How to Use Mad Social Skills to Rock a B2B Marketing Plan

Recently, we did a post about how B2B content marketing will overcome the content shock barrier. Many of us have reached our capacity when it comes to ingesting any more content. The solution: B2B companies need to hone in on the channels that drive results and let go of the “be everywhere” notion.

To that end, some B2B companies understanding this are really killing it on the platform (or two) of their choosing.

5 Companies Rocking B2B Marketing Plans with Their Mad Social Skills

The concept of avoiding the noise is steadily growing in popularity. That’s not to say that content marketing is going away. Rather, it’s being perfected so that B2B marketing plans are achieving real results. Check out how these companies are going with their gut and having success doing so.

“To make an impact through content, brand marketers will need to go big. By big, I don’t mean high volume. I mean ambitious.” ~Colleen Jones, CEO of Content Science

1. Twitter – VMware

While VMware offers “hybrid cloud mgmt, application and mobility solutions” to a variety of industries, followers have the option to subscribe to only the portion of the corporation’s feed that captures their interest. VMware’s hyper-organization in providing practically c”ustomized accounts proves their commitment to making lives less complicated.

What it’s doing right: Yes, VMware has a presence on several platforms, including Pinterest. However, it’s clear that image-related platforms are not the main focus. Rather, the company is creating a presence on a platform that’s relevant to its industry, shown by its more than 207,000 followers on its parent page alone.

Your take away: Go ahead and maintain a presence on several platforms (that means post more than once or twice a year), but make sure to hone in on one or two that really work for your brand. Phase out the ones that don’t work. Think of it like cleaning out your clothes closet in the spring.

2. Periscope – Cisco

“The advent of new live-casting technology in 2015 (Periscope, Blab, and Meerkat) will lead to a huge upsurge in live broadcasting in 2016, which wil surpass the growth of podcasting.” ~ Michael Stelzner, CEO & Founder of Social Media Examiner

You may be surprised that I’ve included the virgin platform, Periscope in this grouping. That’s to show that, yes, you don’t want to jump on every bandwagon, but new doesn’t necessarily equal bad. In fact, a successful presence on a new platform may provide you with the impetus to drop another one that isn’t working.

Cisco has proven this by using Periscope to broadcast everything from educational segments to live private events showcasing Aerosmith.

What they’re doing right: It’s true that Cisco has a heavy presence on several platforms. However, what works here is that Cisco is doling out resources appropriately. For example, Cisco has about 8,500 followers on Periscope — not very many for a corporate giant. However, it’s willing to test the waters with a larger-than-normal presence for a startup platform.

Your take away: If you’re going to try a new platform, give it all you’ve got. It’s the only way you’ll know if it will really drive results for your brand.

3. Pinterest – Blalock Design Office

There are two reasons why I chose to herald this B2B company. One is that it’s a clearly a small business, and I love showing how even a small business can have a big presence on social media. Currently Blalock has nearly 3,000 followers on Pinterest, its most popular platform, compared with about 1,500 on Twitter.

What it’s doing right: For many B2B businesses it doesn’t make sense to push a Pinterest presence. However, with companies, such as Blalock that is very visual, it’s a perfect fit.

Your take away: Don’t get pigeonholed with your platforms. There is no blanket rule, such as “Pinterest is not useful if you’re a B2B.” Consider your industry and audience, and make a judgment call from there.

4. Facebook – Agilent Technologies

What’s so special about a company that “provides laboratories worldwide with instruments, services, consumables, applications and expertise?” It would seem, on the surface, nothing.

However, more than 122,000 Facebook followers of the California-based biotechnology firm would disagree. This is likely due to the captivating content it posts, such as “How Agilent and forensic DNA helped solve a murder. Read more at…” I love murder mysteries, so of course I’m going to click that, and I bet you would, too.

What it’s doing right: Facebook and LinkedIn are mainstay platforms. But, rather than inundating followers with hourly posts, Agilent’s B2B marketing plan includes creating super captivating content and promoting it across both platforms every few days.

Your take away: Clearly, quality has the ability to trump quantity. Don’t feel like you have to pump out unique content on every platform several times a day. It’s okay to focus on what you’re good at.

