 Investment principle to creating “Liquid content“.

• 70% of your content should be low risk. It pays the rent and is your bread and butter marketing (should be easy to do and only consumes 50% of your time)
• 20% of your content creation should innovate off what works.
• 10% of your content marketing is high risk ideas that will be tomorrows 70% or 20%…. be prepared to fail

This provides a blueprint regarding moving on from just developing white papers, to trying some content that is more visual, courageous and engaging in web world that has embraced multimedia and interactive content.

The 30 Second TV Ad is no Longer King

Coca Cola has come to the conclusion that the world has moved on from the 30 second TV ad. So has the the Old Spice brand and many other businesses who are embracing social media as part of their marketing strategy.

We need to move towards a genuine consumer collaboration model that builds buzz and adopts a more iterative approach to content creation.

Learning how to fuel the conversations, act and interact has never been more important.

Consumers ideas, creativity and conversations have been set free with the evolution of social networks, learning to leverage and wrangle those conversations to increase your brand visibility is now a vital part of your marketing.

What About You?

Do you create conversations with your marketing? How many people are talking about your stories on Facebook?

Is your content liquid, linked and multi-faceted?

More Reading

• 10 Reasons Why “Liquid” Content Should be Included in Your Social Media Marketing
• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content?
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter+
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by KB35

Marketing in the past often consisted of one off campaigns that didn’t build a relationship with your customer or prospect.

It was about the “deal” …closing the sale. It was sometimes called “Hit and Run” marketing.

Content Marketing is about creating compelling, contagious content and sharing it freely on social networks and blogs.

It is about building a relationship with your prospects and customers that builds credibility and trust that turns propsects into buyers and customers into high value repeat buyers.

The initial goal is to obtain the buyers permission to receive that content whether it is a subscription via an opt-in email or a Facebook  social opt-in ” like” that delivers information into the Facebook news and “Timeline” stream.

Creating content is time consuming and a creative challenge.

8 Content Marketing Challenges

These are the challenges among many.

1. Finding inspiration and ideas for the content
2. Creating it
3. Making it relevant
4. Resourcing it
5. Managing it
6. Monitoring it
7. Measuring it
8. Making it “Liquid” and Contagious

Sometimes you need some inspiration and you need to try some new ideas and different media that may provide a nudge to try something different and creative outside your comfort zone.

As Steve Jobs says “Stay Foolish”

The Power of Multi-Media

Many of us still don’t think about alternative media to text and articles because online video is still in its infancy. YouTube has only been with us for 7 years and in the world of business and brand marketing this is only a “blip”.

We need to “switch on” our multimedia mind and consider other media rather than just words to get our message out to the world that wants and demands multi-media.

Images and photos are much more likely to be shared than an article or a white paper. Videos or infographics will be shared at high velocity compared the the humble “written word” that have been with us for millenia.

Idea 1: Include Images and Photos

There has been a significant evolutionary shift on the social web in the last 12 months as marketers and social media network startups have realised the growing power of visual content.

By the end of 2011 the number of photos being uploaded to Facebook had reached 250 million a day.

This number hasn’t gone unnoticed and  has led to 3 key and noticeable events and changes.

1. The “Success” of Pinterest
2. Google+ being launched with the user interface designed to display photos, and images in high defintion and in a large format.
3. Facebook responding with the Facebook “Timeline” designed to give images and photos greater prominence. In fact you can now “feature” an image in a bigger size. Expect this change to be migrated to Brand “pages” in the next 6 months.

Photos and images drive high engagement on Facebook and if I look at my top ranked content on my Facebook page  and measuring the virality index using the Facebook “Insights” tool, the top 10 are all images or photos.

Some are cartoons that are relevant and congruent with my other content (written or visual) and with questions are used to drive conversations, stimulate  and create stories.

There are photos that may reveal the human side.

The marketer needs to embrace this and work out ways they can use images and photos in their social media and content marketing that

• Increase Facebook “likes”
• Inspire comments
• Drive sharing

Also don’t forget to just have some fun!

Fashion Brands such as Threadless use images in clever ways to survey customers on their Facebook page that ensure that the garments they produce will be successful driven by the crowd sourced voting through “likes”. The garment with the most likes is the one that is manufactured!

The indirect benefit of increased engagement on Facebook with likes and comments is that it increases your Facebook EdgeRank with your fans and so improves the flow of your “Page” updates into their Timeline.

