marți, 4 martie 2014

Scaling Up the Effort: The Process Behind Great (Contracted) Content

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 03:16 PM PST

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that it's hard work to build great content that:

a) people want to read
b) people remember and will be motivated to share
c) helps you further increase the reach of your brand

This becomes especially true when you're building content for a company that's not your own.

This post isn't about Lesson #12,753 we've so valiantly learned here at Mack Web as we grow our small (but mighty) integrated web marketing team.

It's about you and the exceptional content you need to be building on behalf of the clients you work for.

That said, if you're like us, you find solace in, and learn a great deal from, the trials and tribulations other companies face. I've broken this post into three parts, each of which tackles a big question you might be wondering about:

1. How do you build great content when you're not the expert?
2. How do you make content generation more efficient and scalable?
3. How do you build great content with contract writers?

Sit tight. I've got some ideas.

How do you build great content when you're not the expert?

We've got a content generation process that has been working pretty well for us now, but it took a ton of failing to develop it.

For a while, we were treating content generation like a factory. We had clients. They needed a strategy. That strategy called for content. We gave the specs and details for the content to our writer. She generated the content. We optimized it. It went live. We did outreach. Rinse. Repeat.

It's not that the content we were producing in our "factory" was bad. It wasn't thin. It just didn't serve a purpose beyond meeting preconceived frequency expectations for their blog. Although it was intended to add value to the conversation, it wasn't going to rise above the ever-growing noise and help them build their business and further their brand.

Our factory approach was fine for a short while, but as we started to grow, level-up, and recognize that the lack of effectively executed, fully integrated content marketing strategies would make it increasingly difficult for us to earn audience engagement, we realized our content had to be better. It had to serve a higher purpose for the brand and it needed to integrate all the appropriate channels.

Which meant, of course, that we couldn't create it in a silo anymore.

General brand stuff vs. expert content

We've found that, for the most part, our clients have needed our help with two distinct types of content in order to build their audience: general brand stuff and expert content.

General brand stuff is the content thatâ€"if you've really done your diligence to fully understand the company, their industry, their persona, and the story they're trying to tellâ€"you can essentially create content without putting too much extra work on their plate.

You still work together throughout the process (which I'll get into more in just a bit), but really you're taking the lead, doing the majority of the work, and ensuring you have approval as you move through the different stages in the content generation process.

Expert content is content that requires the knowledge of a subject matter expert (which hopefully you will find inside the company) to produce. The expert stuff places a great deal of the content generation responsibility on the client. Your job is to act as a guide, facilitator, and editor so that you're ensuring strategic alignment, brand integrity, and that the content actually gets created and connected to its intended audience.

When you're working with a subject matter expert to develop content, it's really important that you're taking as much weight off the expert as possible, and you're also earning their trust. You can do this in a few ways:

Allow the expert to drive

You may suggest trending topics and direction based on strategy and goals but, depending on your expert's writing prowess, you don't want to get in the way by controlling the process too much. Their time is extremely limited so you want to make the process as enjoyable and efficient as possible.

If the expert is driving, your goal is to cater to their needs and aid them in any way possible. Take the time to listen, observe, understand their writing process, and how you can fit into that. As facilitator and editor you'll be providing feedback on basic grammar, transitions, focus, and depth, but you're also working to keep them on task and accountable for deadlines.

Provide the expert with the structure

Maybe the expert doesn't necessarily want the freedom to drive, but they could use your help getting the structure together. It really depends on the expert, what they're comfortable with, and what their schedule will allow.

If they need your help getting the ball rolling, you can interview them for the key takeaways, write the outline for them, and provide them with anything else they need to get that first draft going.

We've also had great success writing the first draft for the expert so that they have something to take apart, integrate their expertise, personal anecdotes and voice, and then we help them put it back together.

In general, expert content will take longer to come together. You're usually talking about people with extremely busy schedules, and unless they find value in what content marketing is doing for their brand and company, it could take months to get content out of them.

What we've found is if you're properly balancing the creation of both expert and general brand stuff, you can fill any production gaps with minimal involvement on the client's part. That way you're still getting content out and you won't have lengthy time lapses in the execution of deliverables from your content strategy.

How do you make content generation more efficient and scalable?

As we've been growing our team and our content department, we've been working to get more out of less. We have found that investing in processes that document the stages of our everyday operations (like our client on-boarding process and the base ongoing monthly stuff we do for nearly every client) has really helped us to be more efficient, but that hasn't always been the case.