5. LinkedIn – Salesforce

With more than 550,000 followers on LinkedIn, it’s easy to see that this CRM software has found its special niche in social media.

What it’s doing right: Salesforce often includes visuals in postings that stimulate interaction. It has taken advantage of using Showcase Pages to highlight certain divisions and aspects within the company. It often includes lead gen marketing tools in its postings, such as ebooks.

Your take away: If you own a B2B, no matter what your industry, you better be killing it on LinkedIn.

The truth is that many B2Bs are a little lost when it comes to firing up a proper LinkedIn page. It can be difficult to think past LinkedIn as being more than a networking platform resembling at 5 o’clock corporate hangout bar. If that’s the case, check out our latest ebook, A Visual Guide to Creating the Perfect LinkedIn Company Page. Inside, you’ll learn all about how to create a killer description, stunning graphics, and you’ll even get some tops from the pros.

Download your FREE guide now!

Source

Read More

Eight best practices for your native advertising strategy

Here are eight refined tips to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your native advertising strategy and enjoying the highest levels of consumer engagement. 

According to the Association of National Advertisers, 63 percent of advertisers were planning to increase their native advertising budgets in 2015, bumping up spending to $10.7 billion. That’s an impressive uptick of 150 percent from spend in 2013. Additionally, 72 percent of publishers are currently offering native ads, or planning to within the next several years.

This impressive growth is for good reason – the native ad format performs for advertisers. Native ads result in four times the lift over traditional display ads for branded search activity and six times the lift for generic search activity. The reason this format performs so well for advertisers is because it engages consumers.

In a cross-channel and cross-device world, native formats have the ability to complement any context, whether consumers are on their smartphones or desktop Web browsers. That flexibility pays off; our research has found that over 60 percent of consumers have “positive impressions” of native advertising.

This is due to three key reasons:

1. Consumers say native ads introduce them to new products.
2. Native ads provide information that consumers wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
3. These types of ads also fit naturally within the online experience.

To help marketers effectively use native advertising to its fullest potential, we set out to understand and define the creative best practices associated with this format. We held an in-lab survey of over 800 internet and smartphone users, and used eye-tracking to determine fixations, or momentary pauses of the eye within an area of interest happening long enough for cognitive processing to take place. This extensive research helped us develop eight best practices marketers should follow when incorporating this powerful format into their advertising strategy.

1. Images featuring people

People-based images deliver fixation on PC, and deep engagement and lower-funnel metrics on mobile. Images with people lead to higher brand familiarity, brand affinity, purchase increase, and recommendation increase. Consider leveraging these types of images in your native ads, especially on mobile.

2.  Labels of transparency

When one is new to market, transparency is critical. Native video units benefit from a clear label. In this case, the word “sponsored” leads to increased recall, familiarity, and interaction on all platforms.

3. Symbols as labels

For more established native units, like a native mobile app install ad, you may use a “$” as a label of transparency.  This is a space to watch as consumers become more accustomed to native units.

4. Logos

Don’t shy away from letting your logo shine in your native advertising. On mobile, a logo leads to a 25 percent increase in fixation. Logo presence is very important, and larger logos deliver recall, action, and longer fixation for your ad on multiple platforms.

5. Brand mentions

Brand mentions do not have the same impact as logos, but are still important to include in the headline of your native ad, especially with static image ads. Doing so can lead to a 24 percent increase in aided recall, and 11 percent increase in purchase intent. However, in native advertising, brand mentions in the body of the text do not provide significant changes to brand metrics.

6. Video ads

Native video ads that are about 15 seconds long drive greater recall and purchase intent than longer video units, following the trend seen in general video advertising. Consumers were more likely to fixate on 15-second ads on both PC and mobile; they have shorter patience and are looking for the least disruptive ad experience possible.

7. Auto-start ads

Don’t be afraid to leverage auto-start ads when it comes to native, as it drives a slight increase in brand affinity and outperforms user-initiated ads in recall and fixation.

8. An easy to navigate mobile experience

Ensure that you have a seamless mobile experience in place for the consumer post-click, as users tend to fixate on the “more” button.

