Sunday, June 28, 2015

How to Republish, Repurpose and Reinvent Your Content Using LinkedIn Publisher


By Nathan Ellering
Published June 15, 2015 Printer-Friendly

social media how toWant to give existing content new life and greater visibility?

Looking for a way to publish more often without much extra work?

Use LinkedIn Publisher to consistently provide useful content for your audience, gain visibility and build your professional identity without writing anything new!

In this article you'll discover three ways to give existing content new life using LinkedIn Publisher.

republish repurpose and reinvent content for linkedin publisher Discover how to republish, repurpose and reinvent content with LinkedIn Publisher.

One of the fastest ways to get started on LinkedIn is to copy and paste your complete content posts from other blogs. If you decide to go this route, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

It's important to understand how Google views duplicate content.

You should wait at least two weeks after the post publishes before you republish it to LinkedIn. That gives the bots from search engines enough time to index and understand which post is the original, and rank it higher than republished content.

Barry Feldman posted an article on LinkedIn a month after it originally appeared on his blog.

barry feldman blog post and linkedin post Copying and pasting entire blog posts onto LinkedIn is common practice among top social media and marketing professionals.

To let readers know where to find the original postinclude a sentence at the beginning or end that directs readers to the original version. This is especially important when you republish your guest post from another company's blog and it's a nice rule of thumb to adopt when you republish your own content.

Readers will know where they can find more of your articles. Plus, they'll see you're honest about republishing your post.

Take the time to craft a headline that's a little different and specific to the LinkedIn platform.

For example, when Guillaume Decugis republishes content on LinkedIn, Medium and other syndication sites, he changes the title of each post to distinguish and optimize it. Then readers who search for the keyword will see multiple versions of the headline on the first page of search engine results.

search results for repurposed article When Scoop.it republishes content, they use different headlines optimized for the various platforms to distinguish the posts.

Remember, treat LinkedIn Publisher as a distribution channel, where the goal is to increase visibility and grow your audience. Send people back to your blog, so they can get to know more about you and your business.

Do you have robust ebooks, case studies and speeches that are too long for LinkedIn? No worries. It's easy to optimize your existing long-form blog content for LinkedIn Publisher.

Take your long-form blog posts or ebooks and break them down into multiple individual postsInclude additional images and subheads too. You can even take old speeches and write them as LinkedIn posts.

ann handely linkedin post Ann Handley used a 2013 speech to publish this 2015 article on LinkedIn.

For example, Ann Handley (who does an excellent job of mixing new content and repurposed content into her LinkedIn Publisher posts) recently reimagined a speech published on her blog in 2013 for a LinkedIn Publisher post in 2015.

If you don't want to republish the same content (or even parts of it) from your blog, there are a few other options to avoid starting completely from scratch.

Take a look at the analytics from your published content to see which articles performed best. Look at traffic, social media shares and any other metrics you monitor for performance.

Then try to figure out what made that content so successful. One way to do this is to ask yourself questions about each post. Once you determine the source of that success, write a new article for LinkedIn that's similar.

You can also go through your blog and find articles with similar themes. Then pick the big ideas from each post and turn it into a list post on LinkedIn.

neal schaffer list post on linkedin pulse Neal Schaffer linked to past articles and podcasts in this list post.

Include a summary paragraph or two from each post, as well as a link back to the original.

Tips for LinkedIn Publisher Engagement and Visibility

Whether you republish existing content verbatim or revise it, there are a few things to do to optimize it for LinkedIn.

OkDork analyzed 3,000 of the most successful LinkedIn Publishing posts to come up with these helpful takeaways:

Write headlines between 40-49 characters long.Use "how," "how to" and list headlines for good performance.Break up posts into scannable sections using LinkedIn's inline headings.Include many images in your posts. In this study, posts with eight visuals got nearly double the amount of page views as those with any other number of images.Write long-form content (between 1,900 and 2,000 words), as those posts perform best.Use media formats such as videos and presentations sparingly, since they don't perform as well.

Next, when you publish on LinkedIn, use a distribution plan similar to the one you use to share content posted to other platforms.

sharing schedule on coschedule blog placeit image Create a sharing schedule for your posts on different social networks. Image: Placeit.

Create a social media sharing schedule to share your LinkedIn posts more than once on various social media platforms. This will increase awareness and bring traffic to your posts. Then use that same social media sharing schedule a month or two after you publish your post to give it an extra boost.

