- Create a Facebook page

- Blog 3 days a week

-Spend 32.6% of your budget on Google Adwords

-Spend 21 percent of your budget on content marketing

If there were one fixed recipe for online marketing success that stated the perfect blend of activity, medium, budget or things to do, we would all be as well known as Google, Facebook, Amazon or Youtube. There isn’t! Every company, brand, website or offering that you find online needs to go on a journey when it comes to digital marketing.

It’s a lot like trying to perfect a recipe. You add something, take away something else, taste, adjust flavors and keep working at it till you’ve finally come to the perfect recipe. There difference being…you need to keep at it or someone else will do it better.

There are always certain things that should be on your to-do list everyday to develop your online presence and that’s part of your fixed marketing plan. However, you also need to set aside time to try things that are outside the box because when you find something that works for you and add it to your recipe, it only adds to your marketing momentum.

Here is what we highly recommend to help you find the right recipe for digital marketing success

Try

There is just a sea of different options when it comes to online marketing. Aside from your staple strategies, always try adding something new to the mix or at least giving it a try. You can never know if something will work for you or not without trying it out or exploring the possibility of doing something different. Can creating an affiliate marketing program and developing an online partner network add value? Should we explore a paid Linkedin advertising campaign? Will a premium listing on a directory website help drive more targeted traffic our way? Can we benefit from partnering with other complimentary offering sites? Invest time and effort into looking at alternative strategies and options that could add a new dimension to your business or brand.

Measure

Most marketing efforts online are easy to track and measure. It’s important to be patient while trying and adding new strategies but it’s just as important to keep tracking progress and measuring the outcome of each effort or campaign to gauge effectiveness. Perhaps you’ve distributed a press release. How far was the outreach? Did it result in an increase in flow to the website? Or maybe you’ve recently joined a new community online that is relevant to your business and been participating actively in discussions there. Is it resulting in referrals to your site? How many people ended visiting your site from that community?

Fail -> Learn -> Correct Course

Failing is a good thing when it comes to trying out different options as long as we learn from it. You may have created an offer for your Facebook fans which no one seemed to respond to. What went wrong? Is it worth trying again with some changes? You could have spent a lot of time directly reaching out to other sites with an affiliate offer but they were just not interested in it. Why? Can we restructure or build more incentive for partners? It could have been an online advertising campaign that didn’t generate enough clicks. Was the copy bad? Was the targeting wrong? Failure is part of the digital marketing process. It helps you learn, identify what isn’t working and correct course.

Identify What Is Working & Do More Of It

This is how you perfect a recipe. Not everything will yield results. When you do see tangible results as a result of a specific activity, step it up and keep it as part of your digital marketing mix. Being actively participating on a specific Linkedin group or travel portal like Trip Advisor (if  you’re a hotel for example) may have resulted in a significant increase in inbound leads or bookings. Keep at it and dedicate more time to staying active there! Perhaps a specific pay per click advertising campaign for offbeat keywords yielded a revenue increase at a lower cost. Increase the budget on that until it’s optimized and keep it as part of your ongoing efforts.

Don’t Stop Experimenting & Discovering New Streams

The online marketing world is a turbulent one that keeps you on your feet and demands you stay a few steps ahead of the next change, next big thing or next development that rocks the boat. While you’ve identified what’s working for you and made that a part of your outreach routine, keep trying new things, play with new ideas, strategies and tools to see what else could add value. A site or content with visually appealing images or original graphic content can benefit tremendously by dedicating time towards developing a network on Pinterest. It could result in a lot more traffic and conversions. A local restaurant or retail store could leverage Foursquare or prompt visitors to update their networks on where they are to spread the word.

There recipe ideally suited for you is the one that you need to work at and develop through an ongoing process. Keep perfecting it!

A couple of years ago when we launched BuzzFactory.net there were a smaller number of competitors both globally as well as locally. We were not positioning ourselves as a social media agency or a social media marketing company back then, we were simply a content marketing / inbound marketing team using our skills at creating and marketing great content to drive audiences for our customers. We evolved into social media service provider or agency since we started expanding our offering and capabilities. Of course more recently, there are a lot more digital marketing agencies many of which are competitors and I get asked “doesn’t the spurt in the number of social media marketing agencies intimidate you?”.