In conclusion

Native advertising offers a ton of opportunities for marketers, and there’s a reason it’s been a breakout star in the industry. To ensure you’re making the most out of this impactful ad format, it’s important to be transparent with your audience, leverage people-based images and make sure to strut your logo and brand to encourage recall. As digital video consumption continues to increase, so will the power of short, native video and auto-start ads. Marketers should consider adopting these new formats to keep their brand top-of-mind for consumers.

By: David Iudica, director of strategic insight and research at Yahoo.

As Director, strategic insights and research, David provides support to more than 3000 sales and marketing executives spanning the globe. He is responsible for digital insight initiatives designed to help Yahoo create more meaningful connections between its advertising partners and its consumers. This includes overseeing a group of researchers challenged with providing thought-provoking research to the industry around topics like mobile, video, social, native, and audiences.

Source

Read More

Calling All Marketers: Don’t Forget About Customer Retention

Read More

Using Data to Segment and Target your Audience

Image Credit: Jeff Sheldon / Caption: Know where your customers spend their time

Data is all-important when it comes to successfully targeting your customers. There are many things that you can find out about them, even just from how they use your website. You can understand what kind of products they buy and what their browsing behavior is like. You can also discover their age, location, and perhaps occupation. Through social media or other sources of data, you can discover their other interests, whether they are a parent, what they search for, what they buy, and where on the internet they spend most of their time. All of this can be extremely useful.

Behavior
Behavior is, first of all, a very important factor. You need to be able to market your product in a place where your customer will see it. If you know that your customers spend a lot of time on Facebook, for example, then you may invest in advertisements on this platform.

It is also important to know where they go when they look at your site. Do they head straight to a certain page, or come in through the homepage? Perhaps special offers and new products may be ignored if visitors are bypassing the homepage, meaning that you need to make them more prominent on other pages as well.

Desires
What your customer desires is the key to knowing what they will buy. Your task is to sell them exactly what they want, even if only in a broad sense. For example, if someone is a parent, you may present your product to them as an asset because it will help them to be able to spend more time with their family.

On the other hand, if your time-saving product is being sold to a young business owner who is single and dedicated to their start-up, then you might instead sell it to them as a product which will help their business to grow quicker. The product is the same – only the marketing message is personalized.

Support
It is absolutely essential to follow your customer through every part of their relationship with your company, and ensure that their needs are well met. With a CRM you can set up marketing automation so that a customer receives an email after they sign up to your site, after they purchase something, and so forth.

It’s also important to keep an eye on their experience as a whole. Having a central data hub for customer information means that you can check back on prior support requests, complaints, and orders to give them a thorough and detailed response in all communication.

Answer
All potential customers will have objections about using your service or buying your product. Your job is to use the data to understand your customers and then answer those objections before they arise. You can, for example, run a survey to find out why customers did not buy on a particular occasion.

Let’s say the young business owner feels that your service is too expensive for them. To combat this, market it to them in a personalized way as being something that will save them money over time and help to build better profits.

Data can be used to significantly increase your sales if you know what you are doing. Give the right message to your potential customers in the right place, and support them through every step of their relationship with your brand, and you will find sales figures rising. This is a delicate process, and almost impossible to do without the proper use of data and a CRM. Once you get it right, your sales will go through the roof almost immediately.

Source

Read More

Extreme Makeover – Using Social Media to Build Your Event Audience

Planners and their clients would both like to be able to use social media to build a robust audience for their events. The key to doing this is to think beyond the boundaries of the event itself. True audience development is an ongoing process. Even if your main goal is to promote a single event, you still have to think in a broader time frame. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your promotional efforts.

FIND YOUR PEOPLE

First of all, you’ll need to identify who is part of your event’s natural audience, and then consider where the best places are to find them.

Do your people tend to hang out on Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? If you’re not sure, then give yourself some time to find out. Sharing your messaging on multiple platforms makes sense for a few reasons. Firstly, there’s a positive impact to becoming a ubiquitous presence. If people see you everywhere they turn, it reinforces the sense that you have your act together, that your team knows what it’s doing, and that you are substantive – worth taking the time to investigate further. Secondly, by testing out the viability of different platforms, you’ll get to see where you achieve the most traction. Then, you can focus your resources more in the places where you get the best results.