Don't get me wrong; I am a very systems- and process-oriented person. I like things to be neat, organized, and, well, systematic. As much as I believe in investing in them, I've come to learn that you can waste a lot of time and precious resources on processes that don't work, don't get used, and don't help you become more efficient.

With processes, it's not about developing something that stands the test of time (because they never do). It's more about providing guidance and suggestions for a more efficient workflow. That tends to come in the form of checklists that you're continually iterating as living, breathing, dynamic entities inside your organization.

As such, this is what we've discovered to be incredibly helpful when developing our processes:

Processes that Work

1) Determine the problem the process is going to solve

Clearly you're taking the time to develop a process so that you can make something you do every day (or something you repeat quite often) a whole lot easier. For us, we knew we needed to create better content and work more collaboratively with our clients in order to do that. We thought a process for managing content generation might help us make those improvements.

2) Identify the people who are going to use the process

This is key. If you yourself will not actually be facilitating a process you develop, it will almost certainly die. You need the specific, relevant individuals on your team to not only believe in it, but own it, or it will go unused.

I no longer develop processes for the company and simply present them to the team to be used. I now work with the team to develop processes and the team figures out what checklists and supporting documents they need to make the process work.

3) Find the tools that will allow you to run the process

These tools don't have to be expensive. We use a lot of free software like Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Trello. Your tools don't have to be fancy; they just need to be accessible so that the people on the team who are using them can get to them easily.

4) Use the process

We've realized that every time we use a process it's going to change. That's just how it goes. There will be specific parts of your processes that won't get altered for long periods of time, but in general, as you use them, be attentive to contrast, taking note of the stuff you'll want to take some time to analyze and eventually change.

5) Modify the process

At some point, you'll need to dedicate the time to analyze your processes, make the adjustments, and then test those modifications. This is a continuous cycle if you want your processes to really work for you and provide a return on spending the time and resources to create them in the first place. Make sure it's your team who's taking ownership of this, not management.

Some pieces to facilitate the process

As we've developed a content generation process to produce better content, we've discovered that engaging the client and using these pieces have really made a big difference:

Scaling Content Generation

1) Use Strategy & 2) Pitch Content

We're trying to remove as much content responsibility and workload from the client as possible. We definitely need them invested and involved, but they've hired us as an extension of their team with the hopes that we'll free up their internal resources.To that end, we use the "unless we hear differently" model as often as we can throughout the content generation process.

Whether we're developing general brand or expert content stuff, we always take the initiative and pitch the intended direction of the content to the client. We use the goals we've set and the strategy we're working from, as well as trending topics, in order to determine the content we'll be writing.

3) Collect Data

When we're ready to collect data for the content, the client is familiar with the strategy that has been developed and what we're working toward. We've already done a great deal of listening so that we can come to the client and say (with confidence), "Hey, here's how we'd like this to go. Can we have your feedback?"

Once we've worked through some of these initial conversations, we send over a data collection (a template, if you will) that looks like this:

This data collection doc communicates our intent and requests the information we need. The "unless I hear differently" part comes into play in the suggested key takeaways and then asking the client to help us come up with additional details, photos, and anecdotes to support them.

This requires less work from the client, but involves them in the process. We've found that this also puts more meaning into the content because the client is participating by contributing the stories and first-hand experiences that we don't necessarily know (and that they sometimes forget to tell us during interviews and conversations about content).

4) Develop an outline with key takeaways

Once we get all of the information we need from data collection, we create a more thorough outline of the post to get another level of approval from the client before we proceed to first draft state. This saves a ton of time. From data collection to outline, things shift from the initial, proposed direction, so providing an official outline gives us the opportunity to once again communicate exactly what the client can expect and earn their feedback and approval.

In the official outline, if we have them available at that time, we will integrate all resources and media so that we're clearly communicating what we'll be writing about and what we'll be referencing. This provides the client with an opportunity to investigate the proposed resources and provide any direction change before we fully draft the content.

5) Provide a first draft with diagramming

Once we're ready to present the first draft of the content, there's a couple really important things we do before sending it across:

Indicate key takeaways (and feedback)

This part takes me back to my English teaching days. When we turn in the first draft, we actually diagram the post to illustrate the pieces of the original outline and where the key takeaways ended up. And, if the client provided some very specific direction or feedback to us, we make sure to indicate that they were heard by pointing those out in the diagramming.

