Monthly Archives: March 2011

This blog post is based off of David Garland’s interview with Guy Kawasaki on his HubSpot sponsored web series “The Rise to the Top.” You can watch the full interview below.

Guy Kawasaki describes himself as a VC, writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and most importantly a recreational hockey player. His 10th and most recent book, Enchantment, made the New York Times best seller list.

Not only does Guy create an immense amount of content himself, but he also founded a content aggregation site called Alltop. Alltop aggregates thousands of news feeds from around the internet and allows users to filter news by subject, location, or just personal interest. With content creation become easier and easier and the amount of content growing exponentially, smaller businesses might start feeling like they’re fighting an impossible fight.

Why Guy and I Are Long Content

As we’ve seen with the recent pushback from the New York Time’s decision to put a paywall in front of their content, people are less willing to pay for content. Information is fast, free, and people have higher expectations for quality.

It’s unlikely that you are going to make a killing on advertising and sponsorships. Guy uses the analogy of being a hockey goalie expert. If you started a blog with interviews of some of the best hockey goalies of all time, maybe 1,000 people would pay to subscribe to your content, but you’re not going to get rich off of it. You also probably don’t have a niche as specific as the previous example.

If the content you can provide is more generalized then you need to distinguish yourself by the quality and ease with which people can find what they are looking for. This makes optimizing your content to get found in search engines is even more important. Understand what your potential customers are searching for and make it easier for the search engines to interpret your content’s relevance. Not every blog article or video you make is going to attract lots of inbound links, but you need to make sure the ones that do are optimized to get found.

What are you doing to stand out amongst the sea of content that is out there? Let us know in the comments below.

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I don’t know if we’re going to have the time or inclination to tell our viewers across the nation: 1) They captured the snake that was on the loose after escaping from the Bronx Zoo 2) Prince William will not wear a wedding band as a married man (though when you think about it,  … Continue reading →

Businesses on Facebook need to have a Facebook Page. For the past couple of years, many business owners have struggled with using a profile or a business page. Many businesses start marketing on Facebook with a personal profile until they understand its limitations. Then, they have difficulty scraping their personal profile and starting from scratch on a new Facebook Business Page.

Facebook recently launched a new tool for business owners that will now allow them to convert a personal Facebook Profile page into a Facebook Business Page. The new Profile to Business Page Migration Tool transfers the photo from the profile page and converts all friends of that personal profile into people who like the new Business Page. However, this migration will delete all other content from the personal profile page, including all wall posts and other photos.

Other rules from the migration include page brands and interests. Profiles with fewer than 100 friends will be able to rename their new business page. However, profiles with more than 100 friends will have to use their profile name as the name of their business page. Additionally, converted pages will not appear in the interest sections of users who were previously friends with the profile. Profile friends will not be notified that their friendship has been turned into a Like.

Marketing Takeaway

Facebook Pages are public pages and have distinct marketing benefits over Profile Pages. As a business looking to increase traffic and leads from social media marketing, you should create a Facebook Page or migrate your existing profile into a Business Page. But simply having a page isn’t enough.

You need to think about the content that appeals to your prospects and customers. Share your blogs posts on your Facebook Page as well as articles from other quality industry sources. Begin to think about Facebook News Feed Optimization. Attracting likes to your page is only the first step. The more a person interacts with your content, the higher the likelihood that your Page updates will appear in their Facebook News Feed. Engagement on Facebook is a critical component for increasing the reach of your content and calls-to-action.

Do you think Facebook’s new migration tool will increase the number of Business Pages?

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Businesses on Facebook need to have a Facebook Page. For the past couple of years, many business owners have struggled with using a profile or a business page. Many businesses start marketing on Facebook with a personal profile until they understand its limitations. Then, they have difficulty scraping their personal profile and starting from scratch on a new Facebook Business Page.

Facebook recently launched a new tool for business owners that will now allow them to convert a personal Facebook Profile page into a Facebook Business Page. The new Profile to Business Page Migration Tool transfers the photo from the profile page and converts all friends of that personal profile into people who like the new Business Page. However, this migration will delete all other content from the personal profile page, including all wall posts and other photos.

Other rules from the migration include page brands and interests. Profiles with fewer than 100 friends will be able to rename their new business page. However, profiles with more than 100 friends will have to use their profile name as the name of their business page. Additionally, converted pages will not appear in the interest sections of users who were previously friends with the profile. Profile friends will not be notified that their friendship has been turned into a Like.