Another source of visibility is keywords. If you don't already know the specific keywords for your niche, spend half an hour using Google's Keyword Planner tool to discover actual words your audience is using to find content in your niche. Then, use popular keywords in the text of your LinkedIn posts so they catch the eyes of readers looking for that content as they scroll through their Pulse news feed.

google keyword planner results Use Google's Keyword Planner to find the words people use to find content in your niche.

Additionally, come up with a list of keyword tags and choose a few that work well with your niche. When you republish your posts, tag them with keywords for maximum exposure.

Finally, chances are you've been building your email list ever since you started to create content. Just as you'd share a blog post from your website, share your LinkedIn posts in your email newsletters. Simply add a section to your newsletter to highlight your curated LinkedIn content and include links.

Over to You

LinkedIn Publisher is an excellent resource for increasing your visibility and thought leadership. Republish, repurpose and use ideas from existing content, and you'll never be at a loss for ideas.

Be sure to share often and in various places, so your audience finds your content and can benefit from your knowledge.

What do you think? What types of content do you publish on LinkedIn? What strategies drive more visibility? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

how republish repurpose and reinvent content for linkedin publisher Tips for republishing, repurposing and reinventing content with LinkedIn Publisher.

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Original source: How to Republish, Repurpose and Reinvent Your Content Using LinkedIn Publisher.
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Facebook Place Tips: This Week in Social Media


By Cindy King
Published June 13, 2015 Printer-Friendly

social media researchWelcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news.

To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Introduces Place Tips for Business Pages: "Place Tips gather useful information about a business or landmark (like posts from the business' Page, upcoming events and friends' recommendations and check-ins) and show it at the top of News Feed to in-store visitors."

Facebook Place Tips "At a restaurant, Place Tips can show the menu, reviews and frequently mentioned information about the establishment, like a signature cocktail or popular table."

Twitter Makes Conversations Easier to Follow: Twitter is "grouping conversations together and highlighting some of the most interesting exchanges surrounding a given Tweet."

Twitter Makes it Easier to Follow Conversations "On the Tweet page, Tweets that are part of a conversation are connected by a line. If you want to see more of the replies to a specific Tweet within a conversation you can click 'View other replies'."

Vine Update Includes Better Searches: "In addition to searching people and tags, you can also choose to watch either top or recent posts as you scroll through a feed of Vines."

Vine Updates its Search "The new search is rolling out over the coming weeks on iOS, and will soon be on Android."

Twitter Allows Users to Share Block Lists on Twitter.com: "You can now export and share your block lists with people in your community facing similar issues or import another user's list into your own account and block multiple accounts all at once, instead of blocking them individually."

Twitter Block Lists are Easier to Share "This new, advanced feature makes blocking multiple accounts easy, fast and community driven."

Twitter Introduces Installed App Category Targeting: "A new tool that enables app advertisers to reach users based on the categories of apps they have installed on their device, or in which we think they have interest."

Twitter Installed App Category Targeting "Today's launch is the next step in our journey to help these advertisers connect with the right customers on Twitter, while providing users with the most relevant and useful ad content."

Other upcoming social media news worth following:

Facebook Rolls Out Facebook Lite: Facebook Lite is "a new version of Facebook for Android that uses less data and works well across all network conditions."

Facebook Lite Rolls Out Across Asia Facebook rolled Facebook Lite "in countries across Asia, and over the coming weeks Facebook Lite will be available in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe."

Tumblr Makes GIFs Searchable: Tumblr is "making it easier to turn your obsolete verbiage into modern moving pictures."

Tumblr Makes GIFs Searchable "When you're making a post on the web: Just click the + button, click the GIF button, then search for whatever it is you're trying to express."

Ello Is launching Ad-Free Social Network on iOS: "The app is set to debut on June 18 in the App Store. It will be interesting to see if Ello can harness the droves of early adopters it initially attracted."

Instagram for Web Gets a Minimalist Redesign: "While the new design shows fewer images in the same space, the large images and added white space help each individual shot stand out more than they did in the old cacophony of images."

Here's a cool social media tool worth checking out:

DrumUp: A free content discovery tool that searches the web for great, relevant content and helps you share it on social media. It is also available as an Android app.

DrumUp Tool "DrumUp mines through tons of content across the web in real time, and uses sophisticated algorithms to recommend fresh stories most relevant to your audience."

How to Link Your Instagram Account to Your Facebook Page

The Role of Online Marketing, Content & Education Marketing Decisions: G/O Digital and Entrepreneur surveyed 591 U.S. small- and midsized businesses (SMBs) on how they choose their digital marketing partners. Not surprising, 33% of respondents say that price is one of the most important factors considered when evaluating the digital marketing services/products of a vendor. Other top factors are an understanding of organizational goals and needs (27%) and the ability to deliver on commitments (18%).

