It’s established when it comes to social media engagement or inbound marketing strategy, “content is king”. Without it, there’s not much to talk about, share, discuss, communicate or grab people’s attention. To a step further, it’s not just any old content that will do the trick and get people flocking to one’s website, flooding the CRM’s with online requests, mob the Facebook page and achieve web marketing Utopia. If that were true, there are millions of articles, videos, songs, blog posts and images churned out every day on the web…why not just reuse what’s there?

Well, that’s just not how the social web and content marketing in general works. It works on the foundation of being able to give online audiences quality content that speaks to people and makes a connection with them one way or another. Creating great content that’s going make that kind of an impact or connection with people needs thought, dedication, effort (lots of it) and creativity because as cliche as it may sound, you got to keep it fresh! Especially in a world where millions of pieces of content are fighting for the attention of online audiences in just about every space you can think of.

To illustrate what goes into “keeping it fresh”, here’s a behind the scenes look at the making of a 2 minute web introduction video we were working on at BuzzFactory for a client recently.

The Making Of A Craft Web Video At BuzzFactory

 It all starts with several hours of prep including work bouncing ideas, creating a story board, sequencing events, creating copy, inputs from the client, graphics / drawing, printing and setting up all that’s needed to get started.

This is followed by the actual process of capturing a stop motion or 2d craft video one frame at a time which can be a tedious process which stretches some hours. At the end of this we have enough images and frames to create 2 minutes of video footage!

Then to the audio workstation to record and synchronize voice-overs, sound effects and background music..

The sound editing involves adding the sfx and layering the voices and music and adds up in terms of impact

The final editing cut gets done and several hours since the process began…the video is ready to go online!

That’s just what goes into creating a 2 minute long animated web video to communicate an offering in a more fun and engaging way that we on the web love. When it comes to coming up with a great blog post, an interesting slideshare presentation, a good downloadable PDF document, a captivating info-graphic or a facebook promo…it’s still a considerable level of effort that goes into it and this is what sets quality content apart from ‘short cut’ tactics often employed to “get traffic fast”.

Consistently providing your audience original and relevant content is not easy. But is it worth the time, resources and effort that goes into coming up with quality web content? – Hell yeah!

Historically a King would get to the top spot by succession but Kings of the social web today get there through sheer determined effort…and a spark of creativity!

]]> http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/content-is-king-but-who-said-being-king-is-easy/feed/ 2 http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/buzzfactory-featured-startup-on-growvcs-may-2011-newsletter/ http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/buzzfactory-featured-startup-on-growvcs-may-2011-newsletter/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 15:06:49 +0000 Neil Sequeira http://buzzfactory.net/?p=1010

As our crowdfunding quest continues, this week gets exciting as BuzzFactory is the featured startup on the May 2011 issue of GrowVC’s newsletter. For those of you who may have missed our last update, we’re on a mission to raise an early round of funding and here are the details:  BuzzFactory Goes Crowdfunding & Searches Out The Right Investors

The GrowVC community has a terrific network of investors and fellow entrepreneurs and we’re hopeful we’ll find some great people to connect with from within the community. The crowdfunding journey moves onward!

View our startup profile here : https://www.growvc.com/startups/36060

We’re ready to kick it into the next gear

However, like all good things that take time, we’re finally ready to launch into business mode taking what we’ve learnt from the toddler years and creating a platform from which growth is the only way forward. Not to say, we plan to sell out, change direction or put on suits and change who we are as a team but we’re committed to growing what we’ve started and looking to raise a first small round of early stage angel funding. It’s time to take things to the next level and the search is on for the “right investors” to get on board on our new journey there.

It’s not about finding an investor for us. It’s about finding the RIGHT investing partners

Have you ever watched a reality show when a rock band auditions hundreds of potential new drummers or lead singers to find that certain “vibe” or “missing piece of the puzzle” ? It’s more than just finding someone who can play or sing. It’s about the chemistry, a shared vision, a sense of mutual understanding and finding the RIGHT fit to achieve what we set out to do together. Similarly, it’s not just about who has a surplus of funds to invest for us. This is a search for the RIGHT angel investor…reality show style!  So what did we do? We’ve thrown our funding request open to the crowd…

Any Angel Investors in the crowd that believe content & interaction fuels the Social Web?

There’s a perfect match for everyone out there. As die hard romantics….we believe that’s this applies to startups and investors too. Magic happens when the right startups find the right investors and things click into place. So how did we decide to go speed dating and find our perfect match? Crowdfunding! As our association with the GrowVC crowdfunding platform stands and the network it’s grown, we thought it to be fitting and setup the BuzzFactory startup profile on GrowVC and opened our funding requirement proposal to there crowd!