This has really helped to reduce revisions because it's a subtle way to remind the client that what we are presenting in this content is what we've all agreed to throughout the process. And, as we're drafting the content, if we feel the need to go in a different direction, we use the diagramming as an opportunity to justify the change.

Provide the entire experience

When we provide the first draft of the content to the client, we sell it. We provide it in ready-to-publish form complete with links, videos, and photos embedded so that the client gets the full experience of what it would look like live.

Writing is a very personal thing and it's very easy to get emotionally invested in the content. Using data collection, outlines, and diagramming first drafts removes the emotion and keeps everyone accountable and focused on the content. If we're reminding the client why things are the way they are throughout our interactions, they're less likely to be distracted by new ideas or different approaches. We can rely on the process to keep the client (and, honestly, sometimes the writer) focused on the intent of this piece of content. And ultimately, this helps us create better content.

These deliverables have also streamlined the way we produce content and they really show the client that we get them and are trying to make life easier for them. Even though they are more involved in the process, we're displaying more initiative and skill which further reduces the burden on their end.

Working with the client in this way has earned more trust and flexibility. We're able to demonstrate better leadership, confidence, and how much we know (and care) about their business.

The more trust we earn and the more efficient the process becomes, the more we accomplish for our clients. But even with improved efficiency, there's only so much a small team can do in-house. In order to scale, we've got to recruit outside help.

How do you build great content with contract writers?

Like I mentioned, a team like ours is too small to effectively write all of the content for our clients in-house. Using contract writers has allowed us to conveniently scale our content department and provide better content for our clients.

There are three really important things we've discovered as we've been building our base of trusted writers:

1) Find writers who are a value match

You've got to be willing to do your due diligence and hold out for writers who are a match for your values and expectations as a company.

2) Set them up for success

You need to spend time getting the writers invested in the client they are going to write for. Set them up for success by providing them with as much information about the client that you would expect your in-house, full-time team members to know.

3) Invest in their growth

Just like an employee, you need to be willing to help your writers grow. Writing is hard and even the best writers struggle. If you want to develop lasting relationships and continue to get great content from your contract writers, you've got to be willing to invest time in their growth and development.

As we're looking for great writers, we use a Google spreadsheet to keep track of the writers that we're interested in working with.

We review writing samples, check their references, and interview them in person or via video so that we can get a feel for whether they're a value match for us and that their writing style and voice will match up with one of our clients.

Once we've selected a writer, as they write for our clients, we assess their work. After they complete a few pieces of content for us, we can get a feel for their strengths. We can also identify trends. Do they honor their commitments with us? Do they communicate well? Are they responsive? Are they willing to learn? Maybe they're not a match for the client we have them paired with but they'd be great with another. We use the same Google spreadsheet to keep track of this stuff and also include any patterns we're noticing or feedback we're getting from clients about the content.

Helping your writers grow

No matter how well you qualify your writers, there will be a trial-and-error period with every single one. If you want long-term relationships with them, you've really got to invest the time (beyond this trial period) and continue to help them grow.

When we receive a piece of content from a writer, our in-house content strategist reviews it before it's handed off to the client for feedback. She reviews for quality, alignment of purpose, and also basic editing stuff. She diagrams the key takeaways to ensure that the content is on track with what the client approved in the outline/key takeaway part of the process.

If the post needs a little bit of work, our content strategist determines whether the edits are minor enough just to make them as she's diagramming, or if she needs to schedule time with the writer to have them adjust the post.

We are diligent about communicating with our writers. If they're learning and improving along the way, we're spending less time on revisions and providing our clients with the content they need to build their brand.

An ongoing challenge

Content plays such a huge role when building a brand and a business. Trying some of these things in our content generation process has really helped us to create better partnerships with our clients, and certainly, better content.

This stuff may be working for us now, but we realize that building great content is always going to be hard (especially as the saturation problem gets worse). It's our job to continue pushing beyond what could just get us by and discover what's really going to make a difference in our clients' businesses.

Of course, this addresses just one small part of that challenge. I certainly have not covered everything that would help you build great contracted content for your clients. Share your secrets with me below.

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13 Reasons why you should be using Bing Webmaster Tools

13 Reasons why you should be using Bing Webmaster Tools

Posted: 04 Mar 2014 12:23 AM PST

While Bing may only make up a small percentage of your overall search traffic, it can provide you with some useful tools and data that many people overlook.