Marketing Takeaway

Facebook Pages are public pages and have distinct marketing benefits over Profile Pages. As a business looking to increase traffic and leads from social media marketing, you should create a Facebook Page or migrate your existing profile into a Business Page. But simply having a page isn’t enough.

You need to think about the content that appeals to your prospects and customers. Share your blogs posts on your Facebook Page as well as articles from other quality industry sources. Begin to think about Facebook News Feed Optimization. Attracting likes to your page is only the first step. The more a person interacts with your content, the higher the likelihood that your Page updates will appear in their Facebook News Feed. Engagement on Facebook is a critical component for increasing the reach of your content and calls-to-action.

Do you think Facebook’s new migration tool will increase the number of Business Pages?

Free Download: Facebook Marketing Guide

How should businesses create, manage, and grow their Facebook pages? Find out from industry experts and marketers!

Download the free 30-page complimentary Facebook Marketing Guide.

Connect with HubSpot:

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C.C. Chapman, author of Content Rules, joins us for another episode of Inbound Now!

C.C. is the founder of DigitalDads.com, a marketing consultant and frequently speaks at industry events on the topic of content marketing.

In the show we talk about:

• Why producing content for your market is more important than ever.
• How to get started in the content marketing game.
• How curating content can be a powerful way to help supplement your content creation efforts and share valuable information with your community.

For the full transcript of the show and the audio, head over here: How to use content marketing and curation for your business

The Shift

Companies need to start thinking about themselves as content publishers.

“One of the first rules we laid out was you need to embrace that you’re a publisher.”

This is a critical piece of inbound marketing success and we cannot stress that enough.

The content that you are creating online is what is going to bring in more organic traffic and help build your companies position as thought leaders in your space.

Offer Something of Value on Your Site

Your brochure-ware website will not cut it anymore. You need a site that is the hub (no pun intended) of your industry that keeps prospects and customers coming back into your site.

Provide useful and valuable information that answers questions your would be buyers are searching for.

Creating (Good) Content Is Hard

Creating content has to become a major part of your company and it’s not a one off project. It’s a continual process that you can refine over time.

“The hardest thing is you really need to figure out what you want to create. Because let’s face it, content is a beast. Once you start doing it, to do it right, this is not a one and done thing. This isn’t, oh, we’re going to set up the website and then forget about it. This is something that has to become part of your core DNA, that you keep doing on a regular basis”

Perfection Is The Enemy of Shipping

Far to many people wait strive for absolute perfection when creating content.

This drags out blog posts, puts off that video being produced 8 months into the horizon, and nothing gets shipped.

Not every piece of content will be the Mona Lisa, especially when starting out. These imperfections and rough spots when first getting into producing a piece of content helps share your companies authenticity with the world and shows a more human side to your business.

How Do Your Customer Consume Content?

Ask yourself this question before you being creating different pieces of content.

How does your target audience consume content? In what scenarios do they commonly find themselves in? Do they typically have a long commute? Does your content need to be snack sized or can it be consumed in a longer time frame?

Reimagine Don’t Recycle

Repurposing content is key. Ask yourself “What else can we do with this?”

Thinking about what content you are going to produce doesn’t have to be rocket science. Start with a big idea and break it into smaller chunks OR start with smaller ideas and piece them together into something bigger.

Do a content audit of the pieces of content you have right now and tackle the beast one way or another. 

Content Curation

“Content curation is a great way, especially for small businesses or companies who don’t think they have the time to create all their own content, to pull together relevant content and share it with your community”

Pulling together the top resources from your industry can be a great way to supplement the content you are producing.

Make sure you are linking back to the originals and by all means try and add in your 2 cents as to why you are sharing the content. This is both to avoid penalties from Google and to add value and context to whats being shared.

Remember, content curation is not a replacement for content creation!

Metrics For Content?

Emily Evelina: Could you ask how to measure content value when clients are so hooked on SEO metrics? You talk about this in the book, what are some core metrics to keep an eye on?