THINK YEAR ROUND

This strategy makes perfect sense if you are planning a yearly event. However, it even applies for a singular occasion. You are building a community, and that takes time. Think in terms of teasers – content that you can begin posting months and months in advance, to start building buzz around your event. You might want to start with compelling images and other multi-media content. Make sure to add a distinctive hashtag that will identify the content as yours and help you track all activity related to it as people share or comment on your posts.

ENCOURAGE CONVERSATION

When building an event audience, it’s important to make participants feel like they have some stake in the development of the event itself. If appropriate, invite suggestions or take polls regarding choices in décor or other production elements. Think about using an event platform, that allows event registrants to interact with one another as well as with presenters and exhibitors, before, during and after the event. After the event, share pictures and wrap-up stories, and encourage attendees to share their feedback with you and with one another.

DON’T STOP

Once you understand who your people are, where they are hanging out and what’s important to them, it’s your job to continue a dialogue with them. This is particularly important if you are building a yearly event. You will find that the more you treat your audience as an integral part of your event, the more they will want to stay involved and bring in their friends and colleagues. Don’t forget – social media streams move very fast. If you want to hold people’s attention, you’re going to have to maintain your messaging well past the days immediately before and after your event.

Source

Read More

How brands use WeChat for impact and engagement

WeChat is China's most indispensable app. Here is a look at how brands from Kate Spade to Chanel are using this versatile platform to market to Chinese consumers.

When WeChat said it wanted to connect everything, it wasn’t kidding – from mobile messaging to health tech to interactive toys, the company seems to have it covered. It’s even ready to overtake texting as the communication method of choice – no mean feat, considering the billions of texts sent every day.

This ubiquity of access and integration into its 600 million users' everyday lives has naturally inspired brands looking to nail the three R's of social user engagement – reach, recognition and revenue – to take advantage of WeChat’s commercial opportunities. Here are some of the best examples of key strategies used by brands to enhance their presence and engage their customers via WeChat:

Brand stories told through HTML5 mini sites

Setting up an HTML5 mini site specifically designed for access via WeChat through QR codes, chat, customized menus, multimedia messages, and shared messages on Moments gives brands the freedom to get creative with their content without disrupting other branded activity.

Fashion houses that are looking to enhance their profile in China, such as Moncler and Browns, have chosen this route as the swiftest, surest way to reach a new audience.

Chanel has created a fashion mini site which gives WeChat users the full Chanel experience, complete with news, videos, make up tips as well as product and promotional information. It uses the WeChat interface to its advantage, engaging users without taking them out of their familiar environment and providing them with rich, exclusive information reflecting the quality and high-end nature of the brand.

Louis Vuitton used the buzz generated from key opinion leaders (KOL) in its second series show to drive users to a WeChat mini site. It then offered them a virtual experience of the event, encouraged them to share it socially and gave them information about the new women’s range.

Audience participation with games and quizzes

WeChat users are highly engaged and predisposed at getting involved in app-based activity. Millions have downloaded games such as Dash and Speed. There’s clearly an appetite for interaction, and brands have been quick to exploit this. U.S. fashion company Kate Spade, for example, launched a sky lantern game where users could select a lantern color and write messages on it before releasing it to the sky. They were encouraged to invite friends to take part via QR code, and had the opportunity to win Kate Spade products by participating.

Coach has a reputation as one of the most creative luxury brands on WeChat. Its Modern New Yorker campaign asked users to send a text to the Coach WeChat account to receive nine photographic puzzle pieces of brand ambassador and superstar musician Leehom Wang, which they then had to complete for the chance to win a signed Coach poster. 

Disruptive advertising: thinking outside the app

Innovative application of WeChat’s functionality has led to a number of very successful campaigns, delivering measurable improvements to profits as well as popularity.

Uniqlo is an example of a brand that increased its WeChat followers from 400,000 to around one million in just six months and boosted sales by 30 percent with its Style Your Life campaign. In a project which brought together physical stores and online sharing, users were encouraged to try on outfits in-store in front of monitors - designed to give consumers access to a number of different backgrounds, including sightseeing in London and an evening in downtown Tokyo. The images were automatically uploaded to WeChat, where users could share them with their friends. Some users also uploaded selfies taken in-store.

