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5 Reasons Content Curation Is Important to Your Marketing Strategy

February 25th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

While content creation has gotten a lot of buzz and attention over the past year, content curation – gathering valuable and relevant news, trends, tips, and advice and then sharing it – is just as important.

Why? Here are 5 reasons content curation is important to your marketing strategy:

There’s a lot of good content getting lost online, including yours
Curation is a no-brainer way to supplement and complement your original content
Curating the best of what’s out there is a huge value-add for your audience
Curation positions you as a go-to expert on your chosen topic
You become a news hub, with people coming back for fresh content

You don’t have to be big company to curate content. Thanks to the folks at Curata, I discovered 4 examples of small business content curation from their 2013 Look Book Ebook:

Oregon Wine Newsroom

To keep in touch with and promote local wineries, the Oregon Wine Board started curating all Oregon wine-related info, including events. It’s a perfect way to keep winery information in front of local businesses, tourists, wine bloggers and the media.

Everything Tile and Stone

East Coast Tile’s site focuses on tools and trends in the tile and stone industry, which is a great example of how to curate an entire industry and turn into a source of research and ideas. The site is used by consumers, but also contractors, designers, and architects.

Change Velocity

Have you ever heard of change management? Well, you can find out everything about it on Morris Communication’s site, which is for organizations looking for information and expertise on the subject. The site curates trends, news, the latest ideas and tools, and advice.

Healio

I can’t imagine being a doctor who needs to keep up with the latest news and technology for my own specialty along with the general healthcare landscape. That’s where Healio comes in. They break down information by specialty into videos and blog posts, making it easier for medical professionals to keep up with the latest discussions and innovations.

Have you seen other small businesses using content curation?

Image courtesy of tumblr.com

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Tags: content creation, content curation, Marketing, though leadership
Posted in Marketing, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

Beyond Social Media: 6 Digital Trends to Keep Your Eye On

August 6th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

While social media is often cited as the most important element to add to your marketing strategy, it is only one piece of the marketing pie, a marketing pie whose main ingredients are engagement and personal interaction. Here are 6 other digital trends I have observed that all small business owners need to keep their eyes on – plus tips on how to take advantage of them.

1. Videos, Games and Apps

Blog posts, ebooks and how-to guides are incredibly important to your content strategy, but branded videos, games and apps do far more to pull in your audience.

Tip: Start with a 60-second, personable “explainer” video on your home page, and work your way up to a game or app as your budget allows.

2. Mobile Sharing

Location-based services are becoming more focused on actions, such as a “like” or sharing a link, than on check-ins.

Tip: Tweak your offers to include links to your social media accounts and website, where users can receive exclusive offers – and be pulled into your community.

3. Content Everywhere

With the use of tablets, smartphones and e-readers proliferating, so too is the consumption of video, podcasts, social media, games, ebooks, etc.

Tip: Diversify your content creation to include short videos and podcasts you create on your computer using the built-in camera – and stay active on social media (you knew I was going to mention that eventually!).

4. Mobile Optimization

Tablets and smartphones are increasingly the preferred way to access the Internet and consume all types of content.

Tip: Develop a mobile site and offer the most popular content – optimized for mobile – on that site.

5. Advertising 2.0

I’m not talking about advertising online, but rather advertising masquerading as fun and engaging online and offline activities, such as viral videos, events and sponsorships.

Tip: Sponsorships aren’t just for Fortune 500 companies. Find a local event to get involved with, and build your customer base by interacting with people in person at the event.

6. Mobile Sales

Mobile devices aren’t just being used for email and Internet access – they are also being used for online purchases.

Tip: Use geolocation to offer real-time deals, and make sure your ecommerce site is optimized for mobile.

What other trends have you tried out as part of your online or offline marketing strategy? Share your experience below!

Image courtesy of claireburdett.com

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Tags: apps, content creation, digital trends, eBooks, games, geo-location, Marketing, mobile sales, mobile website, podcasts, smartphones, social media, sponsorships, tablets, video, Videos, viral videos
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Survey Says: Inbound Marketing, Social Media, and Blogs Are Surpassing Traditional Channels

April 9th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

In January, HubSpot surveyed almost 1,000 professionals about their businesses’ marketing strategies. Below are some of the findings, which drive home the fact that inbound marketing, social media, and blogs are the way to go.

Focus on Inbound Marketing

Businesses are tweaking their marketing strategies to focus more on inbound marketing, which involves pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a company and its products using blogging, content publishing, SEO and social media. These channels have the advantage of providing a low-cost alternative to pricier tactics like direct mail and purchased advertising. In fact, companies that focus on inbound marketing experience a cost per lead that is 61% lower than those of outbound-focused companies. Businesses are leveraging this advantage; of the companies surveyed, 89 percent are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing efforts.

Traditional Channels Slip

More traditional marketing channels – such as trade shows, direct mail, and telemarketing – are decreasing in value to businesses. HubSpot’s survey showed that 30 percentof respondents judged these channels as less important than newer ones. Not only are these channels becoming less influential in marketing strategies, but they also tend to be more costly than Internet-based forms of marketing.

The Rise of Social

Businesses are becoming more social – they are increasingly using blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to get their message out and to engage with customers. Both the 2012 and the 2009 HubSpot surveys showed increased importance for these social platforms. Company blogs were most cited as the social channel that is “critical” or “important” in both 2012 and 2009. Facebook gained importance by a margin of 15 percent since 2009, and Twitter gained 15 percent. However, other social media channels have decreased in importance, including StumbleUpon and Digg.

The Importance of Blogs

As I mentioned, blogs are holding steady as the most important social media channel. In fact, 25 percent of survey respondents said their blog was “critical” to their business. Blogs offer tremendous SEO value, as fresh content and links are supplied through a steady stream of blogging. Blogs also allow companies to feature new products in detail, highlight upcoming events, and show a more personal side of the company to customers and prospects.

