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vineri, 10 mai 2013

West Wing Week: "I Dare You to Do Better"

Your Daily Snapshot for
Friday, May 10, 2013

West Wing Week: "I Dare You to Do Better"

This week, the President traveled to Mexico and Costa Rica, spoke to the graduating class of 2013 at The Ohio State University, hosted the new President of South Korea, discussed hurricane preparedness -- and kicked off his Jobs & Opportunity tour in the Lone Star State.

Watch this week's West Wing Week here.

What's a manufacturing innovation institute? The answer in 60 seconds.

Friday, May 10, 2013

What's a manufacturing innovation institute? The answer in 60 seconds.

After shedding jobs for a decade, American manufacturers have added about 500,000 positions over the past three years. Production is growing at its fastest pace in over a decade.

President Obama is committed to continuing this progress -- which is why he’s laid out a comprehensive agenda to make America a magnet for manufacturing.

Yesterday, following through on a promise he made in his State of the Union, the President rolled out the first piece of that agenda, announcing competitions to establish three new Manufacturing Innovation Institutes.

These new institutes, partnerships among business, universities and community colleges, and government, will develop and build manufacturing technologies and capabilities to help U.S.-based businesses and workers create good jobs.

We asked Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council, to explain in 60 seconds or less why these institutes are an important part of the President’s strategy to invest in manufacturing.

Find out why investing in manufacturing is so important.

P.S. -- In case you missed it, yesterday President Obama directed his Administration to take historic steps to make government-held data more accessible as fuel for innovation and economic growth.

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Positioning Your Business for the Future of SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 09 May 2013 02:14 PM PDT

Posted by RonGarrett

Keeping up with the rapidly changing pace of SEO best-practices can sometimes be as difficult as juggling flaming batons while reciting the alphabet backwards. As an agency or business owner, you need a checklist to help make sure you're staying competitive, focusing on the right tactics, and building your business in the right direction.

In today's Whiteboard Friday, Ron Garett discusses how to position your business for whatever the future of SEO may bring. Leave your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

For your viewing pleasure, here's an image of the whiteboard used in today's video:

Video Transcription

"Howdy SEOmoz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Ron Garrett, and I work with Distilled out of their New York office. I'm just down here this week in Seattle, and Rand invited me over to tape an edition of Whiteboard Friday. Either which way, I hope you like it.

Today I'm going to primarily be talking to agencies, business owners, freelancers, and consultants. The topic is positioning your business for the future of SEO. Now we all know that SEO is rapidly changing. The skills that you need to be successful in SEO, whether it's technical, being good with analytics and big data sets, UX design, content creation, all of these different facets, we need to constantly innovate and make sure that we're at the top of our game.

What I've done today is put together a checklist of things that you, as an agency or a business owner, can go through your business and review to make sure that you're staying competitive, to make sure that you're focusing on the things that you should be focusing on, and really trying to figure out where you should be building your business.

Let's go ahead and start off. Use the resources within your organization. Let's go ahead and start over here.

First, start talking to your salespeople. They're oftentimes the first defense to clients. So oftentimes when clients reach out, they're going to be the first to talk to the clients and get a sense of what they're looking for, get a sense of how they think about SEO, get a sense of how they're spending for SEO and how their teams are working, their digital, their content, all those different teams are working together to be able to bring SEO and integrate it. Try to figure out what they doing, how they're doing it, and how you can take that information and integrate it back into how you sell, how you talk to clients, those types of things.

Also talk to your consultants. They spend a great deal of time working with each of the clients that you have to have a deep understanding of their needs, what their business goals are, what the biggest opportunities are, and where the biggest flaws or weaknesses or challenges are within the organization. Talk to them and try to get a sense of where the common threads are across most of your clients.

Also, once you have a relationship with a client and your interests are aligned, reach out to them. Take them out to lunch and see how they're doing. Get a sense of what's going on in their organization, how they talk about SEO internally, how they spend on SEO internally. Is SEO at the table when everybody is discussing content strategy, technical and all these different things?

Also reach out to other companies in your industry. I think one of the things that I love most about the SEO community is the fact that it is just that. It's such a great community of people. Even if you have a competitor that you may compete against for business, they still may be a great resource for you to go out and chat and see what's worked well for them and what hasn't worked well for them and see what the commonalities are there.

Also make sure that you're following what's going on in the industry. Making sure that you are either putting on events or attending events is a great way to see what are some common topics that are coming up quite frequently. Take a look at the trends and the commonalities there.