Bing Webmaster Tools:

If you haven't got around to setting up a Bing Webmaster Tools account, then don't delay it any further. You may be under the impression that a Google Webmaster Tools is all you need, but while Bing may not have won over the general population of internet users, it does do a good job of helping webmasters to improve their sites.

Here are some of the great features that Bing Webmaster Tools has to offer, along with some tips on how to make the most of them:

1. DISAVOW TOOL

The disavow tools should only be used as a last resort – we always recommend having spammy links removed rather than relying on the disavow option to answer your prayers. If your suspect back-link profile caused you to get penalised, you need to provide evidence that you are taking measures to have links removed when submitting a reconsideration request – simply uploading a disavow file is unlikely to fix things.

Yahoo was actually the first search engine to launch the disavow tool, after it became clear that negative SEO was actually a thing, capable of sabotaging rankings for entire website.

1.1 NEGATIVE SEO

A website that I worked with in the past suffered from a negative SEO attack that caused Google rankings to completely disappear on the targeted term, as well as causing most other keywords to fall in the rankings. I first knew something was wrong when the site went from ranking on page one for a high value term, to page 15.

The effects of Negative SEO

I quickly did some digging and found thousands of exact match anchor text links pointing to the previously ranking page, all placed within profiles created on forums. As I was the only person doing any kind of link building for the site, I knew that this was a negative SEO attack. This was before Google released the disavow tool, so we were left powerless.

After several painful months of waiting, Google finally released its version of the disavow tool. Luckily, unlike the Yahoo disavow tool, Google allows you to bulk upload links rather than disavowing one by one, so I quickly disavowed all the domains involved. While other rankings returned, the site never recovered for the keyword that was targeted in the negative SEO campaign.

While this tool could be the difference between ranking and not ranking, I would recommend checking your performance in Bing before writing off your suspect links. I recently came across a site that was involved in some serious article/directory spam, causing Panda to wipe it off the face of Google. However, this site still appears on page one of Bing and Yahoo for some competitive terms that were linked to in the article spam.

Saying that, it's only a matter of time before Bing starts catching people out for these low quality links, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend getting involved in these old school link building schemes!

2. SUBMIT YOUR SITEMAP

Bing allows you to submit your .xml sitemap when setting up your account, providing the search engine with a list of URLs on your site, along with any other data you may have added, such as the date the page was last updated, and the priority that you have assigned to each page.

3. IGNORE URL PARAMETERS

This is another tool that you may recognise from Google Webmaster Tools, giving you the means to highlight any parameters that you want Bing to ignore. Parameters can cause duplicate pages to be generated and, if handled incorrectly, can be left open for the search engines to crawl and index, potentially causing you all kinds of issues. A very common example of this is when webmasters fail to block the search engines from accessing their on-site search result pages. These pages are seen as low value pages, so it is recommended that they are not available to the search engines. For example, below you can see that the Sainsbury’s website has not prevented the search engines from indexing its search results pages:

In this case, they could add the ‘search’ parameter to tell Bing to ignore URLs that include the search parameter.

4. BLOCKED URLS

This allows you to highlight any URLs that you don't want Bing to display in its search results.

5. GEO TARGETING

This allows you to set the country that you want to target for your site. You can also set different directories or sub-domains to different countries, for example /en/ to the UK and /fr/ to France. This will ensure that the correct version of a page appears to the right audience based on where they are geographically when carrying out the search.

6. PAGE TRAFFIC

Provides performance data based on web pages visits, including clicks, impressions, CTR and average position in Bing. You can also drill down at page level to show keyword data. This is particularly useful for spotting opportunities, where impressions are high but the click-through rate is low, which may be due to things like meta data that isn’t engaging enough, or a page that needs tweaking to push it further up in the search results.

7. SEO REPORTS

This is a very useful tool that highlights SEO suggestions that could help your site to rank better. These include things such as images that don't have the ALT attribute defined, missing meta data and lots of other useful pointers.

8. INBOUND LINKS

This section identifies links pointing to your site. You can see the most linked pages and drill down to see the linking pages.

9. LINK EXPLORER

This allows you to find web pages that link to a particular URL. The tool also lets you filter by site, anchor text and other queries, as well as selecting URLs or domains, and Internal/External/All links.

10. CRAWL INFORMATION

Much like Google Webmaster Tools' crawl errors section, this highlights pages with crawling issues. For example, broken pages causing 404 errors.