Chinese mobile Internet company Dianping has also made creative use of WeChat’s messaging services to develop an innovative campaign to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron. This was the first brand to use a fake incoming call which, when answered, appeared to result in the user’s screen cracking under the signature attacks of the Avengers.

And here is a shot of the 'shattered' screen effect.

A call to action encouraged users to continue their experience in the cinema, and linked to the Dianping booking system. The campaign played to all the strengths of WeChat as well as the personalities of its users – focusing on telling a story, delivering it quickly and with impact to an audience used to short, speedy interactions and allowing them to easily act on what they’d seen without taking them out of the brand environment.

What’s next?

It’s clear that brands are keen to get involved in all the marketing opportunities WeChat has to offer. It’s a lucrative partnership with measurable benefits for both sides.

Naturally, WeChat wants to feed this appetite. At the beginning of this year parent company Tencent tested ads within Moments, and is in the process of ramping up in-app advertising. This will no doubt encourage brands to think creatively about ads which go with the flow of app content, although they will want to be particularly careful to do this in a way that does not disrupt the user experience (UX).

The lifestyle aspect of WeChat also provides brands with increasingly innovative opportunities to connect with users and potential customers – it’s now far beyond being a simple communication platform, with users booking taxis and air tickets, paying bills, making investments and much more. In its drive to connect everything, WeChat is set to become the platform of choice for both users and brands.

Source

Read More

Digital Content Consumption: How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

“How well do you know your audience?” This is a question that many of us writers and content creators take to heart since the very early stages of our professional training. Unfortunately, as content marketing gains popularity, we find ourselves caught in a race that has nothing to do with engaging the reader but to churn out x number of content a week (if you’re lucky). For some writers on news and community websites, you’re faced with the challenge of writing as many as ten articles a day even.

This type of volume-based writing is more for the SEO-writer but not for the other types of writer. Apparently there are many writing styles that got neglected in the online world such as descriptive writing, narrative writing, persuasive writing, and technical writing.

Let’s take a peek into consumer psychology. Quite obviously, if you’re writing for a middle schooler, you’d want to use a different tone of voice and choice of vocabulary as oppose to writing for someone in their thirties. The concept is essentially the same when writing for consumers of a brand. The only difference is that when you’re working for big brands, the scale at which you would want to understand your audience becomes enormously important.

Millennials, Generation X and Baby Boomers

Let’s begin by splitting your audience by age group: the Millennials, Generation X and Baby Boomers. A recent research by BuzzStream and Fractl identified that the top 4 content types for all three segments are the same. The takeaway? You definitely don’t want to skip blogging and using images whenever there’s the opportunity.

source: socialmediatoday.com

You Won’t Finish This Article

The headline of this section says it all. Online readers just do not invest time to read every single word of an article. Does that mean you should be stuffing everything that is important in the first two paragraphs? Probably not. That would only jeopardize your article quality and flow.
Instead, make good use of headlines and sub-headings. Regardless of the medium, whether it’s a newspaper print, pocket book or online article, headlines, titles and chapter headings will always capture the reader’s attention first.

For online writing, good use of sub-headings would mean audiences have more freedom to jump between parts of the article. It also helps to make the article more digestible.

Finally, if the consensus is that many online readers rarely complete reading a whole article, most likely they would jump to the very ending for the conclusion. This makes the last paragraph very important. Whenever possible, make it a habit to sum up the entire article into a concise last paragraph.

The Multi-Tasker

There is no denying that a large portion of online content consumption now happens on mobile devices and portables. (Yes, I know that you know that mobile is important and you already have a plan that involves responsive websites, faster rendering and so on.)

Besides the technicalities, for the writer, it’s worth to note that the audience behavior when consuming content on mobile and on desktop is significantly different. Hence, there is more to content optimization for mobile readability than the standard layout and appearance. For the writer, you’re in fact optimizing your content style and writing to meet the multi-tasker-type audience. While desktop readers may multitask by switching between two tabs, or have some music running in the background, the mobile reader is commuting on public transport, having lunch, running on the treadmill or even while walking in the park.

In China, there is even a phone lane for those whose attention is split between consuming content on their mobile phones or chatting, while also commuting.

The takeaway? For long articles, the audience may quickly lose their spot when they are multi-tasking. Use lots of images and sub-headlines to act as breaks and bookmarks. The use of slimmer paragraphs would also make long articles more digestible.