Also take a look at the talent and the people that are coming up within the industry and the things that they're talking about, the things that they're passionate about, and the things working for them. That's a great way to keep a pulse on the industry.

Also take a look at emerging technology. There are some pretty impressive startups and impressive technology companies, like SEOmoz, Conductor, and all these different companies who are creating technology that allows SEO agencies and businesses to scale and be efficient within their organization. Take a look at those emerging technologies and see how you can utilize those as a business to take your business to the next level.

One big thing that we talk a lot about at Distilled is how we can continue to tinker and test ideas. This is really important because sometimes you won't have enough knowledge. You don't know what you don't know. We encourage and recommend all of our consultants to continuously test and continuously tinker with things and figure out some interesting things that are working and not working. Oftentimes there is no way that we can plan for those types of knowledge gaps that we get there.

I also want to discuss really quickly what's worked well for us here at Distilled is our value are set up as "Discover, Implement and Learn." That's really given us a nice framework to be able to make sure that we're constantly testing things, we're constantly putting things out there, we're constantly figuring out what works and what doesn't work, and we're integrating that back into the solutions that we're providing our clients. That's been quite nice.

Next, you as an organization figure out whether or not you want to specialize or whether or not you want to be a comprehensive business, whether or not you want to provide a specific solution, such as integrating SEO with PR, or whether or not you want to be a full-fledged agency where you're providing digital solutions from a technology standpoint, to content creation, to outreach, to digital PR. Really figure out what your niche is going to be. Even if you do choose to specialize, don't think that you can't take on other types of work. It just helps customers understand what your value proposition is and what they can expect when they come to you. You can always show them other things that you're capable of providing, but I think having that starting point can be really beneficial.

Here is a checklist that I put together of when you're looking to assess your business and figure out, "All right, where are my strengths? Where are my weaknesses? Where can I make improvements?" Start to look at if you were to make certain decisions within your business, what are the different risks and rewards that you would get out of making certain decisions and try to forecast a little bit. Try to take a look at some of the data that you've accumulated over time and think, "If I were to make this decision for my business today, what are some of the things that I can anticipate?"

Also, it's important to take a look at your current strategy to see what's working and what's not working and continue to improvise upon that. Reevaluate that strategy and figure out what's working and what's not working.

Also, I think it's important to have a good balance between aspirational and pragmatic. Take a look at the things that you as a business can accomplish in the short term, given the resources that you guys have, and how you need to think about achieving some of your long-term goals and being realistic. Figure out ways you can get that kind of minimal viable product out there. Figure out what's working and what's not working and continue to innovate on top of that. That can be really beneficial as well.

Also evaluate your company mission, vision, and values. I know a lot of companies are taking a look at the values and making a lot of their decisions based on their values. So making sure that with where your company is at and where your business is at that those things still apply. Those things can be really powerful drivers for why somebody would want to come work for you, why somebody would continue to stay working for you, and the purpose they get out of the job they have. Just make sure that you're constantly looking at and evaluate that.

I also think it's important to take a look at the client mix. Take a look at the percentage of clients that are currently on a project basis versus a retain basis. These types of things can influence cash position and cash flow within your organization, and looking for ways to either drive up the amount of retained clients that you have or figuring out just really beneficial projects that you can take on that are either going to drive the knowledge gap forward or drive the cash flow position forward. Just make sure that the types of projects that you are bringing on are helping you achieve your goals.

Take a look at your company and your employees, and take a look at their strengths and weaknesses. I think being pragmatic about that as well can be very beneficial, especially when you start to reach critical mass at your company. You go from 10 employees to 50 employees, 50 employees to 100 employees, and the dynamic of your company starts to shift, and you get a very eclectic group of people that end up coming in that all have different strengths and talents, and they get very passionate about different things. Understanding the dynamics that those play and what works well with one another can be really important for you to understand when making these types of business decisions.

It's also important to understand as a company your tolerance for risk. You can have all the aspirations in the world, but if your company hesitates to make certain types of decisions and you don't feel like it's a decision that you can fully make and commit to, it may be good to reevaluate whether or not that decision is something that you should look to make further down the line or what type of infrastructure or what things you would need to be able to make that decision sooner. Just being realistic about the tolerance levels that you have at your organization.

Take a look at how you currently make money. At different companies we love the places we work, and ultimately we have to be able to figure out ways to be able to make money. Taking a look at where your big drivers for cash are and how those are marking your company money can be really beneficial.