How about you? Has your businesses shifted its marketing efforts to more social channels such as Facebook and Twitter? Are you giving your blog the time and attention it deserves?

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: advertising, blogging, content creation, content publishing, Digg, direct mail, Facebook, Inbound Marketing, Marketing, seo, social media, StumbleUpon, Twitter, YouTube
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Contests, Content and Keywords: 3 Online Marketing Success Stories

February 9th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

HubSpot recently released an eBook written by David Meerman Scott called 11 Examples of Online Marketing Success. Because I love to learn from other companies and apply their successes to my own business, I couldn’t wait to read it.

Here is what I learned from a museum that used a contest, an e-commerce site that used content, and an industrial manufacturer that used keywords to energize their online marketing efforts (more success stories to come in future blog posts!):

1. Use Contests to Generate PR and Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing

This is a rather extraordinary example, but it is worth including because it is so darn clever!

Last summer, the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago decided to hold a very creative contest. They wanted a Web-savvy person to live and sleep in their museum for a month, explore it and share their experiences via a blog and social media. A 24-year-old Chicagoan, Kate McGroarty, won the contest, which included the 30-day museum-living experiment, $10,000 in cash, an array of tech gadgets and lifetime membership.

The contest was covered by mainstream media channels. Once she was living in the museum, Kate blogged at least once a day, generating a steady flow of comments. She created videos and uploaded them to YouTube. She tweeted and created a Facebook page, which has nearly 4,000 likes and is still up (even though the contest ended at the end of November 2010). Her page invited people to visit MSI’s own Facebook page, which now has over 17,000 likes.

Lesson: Use a creative contest to generate publicity, reach your target audience and expand your presence on social media.

2. Create Unique Content to Attract and Convert Leads

Creating unique, valuable content can really ignite lead generation, as e-commerce site Suitcase.com learned. Last year, they launched a survey via an e-mail invitation that queried customers on luggage usage, travel habits and other luggage-related questions. They packaged the answers into the Consumer Luggage Report and placed the report on a Web page on their site where visitors could download it. That page generated a 20 percent conversion rate, and the report was even picked up by Reader’s Digest. As a result of sharing their knowledge, Suitcase.com has become a thought leader within the rather crowded online luggage e-tailer space.

Lesson: Repurpose content to create buzz, position your company as an industry leader and attract and convert leads.

3. Leverage Keywords to Improve Quality of Leads

I love this example, because it shows how a company in a very unsexy industry can greatly improve lead generation with a very basic online marketing tool: keywords.

SRS Crisafulli sells dredging and pumping products worldwide. In order to effectively reach their numerous target markets, they decided to do some competitive keyword analysis. They began using highly searched keywords to determine what products were most in demand, and they created content based on that information to educate potential customers. By doing so, SRS Crisafulli has been able to generate more high-quality leads that are sales-ready.

Lesson: By understanding your potential customers’ search behavior and needs, you can create the educational content that turns a website visitor into a strong lead.

Have you held a contest, turned a survey into a report, or used keyword research to supercharge your online marketing efforts? We’d love to hear about your successes!

Image by Flickr user Ca Ribiero (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Branding, content creation, contests, keywords, lead generation, Marketing, public relations, publicity, search engine optimization, Search Marketing, social media
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, Social Media, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

How to Use Delicious for B2B Marketing

October 25th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Next in my monthly series on unsung social media platforms is Delicious. If you missed my first two posts in the series, check out what I had to say about using Digg and Reddit for B2B marketing.

Delicious is a social bookmarking site that serves up “The Tastiest Bookmarks on the Web.” (Until their recent acquisition by Yahoo, they were called Del.icio.us.) Their goal is to help you find cool stuff online and save it in one place that can be accessed from any computer. You can share your bookmarks with others, see what other people are bookmarking, and search for the most popular bookmarks across a range of topics and interests. To categorize all of your bookmarks, you use tags rather than folders. So if you like to bookmark funny videos, you can tag videos with both words and they’ll be findable under both terms.

Even before I did research on using Delicious for marketing purposes, it became obvious to me that you can build quite a reputation on Delicious for interesting and useful information. If your website, articles and blog posts get bookmarked on Delicious often enough, they’ll make it to the front page of Delicious, deliver a lot of traffic to your website, and brand you and/or your company as a source of great information.

With that said, your popularity on Delicious is dependent on the quality of your online content rather than your popularity among other Delicious users (no voting here!).

After you create a free account, here’s how to get going:

1. Create a network. A network allows you to collect your favorite users’ bookmarks in one spot—and vice versa. You can organize your network in to “bundles” to separate friends from colleagues, etc.

2. Subscribe to tags. Make a list of your favorite tags. As bookmarks are added with those tags, they’ll be delivered to your subscriptions page. It’s a great way to find new users to add to your network. (You can also create subscription “bundles” to keep things organized.)

And here’s how to get use Delicious for marketing purposes:

Post information that makes users’ lives easier. I found a great blog post about Delicious on Traffikd’s blog. To get a lot of bookmarks, they suggest posting resource lists, guides and tutorials, online tools and useful services. Avoid humor, gossip, videos, news and opinions.

Spread the word. Add a Delicious badge to your website and blog. Invite friends, colleagues, and people in your professional circle to join your network, and ask people to bookmark your website, blog, articles, etc.

Integrate your Delicious strategy with your SEO strategy. Make sure the pages, articles and blogs posts you want to be bookmarked (and become popular) on Delicious use the keywords or phrases that you are currently found for on search engines.

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Tags: B2B marketing, Branding, content creation, Delicious, seo, social media
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, social media | No Comments »