Truth is, of all the ones I frequently come across, the handful that scare me are the ones I find publish some really awesome content.

• Great website copy with crisp messaging that talk to you & prompt you to explore further
• Personality that comes through the writing giving you a feeling you somehow know them and can connect with what they say
• Resourceful & engaging blog posts that tell you they know what they’re talking about …knowledgeable in their field
• Smart use of graphics and video clips to help you visualize a message
• Presentations, downloadable documents, demos, case studies, photos and other well crafted resources that help you evaluate and create an opinion of them even before you’ve picked up the phone or sent and email to contact them.

Online brand perception is formed even before you make any sort of contact with anyone from within a business or organization. It’s created through your content.

Don’t Cut Corners With Content Your Online Brand Perception Depends On It

That said… here are some pointers when it comes to content and your overall online presence strategy:

1. Don’t skimp on time or money when it comes to creating your content, the new Google algorithm updates are based on rewarding sites with higher quality content that get linked to and mentioned purely because they are that good and not as a result of technical SEO gimmicks.
2. Don’t look for short cuts, cultivate a following by delivering valuable content. Don’t buy bulk blog posts (the 1$ an articles types) from providers that piece together from others content and throw in a few keywords assuring you it will help boost links and search results. They will harm your site rather than do any good. Remember it’s now about quality not quantity.
3. Make sure you inject your / your brands personality into everything you publish. Audiences on the web form impressions on who you are from what they have in front of them. A boring web web page full of factual information, statistics and data may convey information but not personality.
4. With social media conversations, make sure those that represent your online voice are doing so the way you’d like your brands voice to come across. They are your voice after all and what they say reflects on your business.
5. Be creative, don’t shy away from being vibrant or different. In a world where millions of conversations and millions of pieces get published every single day, being different helps stand out, getting noticed and carving an identity. (Hence the Pink Elephant in our logo)
6. Become obsessed with the content aspect of social media marketing, it does define how others see you online so give it the priority it deserves.

The next time you check out a website, a video, a blog post or presentation that belongs to a brand or organization, consciously think about how you’re making associations, what it tells you about them and how they come across. It’s how others perceive you from what you put out there on the web. The scales are tipped in favor of those that communicate better online!

One of the top reasons decision makers in B2B businesses put off social media marketing and spending on activity which can help create a web presence is “no instant ROI”. The logic: why pay someone to blog, publish content, share content, comment on others websites and spend time on social networks all day when it doesn’t instantly result in sales? It’s just an ongoing cost which can run for months without a directly proportional result in terms of sales that can be tied directly to this activity.

Most traditional business development decision makers would rather spend on advertising campaigns, email marketing campaigns, telemarketing or buying peoples attention rather than earning trust by building a relationship through social media which can be a much longer process. You wouldn’t be wrong to think social media and the content marketing approach is a slower path to converting attention to sales so it can be put off. However, it would be short-sighted.

You see, developing a content ecosystem and a social media presence is a long term investment much like brand building and not a short term marketing campaign spend like a telemarketing campaign.

So when you look at the term ROI on activities like blogging, sharing, content development and others related to developing an online presence, you need to look at it standing far back thinking what it can do for you several years down the line rather than looking at it up close like a 2 month advertising campaign where you count spend and conversions over this short period. Social media is a long term investment in creating brand pull around your business and that’s the perspective it needs to be seen in.

Real life case illustration

A couple of years ago  I was involved with the demand generation team for a B2B service. When it was launched, there were two major components to the customer acquisition process. An inbound marketing lead (just myself) and an outbound pre-sales team of 4 that would run email campaigns combined with outbound telemarketing campaigns to identify potential customers that supported a 5th sales manager that would actually close sales resulting in conversion when a hot lead has been identified by the pre-sales team.

Working of the Outbound Marketing Team

4 resources costing the company $3000 (made up figure) a month each at a total cost of $12,000 a month.

Together they generate approximately 120 phone calls each day reaching about 50  a day of which 2 warm leads would emerge. That’s about 10 warm leads a week of which about 1 would convert into a customer. This team of 4 would consistently deliver about 4 customers a month which was not bad considering this was a service where a single customer would be high value and contribute significant revenues.