Future aspirations. We all want to have goals. We all want to work toward something that's going to create purpose for us, that's going to help us get to where we want to be, and we want to make sure they're big enough to where it's not easy for us to attain in the short term, but it's something that we can all believe in and work towards as a company. I think figuring out what your future aspirations are, both at a company level and at an employee level, can be very, very powerful.

Last, but not least, if you're looking to make investments in your organization, understanding the types of investments that you can and cannot make now based on your current cash flow position or whether or not you have access to capital and just understanding the dynamics between that can help determine how quickly you can make certain decisions or what types of clients you're going to have to bring on before you can make those types of decisions.

I know I've provided you with a lot of information today, but ultimately I wanted to help give you a framework and a checklist for you, the business owner or the agency, to take a step back and to evaluate your company, to evaluate your employees, to evaluate all the things that make you great, and to evaluate the areas where you need to make improvements and get to where you want to be. I think once you have a deeper understanding of all this, it will help you make business decisions, it will help you communicate those decisions to the employees there, and it can help empower people at your organization to do some pretty incredible things.

So get out there, keep building."

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Seth's Blog : Miscommunication

Miscommunication

The challenge of communication isn't to never miscommunicate, it's to cut down the time between the interaction and the realization that the communication didn't get through. Because the sooner we know we're not connecting, the sooner we can fix it.

Phone calls, for example, lead to less miscommunication than instructions sent by mail. A cycle of clarity is built into the medium. "Huh?" is a perfectly appropriate way to ask someone to refine a message. Conversations are more clear than marching orders, because conversations have built-in error detection and correction.

Organizations that are good at flagging the misunderstood internal messages are far more likely to move quickly, in sync, than the ones that assume that messages from on high are never to be questioned. When in doubt, ask.

• Email to a friend •

joi, 9 mai 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Currencies on the Move: Yen-USD Busts Through 1.00 Barrier; Australian Dollar, Euro Slump; The Uplifting "Abenomics Bra"
Action Plan to Save Slovenia is Trifecta of Stupidity
ECB Ponders Buying Toxic Debt of the Periphery; Don't Worry, It Will Be "Fiscally Neutral" and Temporary

Currencies on the Move: Yen-USD Busts Through 1.00 Barrier; Australian Dollar, Euro Slump; The Uplifting "Abenomics Bra"

Posted: 09 May 2013 01:24 PM PDT

There are some interesting moves in the forex markets today. Most notably the Yen cracked the 1.00 barrier.

Yen Daily Chart

click on chart for sharper image

After flirting with 1.00 for three weeks, the Yen fell through today.

Is it the new Abenomicsa Bra?

The Japanese division of lingerie maker Triumph International unveiled on Wednesday an "Abenomics" bra, a special edition it says offers a "growth strategy" and a potential lift towards Japan's elusive inflation target.

"We hope that, as the Japanese economy grows, we can also help bust sizes to get bigger," said Triumph spokeswoman Keiko Masuda. Its benefits for Japan's policymakers were less clear.

The Uplifting Abenomics Bra

Australian Dollar Intraday Action

click on chart for sharper image

Top to bottom swing is about 2.5 cents vs the US dollar. That is a big swing, without (thankfully) a bra for Prime Minister Julia Gillard on display.

However, a high school student threw a sandwich at Gillard today.

The student in question, Kyle Thompson, has been suspended for 15 days for the incident but denies he did it, local TV reported.

[Kyle Thompson, Student]: "I hit the sandwich out of the kid's hand because he threw it and there was another one so I hit it out of his hand," he said.

When asked why the prime minister was targeted he said, "maybe because nobody likes her."

Although there was the occasional boo, most children cheered and jostled to shake Gillard's hand during the school visit.

Currency Moves

Unfinished Business

The end of my previous post was accidentally cutoff. Here is the tail end of Action Plan to Save Slovenia is Trifecta of Stupidity.

Trifecta of Stupidity

Is there not one bureaucrat who can be fired? What about changes to work rules to make the country more productive? Is every cent Slovenia spends necessary?

Hiking taxes in a recession is the single worst thing a country can do, yet Slovenia proposes a trio of them. When Slovenia slumps further into the gutter (and it will if they implement even a portion of these proposals), Keynesian clowns will holler "austerity ruined Slovenia".

Nothing could be further from the truth. Tax hikes in a recession are not austerity, they are stupidity, and Slovenia is going for the tax-trifecta of a tax on wages, a hike in the VAT, and a hike on property taxes.