Headline Skimming and Image Scanning

Online reading behavior is simply different from offline reading. Reading print encourages you to really focus on what you’re reading while digital reading tends to be more of a surface-level reading. The rise of social media, that basically works around images and text snippets further influence this habit to skim headlines, scan through a few keywords and scroll over images.

The takeaway? Similar to the previous section, you’ll want to make sure your headline stands out and do make use of sub-headings. Since most headlines will appear in bold, a larger font-size or different color, when your audience skims through the article, these headlines will stand out and encourage the reader to continue skimming through. Is skimming bad? As a reading behavior, most probably yes. For those who are tight on time (which is quickly becoming the norms for many people), it’s a great skill to have. For brands, making good use of headlines and images may just be the deciding factor whether your content marketing sees fruition.

So How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

In summary, research pinpoints that regardless of age group; most online content consumers prefer blog articles and images. The increase use of mobile devices for internet browsing nevertheless puts forth new challenges. Long articles can be made to flow better and easier to digest by the use of sub-headings and slimmer paragraphs.

While this article focuses on the behavior of consumers when it comes to reading online content, other factors that may determine the success of your content development strategy is of course, to also have a clear understanding of your brand’s products and services.

Source

Read More

The 4 Generations on Social You Ought to Know

There are many things in my life that I love, and dinner parties are one of them. Before I hosted my first ever soirée, my mother made it a point to instill a statement in my head. “Know your guests,” she said. While she also said, “Your chicken tends to be dry,” it was, “Know your guests,” that stuck with me for years—even to this day.

At first it took me some time to really understand what she meant, but after hosting a few parties it all became crystal clear. When you’re hosting a dinner party, you’re essentially creating an experience, and the best experiences are shaped by the preferences and behaviors of your guests. To this point, the more I knew about my guests, the more I was able to personalize aspects of an event for each person—making them feel valued and special. 

And isn’t that what we’re all about on social? As marketers, aren’t we hosting experiences on social media networks so that customers feel valued and special? It’s like an ongoing dinner party with an open invitation—one where we hope audiences happily consume our content and share their enjoyment with others. As such, knowing our audience is imperative to the success of our social strategy.

And that’s what we’ve done here. For this piece, we’ve mined through reports about age to gain more insight into a few audience segments prevalent on social. More specifically, we’re examining the four primary living generations: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. You see, your audiences will be comprised of all ages, so it’s necessary that we analyze behaviors and preferences in aggregate. It’s the only scalable way to create personalized content that will resonate with large audiences. By getting to know these generation types, you will be able sift through your own data to identify trends and opportunities that can help you build a more informed content strategy.
 

Baby Boomers

(Born between 1946-64)

Qualities:  With an age range of 51 to 65, this group’s key life experiences span mostly throughout the twentieth century. Baby Boomers were born into post-WWII cultures. They are considered the “rock and roll” and first TV generation. They lived through the wars of the ‘60s and ‘70s, creating a “me” attitude that ultimately broke from the traditions of generations past: such as women working outside the home, divorce acceptance, and a “buy now and use credit” mentality. Baby Boomers are also identified as people who see technology and innovation as a learning process and, unlike their parents, think of retirement as more than just a stay-at-home part of life, but an exciting time to travel and enjoy life. Most importantly, they are a very populous group. In the U.S., Baby Boomers secure one quarter of the population.

Key Social Insight: 60% of Baby Boomers are actively using social media. Studies also show that Americans over 55 outspend younger adults online 2:1. (Source)

Takeaway: Today, Baby Boomers are making strides toward learning these platforms in hopes of making their lives better. These audiences are either retired and/or their children are now adults, which means there’s more disposable income and time—a big opportunity for online sales. While it’s taking this generation a little longer to grasp all the major social networks, when they are on, they are ready to learn and spend. Look through your analytics and see if they’re consuming your content. If they are, think about how your product or service can benefit this demo and test a few pieces with them. If they’re not, consider tactics relevant to your brand that might peak their interest.  