The process was linear and the cost of sales constant. The only way to increase sales would be to increase costs.

Working of the Inbound Marketing Effort

1 resource costing the company $3000 (made up figure) a month total cost of $3,000 a month.

As a 1 person inbound marketing resource for a small business, I would spend my hours each day creating a compelling blog post, developing engaging content around the service like slideshare presentations, ebooks, PDFs etc. Promoting and sharing this content across social bookmarking sites, interacting with others on relevant communities across Linkedin groups, doing guest blog posts with industry thought leaders, building a following on Twitter, link building and developing awareness for the service and company.

The first two or three months there was very little traffic, a hand full of inbound leads mainly from decision makers stumbling across conversations and learning about the company. In the next three months we were reaching about 150 inbound visitors a day resulting in about just 10 form fills a month but converting into about 4-5 sales a month since the inbound leads were more qualified and came looking for what we offer. This was at par with the 4 person outbound team.

As the activity continued at the same pace, towards the end of the first year traffic grew steadily towards the website, form fills started to increase and inbound leads were continuing to show steady progress. Conversions were much better on these inbound leads since they came from visitors that had come across us online through our content or conversations, heard about us, reviewed and done most of their evaluation on the website with content provided there and then asked us to get in touch with them since they were interested.

By the end of the second year, the number of inbound leads from the website as a result of the social media and content marketing activity had far exceeded anything the 4 person sales team could come up with who were still at 4 sales a month.

The process took time and effort to yield anything. Once it did, however, it scaled and beyond a point, the returns far outweighed the costs.

Developing an online presence is not going to yield instant results but great brands were not built overnight. They were investments made with the vision that people will connect with them and when they finally did they paid off. Social media and online outreach is an investment. Invest early, reap the benefits long term!

That said, there’s something quite amusing about Stumble. Something that all serious stumblers will know and would have experienced.

If you’re on StumbleUpon and are reading this. Have you noticed this?

The nuclear fission like popularity of social site Pinterest.com has taken the social web by storm. Shooting up the website rankings among the most popular sites out there today, this is one online community no brand, website or organization wants to ignore when it comes to reaching out on the web. No less than a few months ago you could have given it a miss while planning your inbound marketing and social media strategies but ignoring it now would be like ignoring Facebook, Twitter and a number of other channels put together. That’s just how influential Pinterest can be in adding to the referral traffic on your website! In the inbound marketing world, it’s a force to reckon with.

For those of you yet to get on the Pinterest bandwagon, the concept behind this game changing social networking is fairly simple: Imagine creating pin up boards for things you like whether it’s recipes, places you wish to visit, motorbikes you love or clothes that appeal to you and pinning up images / photos of the best you find on the web under each of these. For example, you find a photo of a destination that looks amazing, you can pin it up to your board of “places I like”. In true spirit of social networking you can follow others, see their boards and share your pin-up boards with others. Ultimately, where this site shines through is the visual experience it delivers and makes finding great web content fun.

Now if you’re looking to engage on Pinterest and tap into this massive social network which is rapidly becoming one of the top five sources of inbound traffic to so many sites, you need to make one major direction change in terms of the content you’re publishing to even have a chance of making waves on this social network:

Think Visually

Snappy 140 character texts like the ones on Twitter, Facebook-like status updates and well worded blog posts are not the fuel Pinterest runs on. If you’re going to be one of the sources for viral pins on Pinterest (and the site does link to sources for images pinned) then you need to think :

- Terrific appealing photos

- Graphics

- Infographics

- Visual representations

- Posters

- Designs

- (Videos too)

While the images pinned to Pinterest can be linked to the source site or page they came from, it’s the images and visual content themselves that actually draw clicks from other pinners so if your visual content doesn’t have appeal, it’s not likely to do too well on Pinterest.

Inbound marketing strategies and content creation for social media engagement and is going to have to put more focus on developing great visual content to include in publishing mix. For someone looking to develop a presence on Pinterest, you’re going to have to ask :

- Would someone be drawn to the image if seen on their feed of pins followed?

- Would they click the images you pin and share?