Unemployment, already at 13.5%, will hit 20% if this plan is implemented.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Action Plan to Save Slovenia is Trifecta of Stupidity

Posted: 09 May 2013 10:05 AM PDT

As Slovenia struggles to avoid an inevitable bailout, it pursues a plan that will instead make the size of the eventual bailout larger.

Please consider the inane "Action Plan" for Eurozone Straggler Slovenia.

The new government of struggling eurozone member Slovenia is expected to announce Thursday an action plan aimed at avoiding a bailout, reportedly including privatisations, "crisis" taxes and austerity cuts.

Moody's last week cut its rating on Slovenia two notches to "junk", the economy has been in recession since 2011, unemployment stands at 13.5 percent and voters are fed up with their political leaders.

According to leaked details, Bratusek is eyeing a "crisis" levy of 0.5-5.0 percent on all wages, to hike in 2014 value-added tax (VAT), a tax on property and other measures to boost state revenues.

Trifecta of Stupidity

Is there not one bureaucrat who can be fired? What about changes to work rules to make the country more productive? Is every cent Slovenia spends necessary?

Hiking taxes in a recession is the single worst thing a country can do, yet Slovenia proposes a trio of them. When Slovenia slumps further into the gutter (and it will if they implement even a portion of these proposals), Keynesian clowns will holler "austerity ruined Slovenia".

Nothing could be further from the truth. Tax hikes in a recession are not austerity, they are stupidity, and Slovenia is going for the tax-trifecta of a tax on wages, a hike in the VAT, and a hike on property taxes.

Unemployment, already at 13.5%, will hit 20% if this plan is implemented.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

ECB Ponders Buying Toxic Debt of the Periphery; Don't Worry, It Will Be "Fiscally Neutral" and Temporary

Posted: 09 May 2013 01:08 AM PDT

In an effort to stimulate small and medium (SME) lending the ECB considers acquiring banks toxic debt of the periphery. Via mish-modified translate from Spanish Libre Mercado.

The European Central Bank (ECB) could "soon" start buying bad debts of Southern European countries in an attempt to end the fragmentation in the eurozone and boost funding to SMEs, as confirmed by the German ECB representative Jörg Asmussen.

"It's part of the debate on lending to SMEs," Asmussen said when asked about the measure, which was unveiled by the German newspaper Die Welt. The ECB has an "open mind" to do everything "within our mandate" to solve this problem, Asmussen explained in an appearance before the Economic Affairs Committee of the Parliament.

The goal, the German banker continued, is "revive the market asset-backed securities, particularly those backed by loans to SMEs, of course with strict supervision." In any case, the ECB representative stressed that "liquidity is not what is preventing banks from lending" but "the lack of capital."

For his part, Vice President of the Commission responsible for Economic Affairs, Olli Rehn, has said that in "many parts of southern Europe" live SMEs "financial trap". "We are facing severe financial fragmentation in Europe, where similar types of companies must pay for credit interest rates significantly higher in southern Europe compared to the core countries," said Rehn.

"It is very important that each European institution, within its mandate, work to overcome this funding and liquidity trap in southern Europe," he insisted. "We have to complete the repair of the banking system as soon as possible, ensure its capitalization, build a banking union and resolve the liquidity trap," stated the economic vice.

Asmussen seeks a complete banking union "as soon as possible" to break the "negative interaction" between banks and states and prevent recurrence of crises such as Cyprus.

"The Cypriot case has been a salutary reminder of the importance of establishing a banking union as soon as possible. Only then will we be able to break the negative interaction between states and their banking systems," said the representative of the ECB during a hearing in the Economic Affairs Committee on Cypriot case.

The German banker also stressed that the EU must "urgently" a framework for resolution of financial institutions that include "a set of clear and known in advance" about how the losses will be shared among the different creditors, establishing a "preference for depositors".

"The new framework should put depositors at the top of the hierarchy of creditors and ensure that the role of deposit insurance funds in the settlement is limited to guarantee to depositors" with less than 100,000 euros.

The ECB also wants a unique mechanism of resolution "with a strong central authority to take impartial decisions to minimize time and costs of the resolution." This authority should have a resolution fund that has temporary public support and is "fiscally neutral".

Scary Stuff

Talk of "temporary public support" ought to scare everyone in Germany to death. Heck, this kind of talk should scare the UK to death as well. It serves as a warning signal for the UK to exit the EU while it can.