11. SEO ANALYZER

Another great tool – just enter a URL on your domain to get a visual breakdown of issues on the page, from multiple <h1> tags, to missing image ALT attributes.

12. SITE MOVE

This is important if you are moving your site, either from one place to another within your current site, or to another domain.

13. WEBMASTER API

This feature allows webmasters to set up access to Bing’s Webmaster Tools functionality through the API interface.

How to sign up

To sign up to Bing Webmaster Tools, go to www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster and create an account. If you have a Microsoft account (includes Hotmail) then you can sign in using this account, otherwise you can sign up using any email address. To verify the account, you will wither need to upload an xml file to your root; add a custom meta tag to the <head> section of your default webpage; or add a CNAME record.

Secure Search Update

Bing and Yahoo have both announced that they are following Google by moving towards secure search, which saw keyword data slashed, replacing it with the infamous '(not provided)'.

Bing Secure Search

The secure search craze was allegedly sparked by concerns that the NSA was tapping into search data without the permission of users or search engines, but it is also believed that it was partly motivated by the prospect of increasing sales, as keywords can be tracked through paid search.

Google now encrypts all searches so, in theory, it masks all keyword data with '(not provided)'. However, despite an increase in hidden keyword data, I continue to see around 20% from Google organic traffic.

Bing and Yahoo aren’t forcing secure search on the UK just yet, so if you drill down in GA you should be able to find out exactly what users searched for to reach your site. However, this is set to change for Yahoo at the end of March (who already use secure search by default in the US), as they prepare to go secure with all searches.

Users are currently given the choice to use secure search on Bing, although this requires them to consciously go to https://www.bing.com, an option that isn’t being promoted.

After carrying out some tests I found that the traffic from Bing secure search shows up in GA as 'Direct', with the 'Source' as '(not set)', making it impossible to track. This will also artificially increase your direct search volumes, something that will become more apparent if Bing does decide to go secure by default.

I'd love to hear your tips for getting the most out of Bing Webmaster tools, so please share below!

By Sam Gooch

The post 13 Reasons why you should be using Bing Webmaster Tools appeared first on White Noise.

Seth's Blog : What does it sound like when you change your mind?

What does it sound like when you change your mind?

Nineteen years ago, shortly after I hired Mark Hurst to join the team at my internet startup Yoyodyne, I turned to him and said, "I don't think the web makes sense." This was the most expensive mistake I ever made.

At the time, we were working with AOL, CompuServe and other online services. The web was in its infancy, and I notoriously said, "It's just like Prodigy, but slower and with no business model."

It took me eighteen months to change my mind. Actually, that's not true. It took me about five minutes to change my mind, after eighteen months of being wrong. I still remember how it felt to feel that flip switch in my head.

This is one of the assets of youth, and something that's worth seeking out and maintaining. That flip, the ability, when confronted with a world that doesn't match the world in your head, to say, "wait, maybe I was wrong." We're not good at that. Science brings us overwhelming data about the truth of washing hands before surgery, of the age and origin of species, about the efficacy of placebos, and the natural instinct is push those facts away, rather than find that moment where were can shift our thinking.

If you needed to, could you argue passionately for that thing you don't believe in today? Could you imagine walking over to the other side of the new argument, to once again hear that sound?

That's the essential skill of thriving in a world that's changing fast.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 3 martie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Nigel Farage: "UKIP Biggest Threat to Political Establishment in Modern Times"
ISM Rebounds "Stronger than Expected" But for How Long?
Ruble Sinks to Record Low; Russia Intervenes in Currency Markets to Stabilize Ruble; Russia Denies Ultimatum
Ukraine Ships Get Russian Ultimatum; One Misstep from Outright War; Russia Denies Ultimatum

Nigel Farage: "UKIP Biggest Threat to Political Establishment in Modern Times"

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 03:32 PM PST

Inquiring minds, especially Nigel Farage and UKIP supporters, are encouraged by Nigel Farage's Spring Conference Speech.

Farage: "This party [UKIP] is on the march. Indeed, I think and believe we are posing the biggest threat to the political establishment that has been seen in modern times."

Let's hope so. And let's hope Rand Paul provides an even bigger threat in the US.

I wish UKIP well in the May 2014 European parliament elections. Of course, Rand Paul 2016!

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

ISM Rebounds "Stronger than Expected" But for How Long?