Idea 2: Create a Contagious Online Video

One good example of a contagious video content is Dynamite Surfing created in 2007. It contained all the 4 main elements that were needed for it to become contagious and viral

According to Brent Coker  a marketing professor the four key elements required for a video to go viral are:

1. Congruency – The themes of a video must be congruent with people’s pre-existing knowledge of the brand it is advertising.
2. Emotive strength – Creating strong emotions is essential if you want to ensure you are giving your video the best chance of becoming viral and the more extreme the emotions, the better.
3. Network involvement – Videos must be relevant to a large network of people and the larger the better, some examples of large networks are college students or office workers.
4. “Paired meme synergy” – These memes can be elements such as “Voyeur” or “Unexpectedness” that were contributing factors in the success of the “Dynamite Surfing” video

The Dynamite surfing video tapped into all 4 key elements.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So how can you harness these elements to assist in giving your video the best chance of becoming viral?

Idea 3: Design a “Shareable” Video Graphic

Eric Qualmann is well known for his social media revolution video graphics which like “infographics” take numbers, facts and figures and make it entertaining and easy viewing via a video format. These concepts can be applied to many industry sectors.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Idea 4: Use the Hottest Trend in Content – Infographics!

Infographics has emerged in the last 12 months as one of the most popular and shareable forms of social content.

What are infographics?

“Infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge that present complex information quickly and clearly”

The internet and social web are a firehose of information and Infographics is one of the appealing and efficient ways of sharing it.

What are the major types of Infographics and applications?

1. Statistics
2. Concepts
3. Business models and processes
4. Cartoons
5. Information
6. Timelines

What sort of Infographic could you create that would be shareable in your industry?

Idea 5: Create a Well Structured Blog Post or eBook

Creating a blog post, article, whitepaper or eBook is a vital part of your content marketing strategy and for B2B companies is the foundational element.

Giving it the best chance that it will be shared and talked about is the biggest challenge.

What are some of the basics that need to be considered when creating text content?

1. Awesome headlines – This is needed to “Tempt and Tease” the person to click on the link and read your “Tweet” or find out more about your Facebook update!
2. Great writing – Be a story teller, find your voice
3. Good Structure – Sub Titles, bullet Points and reasonable readable fonts
4. Educational – How To’s
5. Informative – News, Facts and Figures
6. Visual – Include images in your articles and posts as well as infographics, photos or even cartoons from time to time

Here are 4 great blogs that provide examples of good articles writing but have different styles and  strategies but are all effective

• Social Media  Examiner
• Copyblogger Blog
• Hubspot Blog
• Zen Habits

What About You?

How do you use images or photos in your content and social media marketing? What do you find works for you in your content marketing.

What could you do better?

More Reading

• 10 Reasons Why “Liquid” Content Should be Included in Your Social Media Marketing
• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content?
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter+
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

If you want to get serious about marketing for your business or organisation the foundation of any focused effort is creating unique and inspiring content to publish and promote that educates, informs and entertains.

Content in fact should do much more than that if you are to succeed fast, far and large, at marketing your business and organisation.

The  ”ultimate marketing goal” is to make content or ” ideas” so contagious that they cannot be controlled.

This is “liquid content”

The Era of Distribution Technologies

Coca Cola, whose ads have delighted consumers for decades have decided to move from “Creative” excellence” to “Content” excellence as they transition into the  era of “distribution technologies” that provide greater connectivity and consumer empowerment than ever before.

Distribution technologies is another term for social media networks that allow content and ideas to spread through the power of sharing and self publishing.

Other terms sometimes used to describe this paradigm shift in marketing for this marketing approach are

• Inbound marketing
• Content Marketing
• Pull marketing

These all provide a description for an alternative to traditional marketing that is all about interruption marketing including telemarketing, cold calling and traditional advertising that pushes messages “at” you.

Technology now allows us to block calls, skip channels on your TV or record and watch later.

Content Marketing is not just for B2B

The secret behind content marketing that is published and promoted on social networks including blogs, Facebook and Twitter and other social media channels is attracting loyal tribes of readers, viewers and ultimately customers.

In the past content marketing has been perceived as the domain of of businesses that sell to businesses.

Coca Cola, the ultimate consumer marketing brand in the “FMCG” sector (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) has a new marketing strategy which is the core and kernel of  its “2020 marketing vision“.

It is now positioning itself as striving to provide “content excellence”  in place of its previous objective of “creative excellence”

The ultimate goal….to create “Liquid content“!

They see the future as being content as the “matter” and “substance” of “brand engagement” and “conversation”.

This is quite a change for one of the leaders in consumer marketing

Click here to view the embedded video.

To achieve this it must be the “worlds most engaging content”

This allows you to attract and pull customers to you.

Ten Reasons “Why” you Should do Content Marketing

1. To create online buzz and virality through “liquid content”. Content so contaigous that it cannot be controlled -  This is the purpose of content excellence
2. If a personal brand then awesome content positions you as a passionate thought leader that makes a difference.
3. If a business brand then insightful and positions your company as an expert in its field
4. Improves search engine results – Google and search engines love new fresh content that is published and it creates “search engine credibility” when content is linked to by other websites and blogs
5. Creates an online asset (“an information annuity that keeps giving” – Jay Baer)
6. It educates, informs  and entertains
7. It works 24/7 while you sleep, year in and year out
8. Provides content that can be shared through publishing on “shareable” social media network channels.
9. Creates loyal raving fans and followers that money cannot buy
10. Creates engagement and builds relationships with customers and potential customers

Content should be considered “as” important as a bricks and mortar asset that you own.