Fiscally Neutral?

Supposedly the proposal will have a "resolution fund" that is "fiscally neutral". Hmm... Neutral to who? Taxpayers?

Banking union? Who does that benefit?

Within Mandate?

Asmussen says the ECB has an "open mind" to do everything "within our mandate" to solve this problem.

Since when is it under ECB mandate to buy toxic debt of Southern European countries to stimulate SME lending?

Uncertainty Principle Yet Again

Seems to me banks lent too much money already to SMEs and are choking on losses. Is it within ECB mandate to provide capital to failing institutions?

I think not. Nonetheless, the Fed Uncertainty Principle is at play once again. Simply substitute ECB for Fed in the following corollary.

Uncertainty Principle Corollary Number Four: The Fed simply does not care whether its actions are illegal or not. The Fed is operating under the principle that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. And forgiveness is just another means to the desired power grab it is seeking.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Creepy Ghost Photobombs

Posted: 08 May 2013 08:49 PM PDT

Ghosts make the best photobombers..

Read full story >>

Content Isn't King. Trust Is King.

Posted: 08 May 2013 07:37 PM PDT

Posted by becole

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

As you likely already know, the goal of content marketing is to build up familiarity and trust with your prospective customers. In this case, the content isn't designed to sell a specific product or service, but rather to sell you, and to interested potential customers.

People buy from people that they know, like, and trust. And if you haven't heard it yet, let me be the first to tell you that "familiarity" breeds trust.

Content marketing certainly isn't new, but it's been getting a lot of new attention online lately (and for good reason). Small business owners across the globe are re-discovering these tried and true marketing practices, and using them to get a big leg up on the competition.

One of the really big advantages small business owners have over the titans of industry is that you can get much more personal with your target audience than they can. You have a face and a voice. You can be human with your audience. And, as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that is by talking to your customers. One of the best ways to get a feel for some of the best-practices around the industry is to follow and watch how others are succeeding. As such, I've cherry-picked some of my favorite content marketing tips from experts around the web.

1. Don't build on rented land

Publish your best content on web properties that you personally own (i.e., your own self-hosted website). Social media has hit the business world like a freight train, and there is great value in spreading your message far and wide via these cheap media channels. The point of all that chatter, though, is to get all those eyeballs back to your own site. Once they're there, it's time to convert them, either into customers or, at the very least, into email list subscribers. Social media is for mingling and chatting (and, obviously, marketing). Your own site is where the magic should happen. That's where you answer your potential clients' questions in depth. That's where you create loyalty.

Social media is great. Use it aggressively, but never forget what you're using it for: to get all those eyeballs back to your own site for conversion.

"Before you create a single piece of content, think about where that content will live and how audiences will get to it. Effective content marketing takes work. You'll need energy, thought, and time to create good content. This means that nearly all of the content you create needs to live on a domain you control, using a platform you can do as you please with. That means you're not producing the bulk of your creative content for Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, and you're not publishing on a "website in 20 minutes" solution that forces you to use someone else's domain. If your domain isn't www.YourWebsiteName.com, you don't own your platform. If you can't publish what you please, with the wording, sales messages, and images you please, you don't own your platform."

- Sonia Simone via copyblogger.com

2. Help, not hype, your customer

The goal of content marketing is to allow the potential customer to develop a trusting relationship with you. One of the best ways to develop that trust is by answering customer questions and offering information in a clear, honest, and transparent way.

If the product or service that you offer is part of that message, then feel free to reference it. But if your content comes across more like an advertisement or a sales letter, then you're not doing content marketing; you're doing sales and advertising.

Trust is not built by pushing sales. Trust is built by selflessly helping people looking for help. In fact, anything but hard selling will probably do just fine. Some people tell personal stories. Some people seek to entertain. Some people seek to inform. It all depends on your target audience. What are they interested in? What do they care about? As long as you're not selling, the possibilities are pretty much endless.

"Content marketing is not just about amplifying your message to your customer, it is about helping them find what they are looking for. Discover your customer needs by searching what they are looking for online and what they are saying about your category/sector. Provide them with a program to meet these needs, whether it directly impacts your business or not. Your audience will find the help useful and you will become top of mind when they are looking for someone in your sector. And don't forget the power of the face to face contact or 'just asking' the question."