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 11:26 AM PST

The ISM rebounded this month as noted by the February 2014 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in February for the ninth consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the 57th consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.

Index	Feb Index	Jan Index	Percentage Point Change	Direction	Rate of Change	Trend in Months
PMI®	53.2	51.3	1.9	Growing	Faster	9
New Orders	54.5	51.2	3.3	Growing	Faster	9
Production	48.2	54.8	-6.6	Contracting	From Growing	1
Employment	52.3	52.3	0	Growing	Same	8
Supplier Deliveries	58.5	54.3	4.2	Slowing	Faster	9
Inventories	52.5	44	8.5	Growing	From Contracting	1
Customers' Inventories	46.5	44	2.5	Too Low	Slower	27
Prices	60	60.5	-0.5	Increasing	Slower	7
Backlog of Orders	52	48	4	Growing	From Contracting	1
Exports	53.5	54.5	-1	Growing	Slower	15
Imports	53.5	53.5	0	Growing	Same	13

"Stronger than Expected"

Following the big downward surprise last month, today's release of the ISM Manufacturing report was stronger than expected.

The consensus estimate was 52.0, the rebound was to 53.3.

Last month the expectation was a reading of 56. Instead the ISM Fell to 51.3 With the Largest Decline in New Orders in 4 Years.

No doubt the weather was a factor in some of that plunge. Thus some of the rebound should have been expected. But how much and for how long?

It's clear the global economy is slowing, and the US right along with it. Some will hail this rebound as a sign the US economy is out of the woods. I beg to differ, but time will soon tell. Give it two months.

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

Ruble Sinks to Record Low; Russia Intervenes in Currency Markets to Stabilize Ruble; Russia Denies Ultimatum

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 10:09 AM PST

Ruble Sinks to Record Low

The ruble is down 1.43% today, 9.81% for the year.

Russia sold $10 billion and hiked interest rates hoping to stop the decline.

Russia Intervenes in Currency Markets to Stabilize Ruble

Bloomberg reports Ruble Plunges to Record as Bank Rossii Seen Selling $10 Billion.

Bank Rossii poured dollars into the currency market, with traders estimating sales of about $10 billion, and raised interest rates after the threat of Western sanctions against Russia sent the ruble to a record low.

Policy makers are stepping up efforts to shore up the ruble as investor demand for Russian assets dries up after President Vladimir Putin's military forces took over parts of neighboring Ukraine. The ruble sank 1.8 percent against the dollar today, more than any other currency tracked by Bloomberg, while the benchmark Micex stock index plunged more than 11 percent and benchmark bond yields soared.

"So far, the panic goes on," Dmitry Dorofeev, a money manager at BCS Financial Group in Moscow, said by e-mail. "The central bank's decision should help support the ruble in current conditions, but it's very negative for debt."

Bank Rossii sold at least $10 billion to support the ruble today, according to Pavel Demetchik, a trader at ING Groep in Moscow. Dmitry Dorofeev, a money manager at BCS Financial Group, estimated sales of at least $7 billion. Bank Rossii's press service said it won't comment on today intervention. The size of the sales is set to be published in two days, per the regulator's information policy. Russia's foreign reserves have fallen $40 billion since May to $493.4 billion, according to data through Feb. 21.

The central bank surprised investors today by raising its key rate 1.5 percentage points to 7 percent today in a bid to halt the declines at the risk of deepening an economic slowdown.

Russia Hikes Rates to Salvage Ruble; Stocks sink

Marketwatch reports Russia Hikes Rates to Salvage Ruble; Stocks sink.

While Russian troops amassed on the Crimean border, investors dumped the Russian ruble and stocks, following a weekend of tensions over Ukraine.

The selling — including an 11% plunge in the local market index — was such that the Russian central bank decided to "temporarily" hike interest rates to 7% from 5.5% on Monday, though the policy move hasn't turned the tide.

"The decision is aimed at preventing the emergency of risks to inflation and financial stability associated with the recently observed increased levels of volatility in the financial markets," the Central Bank of the Russian Federation said in a translated statement on its website.

The ruble had been slowly sinking against the dollar over the last few months, but the move accelerated on Monday after a weekend of escalating tensions. Western leaders threatened sanctions on Sunday and Ukraine's leaders called the Russian troops that have massed in Crimea a "declaration of war."