How Do CFOs Engage on Twitter?: Intacct and Leadtail analyzed Twitter activity of more than 500 CFOs to find out what they are discussing, what publications they're following on social media and which have the most influence on them.

2015 Small Business Economic & Advertising Outlook: According to a study by Thrive Analytics, 74% of small businesses use some form of social media in their marketing efforts. Most use Facebook (66%), followed by Twitter (30%) and LinkedIn (28%). While many small business owners view Facebook as a source of free or nearly free advertising, 35% of small businesses are increasing their budgets over the next 12 months by 15% to 20% because they view it as an extremely effective channel.

The 2015 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation: Starfleet Media surveyed 324 B2B marketers and salespeople from around the world and found that 67% say they have put case studies and client success stories to use as digital content marketing assets in the previous 12 months. Other commonly used content types include: white papers (62%), webinars (58%) and ebooks (52%). Fifty percent of respondents say they have been successful or very successful in achieving their primary objectives for content marketing, which include generating more leads (92%), raising brand visibility (90%) and generating better leads (87%).

SocietyJoin the Social Media Marketing Society: Social Media Examiner's NEW Society is an exclusive membership community designed to keep marketers on the leading edge of social media.

The Society will help you discover new ideas, avoid trial and error, implement the newest social tactics and find what works best with social media marketing.

Exclusive Training: We're putting together content that's even more in-depth than anything we present anywhere else. We'll show you, step-by-step, how to implement the latest in social media marketing using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and beyond.

Community of Marketers: The Society is much more than just a place where you'll receive top-notch marketing training.

You'll be able to connect with other marketers in our online forums and live Society hangouts. There are already amazing discussions going on among the 1000+ marketers who made the investment in the Society.

Enrollment in the Society is only open until June 30, and you won't be able to register again until 2016.

Click here to watch a behind-the-scenes video and discover more about the Society.

What do you think? Have you tried Facebook Place Tips? Please share your comments below.

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Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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Original source: Facebook Place Tips: This Week in Social Media.
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5 Ways to Protect Your Reputation with Social Media


Social media has quickly changed the way the people create, find and represent other individuals and brands online. It wasn't that long ago that the internet was HTML based and the web was more of a one-way conversation and everything was static. MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have completely changed everything… and if you aren't keeping an eye on it, your reputation and brand could quickly change along with it.

Don't think social media and your online presence is important? Just take a look at what Todd William, reputation management expert and the founder of Reputation Rhino has to say.

"I look at page one of Google as real estate. There is somewhere between seven or ten houses on the block and your goal, just like in the game of Monopoly, is to own as many of those properties as possible or to make sure that those properties that are near you or next to you are not competitive or damaging. If you cannot own it, you at least want to have nice looking neighbors. When we are talking about page one for a key word, like the products or services for your business. You are absolutely right. The competition is fierce. If we are talking about page one for your first lame and last name, depending on how common or uncommon that first name / last name combination is, it could be highly competitive if you happen to share a name with Justin Bieber or Brittany Spears, or it can be very unique and you could be the only one on page one. So the question is, if you have a unique name or unique brand, how do you make sure that the content that appears when people are searching for that unique name or brand is positive or at least neutral.  Right now content marketing and writing high quality content is paramount and we focus on quality over quantity. That is where much of our time and attention is being placed; on great writing and seeking out the best possible sites to leverage the content that we help create."

With that being said, now it's time to jump right into five of the best ways for anyone to start using social media to their advantage, whether it be for expanding your reach and experience or protecting your online reputation, these methods will work for everyone.

There are currently over 2 billion users spread across all of the major social networks. Securing your personal or brand name as your social username is a huge asset. Not only will this be perfect for branding and allow people to easily find you on any network, it's also a great way to improve your chances for ranking your social profile at the top of the search results for your name.

To use social media to your advantage, you will actually need to "use social media". So many individuals and brands think they can setup a profile, add their picture and make a few updates to their account and leave it at that. This is probably one of the worse things you can do, as people will find your profile page, but once they see you are no longer updating your account with new content, they won't bother to follow you at all.

One of the best ways to use social media is to setup a blog of your own, and then share your content with your social media following. It's not just about creating content to share it with your social audience, instead it's about creating a main hub where someone can learn more about you, your brand and also connect to all of your social profiles in the process. Additionally, a blog is one of the best ways to rank at the top of the search engines for your personal name, brand or business.