- Kaitlin Walsh via bluechipcommunication.com.au

3. Write what people want to read, not what you want to write

If you're planning to succeed in your content marketing efforts, there is one big thing that you have to understand right from the start: it's not about you. It's never about you. It's not about your company. It's not about your product. It's not about your service. It's not about how great your company/product is. It's not about the amazing charity work your president does. It's not about how fun it is to work at your company. It's NEVER about you. And the minute you try to make it about you, that's when you lose their trust, and that's when you lose another potential customer.

Repeat after me: It's ALWAYS about them, never about you. This is content marketing. It's not sales, and it's not advertising. If you want to do sales and advertising, that's perfectly fine, but just don't do it in your content marketing. Write for the reader, always.

"Your content should always have an audience in mind. That means you should have their needs in mind, too, not your own. Remember, content marketing should provide something valuable to people. So although you may want to write about how terrible your day was or how someone should do something about the lines at delis in grocery stores, that's not the kind of thing people will want to read. They want to read something that's written about the things they're thinking about. So ask yourself what concerns and delights your audience, then go from there."

- Blaise Lucey via constantcontact.com

4. Reference industry influencers

Even if you are the undisputed thought leader in your specific niche or areas of expertise, it doesn't mean that you are the only person with something valuable to add to the conversation. In fact, you make yourself seem more trustworthy and confident when you reference other players in the marketplace.

I'm not saying that you have to specifically cite your direct competition (although sometimes that's a great idea) but people are way better informed these days than you might think they are. Customers are savvy. They know that you're not the only expert, so if you try to pretend that you, are guess what? Say it with me this time: they start trusting you less.

Referencing other experts is also a great way to show that there are others that agree with what you're saying. This is huge. Guess what else? Search engines love it, too. And just in case you're not fully convinced yet, try this one. The people that you reference will be thrilled that you mentioned them, and will likely help promote your content for you for free! Ahhh, viral marketing, sharing...everybody wins!

"When discussing a specific topic within your content marketing piece, it can be helpful to reference and cite individuals who are known to the audience and have authority on the topic. People love to see their own names published and will likely promote the content on their own for free, thus further spreading the exposure and influence of your brand and its expertise."

- Marc Purtell via searchenginejournal.com

5. Create content for all types of readers

Branch out from your normal niche and target readers in a wider variety of related niche. This doesn't mean that you go way off on a huge tangent from your core demographics, but people do have other interests. For example, accountants aren't just interested in accounting.

Let's say you're a real estate broker. What things, other than buying a house, are people moving to a new city interested in? People with houses often have pets. Where are the best dog parks in your area? People with houses often have kids. Where are the best schools in your area? Best restaurants in the area? Best home improvement contractors in the area? Best landscapers in the area? Best doctors in the area?

Let's also revisit #4 here for a minute. How thrilled do you think the local contractor/doctor/restaurateur will be with you and your company if you reference and link to them in a piece of your marketing content? Especially if it's a 'best of' type post, you'll come out ahead.

That may have been an easy example, but use your imagination for your specific industry/niche. What other things are your target customers interested in? You know your customers better than I do (right?).

Another point is that people have friends, and you never know who will see your content and pass it on to a friend that they think it will be more useful for. I do this all the time, and I'll bet you do, too. I may not care about buying a house, but if I happen to see a post entitled 'Best Pizza Shops in Yourtown, USA' written by a local real estate agent, I may just tell my friends that are looking for a new house how cool I think your real estate agency is for writing such a post.

These actions go a long way toward showing your customers that you care about them and that you're trying to help them, not just trying to sell them on your company. That, more than anything else (arguably), builds massive trust.

"The cardinal rule of content marketing says that you need to create content for your ideal reader in order to attract the right leads and customers. Most companies follow this to the T, no matter how niche their industry is. So even though their content is excellent, it does not get seen by too many people. Content marketing success takes time and I suggest that you create content for readers other than your ideal reader so that it attract more traffic to your website and social media pages. Instead of focusing on creating just one type of content for your target audience, create some popular content to service other readers."

- Jessica Davis via socialmediatoday.com

6. There is more to content than links

Content marketing is so far above and beyond the classic SEO link building tactics of the past. These days, it is likely better to think of links in terms of the direct traffic you'll get from them, rather than any SEO benefits they may or may not contribute. I'm not suggesting that backlinks are no longer important for SEO. What I'm suggesting is a change in mindset. Links that will actually get clicked through to your site are the better ones for SEO, anyway.