“The key part is figuring up front how you’re going to measure. Say, for the next three months, we want to increase . . . one of the things I say is don’t say we want more views. Say we want to increase our viewership by 10,000 or whatever the number is. Pick the number that’s right for you. But then you can look at it and do it short term, look at three months. We want to increase our readership by X. Then you can look and go, “Did we hit it or did we not? How can we ramp it up even more?” “Oh, look we did do this with like no budget. What if we add some budget, what could we do then?”Content takes a while to get going.

Connect with CC Online

CC blogs regularly over on CC-chapman.com and you can tweet him @cc_chapman

For more about the book see: Content Rules

Free Download: Advanced Business Blogging

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My last two posts reviewed how to setup and promote a webinar, and then how to host your first webinar. In this final post, I’ll review what comes next – how to figure out how the presentation went and how to make the most out of this great content you just created.

How to Host Your First Webinar – Part 3: After the Webinar

Stage 4: Measure & Next Steps

24 hours after the webinar

• Post Your Webinar Slides and Recording Online – If you offered this to your attendees, create a page on your website where people can view and/or download the slides and video from your presentation. As a bonus, I recommend posting your slides (we usually do so in PDF format rather than PPT) to a slide sharing site like SlideShare. In addition to spreading your content further, SlideShare has an embeddable slide viewer that you can post on your own website.
• Follow Up with Registrants with the Slides and Recording – Now tell your registrants where they can go to view and/or download the slides and recording you just posted.
• Measure Your Webinar Statistics – How do you know if your event was a success? Measure a few key metrics for each webinar you host, including number of registrants, what percentage of registrants attend (40% is the industry average), conversion rate on your registration landing page, and of course how many new leads and customers you generated from this event.
• Make it Evergreen – Your live event may be over, but that content can continue to serve as a lead generating tool. Some ideas to make your content “evergreen” are to create a landing page to download the archived presentation, and write a follow up blog post to drive additional interest to your archived download.

What else do you look at to measure the success of your webinars? Any other ideas to make your content “evergreen”?

Now Go Become a Webinar Legend!

Flickr photo by adjourned

Live Webinar: Tips for Doing Your First Webinar

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For all those who are following the current conflict in Libya and U.S. policy on arming the rebels (including President Obama’s answer to my question yesterday), I recommend you watch our reporting tonight from Richard Engel, who rode along with the rebels today. Continue reading →

Today, Google came out with a counter punch to Facebook’s Like button. Earlier today, the search engine giant began rollling out a new button called +1. The +1 button will apear next to search engine results and AdWords advertisements. In the future, website owners and publishers will be able to add a +1 button to pages and articles on their sites.

How Google +1 Works

How does Google’s new +1 work? First of all, +1 is currently being rolled out as an experiment and you need to opt in with Google to have access to it in the short term. In order to view +1 search results and AdWords results, the user will have to be logged in with their Google profile. Once a user is logged in and clicks on the +1 button next to a search engine result, Google we keep track of that +1 and highlight that search result if it appears for any of that user’s friends for that or a similar search.

Check out a quick video from Google introducing +1:

A Real Step Towards Social Search

With +1 Google makes a major step forward in its quest for more social search results. Not only do the +1 recommendations play a significant role in Google’s series of social search improvements, but they will also highlight content people are actively interested in. Now people using social search will be able to see content created and shared by those in their social network, and recommended by those in their Google +1 network. All of the +1 data, TechCrunch points out, will be available to the public likely through an API.

Google +1 Is a Social Network

While +1′s initial impact might be seen in social search results, it is important to realize that +1 is more than that; it is a social network. Google Profiles are at the core of Google’s future plans for the discovery and sharing of contextual information. With the launch of +1, Google Profiles got much more useful because a new tab has been created in Google Profiles to let users keep track of all of their +1s.

Marketing Takeaway

It seems like Google keeps making changes and adding new tools that will impact how your business will get found online. Don’t worry about understanding all of the details and granularity of every change Google makes. However, you should notice the patterns that are occuring with all of the changes Google is making. Clearly, Google is rewarding social businesses. The more your business connects with prospects and customers online, the more you increase your odds of getting found in Google’s evolving search results.

The days of obsessing over keyword rank are over. Instead, make your business social and create relevant information that will help to attract +1s and influence who decides to visit your site from search engine results pages. Blogging and sharing content on social media has never been more important. In a world that is being built on personal recommendations, it is critical that your business becomes social through remarkable content.

What do you think about Google +1?

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