- Would they re-pin or share those images?

Pinterest is going to drive brands to be more creative in terms of photos, graphics, images and visual content. Put the focus on great visual content and Pinterest could do wonders for your inbound traffic and web presence!

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/business-blogging-and-finding-justin-bieber/ http://buzzfactory.net/buzzfactory-blog/business-blogging-and-finding-justin-bieber/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:23:38 +0000 Neil Sequeira http://buzzfactory.net/?p=853

My inbox today had a rather interesting read. I received an email from the other side of the world from someone who was looking for permission to use a photo I had shared on Flickr but couldn’t connect there since I’ve been inactive there for a while. She wrote:

I sent you a Flickr e-mail but when I noticed that you hadn’t uploaded in 2 years I figured that maybe you were no longer checking mail there. So I took the plunge to google you, you certainly are not hard to find and that is a credit to your business!

I’m no Justin Bieber by a long shot but it’s heartening to know that what we do with social media and business blogging makes it easier for others to find us and connect with us. This email could well have been a potential customer who heard about what we do through “content” that they came in contact with and then did a search to see if they could connect with us. As a business that wants to be present on the social web the question you should be asking is:

How easy or hard would it be for someone to find you and connect with you if they decided they want to connect with you and did a Google search?

a) Impossible

b) Not to0 hard with some searching

c) Easy, we come up all over in related searches

This is where the reference to the social media phenomenon Justin Bieber comes in. Now don’t get wrong. For the record I would like to say I don’t get the “Bieber fever” …in fact I’m not a fan of Justin Bieber. I have been lucky enough not to have listened to any of his songs or watch any of his performances all the way through and intend to keep it that way. To go a step further his hair bothers me as much as Donald Trump’s does and if I had a razor and had my way I would probably get a restraining order from both their respective lawyers.

However, Justin is a social media wonder. If somehow you don’t know who he is, look up the name on Google and there is no other Justin or Bieber online that dominates the web results like this web phenomenon turned super star. Millions of youtube plays for his videos and a twitter following of over 8 million! Finding Justin Bieber on the web is not a challenge. He is EVERYWHERE!

This is one of the main perks of having an active social media, business blogging and content marketing strategy in constant motion. If you’re publishing and promoting content consistently and daily, you’re growing your web footprint. The more you grow this web footprint, the easier it becomes for those who need to connect with you …find you! Now this may not be on the Justin Bieber scale of things but every action that contributes to reaching out and indexing more engaging content online, makes the process of finding you, your business and website more visible on search engines.

So unless you’re looking to stay anonymous, get the wheels of your business blogging efforts turning and ….get found!

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.

I’ve been frequently asked the question “why invest in social media and content marketing?” .

The question often asked to substantiate whether there is any clear ROI in engaging in creating compelling new content and distributing it through social media channels. Somehow, it often takes time for executives more comfortable with traditional marketing tactics to come to reason with why they should consider content and social media core to their marketing online. The prospect of how all the content you generate and all the relationships you build with people online through your blog, social networks, podcasts, articles, slideshare presentations work together to create an online “pull” which will drive your inbound marketing sounds good but it’s not a pack of “instant noodles”. It’s perhaps something PR professionals will appreciate more than marketers since they can relate to how personality, image and brand can be built through strategic communication over a period of time.

To convince many other marketing professionals, we may need something a little closer to home to help understand the need to have an active social media and content marketing strategy in play. Something more comparable like “Lead Nurturing”. Lead nurturing doesn’t result in instant conversions. It is however, a highly effective marketing strategy and we marketers love it!

It keeps a constant engagement with prospective customers in the form of emails, newsletters, updates and other content which could be of value to them. It keeps “you as an organization or business” fresh in their minds since they are reminded of you with each “contact” and when they are ready to “buy” or “act” they know who to go to.

Social content marketing works much the same way. It’s perhaps even less intrusive that typical lead nurturing which in itself is pull based. Here’s an example:

The other day someone asked me if I knew a good web design firm in the APAC region. I thought about for a good 3 seconds and said ” try getting in touch with Brightlabs!”.