That being said, if you think of content marketing as a way to get link juice, you're doing it wrong. Content creation is all about engagement building and trust building. Let the SEO benefits work themselves out. What's good for engagement and trust is also good for search engine optimization.

A link from a reputable site is valuable because of the number of people that will click on it and come learn more about you and your company. And it just so happens that the search engines will love it for that exact reason too; win-win.

"Content Marketing is so much more than getting links. It's the glue that holds your funnel together. It's the reason a prospect visits your site, it's the reason they choose to move further down the purchase path, buy a product and return to your site time and again."

- Kieran Flanagan via seomoz.org

7. Don't forget the "marketing" in content marketing

Until now, I've talked mostly about content creation, but there is one other huge piece to this content marketing puzzle: content promotion.

It's incredibly shocking, but one of the biggest problems I see is that small business owners seem to be embarrassed about promoting their content. None of them seem to have any trouble trying to promote their products and services within their content, but once the content has been created, they're timid about telling people it exists.

My best guess is that they're not proud of their content. Maybe that they don't think their writing is very good, or that their content is boring, or something along that vein. If that's the case, let me try to help you a bit with that.

In general, if you're being helpful, people don't really care if your writing is a little rough around the edges. If you're getting people the information and answers that they're looking for, they will very easily forgive non-perfect writing. In fact, very often it can make you seem even more human to them.

I Bate Blogging

Furthermore, the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. Nobody starts out being a great writer, a great blogger, or a great content marketer, but the sooner you start 'practicing,' the sooner you'll get better at it. I promise, it gets a lot easier very, very quickly. As a matter of fact, read my I Hate Blogging post here and you will see I am in the same shoes as many people who struggle with writing.

You don't ever have to be perfect; you just have to help and/or entertain your readers. If you do that and keep working at it, you'll be fine. But you must promote your content. If you don't promote it, then no one will ever read it, in which case, it's useless. The days are long gone where you could just post a new piece of content and hope that people would find it via search (or because you had built boatloads of spam links to it).

As discussed in point #1 above, this is where social media and your social media connections come in. Use your social channels to guide traffic back to your freshly minted content. If people like you on social media, they'll want to learn more about you. Give them a way to do that.

If you're just starting out on sharing your content through social media, here's an example of what you can say:

"Hey there folks, I just wrote up a quick post about some cool local resources I've been working on recently. If you have a moment, take a quick peek and let me know what you think. I'm just getting started with this whole content marketing thing, so any feedback you can give me will be greatly appreciated. Here's the link, thanks!"

This may be the one piece of advice I can give you that will determine your fate in content marketing more than any other. If you are too embarrassed to promote your content, then you may as well give up on the whole idea of content marketing right now. Go do PPC instead.

"Do you know why your content marketing campaign is going to fail? It's not because you can't write great content… it's actually because you don't know how to promote it. You can learn how to write great content, but if no one reads your content and links to it, there's no point in putting it out there."

- Neil Patel via quicksprout.com

8. It's all about relationships

If people can see you actively participating and being a team-player, then they will treat you accordingly; as a member of the team. [ Insider Tip: That's the goal! ] The bottom line with social is this: you have to be an active member of the team. It's not enough to just stop in and share a few things here and there, a day or two before you're going to need those same people to share your stuff for you. You have to be active. You have to be part of the team; a member of the community. It's not a wishy-washy kind of thing. It's a commitment; a commitment to your community. Your network depends on you to be there for them, just like they are there for you.

This doesn't mean that you have to be on social sites all day long. This also doesn't mean that you have to promote every piece of content that every member of your social network produces. It does mean however, that you stay involved and engaged consistently.

If people see you actively sharing and promoting other people, they will be that much more likely to share and promote your stuff when the time comes. The time to make friends on social media channels is way before you need them.

"I've heard this mantra a lot, but it wasn't until my first crack at this that I really understood how crucial relationships were. The people who were ultimately the ones to contribute something to the post were the ones I built the best relationships with. They were the ones that (for whatever reasons) responded to comments I left on their blog posts or replied to my tweets in the initial weeks. They were the ones who I was able to engage with in a personal way over email. And now they're the ones who are appreciative of the opportunity and exposure and are interested in working with me again in the future."

- Mike Arnesen via mikearnesen.com

9. Think like a publisher

Whatever business you're in, your website and/or blog is now a venue for that industry/niche. That's just pure fact; no way around it. The trick, though, is learning to re-train your brain to treat it as such. Go down to your local book store and grab a few magazines that catch your eye, and then study them. Study their format, study their layout, study their focus. Whether you like it or not, you are in the "online magazine" publishing business now. The fun part is that you get to talk about stuff you're already an expert in.

