Content Archives - Page 12 of 17

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017

7 Productivity Killers for Marketers and How to Fix Them

If there is one thing on my mind this year, it’s how we, as marketers, are getting our work done. Not to mince words, but how we work seems broken. I see the issues with the way I work. All. The. Time. I want dedicated time in my schedule to create, but I get interrupted or – when I do have time – I can’t seem to focus. Here are just a few common scenarios. I have an organized list of blog post ideas – and many half-finished articles – but I still scramble to meet deadlines. My days are filled with scheduled and unplanned phone conversations that result in more ideas – but the more I talk, the less time I have to act. When I do sit down to do actual work, I am interrupted with pings from IMs or phone calls. When I struggle with something […]

One Thing is Killing Content Marketing and Everyone Is Ignoring It

Editor’s note: Most marketers are searching for the answers on how to make their content marketing more successful. This update of a previously published post shares one answer. In 2016, I led a workshop on content marketing for about 50 small-business CEOs and operations managers. They came from all different industries. Some were consultants. There was a plumber and also a representative from an HVAC company present. Pest management? Check. A few small manufacturing companies , a nonprofit , and a jewelry store rounded it out. In other words, it was a diverse group of companies. What wasn’t diverse was the way they were marketing their companies. Most had e-newsletters. All of them had Facebook pages. Every one of these senior leaders was concerned about search engine rankings. Another consistent characteristic? Not one of them was happy with their marketing. This is not unusual. It’s predictable that senior leaders […]

1 Simple Content Fix: Talk to Your Audience, More News

PHOTO: Freedom II Andres Marketers may plan to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content this year. Raise your hand if your goal includes creating content that resonates. No sales pitches — just some bleeding edge thought leadership. All fine intentions. But have those same marketers talked to customers to figure out what "value" means to them ? If not, they’re already starting down the wrong path. Read more . Here are some more of our favorites from the past week: A Sample of Our Stories Customer Experience Digital Workplace Information Management Featured Events Featured Research

Working on Your Content Marketing Plan? 9 Components to Consider

Building an overall brand story is essential to effective marketing, and doing so online can be achieved by mixing a little business operations with journalistic procedures. Documenting a content marketing plan can be simple, and it must be done. Here are nine essential components to consider. 1. Set a tiered goal Every successful business plan starts with a set of tiered goals . Set quantifiable annual, quarterly, and monthly progress goals so everyone knows what to aim for. One article per day is the minimum goal you want to meet, in addition to at least three posts on each social media platform. These posts are meant to build on the story of the daily article – think of them as the special features on a Blu-ray disc. When the article is automatically promoted on each social media channel, three posts of conversational subject matter are necessary to keep the […]

9 Digital Marketing Trends to Invest in This Year

As content marketing—and specifically video marketing—continues to shape the B2B marketing landscape, marketers are beginning to loosen their purse strings to make more room for the new year. A report from PulsePoint and Digiday found that by next year, content marketing, as an industry, will grow by 59 percent from last year. This kind of authentic, real-time marketing is positioning content marketing to outpace search and social budget . Take a look at a few must-haves in our digital marketing budget. Each of these trends are helping us to bolster reporting, close the loop between marketing and sales, prove ROI, and bring human-to-human marketing to the forefront . 1. Video and Live Streams It doesn’t take Chewbacca Mom to show us how important visual storytelling has become. Consumers like to watch video—as many as four times as many consumers prefer to watch a video over reading text . But […]

34 Stats to Help You Plan Your Social Media Strategy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & More

Back in October, I wrote a piece on Medium that covered the numbers behind some of today’s top social media networks. From usage numbers to engagement statistics, it was incredible to see just how impactful networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become. For example, not only is Facebook home to 1.23 billion daily active users on average, but those users come from all over the world — with 85.2% residing outside of the U.S. and Canada. That’s a crazy level of connectivity. As I put together the post, it became obvious just how fast these networks were growing — and I thought a lot about how hard is it to keep up with all of these changes, especially for marketers. To make things a little easier to wrap your head around, I put together a simplified list of some standout statistics for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instragram, and […]

7 Tips to Take Your Content From “Meh” to Amazing

7 Tips to Take Your Content From _Meh_ to Amazing One of the greatest struggles content marketers face right now is creating engaging content. More than 70% of marketers have made it a top priority this year to address that and make stronger connections with their audiences. I think a primary cause for that struggle is that we’re only just a few years past search engine updates that changed , rather quickly, the way content is produced. The days of short, shallow content for the sake of building links are gone. But change sometimes comes slowly. If you want to stand out, you have to produce better content. That’s all there is to it. Your customers won’t settle for something boring, shallow, and uninteresting. They have problems, and they want answers to help them address those problems. Follow these 7 tips to take your content from “Meh” to amazing. […]

Debunked: What Tech Do You Really Need to Run an Online Business?

online business tech If you want to start a restaurant or a hair salon you’re going to need tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars worth of equipment before you can even open your doors. But online businesses aren’t quite the same – especially if you work from home and start small. Sure, there are some larger tech startups that needed millions of dollars of capital before they get up and running, but for most of us the barriers-to-entry are a lot lower. Seeing as I regularly get asked about the technology/equipment that I use to run my blogging company, I thought I’d do a post highlighting what I think are the essentials, and what you can leave behind. Let’s take a look. NOTE: None of the links in this post are affiliate links as I didn’t think it would fit with the “feel” of the subject. Essential tech: […]

65 Million Articles Are Published Each Month – Can Yours Stand Out?

Actually, it’s a lot more than 65 million articles – that’s just the number published on the WordPress platform! There are a lot of blogs out there. So, in a world where everyone wants to start a blog and everyone else is publishing their opinions on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, how do we make ours stand out? Is it even possible? In today’s post I’m going to look at a few strategies I’ve used over the years to help my blogs and online businesses get noticed and stand out from the crowd. I hope it helps a few people out there who are trying to make a bit of extra income for their families, or create happier careers. Let’s go. But what about all that competition? When you look at the sheer number of blogs and blog posts created each month it can seem a little overwhelming. How on […]

Refurbishing Top Content – Whiteboard Friday

You’ve got top-performing content on your site that does really well. Maybe it’s highly converting, maybe it garners the most qualified traffic — but it’s just sitting there gathering dust. Isn’t there something else you can do with content that’s clearly proven its worth? As it turns out, there is! In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Moz’s resident SEO and Content Architect, Britney Muller, shares three easy steps for identifying, repurposing, and republishing your top content to juice every drop of goodness out of it. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hey, Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. I’m Britney Muller, Moz’s SEO and Content Architect, and I’m so excited to talk to you today about refurbishing your top content. Any of you watching likely have top content, either on your site or a client’s site, that […]