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A new study of marketers in the United Kingdom has rated Twitter as the most effective social media platform for content marketing.
In the third annual Trends report, Axonn Media found that 89 percent of UK marketers used Twitter to distribute content and 75 percent said that they found it to be the most effective channel. This placed Twitter first ahead of LinkedIn which, while in use by 96 percent of marketers, was only cited as effective by 61 percent.
Facebook was given the thumbs up by just 29 percent of respondents.
Overall, social media finished third behind in-person events and blogs for effectiveness....
Among the key findings of the survey: - Blogs and newsletters are most valued by B2B buyers early in the sales cycle, when they are starting to learn about a topic and evaluate products/vendors.
- Whitepapers are most valued in the beginning and middle parts of the sales cycle, when buyers are attempting to understand a problem.
- Videos, webinars, and detailed tech guides are most useful toward the end of the cycle, when buyers are considering specific vendors and finalizing selection.
- 80% of buyers want to continue to receive content after a sale is completed...
Whether it’s movies, amusement parks, or cruise ship itineraries, everything Disney touches seems to turn to gold and their social media strategies are no different.
To connect with audiences around the world, Disney manages over 1,000 social media accounts. How do they do it? A whole lot of work and a little bit of magic.
In fact, having a documented strategy is critical, as it’s one core element that separates effective content marketers from their less effective peers.
As we’ve seen in the responses in our annual research, those with a documented content marketing strategy: - Are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing - Feel significantly less challenged with every aspect of content marketing - Generally consider themselves more effective in their use of all content marketing tactics and social media channels - Are able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing.
Here are a few common questions to help you start creating a content marketing strategy from scratch — or improving the one you may already have in place....
And although digital is taking an increasing share of marketing budgets, the move to online is paradoxically making some old-school tactics even more valuable.
What do buyers say is the most important signal of vendor credibility? What type of content is most effective? What do marketers rate as the single most valuable SEO tactic? What are the top barriers to adopting social business practices?
Find the answers to these questions and many others in more than 100 social and online marketing stats from 20+ different sources....
At its foundation, social media is simple: if you share good stuff, people will reshare it, and you’ll get more interaction and more followers. Everything else is optimization (or delusion). This article (an edited excerpt from our new book) explains what it takes to create perfect posts that will add value to the lives of your followers, build your platform, and spread your story. We advocate the most aggressive sharing practices on social media, so buckle your seat belt, and put on your helmet.
Be valuable. What do we mean by “share good stuff”? Your social media posts should come in four forms
A recent study from the Content Marketing Institute found that 86% of B2B businesses use at least one form of content marketing, with social media being the most used method. It also found that the top three problems B2B marketers face are related to content.
My company Blurbi (i’m guest blogging here. Hi mom!) wanted to dig deeper into these content problems to figure out how you, as the person in charge of marketing at a B2B company, could optimize your content posting. To do so, we conducted a study of 400 B2Bs across 50 different markets and five countries. In this article you’ll find a recap of our most important results, tied together with results from other industry leaders, and the key takeaways....
I chronicled many examples of companies creating useful marketing in my book, Youtility. Since then, however, there have been dozens of new instances of companies making truly useful marketing. Here are 9 of my favorites: (note: I wrote a version of this post for the Marketo blog)...
For startups, distribution channels are where they find new users for products and services. You are familiar with “The Big Three” distribution channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The problem is that the Big Three are charging for access to your potential audience which disqualifies most businesses from using them.
This means your post is reaching a sliver of your targeted audience. There are a few more interesting tactics to maximize your reach on Facebook for example. But it’s time for you to look for new places to distribute your content....
How long should my tweet be? Or my blogpost? Or my headline?
I ask this question a lot. It seems that others do, too. Our first take on coming up with the ideal length of all online content proved quite useful for a lot of people.
I’d love to see if I can help make it even more useful.