Now I’ve never used Brightlabs personally for any web design or development work. I do however read their blog posts quite often, see updates from them on Twitter, read their articles which show on my Linkedin feed. Since I ended up following them on Facebook, I also often come across a wall update or hear about what they are up to on my Facebook account feed. Simply through all the outreach and content they publish, they come off as a firm that really knows what they are doing. In my view, they come across as real professionals who have an eye for detail and passion in the sites they design and build. I feel like I know them well through their online communication. Whenever I’m online on any of my social sites such as Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter, I see them there. So when a requirement came up, the first thing that came to my head when I head web design was “Brightlabs“.

Your content and interaction with people on social networks does what you would expect from lead nurturing campaigns.

- Touch base with them frequently

-Provide them information and content which is valuable

-Don’t sell (at least not directly through your content)

-Be everywhere, social networks, search engines, blogs

-Build relationships through what you publish and what you say online

-Become known for what you do

When the time is right and they have a requirement, they will come to you. Going back to the question “Why invest in social media and content marketing?”. The same reason you would invest in lead nurturing program. To keep your prospective customers in the loop so that when they  have a requirement, they know you are there.

The problem is many people who are charged with the task of turning their website into a successful marketing channel take these two metrics and set them as their primary objectives losing sight of the big picture. Back links, increasing your page rank, maximizing page-views, reducing bounce rates although considered metrics for successful websites should actually be secondary outcomes which result from going after a primary goal which is far more important “creating a high quality engagement with your online audience“. If you do this, the rest will follow and you’ll end up having more than just a website with impressive traffic figures but doesn’t do wonders as far as your key objectives go. You’ll have a long term online asset which works for you.

Here is what we’re talking about:

Super Holiday Hotels sets up a brand new website for their new property in Male, Maldives. They decide they want some aggressive traffic building activity for their new site with tonnes of unique visitors and back links from the top travel websites with high page ranks to increase their own page rank. They set out to hire a few freelance article writers who can deliver bulk posts 500 words in length at a steal, hire more freelance guys who do link submissions to directories and promise 250 plus back links to your website in a month and another set of guys who will comment on other blogs (some of whom will use bots) and pay them for every 100 comments posted. In 8 months the Super Holiday Hotels has 35,000 unique visitors a month! A success! Oh… and they also get an average of 3 visitors who fill in their online reservation form and book rooms with them each month.

The Beachfront Hotel sets up a brand new website for their new property in Male, Maldives. They decide they want to turn their website into a source of inbound reservations and bookings for the long term so that most of their sales will come through the website. They know the way to do this is build a reputation online, reflect their own hospitable personality and love for their island nation online through their social media channels and create relationships with online travelers so that some day they may arrive at the property as guests. They engage BuzzFactory.net! (…just kidding) They create an resource for people traveling to the Maldives irrespective of where they plan to stay. They deliver great content which carries their personality as a business while also ensuring what they publish is information that readers can rely on and help them on their travels there. They work steadily at building a publication which is invaluable to anyone who plans to visit Male, creates a community of those interested in the island around their site, creating communities on Facebook, Twitter while answering questions for those communities keeping them updates on what happens on the island and the property. In 8 months The Beachfront Hotel has reached 10,000 visitors a month. Disappointment? Not really… they will eventually get to 35,000 in a few months time and keep climbing. More importantly, with just 10,000 visitors a month, they have averaged 20 bookings and reservations a month through their website which accounts for 50% of their occupancy each month. It’s working!

Quality! Quality! Quality!

Quality of your objectives and plan + Quality of your execution = Quality of your results

The Beachfront Hotel was not blinded by the numbers of back links and unique visitors. The visitors to their website were not a flow of traffic from some irrelevant high traffic website as a result of clever traffic building schemes, they were people searching for travel information in Male and found a reliable online personality by the name of The Beachfront Hotel which offered it. They interacted with them on Facebook, decided to explore the website a bit further and made a decision to stay there during their visit. In the long run…chances are…other high ranking travel websites will see The Beachfront Hotels online publication as a great resource for that destination and link them anyway.

Traffic and back links are a by-product of having a really great website which others consider a “great resource” or “important website” with your domain. With the right direction, right objectives and metrics to measure your online marketing success by, you’ll be on your way to building a really great web asset.