Content is the real power asset of the future in a “knowledge and information economy”

How is your content?, is it “Liquid“?

More Reading

• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content?
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter+
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by Hannah Bonanza

In 1997 the first social network was created called sixdegrees.com and was the forerunner of the modern social networks that started to gain traction in 2002.

The first of the modern next generation social media networks that followed in 2002, had the the funky name of Friendster, which to my ear sort of sounds like a hybrid cross between a “Friend” and a “Hamster”.

As with any good idea it was quickly copied (“ripped off” is another phrase that comes to mind) and MySpace was created and launched in 2003.

This social media network dominated for the next 5 years as teenagers became addicted to the interactive and multimedia rich, self publishing web platform that allowed them to share music, content and information with their friends.

The addictive power of the social network was on display to many parents as dinner tables around the world were deserted by teens after gulping down their meat and potatoes, as they rushed off to their computers to continue their “MySpacing”

In 2008 Facebook surpassed MySpace and became the dominant social network.

Since then we have seen the rise of the “smart phone” connecting people to the web without wires or a desk bound computer.

This mobile social web has allowed everyone to become a publisher no matter where they are.

The Information Tsunami

At a conference in 2010 Eric Schmidt the then CEO of Google stated

“Every two days, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”

This information includes content such as emails, tweets, Facebook updates, Photos, YouTube video uploads and text messages.

Social networks have largely contributed to this tidal wave of  information and content

• Videos Uploaded to YouTube – 48 hours of Video uploaded every minute and YouTube receives 3 billion views per day
• Photos Uploaded to Facebook – 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day
• Tweets on Twitter – 200 million tweets per day
• Email – Over 100 trillion emails a year or more than 300 billion emails a day
• Text Messages in 2011 – more than 7 trillion

Many teens are averaging over 3,000 text messages per month.

Much of this is content is not of great quality in fact it is estimated that 89% of all emails are spam.

So as a Social Media marketer, business owner or CEO, how do you harness, focus and take advantage of this information and content “Tsunami”

Is Traditional Marketing Broken?

If you want to get serious about social media marketing for your business or organisation the foundation of any focused effort is having great content to publish and promote.

Other terms for this marketing approach are

• Inbound marketing
• Content Marketing
• Pull marketing

These all provide a description for an alternative paradigm to traditional marketing that is all about interruption marketing including telemarketing, cold calling and traditional advertising that pushes messages “at” you.

Technology now allows us to block calls, skip channels on your TV or record and watch later.

The secret behind content marketing that is published and promoted on social networks including blogs, Facebook and Twitter is attracting loyal tribes of readers and viewers.

This allows you to attract and pull customers to you that will engage, read and view and then buy.

The 10 Commandments of Content

Here are 10 building blocks that you need to include in your plans for marketing your business on an increasingly social and mobile web.

1. Get Focused

Who are you speaking to? Provide content that communicates with your customers and prospects in a language they understand.

2. Create Goals for your Content

What are you trying to achieve– capture emails, provide leads, nuture prospects or improve your visibility to search engines.

Do you want to make the content so entertaining that it makes your brand memorable and remarkable and do you want the message to become viral. A funny video may achieve this.

When designing your content make sure it is not content for contents sake, but is assisting you in growing your business

3. Become a Publisher

The democratisation of publishing and marketing means that you now don’t have to wait for your local printer to print off 10,000 marketing brochures and then organise them to be letter boxed .

Now you can write a blog article, email it to your “opt in” subscribers, tweet the link to your Twitter followers and promote it on Facebook.

4. Solve Problems

Everyone has problems and helping your customers and prospects solve them will take them from interested readers to raving fans. Write content that shows people how to fix their problems that are relevant to your industry and market.

5. Include Calls to Action

Don’t forget to include calls to action with your content. It could be to subscribe, share or register for an eBook or whitepaper.

Creating small calls to action will lead prospects towards the ultimate goal for any business and that is to put some money down or place an order.

6. Talk like a Human

Corporate speak was invented by copy writers but a while back people started switching off.

Being “Authentic” is the new black and being real is the “new marketing” that is a message that cuts through

7. Show What Works

Case studies that “show” how your product is used are much more effective than “telling“. Create content that showcases how other customers are using your product and services to achieve success.

Nothing like a bit of “social proof” to create credibility, trust and action.

8. Have some Fun

The original 10 commandments didn’t mention having fun but it helps enormously to present you and your company as having a sense of humour. This doesn’t mean making every piece of content a comedy act but lighten up and show your other side.

