What’s the Deal with Content Marketing?
Content marketing is centered on providing valuable content to potential customers in order to enhance their experience with your brand. The benefits of including content marketing as part of your online strategy are as follows: Building interest and loyalty. With fresh content, you can urge people to return to your website or blog on a regular basis. Consistency helps your brand also secure industry credibility. Ranking in the search engines. Quality content can help your… Read more…
A Blog Template for Beginners
If you’re considering content marketing, know that there is a right way and a wrong way to blog. I’ve created an outline to help you write your very own blog post to captivate readers. By using four famous TV catchphrases, I developed a blog template to get you started: “That’s Hot” – Paris Hilton, The Simple Life Crafting a Hot Headline The title of your post baits the reader. You want your potential reader to… Read more…
4 Conversion Killers You Can Conquer
What makes people go from your shopping cart to second guessing? The Four Horsemen of the eCommerce Apocalypse. These Four Horsemen gallop in consumer’s minds, trample landing pages, and crush conversion. All Four Horsemen have one thing in common: fear. Fear is the ultimate conversion killer. Fear breeds destruction, but before you accept defeat there are ways to fight fear. Fear of misusing money Allowance is a big deal for children. Remember when you were… Read more…
Armstrong’s PR Position: Right or Wrong?
Lance Armstrong, seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor, is swimming in allegations claiming the athlete cheated the system by using performance-enhancing drugs. Rather than fight to preserve his reputation, Armstrong is taking a different route. This is not the first time the professional cyclist has been accused of doping. However, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) says it has blood samples from previous years proving the athlete used performance-enhancing drugs and is pushing hard… Read more…
How Some Brands Botch it in 140 Characters or Less
Update: I wrote this post just days ago, but clearly not enough organizations are paying attention. Without taking time to properly research and react, brands head straight to Twitter and make serious mistakes. The thing is they have no one to blame but themselves. Just today, several companies are revealing their lack of due diligence. My most recent discovery of terrible tweeting comes from @CelebBoutique. The company is clueless in its attempt to jump on… Read more…
Socialympics: Social Media and the Olympics
If social media engagement was a competition between the most recent Olympics, the winners would look something like this. • Bronze Medal: 2008 Summer Games in Beijing • Silver Medal: 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver • Gold Medal: 2012 Summer Games in London The London Olympics are already being coined the “socialympics,” and this month will definitely usher in a new era of expectations for the games. In 2008, Twitter had 6 million accounts and… Read more…
How to Write a Highly Effective Headline
Approximately 50 percent of visitors to landing pages bail in eight seconds. And while that amount of time might be the length of a decent first kiss, it’s hardly enough time for strong conversion rates—but it can be done. A headline is the first impression on a prospective customer, and sometimes, a headline is the only impression. The fact is there is a lot riding on writing the perfect headline to grab attention, communicate a… Read more…
Invisible Children and Damage Control
Correction: Since then, it has been clarified that Jason Russell was not arrested, but rather detained. There are no charges pending against him. Healthy skepticism never hurt anyone. In fact, doing your own research before committing to anything is an excellent idea, which is why the nonprofit organization Invisible Children didn’t shy away from criticism two weeks ago after they launched their Kony 2012 campaign. However, the criticism concerning the organization is about to get… Read more…
The Viral Kony Campaign
If people are unaware of a problem, how can they help solve it? Social media can certainly assist. Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization that uses film, creativity, and social action to restore peace in Central Africa, recently leveraged social media to create a successful new movement called Kony 2012. While a lot of video content on the Internet goes viral starring cute kittens or flash mobs, Invisible Children made a 30 minute film exposing a… Read more…
Social Media Marketing Etiquette
Talking on the phone with a passenger in the car is annoying and inconsiderate. Men should walk street-side of the sidewalk so women can safely side walk. Secondhand smoke kills, too. The common thread here is etiquette. Everyday etiquette evolves, which is why new recommendations for social graces are continually introduced. While it is common knowledge that it is impolite to chomp gum during a business meeting, some people new and old to social media… Read more…