Social media is a two way conversion. Way too many people are creating social profiles and only putting content out, and providing nothing of value or substance in terms of building a relationship. The correct way to build a social following is to provide value through your content and social updates, engaging with your fans and followers while also contributing to their social conversations, even when it doesn't provide any direct value or benefit to your own brand.

The ultimate goal for every professional, brand or business is to become an expert within their niche. While social media continues to grow and saturate the internet with billions of users and daily updates, it's actually made the process of becoming a well known and trusted authority much easier — when done right. To build a following and their respect, you must provide value, follow others within your niche, reach out to see how you can help others and give people exactly what they are looking for.

Whether your end goal is to protect your online reputation, build a social media following or take your personal or brand exposure to the next level, be sure to implement each of the methods mentioned above into your social media efforts. While each of them are special in their own way, you will see the best results when all are used in conjunction with each other.

Image Credit / Shutterstock

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Saturday, June 27, 2015

Social Media Marketing Practices that Boost Search Ranking


Social Media Marketing supports the search ranking prospects by making the site more obvious to the web search tools. The presence of the site on social networking stages ensures better rankings in web index result pages. Like each endeavor, the right approach is an essential for having an effective run. Considering the significance of the digital marketing, it is compulsory for each business to make the most of social media marketing ad campaigns using the popular platforms that target group of onlookers you plan to tap.

Being a proprietor of the business, you are obliged to know the crowd that you are pander to. Social networking stages have a huge client base with a wide range of clients. Through your posts, you need to identify your target market that could be connected with the sort of item or administration your organization offers through the site. After you effectively distinguish them, focusing on them gets to be simpler.

It is not under any condition important to be on every social webpage that exist on the web. In any case, one must have the capacity to observe the unobtrusive contrast between every one of them. There is a sure level of uniqueness about every systems administration site, and it is imperative to choose which one is most appropriate for the organization.

To help the social networking stages help your site in SEO, you have to streamline the social posts for the web crawlers. To enhance them, you need to utilize the watchwords and make the substance important. Advancing the substance helps an extraordinary arrangement in SEO.

Tips:

Verify your social media contents are human readable. Think quality first. On the off chance that you have a WordPress site, check your watchword proportion with Scribe.Pack your contents with valuable realities, measurements and dates.Limit the redundancy of keywords in Alt labels, title and the captions of the images.

While this is less demanding said than done, the quantity of supporters you have communicating for your sake can impact your site's rankings. While developing your numbers is a long, monotonous procedure, it is more powerful than endeavoring to trick the framework by obtaining intermediary online networking devotees, as Google can recognize how certifiable your supporters are. Organic growth or Natural development is key, which should be possible by posting quality articles with important data, tips, and solid client administration and client engagements. This sort of narrating forms a dedication among clients, which will build your fans and followers.

Any kind of social sharing aides validate the authority of your site. Google's calculations perceive social sharing, which is a key contributing component to the authority of your brand. Getting clients and different brands to share your substance can be troublesome. For each one who will share, there are handfuls who won't. Be that as it may, one of the best approaches to urge clients and members to share your substance is to offer specifically to them. Rather than essentially presenting a connection on an article, attempt to create something that has a motivator for individuals to make a move. Offer a review, a question and answer platform, or even a giveaway.

Tips

The adherents would share the post all alone however asking them will expand the shares impressively.The supporter would share the posts anyways, however others too will go with the same pattern when convinced and poked courteously. Subsequently, it will go far in boosting the SEO for the site.

Legitimate connections to different sites from your site is still a discriminating part to SEO, social networking guides in your capacity to further make and get links. Not just would you be able to share the substance of others, luring them to respond by sharing your substance, social networking goes about as a door to create enthusiasm about your site. By utilizing hashtags and labeling different brands, you are picking up visibility to different clients and organizations.

Web marking is very little not the same as SEO and a large number of it is propel elements mix consistently with procedures of marking gave, they are actualized in the privilege. At the point when the brand mindfulness builds, the clients get to be joined to the brand and offer the posts all the time, thus boosting the website improvement.

The contents on the online networking stages additionally require local improvement when the objective clients are neighborhood for the business. You must advance the posts among the neighborhood group which will go far in boosting the SEO for the site, consequently expanding the return for capital invested on the business.

Bottom Line: Social Media Marketing has a staggering achieve as it connects with billions of individuals over the world. To focus on the immense customer base accessible on different online networking stages like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and so forth. There must be a sound methodology concocted to focus on every social media platform.