Orabrush YouTube Video – This companies use of humour and social media helped them sell 1 million toothbrushes that reduces bad breath.

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Publish Everywhere

Publishing was expensive and just placing an ad in your local newspaper could cost you thousands.

Now you can publish on dozens of social networks at no cost within minutes. Despite there being thousands of social networks, publish on the social media channels that are used by your customers.

Make your content ubiquitous – place it everywhere from hub (blog or website) to outposts (Facebook, YouTube and Twitter) where your customers hangout!

10. Create Multi-Media

Not everyone likes reading, in fact the younger generation generally reads and views content in many formats including online videos on YouTube. The social web is about rich multi-media that engages interest and communicates visually and not just the “written word“.

Publish your content in several different formats and media types that your customers will like and enjoy. Some examples of these are video, audio (podcast), photos, whitepaper, info-graphics and eBooks.

I know I have 10 commandments listed here but I am sure that you may have discovered some more.

How have you used and optimised your content for your social networks and marketing?

Look forward to hearing your stories.

More Reading

• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content?
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter+
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by ideacreamanuelaPps

Do you have traffic to your website or blog but they are not turning into customers? Do you have plenty of leads and prospects but they are not buying?

Traffic is one thing, turning that traffic into sales is another.

So how do you convert those leads and traffic so they become loyal and  paying customers?

Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with your leads and moving them down your sales funnel until they are ready to become a customer. When a new visitor arrives at your website, there are two ways to seize the opportunity and guide them to becoming customers:

Two Ways to Make a Prospect a Customer

1. Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing starts by collecting contact information in exchange for something the visitor deems of value, but with little risk. Often, this entails some form of information or product trial intended to help solve the visitor’s problem.

Email addresses, RSS subscriptions and similar methods of engagement all serve to keep a visitor’s memory and impression of a company or product at the forefront. Later, the contact information provided offers you the ability to educate, inspire, or otherwise engage a potential new customer.

The goal is to encourage both return visits and eventually, sales. Always remember, lead nurturing is all about relationships.

2. Behavioral Marketing

Behavioral marketing collects information about what the visitor does while on the site, and intuitively engages the visitor before he or she clicks away. For example, a visitor might land on your home page, see a button about a product of interest and click to learn more. Imagine if her activities could automatically produce targeted messages announcing special incentives, additional useful information, tips or other enticements.

Behavioral marketing uses your visitors behavior, both on and off the website, to select just the right message, at just the right time.

• If a lead should mention a competitor in a tweet on Twitter, for example, or use specific keywords, you can automatically send that lead a Direct Tweet.
• If they download a document but does not return to your site within a set time frame, an automatic email goes out asking her to review the document.

Each of these examples serves as a way to engage with leads and bring them back to your website.

Both opportunities can evaporate in the blink of an eye without the proper systems in place. Together, lead nurturing and behavioral marketing help increase conversions and provide the building blocks needed to move leads along from visitor through to paying customer.

3 Points Necessary to Gain a New Customer

Nearly every marketing expert will agree, for a visitor to become a customer, you must cover three basic points. Those points are “know“, “like” and “trust“. In other words, before expecting a visitor to buy or invest money, you must cover all 3 points.

1. The Visitor Needs to “Know” – Provide an opportunity for the visitor to learn about the company, product or service (know)
2. The Visitor Needs to “Like” – Help the visitor identify with, relate to, or see a need or usefulness for a particular company, product or service (like.)
3. The Visitor Needs to “Trust” – Help the visitor come to trust the company, the product and most importantly, his or her decision to risk money on it (trust.)

Lead Nurturing Automates the 3 Points

Offering up an email address, subscribing to a newsletter, following on social media, all of these actions demonstrate a visitor’s interest. The visitor has taken the initiative to engage, like starting a face-to-face conversation. With automation tools, you can continue the engagement in a hands-free environment, while still participating in the conversation.

Automatic emails, new content notifications, RSS feeds and social media updates can all be automated to deliver valuable information to previously engaged visitors on a regular basis. Again, the visitor is not taking a large risk, only learning more and becoming more familiar with a company, product or service. In essence, automatic tools take over the 3 point process needed to move a lead along.

The Power of Automation

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of lead nurturing is the ability to automate. The effort to create an environment that encourages conversions, at least on the part of the business, is expended once, yet repeatedly produces results. It is the equivalent of producing a TV commercial once and replaying it dozens, hundreds or even thousands of times for each individual lead. When done well, the process does not even feel automated for the visitor. Each instance of engagement, such as a series of informational or training emails, provides a gentle nudge towards becoming a paying customer without the business exerting additional effort. Work once, reap the benefits over and over again.