Along with all the best tips on optimal lengths for tweets, blogposts, headlines, and more, I’ve added a few additional lengths to the list—the ones that came up most often in the comments of the last post, like SlideShare length, Pinterest length, and more.
And to make it just as easy as possible to consume all this information quickly and easily, we partnered with our friends at SumAll to place the data and insights into a fun infographic. Check it all out below.
In the early stages of social media marketing maturity, business use of social media tends to go through a series of phases from not doing anything to beginning to monitor social channels to sharing content and building community. Eventually, they find their way to some form of social sales or social commerce.
To jump start the move towards a social media marketing strategy that starts to align with measurable business outcomes, here are 3 ways many companies can optimize their approach to social media.
These are not magic tricks or some secret, hyper advanced tactics no one knows about. They are a few of the things that most companies suck at when it comes down to implementing social media marketing. Stop the suck and start the winning!...
Do you know the most effective times to post on social media, send an email, or publish a blog? We've broken down the data behind the most effective times to post…
Imagine you were compiling a course curriculum for a class on online marketing. What would be your go-to resources?
In digging through my bookmarks and starred articles, I noticed a growing list of awesome stories and helpful links. If I threw them all together, it’d make for quite the collection!
I’d love to share with you what I’ve got so far, and it’d be awesome if you’d consider adding any personal favorites in the comments. Here is what I’ve bookmarked as my must-read social media articles and content marketing resources."...
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Here are 25 of the questions I’ve been asking to B2B companies about content marketing. Maybe some of these will make you think about your own content marketing program and opportunities to expand, enhance, and optimize it. I sprinkled throughout some of the tools we often use and recommend. I’ll work on a full tools blog post for early next year.
These are listed alphabetically, but I’d love to know which of these are most interesting and relevant to you, so please vote up the ones you like best on this Listly
So what are social media’s biggest questions?
To find out, we asked.
We solicited feedback and questions from our list of 40,000 email subscribers, asking each of you to ask us anything. And you did! We received hundreds of questions in response, each of which we’re eager to research and reply to. For starters, we grabbed 17 frequent asked questions about social media marketing. Come see how we might answer them....
Even the most data-driven marketers can find themselves grappling with what to integrate next. The cost of creating video or infographic content can seem overwhelming. It’s hard to make the leap if there’s little proof in your content market metrics that a new tactic will work.
Understand that you’re definitely not alone. While most of us realize we should significantly expand the repertoire of our content marketing strategy, making decisions about precisely what to do next can be challenging.
Well, you’re in luck. We’ve combed studies and surveys to compile 8 data-backed tactics that will drive results in 2015:....
If you are a marketer, be prepared to step up your game for 2015. Why?
Because 2015 is going to separate the wolves from the sheep.
Learn How To Stand Out
With the abundance of information out there, marketers must know how to work every angle so that they can stay relevant to their customers and the industry.
In today’s post we will outline how to capture attention and turn it into results so you can plan to be one of the successful marketers in the upcoming year....
RadiumOne, the intelligent advertising software company, today released new research on Dark Social sharing which polled the opinions of 9,027 consumers in North America, the UK, Europe, Australia and France. The research, conducted by intelligence market researcher Tpoll, revealed that 59% of all online sharing activity in the US takes place via 'Dark Social' channels, compared to just 31% via Facebook and 10% on all other social channels combined. Additionally, 36% of 'Dark Social' sharing globally occurs via mobile devices illustrating their increasingly pivotal role in consumers' daily shopping and sharing habits.
'Dark Social' refers to any inbound web traffic coming from sources that web analytics are unable to track. It typically occurs when online content is shared by copying a URL and pasting it into messaging platforms such as email, forums, or instant message rather than sharing it via established social networks....
To show our appreciation for the dozens of business, personal, and creative resources that help us stay informed and do our jobs – and help us do the same for our readers – the Content Marketing Institute shares a few of the sources we rely on to support our own content marketing (and personal) missions.