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Original source: Social Media Marketing Practices that Boost Search Ranking.
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Study: Americans Are Concerned About Data Privacy, But Few Take Steps to Protect Themselves


In June 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the large amounts of data the American government is collecting from ordinary citizens, setting off a new age of what has been referred to as "data insecurity." Since then, Americans have become increasingly concerned by the amount of information being collected by companies and agencies who seek to gain from it. And with several high profile data breaches also in the news, Americans are taking a deeper look at how their data is being collected, how it's being used, and whether it's in truly safe hands.

A Pew Research study last month took a look at how Americans' attitudes regarding data and privacy have changed in a post-Snowden world. The findings show that "Americans feel privacy is important in their daily lives in a number of essential ways. Yet, they have a pervasive sense that they are under surveillance when in public and very few feel they have a great deal of control over the data that is collected about them and how it is used." Moreover, and perhaps ironically, many Americans rate privacy with regard to data collection as "very important," yet few have taken significant steps to protect themselves. This may be, perhaps, due to the fact that there aren't yet easy, accessible ways for Americans to protect themselves. The data collection conversation remains quite confusing and secretive.

Here are the key findings:

93% of adults say that being in control of who can get information about them is "important;" 74% feel this is "very important."

90% say controlling what information gets collected is important, while 65 percent say it's "very important."

88% say it is "important" that they not have someone watch or listen to them without their permission (67% feel this is "very important" and 20% say it is "somewhat important").

63% feel it is "important" to be able to "go around in public without always being identified." Only 34% believe being able to go unnoticed in public is "very important" and 29% say it is "somewhat important" to them.

6% of adults say they are "very confident" that government agencies can keep their records private and secure.

9% of adults are "very confident" that credit card companies will be able to protect our data.

76% of adults say they are "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that records of their activity maintained by the online advertisers who place ads on the websites they visit will remain private and secure.

69% of adults say they are not confident that records of their activity maintained by the social media sites they use will remain private and secure.

Clearing cookies or browser history (59% have done this).

Refusing to provide information about themselves that wasn't relevant to a transaction (57% have done this).

Using a temporary username or email address (25% have done this).

10% of adults say they have encrypted their phone calls, text messages or email.

9% say they have used a service that allows them to browse the Web anonymously, such as a proxy server, Tor software, or a virtual personal network.


Taken together, the statistics paint a portrait of a society very concerned with how its data is being used, but perhaps helpless (or clueless) in the face of it. The study highlights data retention limits as a possible salve. The shorter length of time that companies swear to keep data on hands, the more protected the citizens feel.

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons, Pew Research

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What Are the Best Times to Post on Social Media? [INFOGRAPHIC]


If you, like me, depend on Facebook to socialize the content you create, you want to be as Facebook savvy as possible. What do people engage with? When should you post?

I've found that posting images and videos gets more engagement than straight text. I've also found that text that speaks to a controversy or includes news-you-can-use is more successful.

I've also found that if I post too many times in a single day, engagement starts to go down. I get it: It's annoying when one Facebook page dominates your newsfeed.

This infographic from QuickSprout is a useful reminder about the best times to find your audience on Facebook and on other social media platforms. Pin it up next to our desk. Optimize your Facebook promotion.

It turns out that people engage on Facebook most on Thursday and Friday. A lot of people use Facebook when they are at their desks in the their offices, but don't want to be. Indeed, 86% of posts are published during the week. Earlier in the week, peole are trying harder to actually work, so engagement falls below 3.5% on those days.

People are also just happier on Facebook on Fridays. Their status updates tend to be more upbeat. Happier people are more likely to want to engage with you. They're more open to new ideas in general.

Early afternoon is the best time to post. Check to see what time zone your largest audience is in. Mine is in Eastern, so I try to post around 1 pm EST. But really anytime between 9 am and 7 pm is fine.

I read a study once that said that people tend to be in a better mood right after lunch. Indeed, parole hearings that happen right after lunch are more likely to lead to a positive result for the parolee. Posts that go out at 1 pm tend to get the most shares, though posts around 3 pm tend to get the most clicks.

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5 Forces Shaping B2B Marketing


An ever-evolving marketing landscape – where more content is being produced than ever before and more brands are selling their products and services than they ever have, has forced marketers – B2B and B2C alike, to change their approach and overall strategy to connecting with customers online.

Marketing to businesses online however, has become a little challenging. With B2B products and services – the element of trust needs to be far higher. Consumers are more willing to take a personal risk and try out new brands and services for themselves, but when it comes to making a business purchase, buyers are far more cautious. A bad business purchase can put people into a very precarious position in the eyes of their company and those that they report to.

How do you inspire trust with these users and how do you connect with them? A lot of what you should be doing in the B2B space has to be defined by what the others are doing – so that you know what's working for them, and what you should avoid. As more businesses advertise via social and digital, the cost of advertising on these channels will go higher. So how do you break through?