Feedback and Forwarding

Not only does lead nurturing provide the opportunity to move one visitor toward becoming a paying customer, but also provides feedback and referral opportunities. Business owners and key management personnel can see what visitors do, how they respond, what messages they open and what links are clicked. This provides a wealth of opportunity to tweak the process to best meet the needs of your target market.

So you need to:

• Test new content
• Experiment with targeted or segmented promotions
• Request feedback on services or engage customers in the decision-making process.

Social media sharing, email forwarding and similar actions of current leads can also provide a plethora of forwarding opportunities. Produce outstanding content, send it out to your leads and those leads can potentially market your information for you. People, by their very nature, are prone to sharing information and solutions they feel meet the needs of their friends, family, co-workers, supervisors and colleagues.

Lead nurturing, when executed properly, can serve to encourage sales as well as generate more leads through forwarding and sharing.

Build Loyalty by Listening and Responding

How many times have you bought a product and loved it, but couldn’t remember where you bought it? How many times have you thought a product could be improved, but didn’t say anything because you didn’t feel someone would listen?

With the right lead nurturing system, you will never leave your customers feeling like this. Staying in front of previous customers through continued lead nurturing helps them remember how valuable you have been to them in the past.

Giving customers a platform on which they can regularly interact gives them a voice. It also provides you with a means to hear what they have to say and respond in a timely manner with improved products or processes, more interesting content or a better information delivery schedule. Do they want to know more, hear from you less often, or express an idea for a new feature?

Lead nurturing helps provide the means they need to stay engaged with you and your offerings.

Shorten the Time Between Initial Contact and the Sale

According to Market2Lead, the sales cycle is nearly 25% shorter for nurtured leads. That means a visitor engaged in immediate contact through lead nurturing will risk money on a product or service in three-quarters the time as a traditional lead. Faster sales cycles means increased revenues and less effort on the part of sales staff. A warm lead, as any good salesman knows, is easier to convert than a cold lead.

Is Cold Calling a Waste of Time?

Genius.com reports that the top marketing misalignment occurs when vendors rely on cold calls and sales personnel in the early stages of lead development, when leads rely on their own research and low-pressure engagement. Less than 10% of customers surveyed reported buying from a company as a result of cold calls. In fact, buyers listed vendor websites and white papers or ebooks as two of the top three influences that helped them feel confident enough to make a purchase.

Lead nurturing combines these influential marketing tools to help maximize lead conversions.

What It All Means

Given the value of lead nurturing, you have to ask yourself if your current strategies are working.

Look at your current website statistics. How many of your visitors click away after reading just one or two pages?

Consider what might happen if you took a popular knowledge article or white paper that currently enjoys a large percentage of your traffic, expanded it to a short ebook, then offered it as a download in exchange for a visitor’s contact information? A good example of an ebook is “20 Ways to Generate Leads From Inbound Marketing”

Now you know what inbound marketing could do for your business, and start putting those ideas into action today!

Guest Author: Sookie Shuen is the community manager at Tomorrow People, an inbound marketing consultancy. She offers free advice and updates based on her experience of helping businesses evolve through a five step inbound marketing methodology. She handles all online and digital community activities based around Zoober Inbound Marketing philosophy. Read her blog at www.tomorrow-people.com/blog

More Reading:

• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content
• Does Twitter or Facebook Drive More Traffic to Your Blog?
• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by Shaheer Shahid

Creating a website and an on-line presence for your brand was an easy decision a decade ago. All you had to do was get a website company to design and develop your website add a  few lines of text for each page and then “set and forget”. The static website was the status quo and content very rarely changed.

Fast forward to today and websites are dynamic and interactive on-line brand portals where you  need to actively optimize for search engines so potential customers will find you with key words and phrases.

You need to respond to comments on the corporate blog and engage with your customers on your other web properties such as Facebook and Twitter.

White papers need to be created and published and eBooks are the norm especially in knowledge industries.

Embedded on-line videos are now considered as a standard feature of a website and a corporate branded YouTube channel  is becoming essential in your content marketing strategy.

So content needs to be added regularly in a variety of  media formats. Brands are becoming publishers.

Content Needs Marketing

The reality is that creating that content is just part of the work of optimizing your on-line assets and by just publishing you have only just started and the real work now has to be done….marketing your content and sharing it should be part of that marketing strategy!

Lee Odden of  the Top Rank Blog has created this diagram that reflects the content marketing trilogy that highlights activities and media that should be an essential part of the mix of optimizing your on-line brand.

The three essential keys to marketing your content is optimizing your on-line properties for discovery through search, social and email. Providing a variety of multi-media content that caters to the viewing and reading preferences for your audience and finally make it easy to share.

How to Make Sharing Easy

I don’t know how many times I go to a website or blog and want to share the content but the website design makes it hard to share. There are no “Tweet”, LinkedIn or Facebook “share” buttons to make it a no brainer for me to share it with my followers, fans and connections.