The ruble sank more than 1.8% against the dollar, to uncharted territory, and also 1.8% against the Euro. Other currencies, such as the Hungarian forint and Polish zloty declined as well, losing 0.5% and 1% against the dollar.

Russian stocks also were hammered Monday. The blue-chip MICEX index plunged 11% on Monday and is down 14% so far this year.

Russia Denies Ultimatum

Moments after I reported the ultimatum story, Bloomberg had this followup: Ukraine Crisis Intensifies as Russia Denies Navy Ultimatum Claim.

Ukraine said Russia's navy ordered two of its ships in Crimea to surrender amid the worst standoff between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War. A Russian Defense Ministry official denied the claim.

Russia's Black Sea fleet gave the ships, located near the port of Sevastopol, until 5 a.m. to give up weapons and capitulate, Oleksiy Kirchkov, deputy commander of the Ternopil, told Ukraine's Channel 5 by phone. The Russian official, who asked not to be named, called Ukraine's claim disinformation. Western diplomats are seeking to calm tensions in Ukraine, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arriving in Kiev today.

It is difficult keeping up with fast-flowing news and denials.

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

Ukraine Ships Get Russian Ultimatum; One Misstep from Outright War; Russia Denies Ultimatum

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 09:40 AM PST

The situation in Europe took another turn for the worse as Ukraine Ships Get Russian Ultimatum.

Ukraine said Russia's navy ordered two of its ships in Crimea to surrender amid the worst standoff between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The head of Russia's Black Sea fleet gave the ships, located near the port of Sevastopol, until 5 a.m. tomorrow to give up weapons and capitulate, Oleksiy Kirchkov, deputy commander of the Ternopil, told Ukraine's Channel 5 by phone. Western diplomats are seeking to calm tensions in Ukraine, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arriving in Kiev today.

Calls to Russia's Defense Ministry and navy in Moscow and the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol went unanswered.

One Misstep from Outright War

One misstep, by either side, is likely to start a war. Let's hope it does not come to that.

Addendum

Russia Denies Ultimatum

Moments after I reported the ultimatum story, Bloomberg had this followup: Ukraine Crisis Intensifies as Russia Denies Navy Ultimatum Claim.

Ukraine said Russia's navy ordered two of its ships in Crimea to surrender amid the worst standoff between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War. A Russian Defense Ministry official denied the claim.

Russia's Black Sea fleet gave the ships, located near the port of Sevastopol, until 5 a.m. to give up weapons and capitulate, Oleksiy Kirchkov, deputy commander of the Ternopil, told Ukraine's Channel 5 by phone. The Russian official, who asked not to be named, called Ukraine's claim disinformation. Western diplomats are seeking to calm tensions in Ukraine, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arriving in Kiev today.

It is difficult keeping up with fast-flowing news and denials.

Nonetheless, to paraphrase my previous warning, one misstep by either side can cause serious complications.

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

Here's what happened at the Student Film Festival

Monday, March 3, 2014

Here's what happened at the Student Film Festival

Last Friday, we hosted the first-ever White House Student Film Festival.

Students from all across the country created more than 2,500 short films illustrating the role that technology plays in their classrooms, why it's so important, and how it will change the educational experience for kids in the future.

More than 60 of the young filmmakers came to the White House for the festival, where we screened the 16 official selections. And, as the President said himself, "these movies are awesome."

Did you miss it? Watch the official selections and our honorable mentions, as well as the President's remarks.

President Obama speaks with students at the White House Student Film Festival.

President Barack Obama speaks with students in the State Dining Room prior to the White House Student Film Festival in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 28, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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marți, 4 martie 2014

How do you build great content when you're not the expert?

General brand stuff vs. expert content

Allow the expert to drive

Provide the expert with the structure

How do you make content generation more efficient and scalable?

1) Determine the problem the process is going to solve

2) Identify the people who are going to use the process

3) Find the tools that will allow you to run the process

4) Use the process

5) Modify the process

Some pieces to facilitate the process

1) Use Strategy & 2) Pitch Content

3) Collect Data

4) Develop an outline with key takeaways

5) Provide a first draft with diagramming

How do you build great content with contract writers?

1) Find writers who are a value match

2) Set them up for success

3) Invest in their growth

Helping your writers grow

An ongoing challenge

Bing Webmaster Tools:

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How to sign up

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I'd love to hear your tips for getting the most out of Bing Webmaster tools, so please share below!

luni, 3 martie 2014

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