Content Marketing Quickie

Content Marketing Quickie July 2 2019

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Hey, it’s Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here’s your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of July 2, 2019. Happy birthday ‘Merica!

 

-Here’s you. “I’m a startup, brand spanking new, but I’m going to go after keywords that have been around forever and build up enough authority to start showing up in the top 5 organic results.” Here’s people who hear you say that, “Um, we’ll be happy to take all your money but…riiiight.” Jeremy Moser on Search Engine Journal is here to give you a big ol’ reality check, but also some helpful advice. Keyword driven content, probably the keyword you want to go after, that’s owned. Mega companies have been working them for decades and you might get there one day, but many, many, many days in the future. Long tail won’t work either, the big brands have that locked up. So unless you have unlimited money and forever, you might want to reconsider seeing keywords as your path to greatness. But you do need traffic, like now. Hey how about sharing links? How? You have little traffic to offer, so the only people who’ll take that deal are sites with as little authority as you have. Don’t despair, Jeremy tells us what to do instead…if you can. You need to generate fundamentally different, truly original and exclusive content. Like what Mike? Simmer down I’ll tell you. Like proprietary research results, preferably that hasn’t been done to death. Web surfers love these articles and you stand a slight, slight chance of a major player quoting it or linking to it. Another thing to try is having a super unique tone and use it to make your pieces provocative. Don’t just copy Gary V, do your own thing, but like that. Stand out. You’ll notice people gravitate to the same old names, mine is not one of those names dammit. Turn heads by being something other than what’s already out there. Lastly you can try interviewing big shots for round up articles. Sure it’s the same old people but if you can get them to talk to you, leveraging them should work. Of course, the reason they might not talk to you is, they know you’re just trying to leverage them. Pique their interest by asking something topic related, not who their favorite Care Bear is, that they’ve never been asked.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-driven-content-wont-rank-startup/312969/

 

-Many of you who are interested in content marketing are interested in it because you’re in charge of the social media channels for your brand. Your dreams came true, didn’t they? So just for you, here are the latest learnings from research done by Sprout Social Nathan Mendenhall shared. They talked to social marketers and consumers to get this stuff just so you’ll be better at your job. So listen carefully. Now I ran the social channels for the Oracle Social Cloud – talk about having to put on a good show – and I was shocked to learn 47% of social marketers think their #1 challenge is putting together strategies that speak to the company’s business goals. Huh? Then what are you posting? Your social strategy is derived from the overall content strategy isn’t it? Ohh, your company didn’t think an overall content strategy was needed. Quit! Quit right away and go somewhere else! 71% of marketers can give other departments info on the customers from the social channels. Hey, it’s called data. Why leave it on the table? 77% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social, so while it’s getting harder, they’re still worth getting. And 67% are more likely to spend more with a brand they follow, so don’t just grow the audience, nurture the one you’ve got. Half follow brands to learn about new products or services. Stop! I know what you’re thinking. That doesn’t mean they want you to sell them on what you’ve got, that just means they want to be able to get info on their own. 45% of consumers are more likely to research something when a brand’s employees post about it. Man, employee advocacy is powerful but it is ever so tricky to do. The only time employees want to post about the brand where they work is when they’re super proud of where they work and of the products you make. So do that. 40% of social media marketers think private community groups will be more important, which duh, that’s where the social platforms are shifting anyway. And 63% of marketers think listening will get more important. Well how much more important could it be? This shows the focus has sadly been stuck just on what brands want to say.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/8-social-media-marketing-stats-you-shouldnt-ignore/557405/

 

-Well there’s always some Instagram news isn’t there? They announced they’re bringing ads to the 'Explore' tab. Now you brands can get your sponsored posts in that part of Instagram town. Anyone see a trend here? Anyone getting déjà vu? Facebook is turning Instagram more and more into an image of itself, itself being a dominantly pay to play ad platform. So you know what Explore does, uses those granny’s secret recipe algorithms to suggest things to you based on your activity. In the next few months, you’ll start seeing sponsored posts in the Explore feed, like it as a user or not. Instagram says they’ll be introduced slowly and thoughtfully…you know, the old “turn up the heat on the frog slowly so they won’t realize they’re cooking and jump out of the pot” technique. Rebecca Stewart reports on The Drum-pa-pum-pum, it’ll be easy for advertisers. They can do auto placements with a simple opt-in to start showing up in Explore, and they’ll get to be part of what’s hip and happening, and maybe get explored. Aliens, doctors, I’ve always resisted getting explored. Instagram claims 80% of users follow a business on the platform.

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/06/26/ads-are-coming-instagrams-explore-tab

 

-Let’s see, what else can we learn real quick? I know, how about how to get your blog to generate more leads? Christopher Jan Benitez says the hottest bloggers will tell you their biggest bonehead mistake wasn’t building an email list from day one. Did you know over 75% of people going to your site from search will never go there again? So you’ve got to capture that lead on visit 1. Christopher says do these steps. Get a self-hosted WordPress.org site. Register with an email marketing service provider. Make sure you’ve got software that makes really nice sign-up forms and lets you test multiple forms to see which converts best – if opt-ins can be personalized based on user behavior, even better. And use the right Wordpress plugins – a lot of them are hard to use and some don’t integrate with the MailChimps of the world. Basically, just put some serious thought and effort into this, because little email subscription boxes in the sidebar don’t get noticed. How about turning people who comment into leads by using a comment redirect? When they post their comment, they get sent to a page on your site that encourages signup. Or you can buy people off with incentives to sign up…like some exclusive content you’ve made that won’t cost you much, if anything. Or a content upgrade. Oooo you’re “premiere” level, aren’t you a stud now!

https://bloggingtips.com/2019/06/25/how-to-generate-more-leads/

 

That’s the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. Please become a regular listener, make being aware and smart about your own industry a habit, it’s not that bad an idea you know, and we’ll see what happens next week.