B2B marketers aren't looking for brand awareness / uplift in social community size, or bothered with metrics like social engagement. Their single-minded approach to generating a high amount of website traffic (coming from the right quality of leads) – that leads to a high rate of conversion is their primary goal.

Generating inbound links, growing their subscriber base and focusing on ranking well for the right keywords – is how they're planning on achieving these objectives.

Have you aligned your objectives from marketing to be the same? Perhaps it's time to look beyond social reach, impressions and clicks – and think a little bit more about the quality of people you're marketing to.

If you're investing in LinkedIn ads – focus on targeting the right business sizes, and the right titles of the people that would try your productUse FB custom audiences to target people that are part of your subscriber base, or people that have previously visited your websiteDon't target people based on their interests – it's far too wide and very hit and miss

I have to say – they're doing all the right things. By focusing on ensuring that they rank well for keywords, spreading their presence on social and taking e-mail marketing seriously – B2B marketers are touching the right focus points on the digital spectrum.

Display advertising isn't one of the major focus points for B2B marketers – which could potentially mean a dip in the cost of advertising and buying banners on ad-networks like GDN, so keep a close look on the CPCs and CPMs that these networks charge you. While the CTRs from these platforms isn't very high, they can be very useful for retargeting.

Ensure that you're tracking your SEO efforts using tools like Moz and Raven Tools, and not relying on running random keyword search tests from time to timeSplit your e-mail marketing list into segments that make sense to you, and ensure that you continue to send e-mails to people who have converted in order to retain themUse social platforms as a way of driving traffic to your owned platforms, and try not to focus on building a community too much. That should happen organically.

In the above data set from Salesforce – don't be fooled by the immense effectiveness of Mobage, KakaoTalk, Line and SnapChat – because not a lot of businesses use these, and the ones that do are of a very specific niche.

From the more popular networks, LinkedIn, SlideShare and blogs are proving to be highly effective for B2B marketers. While SlideShare is represented by only 27% of respondents – my personal experience with B2B marketing on SlideShare has given me great results for businesses in different industries.

Create a content strategy and calendar for SlideShare. Regular content on SlideShare is the only way to measure the effectiveness of the platform, one-off executions won't give you a solid picture.Experiment with the smaller platforms if you'd like to, perhaps they could be effective for you, but ensure that the majority of your ad-spend is focused on the larger networks which have shown ROI.With Facebook getting extremely crowded, perhaps use it only as a re-targeting channel, and focus on LinkedIn and SEO (blogs) being the initial touchpoint.

It would seem that B2B marketers create a massive spread of content – social, newsletters, blogs, events, case studies, videos, white papers, presentations, infographics, webinars, reports, microsites – the whole nine yards.

While some would argue that this approach means that a business is taking an all-encompassing approach to marketing – I'd highly advise on focusing on 2-3 types of content, and focusing on those to see which work for you. If you're known for creating exemplary content of a specific type (SlideShares, infographics, or webinars) – people will talk about you a lot more, rather than if you diversify your content and spread it across so thin.

Diversification of content costs time and money. Unless you have a large marketing team that can create a lot of different types of content without much of a hassle – focus on specific types of content.Start small, then grow. If people start enjoying your webinars, the next thing you should focus on is podcasts. If they like your blog posts, perhaps focus on infographics next.Use successful content to decide which type you should be focusing on next. Don't jump from social content to webinars.

The biggest problem in running successful B2B digital campaigns seems to be (as expected) – a lack of budgets. Followed by the ability to measure ROI. To me – these two are very closely tied in to each other. In the event that you're able to prove ROI from your digital efforts – your C-Suite should be more than happy to allocate higher budgets to your digital campaigns.

The third point however, is a little troubling. Businesses are unable to find marketers that have the right skills and the ability to run these B2B campaigns, and execute the right social and digital strategy for businesses. The fourth point – being able to convince top management about the potential of digital marketing, ties back to the conversation about ROI.

Nail down your business objectives, and measure your ROI against them. By proving ROI via these digital executions, you shall have the ability to convince your C-Suite and top execs, as well as get higher budgets.Hire a specialized agency to execute your campaigns for you, or invest money in an experienced marketer who can lead a team to execute your campaigns for you.Engage local trainers and institutes to provide seminars and workshops to train the rest of your marketing force. In the event the right trainers aren't available, plenty of online courses can train your in-house team.