Gen X

(Born between 1965-80)

Qualities: Children of the above generation, these now 35 to 50 year olds were once kids of two-income households or a single parent unit. This type of “empty home” produced a generation that is very individualistic and entrepreneurial. They are seen as short on loyalty and commitment and they desire exploration and contribution. This may be the reason why Gen Xers have an average of seven career changes within their lifetime. Currently, most are homeowners with children at home. 

Key Social Insight: 86% of Gen Xers are online on a daily basis and are multi-tasking professionals that are actively seeking information. They are the second largest percentage of Pinterest users and nearly two-thirds have used Facebook in the past month. (Source)

Takeaway:  Gen Xers are a well-informed, goal-oriented audience. People in this generation are reaching the height of their careers, with many out-earning Baby Boomers. On social, marketers have a chance to build long-lasting product value and brand loyalty with this generation. And the way to get there is through authentic, trust-worthy information. If your intent is to target people identified as Gen Xers, then the content must be easy to understand, insightful, and offer a benefit upfront. Transparency is key with this audience.

Millennials/Gen Y

(Born between 1980-98)

Qualities: Ages 17 to 34, most Millennials came into this world nurtured by focused parents. Millennials grew up with fast food, video games and computers, which shaped them into placing a high emphasis on quick information and instant satisfaction. They tend to have a sense of entitlement and a keen understanding of the digital space (since they grew up with some type of digital appliance). One significant trait of this generation is that they value work, but do not live to work. Having a social life outside of work is a necessary feature in life that they strive for. Lastly, Millennials represent more than a quarter of the U.S. population (more than Baby Boomers). 

Key Social Insight: 62% of millennials say that if a brand engages with them on social networks, they are more likely to become a loyal customer. They expect brands to not only be on social networks, but to engage with them. (Source)

Takeaway:  This tech-savvy generation knows exactly what they want from brands on social media. They’re active on most of the major networks so planning a connected social strategy that spans across multiple networks is a critical step toward reaching this audience. In order to generate content that resonates with a Millennial, marketers must be creative, clever and quick. This audience wants to feel like a valuable customer, so baking that message into your content is a powerful way to nurture customer loyalty.
 

Gen Z

(Born between 1999-Present)

Qualities: From babies, to toddlers, to teens, Generation Z is the youth of today’s world. For this group, digital is all they know. This audience is the mobile device generation. So much so that the second screen is a necessary component to the television experience. Because of the easy accessibility of information from digital tools, Gen Zers are adept researchers. Where Millennials use an average of three screens, this group uses five. Due to the immediacy at which content has been delivered to them, this group has a lower attention span than the generations before them. Gen Z is also the third largest group in the U.S. (trailing behind Baby Boomers), but by 2020, they'll account for 40% of all consumers. (Source)

Key Social Insight: Consumers age 19 and younger prefer social networks like Snapchat, Secret and Whisper, and a quarter of people age 13 to 17 have left Facebook this year. (Source)

Takeaway: While the purchasing power of this group is no match for the aforementioned generations, they do have influence over some of them because they are their children and grandchildren. But the main thing here is that Generation Z is an audience interested in the next big thing. Emerging networks—ones that their parents are not on—are far more attractive than Facebook and Twitter. Testing on new social frontiers is the only way brands can really capture the attention of Gen Z. And it’s not just being on these networks, it’s also about standing out and creating highly visual, fascinating content. Unlike Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, Gen Zers are more open to experimentation and risk-taking content—so have fun with it. If you do, they will, too.   

Note: Data from the "Qualities" section of each generation was provided byMarketingteacher.com 

What are your tips for marketing to certain age demographics? 

Source

Read More

7 Tactics to Write Quality Content Your Audience Will Love

The debate is over.

We’ve all bought our tickets.

Creating quality content is the most effective way to market a business.

Even the big retailers and B2Bs are on board.

But, questions of quantity and quality still linger.

How can I produce the right volume of valuable, sharable content? The truth is, you can pump out a ridiculous number of killer blog posts and still wind up with a poor conversion rate because you’re not answering your audience’s needs.

Your content has to be better. It has to stand out. And it has to strike a chord with your audience, and engage your influencers. You can’t write that kind of content consistently off the top of your head. You need research.

Here are some proven tactics that will build your knowledge base and help you write quality content your audience will love.