We Invite you to check out our Startup Page, support our crowdfunding campaign and help us find the missing piece

https://www.growvc.com/startups/36060

This is where we are on GrowVC.com

You can sign up for a free login, comment, vote for us and help us gather momentum

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BuzzFactorynet-The-Social-Media-Content-Marketing-Guys/302089203410

This is where you can find us on Facebook, follow our crowdfunding campaign and journey as a startup

The search begins….

The special feature covers emerging businesses which break away from the cost edge and common business models associated with India and bring something fresh and new to customers globally.

It feels great to be featured among these new cutting edge global businesses and very encouraging as we are in the midst of exploring options and moving ahead with growing our operations further towards the end of this year. As we scale our team and look forward to a new year with a new start we hope to be able to offer what we do to more customers both in India and around the world and keep the buzz going.

Do get yourself a copy of the October 31st Business Today and check out the article! We’ll share the online version on the Business Today website once it’s published there.

Click on the images to read

]]> http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/buzzfactory-featured-as-next-gen-company-on-business-today/feed/ 2 http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/a-sneak-peak-into-the-factory-behind-the-buzz/ http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/a-sneak-peak-into-the-factory-behind-the-buzz/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:32:12 +0000 Neil Sequeira http://buzzfactory.net/?p=728

Content and social media marketing is serious work! Execution is what lies at the very core of a successful online marketing initiative and while most SEO and online marketing tools will tell you what to do in order to get your Google ranking up and drive more  inbound traffic, how to create more online buzz, we actually focus on executing on what should be done.

At BuzzFactory, as we move ahead into our second year with more clients on board, more content to develop, more sites to manage and more online buzz to create there’s just so much going on at any given time we decided it was time for us to spruce up our online workplace. We needed a place which incorporates our core processes and ensured they remain as efficient and transparent as possible so that execution on every account remains as strong as ever.

After all, it’s the execution of our customer social media and content marketing strategies that we focus on.  The result…. was a new back end Virtual Office dubbed The Factory!

The Factory offers the perfect online work environment for everyone here at BuzzFactory while strengthening the workflow and processes which are so critical to what we do here.  For now, The Factory is open only to employees and functions as an intranet software for internal use but we do plan to roll out a future version which will include customers so they can monitor projects, get live updates and interact with the team in real-time.

Here is a small sneak peak into the back end software “The Factory” in the form of screen shots:

The screen from which freshly published content gets submitted to the next stage where it gets broadcast and gets promoted through social bookmarking sites, social networks, communities and more. (Please don’t mind the pink mist…it’s a bid to maintain some confidentiality)

A glimpse of one of the internal sections of “The Factory” which doubles as our online office or workplace. This one is a screen of the Projects section where individual accounts are managed, to-do lists are created, tasks are tracked and files are uploaded to streamline execution. (Please excuse the pink mist…again…it’s a necessary evil)

We’re pretty stoked about the new platform. We see it as the right kind of software platform to give an already strong team and strong process an additional boost and help scale without making a dent to efficiency.

Business Today Aug 22- Angels in the Crowd

That’s right! BuzzFactory.net has just launched a “Create A Custom Social Content Marketing Package” as an alternative to the existing solutions. You can now create your own social content marketing strategy and BuzzFactory.net will make sure it gets executed on every month like clockwork.

The online visibility solutions we have been offering are carefully tailored mixes of content and social marketing  activity which we know to work towards creating an online buzz for most needs. However, we understand  not every business has the same requirements and we’ve often tweaked the solutions to develop a mix of content and promotion activities that would suit a very specific requirement.

The new “Custom Social Marketing Solutions” offering on the website allows you to take the helm and create your very own content marketing strategy by selecting from a range of content development options, promotion and social media marketing activities which would help create the buzz around your brand on the web that you are looking for. The content options include:

• Engaging blog posts
• Keyword rich articles
• Guides
• White papers
• Reports
• PDF download documents
• Press releases
• Slideshare presentations
• Email drafts

Combine this with active social bookmarking across major social sites and promotion of content across social networking sites, Twitter, Linkedin and you virtually have a customized social content marketing strategy that’s ready to be put into action. Based on this submission we’ll get back to you with a proposal and a pricing quote shortly and if it all looks good, you’ll have a team to execute your plan for you.

Have a content marketing plan you need a pricing quote for? Use the “Custom Social Content Marketing Solutions” form and get a pricing quote soon!

Happy Birthday BuzzFactory

When I started thinking about venturing out into a start-up all my previous experience in online marketing thought me  “Great Original Content” is going to be at the very core of every businesses web marketing strategies. It’s the fuel which drives search marketing, SEO, inbound marketing, social media marketing, online marketing campaigns, e-mail marketing campaigns and just about every outreach component which can drive more visibility online around one’s business. Original content which can engage people on the web is an ongoing everyday requirement without which a business doesn’t have much to work with and few busy professionals can commit to creating such content as frequently and consistently as required for online initiatives to work for them. However, with a bit of support, a defined daily plan and a dedicated team to execute on it there is little that can’t be achieved.