B2B marketers are getting smarter, measuring the right metrics, using the right tools and have the right goals in mind. With the digital space becoming so congested and hard to operate in, businesses that have B2B products and services need to invest time in their teams, in training, and in ensuring that they have enough wiggle room to test, measure and analyze what works specifically for the business they are operating within.

2015 is going to be a year of increased learning and creativity for B2B, but you can expect a saturated market to cause a lot of trouble for those just starting out next year – as the cost of testing, analyzing and measuring your effort next year and beyond will be incredibly expensive.

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Original source: 5 Forces Shaping B2B Marketing.
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Instagram Ads to Get More Focused with Facebook Targeting Options


Instagram Ads to get More Focused with Facebook Targeting Options | Social Media TodayGet ready, your Instagram advertising options are about to get a lot more specific. Ahead of the Cannes Lions Festival this week, Facebook's Vice President of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson has said that Facebook's targeting data will soon be available for use on Instagram. Facebook already uses some of its data for ad targeting on Instagram, though it's limited to basic age and gender – Everson says that's about to change , with the "entire suite of Facebook targeting on Instagram over the next few months". That update is likely to cause a significant shift in the social advertising landscape.

Right now, Instagram is the fastest growing social network, significantly increasing it's share in most demographic brackets over the last year. Users disillusioned by Facebook's organic reach declines and increases in adoption among older demographics (read as: parents, grandparents and extended family) have turned to the visual-focussed network in droves, pushing it above 300 million active monthly users, placing it on par with Twitter in terms of overall engagement. That attention has drawn the eyes of advertisers, with some projections suggesting the platform has the capacity to be generating $US1.2 billion in ad revenue by next year, rising to $US4 billion by 2018. Such returns would be a welcome addition to Facebook's bottom line, which purchased Instagram for what was considered a "crazy figure" of $1 billion back in 2012. However, one of the elements that has worked in Instagram's favour thus far is the lack of advertising and marketing content, something that the platform is very aware of and will be treating very carefully as it takes the next steps towards further monetization.

The first moves on this front have already been made, with Instagram recently announcing 'Shop Now' buttons, enabling users to buy products direct from their feed. At the time of that announcement, Instagram also announced a new API platform to assist advertisers with ad management and targeting. Instagram has been working to integrate more of Facebook's data for some time, beginning with their ad campaigns earlier this year that showed an image to users on Instagram, then targeted those same users with ads on Facebook – that type of integration is likely to become more commonplace, with Everson's announcement flagging the company's intention to move Instagram ads more towards Facebook's regular targeting capacity, enabling cross-matching of user profiles to find people specifically interested in your offerings on Instagram.

Instagram Ads to get More Focused with Facebook Targeting Options | Social Media TodayThe progression is an obvious and logical one – Facebook has more specific user data than any other source in history – but it'll be a transformative change for the Instagram platform, one which signals it's maturity and advancement as a genuine player in the wider social marketing space.

The addition of Facebook-like targeting options for Instagram will change the approach for many social media marketers and advertisers alike. Fuelled by Facebook's ad archutecture, the ability to utilise Facebook's knowledge graph in a new way provides a whole new array of opportunities for advertisers who'll be able to hone-in and target Instagram users more specifically, based on their noted interests and likes. When you consider, too, that Facebook's data tracking is becoming ever more advanced, the possibilities of targeting via Instagram are extremely tempting – Facebook recently conducted a survey which found that Facebook 'Like' data can reveal more about your personality than your friends, even your family. In that context, it's likely that that same data will be able to provide a pretty clear image of what your target audience is interested in, in a visual sense, and which customers are more likely to be interested in your image offerings.

What's more, the data flow also works in reverse – Facebook's been working to beef up it's image recognition technology in order to learn even more about people's likes and preferences. Using Instagram as the source, they'll be able to build complex maps of what users are most interested in, what people want to see more of, and categorise specific audiences based on visual preferences. Such use of image data is likely to increase in future as the databank of Instagram activity helps Facebook build more structured frameworks around image preferences – soon, Facebook will be able to tell you what colours, what image subjects, what filters your audience prefers, and use that info to help build more complex psychological profiles in order to better focus your content.

In this sense, even without the projected monetization of Instagram, the platform is already providing Facebook with huge value. Given the rise in image-based content, it's clear that there's significant value in translating that content and establishing what works as a means of building a better audience tracking system. Both Facebook and Google are working to perfect this.   

The addition of Facebook-like ad targeting for Instragram is definitely a significant move, and one which we'll no doubt learn more about in the near future – Facebook has set up a space resembling its Menlo Park headquarters at Cannes, hoping to lure more advertisers by highlighting the existing and developing opportunities available on Facebook and it's platforms. Instagram is a significant part of that puzzle, and, done right, could be the next big opportunity for social media marketing. The only real question is will they they risk alienating the burgeoning 'Grammer fan-base in the process?