Some recent research reveals the impact and importance of adding a few buttons to your blog.

Brightedge conducted a detailed social share analysis of 4 million randomly sample tweets and discovered that sites that had adopted the “Tweet” button drove almost 7 times more link mentions(sharing) on average than sites that did not have the button.

This one simple feature has the potential to put your content sharing on steroids and accelerate brand discovery.

Top Brands are Ignoring Optimization for Sharing

The research also discovered that nearly half of the top 10,000 websites do not have social sharing plugins.

If this is the case for the top websites and blogs I would suggest  that the smaller companies and organisations participation rate on including sharing buttons would be significantly lower.

When I added a “Tweet” button to my blog the increase in content sharing and traffic was significant and instantaneous.

In a lot of cases uploading a social plugin and including a “Tweet” button on your blog is a 5-10 minute exercise especially if you have a WordPress blog.

Do you have social sharing buttons on your website or blog?

More Reading

• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter+
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by Shira Golding

Sharing on a social web drives millions of hits for viral videos, motivates people to email humorous articles  and makes content spread at the speed of a “click”.

Humans have always shared.. …it is in our nature but the information age has accelerated that sharing. It is estimated that every 2 days we create as much information as we did since the dawn of time till 2003.

In 60 seconds we find and share vast amounts of content in all its different types of media.

• Perform nearly 700,000 searches
• Upload 600 videos to YouTube
• Share 80,000 Facebook wall posts

We share more content, from more sources with more people than ever before.

Sharing is Powerful

Sharing is powerful online as it is seen as credible and trustworthy and we will believe our friends before a marketing message from a brand.

The New York Times in conjunction with Customer Insight Group and Latitude Research  has released a study which reveals the psychology of sharing. This is first of its kind inquiry into motivations of why people share.

The study wanted to find why campaigns such as “Will it Blend” or the “Old Spice” marketing were so successful and why they were shared.

It looked at why people share online, discovered 6 personas of sharers and what are key factors that influence sharing.  These are all important to marketers to understand why their content is passed around online

5 Motivations for Sharing

According to the study sharing is driven by these 5 motivators.

1. To bring valuable and entertaining content to others

2. To define ourselves to others

3. To grow and nourish our relationships

4. Self -fulfillment

5. To get the word out about causes and brands

In essence it is about relationships both weak and strong.

The Six Personas of Online Sharers

The study also revealed 6 types of personas

1. Altruists

These people were found to be helpful, reliable and used email as their primary sharing medium

2. Careerists

LinkedIn was their primary social network and were professionally and career minded and shared ideas on how their company can help their customers.

3. Boomerangs

The boomerangs shared to get a response. They wanted validation and were likely to use Twitter and Facebook.

4. Hipsters

They were the more creative type and wanted to be seen as a leading edge. They were less likely to use email and saw sharing as part of who they are.

5. Connectors

This persona valued making plans and were seen as thoughtful. Preferred communication for sharing was email and Facebook

6. Selectives

They only shared if they believed the information would be relevant for the receiver of the information. They preferred email as their sharing channel.

Key Factors to Influence Sharing

As a marketer these are the primary elements that you need address if you want your ideas and content shared online

• Appeal to customers motivation to connect with each other – not just your brand
• Trust is the cost of entry of getting shared
• Keep it simple and it will get shared – it won’t get muddled
• Appeal to their sense of humor
• Embrace a sense of urgency

What was revealing about the study was that despite the hype with sharing on social media, email was still vital in sharing online.

What was also discovered that the act of sharing facilitated a bonus for the sharer with better retention of information.

What have you shared lately?

The cry of “Content is King”  has been a rallying call for bloggers and on-line publishers for years.

Creating and marketing your content is now as easy as typing text and uploading images and videos and then hitting the publishing button.

This has been facilitated by the advent of social networks and blogging software that facilitate fast efficient multi-media publishing.

The reality is that everyone is now a publisher as social media has provided easy to use tools which has put a personal printing press in everyone’s hand.

We are not only creating but sharing this content on desktops, laptops, ipads and smart phones to our Facebook and Twitter streams. The mobility of the smart phones has accelerated this publishing revolution that allows us to share anytime and anywhere as the impulse takes us.

The more engaging the content whether it be video or text the more likely it is to be shared.

The “Content” Explosion

To put some perspective on the scale of this on-line publishing phenomenon here are some facts and figures

• In 2010 on Facebook alone there were 30 billion images published by millions of “authors”
• 5 Billion Photos published on Flickr by 2010
• YouTube figures reveal that 48 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute as of May, 2011
• It is estimated that over 330 million blog posts are published every year

Content is what drives people to subscribe to blogs, search on YouTube and play on Facebook. Internet users are looking for information and content that

• Informs
• Educates
• Solves problems
• Entertains

The Thirst for Knowledge

In a knowledge economy the thirst for information and meaningful content is never ending.