This list is not exhaustive, but it offers a glimpse of the sources of our inspiration and is arranged by each contributor’s CMI function. Though our roles may dictate the types of resources we prefer and prioritize, we all agree that we couldn’t do our jobs without these influencers.
We hope our picks – as well as the additional resources we’ve listed at the end – will help guide you to greater content marketing success....
...Here are a few of the marketing philosophies I uphold, which will explain the rest of this post on social media and emotional branding:
1 We build relationships with brands like we build relationships with our friends. It takes many positive interactions over a period of time. 2. Loyalty trumps everything. If the world turns upside-down, your loyal customers will be there. So our ultimate goal is to create loyalty. 3. It is impossible to achieve true brand loyalty in the long-term without emotional connection. 4. Emotional connection comes when we feel a brand becomes part of our self-identity.
So let’s start a little examination of how social media can fit into this formula....
Today’s smart brands are putting their money where the return on investment (ROI) is, investing in the growth and development of real authors.
2015 brings a new set of standards, the art of producing real, genuine, authentic, and high-quality content coming from an accredited and trusted real person with a notable byline.
Fast and furious content days are over. Search and social experimental writing is history. It’s the dawn of authenticity where bots, fakes, and frauds can’t survive. We’ve entered the era of intelligent content that is laced with smart optimization and is penned by qualified writers who have a name, rank, and serial number of credentials and influence....
Engaging your customer has never been harder, or more crucial. I know you know that already, but just in case you are harboring any residual skepticism about the importance of customer engagement, I offer you these facts from the “State of The American Consumer” for 2014, part of an ongoing study of American consumers from 2008 to the present, conducted by Gallup...
As marketers, we’ve all laid awake in a cold sweat at night trying to figure out precisely how to optimize our social campaigns. Get it right and you’re the most popular person in the company as you bring in legions of leads and a cartful of customers. Get it wrong and months of hard work have been worth absolutely nothing, and you’ll now have to justify it all to your boss.
We can’t script your social campaign, that’s your job, but we can give you the difference-making ingredients to ensure your campaign bursts through the noise. Throughout your campaign, this companion guide will make sure your social mastery will be performing at its peak level...
Consumers today no longer see you and your brand in isolated interactions, they journey across devices, mediums, and physical locations in the course of accomplishing a single task. There is a thin line between the physical and digital experience today, as objects are able to exchange live data, thanks to technologies like the Internet of Things. Users have evolved through these experiences and raised the bar.
Consider the touchpoints in making an airline journey: first a consumer may visit the website to search for flights, and do an online booking. She may get the confirmation via an SMS, and details of the flight via an e-mail, which she may read on a smartphone. Next, she may check in using the smartphone, and choose seats from a kiosk at the airport. She may receive in-flight messages on a TV console once she is seated. During the booking on the website, she may come to know about promotional offers and upgrades, and redeem her frequent flier miles. There is a variety of information and interaction at each channel....
...The long tail and the fat tail are not entirely disconnected, of course. Rather, there are many touch points between their processes and, thus, between the tools. For example, when creating a fat tail content campaign of eBooks, videos, blog posts, emails, landing pages, etc., corresponding social posts need to be drafted and pushed into long tail tools for distribution. Kapost facilitates this functionality through integrations like this one with a growing list of long tail vendors.
Winning on All Points of the Content Curve
As modern marketers, we face an unprecedented challenge in distributing a huge array of different content types across a myriad of digital challenges. Our buyers are in control and only through well-produced and distributed content can we earn their attention, their trust, and their business.
The Content Curve provides a framework for understanding the continuum of different assets along the fat tail and the long tail, and the different processes involved for each. Marketers who quickly organize their operations around these elements of the curve will be those who win the digital battle to grow their business through content.
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This study surprised me and I would really like to see a clearer, more comprehensive look at results rather than an informal "Which one works better?" question.