Main image via Tanuha2001 / Shutterstock

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Original source: Instagram Ads to Get More Focused with Facebook Targeting Options.
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Friday, June 26, 2015

6 Secrets of Generating Huge Returns from Social Media


Do you want to make social media a marketing powerhouse for your products? Of course you do. Social media is probably the single best way to promote your brand. If you do the right things, social media will let you create genuine relationships with your prospective customers – and drive massive product sales. Here are 6 secrets to help you generate huge returns from social media.

When you create content for social media, your goal is to get people to share it. And here's the not so incredible truth – if you post boring product information, people aren't going to pay any attention. Instead, create content that amuses, amazes, informs and entertains your audience. Tell them a great story that has deep emotional appeal. Be the first to break good news, or give them an inside scoop. If you do this, your followers will show your content again and again – bringing your brand to an entirely new audience.

Of course, the content you create should wrap around your product, or at least mention it – but you shouldn't put the product in the driver's seat. Remember, tweets and blog posts aren't corporate brochures – write something people actually want to read.

On social media, you need to talk with people – not at them. By engaging with your audience you can build a real relationship with them. These relationships lead to sales – if people like you and trust what you say, then they're much more likely to buy your products. Pay attention to what your fans are telling you. Talk with them online, help them out, solve their problems and answer their questions. Your goal is to let people know that you care and have something of value to offer. Be passionate about this – if you show a genuine interest in your audience and let your personality shine through, your followers will pick up on this and respond the same way.

There's an old chestnut in the marketing world – sell the sizzle, not the steak. This applies to social media as well – in fact, it's even more important online. When you talk about your brand or products, focus on benefits, not features. Your audience wants to know what your product can do for them, not how many buttons it has. To get this right, you have to spend time understanding your audience and what motivates them. If you're selling to consumers, show how your products make their life better. If you're selling to businesses, talk about how your products solve business problems.

Here's an example. Think about how Red Bull markets its product. It's not a carbonated energy drink – instead, it gives you wings. The company is appealing to a young, risk-taking audience that wants to break free. It has strengthened this message by associating its brand with extreme sports, creating a buzz that has nothing to do with caffeine. You may not have Red Bull's marketing budget, but you can still make your audience hunger for your products if you roll up your sleeves and get creative.

If you want to spread the word on social media, then you need to get other people to talk about your brand. Engaging with bloggers and other influencers is absolutely essential – it lets you tap into a huge new audience. Not only that, people listen to bloggers and trust them to give unbiased opinions – that's why they follow their blogs. So when a blogger says something positive about what you have to offer, people pay attention.

You can connect with bloggers on sites such as Tomoson. Just ask them to review your product in exchange for a free sample – and maybe a review fee as well, depending on the blogger. Unless you're selling big-ticket items, this costs next to nothing – so it's a great investment. In fact, if you build ongoing relationships with a number of bloggers, they'll continue to build buzz for you far into the future.

One great way to keep people coming back on social media is to give them deals that they can't get elsewhere. For example, publish discount coupons on your social media channels. Make these deals truly exclusive – don't offer them anywhere else – and let everyone know about them well in advance. In fact, if you really want to get traction, make your best deals available only on social media.

Contests are another great way to get attention on social media. Don't just make it another boring lottery. Ask your readers to submit personal stories or funny anecdotes for a chance to win. Share the best entries on your social media channels, and give away a prize for every one that you share. You'll get great content for the cost of a few giveaways, and you'll create incredible engagement.

People on social media crave great visual content. A stunning image or an exciting video has a much bigger impact than even the best-crafted copy. After all, if you're selling something beautiful, then you want everyone to see it. Just avoid boring product shots – show someone enjoying themselves with your product, or using it in exciting or unusual ways. The same principle applies to videos – go for high production values and lots of action, and you'll get real traction with your audience.

For instance, let's assume you want to sell skateboards. Shoot a video of some skateboard geniuses pulling off amazing tricks down at the park, or even make a video of a dog riding on one of your skateboards. This is the kind of content that can go viral. Post it on YouTube, then promote it on Twitter and Facebook. Everyone who watches the video is another potential follower – and another potential customer.

Incidentally, the dog on the skateboard is a real story – his name is Tillman, and the video of his antics has had over 3.8 million views on YouTube.

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Original source: 6 Secrets of Generating Huge Returns from Social Media.
http://www.jretechnology.com