If you dig deeper into the term “social media” you will be reminded that content can be any type of media and format. Media in all its formats that was previously hidden on personal computers or buried in files offline can be published to a variety of  social media platforms that host and make public your previously unpublished media. These include social media platforms such as Flickr for photos and images as well as Slideshare for presentations such as your last Powerpoint workshop.

I often hear questions from new and aspiring bloggers about what should you publish and how do you find the inspiration for the content. It isn’t difficult if you start to let the imagination run free.

20 Types of Content Types and Formats that Engage

1.Videos

The development of inexpensive video cameras with high definition and now included in smart phones as a standard feature allow you to record impromptu interviews or capture presentations and keynote speakers. The mantra to keep top of mind is to “think like a publisher”

What can you video and publish?

1. Formal interviews which are arranged in advance with prepared questions and answers
2. Casual impromptu video interviews at a conference
3. Presentations either in part or full and full edited or unedited
4. Video products such as clothes or items that you can publish to your on line store that show the product and how it can be adjusted or worn
5. “How To” videos that instruct and teach
6. Grab your smart phone and obtain people’s feedback or comments as they happen about your product, service or store. This will provide authentic and real testimonials that money cannot buy

2. Presentations

Slideshare is the primary site to upload your presentations and with over 50 million monthly visitors and 90 million pageviews it now ranks as one of the top 250 websites in the world. It also supports document sharing.

1. Share PowerPoint and open office presentations privately with colleagues and clients
2. Share publicly with the world
3. Publish documents from MSOffice, OpenOffice and iWorks
4. Upload PDF’s that educate and inform

Also make sure that the presentations and PDF’s are well structured for scanning and skimming with good headings and subtitles.

3. Images

King of image uploading is Flickr but other platforms to consider is Google’s Picasa (now included in Google+)  and of course Facebook. High definition images that are well produced can provide high engagement.

1. Images that should be publicly shared do not just have to be photos but can be creative designs in high definition that visually present a concept
2. Photos at events demonstrates active participation in your industry and can provide high credibility through association
3. Product images that display your products in all their high definition glorious detail
4. Appropriate photos of staff at work and at play can provide a personal insight to a company that humanizes companies which is vital on a social web

4. Text Content

Text content is one of the oldest of formats since the pen and pencil was invented but still maintains its importance as a primary publishing medium.

What are some highly engaging text formats that help you sell your products and services?

1. White papers – these are typically topical reports that demonstrate thought leadership vital for prospects and buyers and are generally 8-12 pages in length
2. eBooks – Sometimes called a whitepaper on steroids can be 20-100 pages in length and can be free (in the short form) and maybe sold in the longer format. Presents complex information that is visually attractive
3. Case Studies – Customer and readers love case studies that validate strategies and tactics. They are typically 1-2 pages long and with the narrative structure of the a story and are based upon real life events.
4. Enewsletter – Email is a very powerful form of marketing with a list that you own and people have opted into a subscription. It can be purely text based or you can create HTML formats that includes images, links and optimized for a social web making it easy for people to share with their friends

5. Audio

Audio and radio has not died but evolved and podcasts and audio are still widely used. Podcasts can also be very effective when packaged together with a Slideshare presentation and a PDF

1. Podcasts: Pre-recorded presentations either by one person or a goup that dicuss a topic that educates and solves problems for your listeners
2. Live on-line radio shows with interviews of experts

This list is not exhaustive but will provide you with some tips that will maybe inspire you to engage in many media types that communicate with your readers , prospects and customers.

Sometimes bundling a range of formats for the same information will allow you to reach a broader audience that a singular media type cannot.

What media and formats do you use for your  content marketing and what is most effective for you?

Source of Facts and Figures: Royal Pingdom

Image by dirkshaw

I am looking out the window of my office seeing buildings with many dark windows, behind those tinted panes of glass are people working and living and they all have problems and challenges…every one.

They don’t care about you or your company all they care about is finding a solution to their  daily life challenges and issues.

Problems come to people in many forms and it creates  nagging and ongoing pain and dissonance that they wake up with every day and it bounces around in their heads as they toss and turn at night.  The pain could be that they are overweight or they don’t have enough money, their business sales are slow or their relationship is so distracting that they can’t concentrate at work. People just want those problems to go away and find solutions to them so they can enjoy life.

Business is about solving problems for people not telling them that your product is the best widget ever invented because they won’t believe you..give them a hint or a tip for a solution to their pain and they will keep turning up to your website or blog to find out more.

So the main question to ask is… what answers and solutions can I provide today to prospective clients that will ease their pain?

Some of the specific questions that you should be asking yourself are

1. Who are you selling to?
2. What are their goals and aspirations?
3. What are their problems?
4. What media do they rely upon for answers to their problems?
5. How can we reach them?
6. What things are important to them?
7. What words and phrases do they use?
8. What are they really buying from you?
9. What images and multi-media appeal to each persona?