Use your site to engage, entertain, and inform. That's all you really have to do. The hardest part is remembering to do that every time you sit down to write another piece of content. One of the quickest/easiest ways to do that is to write content that answers common customer questions. That sounds simplistic, but it's incredibly useful and engaging for people seeking answers. And if you can do that in a fun interesting way; all the better.

"You are not an advertiser [emphasis added]. An advertiser disrupts but a publisher educates and connects in a two way communication. Don't put too much emphasis on your brand. The goal is to engage your visitors and in due time, your brand will get the proper recognition. Always put value in your content. To be accurate, content is not king but value is. It's not enough to have content that is readable and no grammar mistakes. What matters is the substance of the content. What's in it for your visitors? What value will they get?"

- Mark Acsay III via webbythoughts.com

10. Use other sites to find out what kind of content people want

I saved this one for last because it always seems to be a major sticking point with small business owners, and I wanted it to be fresh in your mind as you finish up this post. Small business owners oftentimes think that they have nothing to say, and nothing to write about.

We started this conversation in #2 above, and then again in #9 talking about answering customer questions in a fun, interesting way (and that should get you started in a big way), but eventually, you'll probably want to start branching out a bit with your topic ideas. The best way to do that is to watch what your competition is writing about, and also what other industries closely related to yours are writing about.

Read other good blogs on your topic and then just write similar articles with your own opinions and insights on the same topic, and try to make it better. I'm not suggesting that you copy anything from them obviously; just that you get inspired from them. This is also a great way to incorporate #4 and #8 above.

Everyone does this. Everyone gets inspiration from things that they see (and read) elsewhere; it's how the world works. Inspiration comes from building on top of what has come before.

This very post is a perfect example. I was inspired by the people that I quoted here. I read their posts, I picked my favorite tips from each of them, and then I added my own thoughts on the topics. I didn't have to quote and cite them, this post would have been perfectly fine on its own, but I did quote and cite them because it makes for a more interesting and engaging article. Plus it helps with a bunch of the other tips mentioned above.

"Sometimes it's hard to know what people want to read about. One way to find this out is to visit sites within your industry. Check their blogs and see what posts get the most tweets and shares. In the internet marketing niche, social media is all the rage. If you write a post about Facebook or Twitter, it's guaranteed to get more shares. Do some research to find out what kind of post are popular in your industry and write that type of content. You don't want to write these types of posts every time, but it's a great way to boost traffic when it fits into your publishing schedule."

- Joseph Putnam via kissmetrics.com

Conclusion

It’s a wonderful time to be a small business owner. The Internet and content marketing has made it possible for us to stop chasing the media, and instead, become the media. You are now a magazine publisher for your own industry (and/or a local niche). Your voice can be as big or as small as you want it to be. It can start small and then grow. Or it can just stay small and that's okay too. You are in total control here. There's no reason to ever feel intimidated by the process because you control the process.

Just remember, the goal of content marketing and its sidekick social media marketing is to inform and entertain prospective customers in a way that inspires them to trust you for the right reasons; authentic, legitimate, deserving and well-earned trust. When the time comes for them to buy something, they buy from people they trust: you. Which, as I may have mentioned once or twice already, is the whole point of all this stuff. Trust, trust, trust; burn that into your brain. Content isn't king. Trust is king. Content is just how you get there.

vineri, 10 mai 2013

West Wing Week: "I Dare You to Do Better"

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Seth's Blog : Miscommunication

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Content Isn't King. Trust Is King.

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1. Don't build on rented land

2. Help, not hype, your customer

3. Write what people want to read, not what you want to write

4. Reference industry influencers

5. Create content for all types of readers

6. There is more to content than links

7. Don't forget the "marketing" in content marketing

8. It's all about relationships

9. Think like a publisher

10. Use other sites to find out what kind of content people want

Conclusion

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

vineri, 10 mai 2013

Video Transcription

More Recent Articles

joi, 9 mai 2013

1. Don't build on rented land

2. Help, not hype, your customer

3. Write what people want to read, not what you want to write

4. Reference industry influencers

5. Create content for all types of readers

6. There is more to content than links

7. Don't forget the "marketing" in content marketing

8. It's all about relationships

9. Think like a publisher

10. Use other sites to find out what kind of content people want

Conclusion

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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