1. Monitor social media.

You’re probably already listening for your brand or company name mentions, which is great, but not enough. Expand your attention to pick up on trends, social cues, and weak signals. Industry topics, news, and even consumer ideas for new uses for your products.

A delicious collaboration in the works between @Oreo and @COOLHAUS!

2. Get to know your customers.

Customers are more than just faceless demographics. Chances are you’ve got a CRM chock full of information you’re not mining. Your sales staff should be entering every interaction (training may be necessary if they’re not).

Customer service notes, such as comments and complaints, are a rich source of inspiration. To spark their interest and earn their attention, get inside your customer’s head. Find service or product areas you need to address and questions you need to answer.

Content that provides in-depth answers is a powerful drawcard.

Just how powerful is customer knowledge?

According to Invesp, developing an effective  buyer persona can result in a 238% increase in conversions. Understanding your customers pays off in a big way!

3. Check out your competitors

Competitive analysis is perhaps the strongest indicator of what works. By observing what resonates with the audience of competing businesses, you can better predict what your audience will appreciate.

A competitor content audit gives you a comprehensive overview of what is working in your industry, information you can use to improve your marketing strategy and SEO.

You can document best practices, discover what type of content is most likely to be shared, and identify influential bloggers and social media influencers.

Screenshot from Rival IQ 

4. Do keyword research

Forget keyword optimization, long-tail keyword stuffing, and all the other word weirdness that used to work. It’s not only not effective, it might actively hurt your search engine rank.

That does not mean you should stop doing keyword research.  Keywords reveal what people are talking about, responding to, and sharing.

Use popular topics for inspiration and find a new angle, or combine ideas to add depth.

5. Test your titles

When running keyword research for the screenshot above, Buzzsumo yielded “Marketing Is Dead, and Loyalty Killed It,” and I was hooked. I had to stop working and read it. That’s what your title should be, an irresistible lure.

Oh, and it should contain your primary keyword. That’s still a thing.

Screenshot from Co-Schedule

The Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer gave “Knowledge In, Content Out” a B+ (This was the original headline for this article). Perhaps I should throw in a puppy. Everybody loves puppies.

6. Read the research

Last year, Buzzsumo analyzed the social share volume of 100 million posts to determine what people share and why. The results are pretty enlightening.

Key findings: longer content is more popular, images are practically mandatory, and people are more likely to share based on emotional value.

Graphic courtesy of  OkDork

Brian Carter and Marketo researched what people share on Facebook and why a few years ago, and offer practical advice on using the knowledge to better your content. (It’s super long, so it must be really good)

There are a ton of industry reports that will help you keep up, and a lot of them are free. Because industry reports are excellent content that get shared a lot. See how that works?

You can also base some blog posts on statistics. Reports can be a little dry. Blog posts written with added context to show how statistical information applies to your business are often wildly popular. Jeff happens to be really good at showing how to put statistics to use. Watch and learn!

7.  Optimize your content

You did your homework and poured your heart into a killer post with a can’t miss title… and you’re still not done. Sorry. Now it’s time to optimize your work before publishing. That requires a different kind of knowledge, on-page SEO.

If your writing has focus, your post will have all the semantic keywords and concepts it needs to make the penguin happy. No real need to obsess over that.

For solid SEO and added interest you need:

• A concise and descriptive meta description
• Sub-headers containing keywords and variants
• Links to other internal pages (to keep visitors in your site longer)
• Outbound links (to authoritative sites)
• Images (preferably with descriptive ALT text)

Adding other visual media, like videos and slideshows, isn’t a must, but will increase interest and boost the share value of your posts.

There’s no way to predict how much attention your content will get, but you have a much better chance of earning attention with a knowledge-based approach. If you consistently churn out well-written, personable posts loaded with information and insight, your audience will grow. It may take patience at first; building momentum can be slow.

Content is, in essence, your brand. What you post drives consumer interest in your company and inspires your fans to become brand advocates. The trick is to build a careful library of knowledgeable, informative content based on industry topics people search for, and present it in an understandable way. Then spiff it up with graphics and whatnot so it looks pretty.

Knowledge, presentation, and promotion. That’s what makes great content.

Now that you know my process for developing content, tell me yours.

What methods do you use to research topics and develop content?

Podcasting provided by Odovox.com

Source

Read More