So stop marketing and start solving problems in words, images and videos that they understand, are easy to find in places they are, whether that be online or offline.

You might find that they will tell their friends about you on Facebook or in an email…now that is marketing.

Image by Martino!

As I have scanned and read the 100 plus blogs in my Google Reader subscriptions over the past week these are five articles that have stood out.

1. 10 Steps To Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy

This article is fromLee Oddens Blog titled “Top Rank Blog” which always has great posts and is worth subscribing to if you have an interest in social media, SEO and inbound marketing. He says

“The rising importance of optimizing one’s digital assets came out of Google and other search engines’ decision to start including information and file types from other sources than their main search index. Some queries trigger search results that go beyond web pages, MS Office docs and PDF files to include sources such as images, blog posts, news, video thumbnails, books and shopping.

While many SEOs were responding to the changed landscape of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and optimizing for other file types, many others were already optimizing holistically under the premise of, “What can be searched on can be optimized“.

Most companies are not wired to create the variety of content that can achieve top visibility on search engines. In most cases, search engine optimization efforts are focused on content and digital assets that are currently in place.  Being able to get more marketing impact out of existing content is as much a driver of digital asset optimization as it is a part of a holistic strategy that matches up with the opportunities presented by an ever changing search results page”.. read more

2. The Personal Branding Content Lifecycle

Personal branding is so much easier now with the ease of blogging and being able to promote your content with social media. This article by Chad Levitt on Dan Scwabels blog (which is always full of great tips and insights on how to create a personal brand) looks at how important content is as part of a personal brand creation and marketing strategy. He says..

“To create a credible and influential personal brand requires that you create remarkable content. Here is a flow chart that details the different stages of the personal branding content life cycle. Use it to help you understand the different stages and how to use each stage more effectively as you create the brand called you.

Create Content:

Creating content is the first step in the content life cycle. Content can be blog posts, interviews, video blog posts, mash-ups, wikis, podcasts, eBooks, webinars, linkfests, etc. We live in a world that is thirsty for great content. If you want to get ahead with your personal brand you need to see yourself in the business of creating content regardless of what industry you are in. There is a market for everything and eyeballs waiting for their attention to be grabbed“…read more

3. Top Trends in Mobile

Mobile data is going to continue to be one of the fastest  growing areas in the online and digital space and cannot be ignored in developing and creating an online presence either personally or for your corporate brand. This article is from Mashable  one of the top social media blogs in the world..

“Overall, the trend of convergence between mobile devices and the internet not only continues, but is accelerating. We saw lots of shiny new phones of course, but we’re also hearing a lot more about environments like the car becoming increasingly connected. Tablets and smartbooks add to the array of devices we’ll need data plans for, and cell carriers will need to begin addressing a heterogeny of devices and platforms that single consumers need to get connected. Read on for some of the bigger trends the wireless industry is concerning itself with today and down the next few years of the mobile roadmap”... read more

4. Video Is The Fastest Growing Website Feature For Small Business

The other content trend in social media and SEO  that you ignore at your marketing peril with over 25 billion online videos being viewed in the United States a month is online video. This article by Reel SEO highlights online video and its marketing importance for small business…

“Indeed, small businesses have been racing to get their websites video-capable over the past year - and those same small businesses are spending more on paid search advertising.  According to a new report, small business advertisers spent more than twice as much on paid search and nearly 4 times as many of them reported having video on their website vs. a year ago.

Local online advertising firm WebVisible just released the second installment of their study, “State of Small Business Online Advertising,” which examines trends among their nearly 12000 small business advertisers and represents around $22M in Q4 2009 U.S. small business advertiser spending.

While there are a lot of nuggets of data about where SMBs are headed with online advertising, I thought I would take some time to highlight the aspects of the data that most apply to our readers: video, search, and conversion”…read more

5. Scaling Social Media

A lot of people say social media marketing is free. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the platforms are free but the time and resources required take time and expertise and these are not without cost. As social media marketing matures how to scale the effort is new territory. In this article Chris Brogan one of the top social media bloggers and authors globally touches on what are some of the considerations in taking social media marketing to the next level….

“If you’re a company considering using social media tools for business communications, marketing, sales, etc, you’re no doubt wondering about how much time it will add to your already busy day, especially if you’re a smaller business. The answer varies depending on how you’re using it, how many platforms you’re engaging, your goals, and more. But we can still walk through some potential recipes and give you a sense of what will take time, how you might budget for it, and how to consider your engagement efforts. From a business perspective (and you can stretch this for non-profits and other organizations), it comes down to a mix of prioritizing and satisfying customer needs. Here are my thoughts on scaling social media.”

What are the top 5 social media articles you have read this week?