With each of our customers since 15th of May last year we’ve learned from them, absorbed their passion for their business areas and supported their content marketing and social media marketing initiatives. We’ve constantly experimented, innovated, learned and evolved as a business and for just one year, BuzzFactory has grown tremendously in terms of capabilities.

If we seem overly positive about the future and what the next year has in store it would have to be attributed to our experience working with our existing customers each of whom we’ve become a part of over time. We are extremely grateful to the amazing early customers we have (ones listed on our site and ones who are not) who have been incredibly supportive, referred BuzzFactory.net to others and  carried us through the first year. It’s been a joy working with each one.

Keeping in with the spirit of turning over the year, the existing site, gets a cosmetic makeover and takes on a new look as it’s re-launched.  Cheers to turning one and here’s to many more!

being silent leads to being forgotten

If you picture a kid in a bus who is constantly talking about something and barely silent for a moment, you may not really be interested in what he is going on about but the chances are you are going to notice him and tune into what he is talking about. Chances are, others in the bus have also taken notice. It’s a lot like this with online channels starting with your blog. If you keep a constant conversation going online through your blog, Twitter, social networking and bookmarking sites, it will draw some listeners and create some interest. A part of that interest may drive readers to contact you and explore further. It generates a active interest in what you are talking about and creates opportunities. However, when the conversation stops, the blog posts dry out, the Twitter accounts turn silent and there is no dialog online, the activity around your site also tends to diminish (with the exception of search traffic coming through content that has been well indexed and show up in search results which has long lasting effects). If that online silence is prolonged, you’re likely to be forgotten.

constant activity is key

Most of those we work with are looking for our blogging and social media marketing support not because they don’t know how to do it themselves. It’s because they do know how it works and they know how important it is to be able to post and stay active very regularly and that is something their time schedules don’t permit.  They know there is a direct relation between the ability to consistently publish fresh content having active social channels and the ability to generate interest, conversations around their business and new customers.

keep a continuous online conversation going starting with your blog

For now, it’s time for me to break that silence on this blog with this post and other ones to follow. Then get back to being active on Twitter and other social sites to let everyone know I’m back and stiring a buzz. Perhaps I’m not very talkative in person but when it comes online marketing I know for sure, too much silence is not good for business.

Prior to launching BuzzFactory in my previous work experiences I had the opportunity to work closely with a number of content sites which were designed to draw inbound search traffic around a specific B2B (in most cases) or B2C (in a few cases) industry vertical. The objective was to develop each of these sites into a valuable resource for each industry that had fresh content updates such as news, articles, blog posts and more in a single location and professionals would have a something akin to an industry publication they could quickly open and read through for good content in their space.

One set of these sites were driven by syndicated content which came through RSS feeds from various other related publications and an other set employed a very small team of writers who would contribute to the content daily in the form of one or two articles and blog posts a day. The general idea behind the site which displayed content from other publications was to have more updates and a lot more content in an automated and cost effective way. Since it was simply aggregating content from other sites, it didn’t need much time or money and would update it self several times a day building a large index of links on the site. On the other set of sites progress was much slower. Limited resources mean’t the site could only be updated when there was bandwidth for someone to spend time writing a post or a detailed article, using the right keywords, linking, publishing and finally promoting it personally through social networking and bookmarking sites. While the first set of sites had hundreds of new article links each week (though duplicated (syndicated through RSS) the second slowly and steadily grew at around one new original post or article each day.

Now as logical guessing would have it, the first set of sites should have done very well but failed quite miserably at search results in every single case. The second set of sites which depended on original content though slow to develop grew in terms of both referral traffic and gradually drew a rising percentage of search engine traffic through some very relevant keywords and phrases.

Lessons Learned

• Syndicated content on your business website is a good resource. It’s useful for those who come to your website. It’s not as effective in bringing them to your website from search engines.

• Syndicated duplicate content doesn’t do much for gaining more links in search results as that benefit really goes to the site that originally posted the content you are just re-distributing.

• Duplicate content which is not syndicated and posted directly on your site is a big no no. It’s not just damaging to your page rank and site reputation, it’s plagarism.

• Keep it original even if it means it can cost more in terms of time or money. It will pay back in the long run and give you long term returns in terms of bringing the right people to your site.

• Slow and steady wins the race. Even if you can’t update your site with new content everyday, do as much as you can and make sure it’s fresh, useful, relevant to your business or website and build your own content one step at a time. Even if you don’t see magical spikes in traffic, each original post will bring in a trickle of search traffic and you can build that trickle into a stream of search traffic gradually.