Shareable, Readable, Usable, Memorable Content

SHAREABLE, READABLE, USABLE, MEMORABLE CONTENT

What is content marketing? How do I make it work for me?

 

If you’re a busy person (Like almost everyone these days!) you just want to come home to your family, eat a good meal, and wind down. So while you’re watching TV, you surf through the channels that run ads, rent movie DVD’s that don’t play ads and ignore the ones that appear in magazines. Sound a little familiar?  Not to worry, so do the rest of us. By now, you are adept at online surfing and it’s probably the biggest way to get your attention!

See now, Marketing people understand this, they know that if they continue to do the traditional marketing and hope to gain eye balls, they may as well pack their bags! There has to be an effective way of informing and sharing content with you in a way that you will not only view the content but also appreciate the message being conveyed.

And, that’s exactly where Content Marketing comes in. It’s more than just a buzzword you hear everywhere. It’s used as a technique to create, distribute, upload valuable content to attract, engage an audience. This isn’t in -your – face selling and that’s the beauty of it! There’s no pitching of products or services, being forced into an agreement letter or asking you to try it for a brief period. It works on the principle of delivering information, making you- the Buyer more intelligent.

Don’t you just hate that? I know I do.

YOU NEED TO JOIN THE CONTENT BANDWAGON!

This is relevant for the buyer/consumer and you can bet your bottom dollar that marketing companies are already doing it.

Consumers today have shifted their behavior. Moving away from the traditional awareness-consideration- leading to purchase behavior to the social feedback cycle; which is a word-of-mouth driven purchase.

I myself recently was looking to invest in some gym equipment for in home use. But with the hoards of products out there, I wasn’t sure what to buy. So I went online and read a few reviews about the product and the results that people have had with them.  From the array of Total Gym, AB Rocket Twister and Fluidity etc., I had made my final choice (Which, BTW was the AB Rocket Twister :)) you’d be surprised to see how many people write about their experiences with the product/ service/delivery etc., something that I can depend on fully as it is  honest feedback.

Consumers have taken control of the sales channel by doing their own research and gaining wealth of knowledge from it. I’m sure that you, as a consumer would have tried it at least once or know someone who has.

USING CONTENT MARKETING as a marketing professional means to solidify your brand’s purpose through content strategy. Write blog posts on your brand or service; share reviews people have had using it, post interesting stuff about your brand on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram (My Favorite Five)

You’re essentially doing 2 things:

• Creating Brand Awareness
• Driving sales through consumer loyalty

Your job is to create engaging, insatiable content. It’s what defines you as a brand, so start the process now!

For the consumer, if it’s a product or service you want to try out, gain knowledge about it from forums, social networking sites- go online!  If you like what’s being said, you decide on the next step.  Before I buy a product that costs say over 500$ , I go to forums to see their reviews, then to the company’s networking pages ( I like to see if there’s any  interesting, fun , informative and relatable content )  before choosing if I want to stick to their brand or go elsewhere. I find that some of the stories that the employees working in the company share are worth seeing and gives me an insight about the passion which goes into making a certain product. But that’s me and there are different kinds of shoppers out there.

Content marketing is really about building relationships.

So continue to give consumers what they want and they will reward you with their loyalty.

I leave you with a few examples of companies that I like- the ones that content marketing have done wonder’s for.

1. P&G Home Made Simple- http://www.homemadesimple.com/en-us/pages/home.aspx

A superstar Microsite. Moving from just a newsletter to  a TV channel with loads on engaging content.

2. Intel – Museum of me http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm

3. 22 ways to tie a scarf- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LYAEz777AU extremely cute and engaging

4. Home Depot- http://www.youtube.com/user/homedepot#p/u/13/jq9TCGMhXpA highly engaging, tailor made to suit the seasonal trends and DIY tips for the home.

5.  LEGO- Club Magazine https://club.lego.com/en-us/join/magazinesubscription/ content suited for children, fun and shows the stories of the cartoon bricks in it’s element.

6. GE- http://pinterest.com/generalelectric/

As clichéd as it may sound, content is definitely king. I hope you found this post useful, as S.H Britt said, “ Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does.”  Try content marketing and let me know how it goes. I will post more interesting stuff on what content marketing trends to look out for!

Until Next time!

Decoding Hashtags

So, You’re On Facebook and Twitter and you joined them for networking or because everyone else you knew had joined. I know a lot of people who are on both these platforms just because they had friends and family there and wanted to connect. You are relatively new, and so far all you do is observe, read or like and comment on a few posts or pictures. That’s great! You’re halfway there in figuring both out. But, now you see hashtags or this “#” everywhere and you want to know what it is!

You want to know why everyone is using it on photos, posts, links and what the big deal is, right? Well, this post is designed to do just that. Decode hashtags and their purpose and hopefully you can join in and see what the fun is all about!

From Twitter  first using it, to Pinterest, then Instagram and Google+, now Facebook has joined the Hashtag Bandwagon and people couldn’t be happier!

So what is the Hashtag and How do I use it?

The Wiki description is this

‘A hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the symbol # ‘

Okay, so?

Right. Hashtags were first used in Twitter as a way of filing tweets by topic so that twitter users anywhere/ everywhere can find what others anywhere have tweeted about on a particular subject.

For example I search for Mediachat on Twitter, #mediachat  this is  how it will look,

All the conversations relating to Media chat will appear.

Are they easy to use? yes! Just add the symbol ‘#’ to the beginning of a word or sentence

What are they used for? Anything under the sun! No, really! People use it to categorize , amuse, describe, converse -you name it.

There is only one rule for using Hash tags, and it’s that there are no spaces in between the words. So if I were to say that I love Dogs and that I want a pet now using a Hash Tag, this is how it will look.

#Ilovedogs#Wantapetnow.

Sometimes it can get hard to read so the key is to write Capitals for the beginning of every word. And it becomes – #ILoveDogs#WantAPetNow. there, better isn’t it?

Granted, they aren’t very virtually appealing  but hash tag searches are in real time and get updated as they are tweeted.

Twitter chats are great for sharing knowledge , gaining insights, answers to questions, meeting new people. All you have to do is to start following the conversation by following the designated hash tag.

For ex: I love Masterchef Australia ( I know, who doesn’t right?! ) and I want to join in on the conversation that’s going on live, here’s how to do that.

1. Follow the designated hash tag  ( In this case,  # MasterChefAU )

2. Find tweets that are relevant to that hashtag

3. Join in and follow the conversation

It’s really that easy! I love this because even if you aren’t present at the event, just joining in the conversation and following the others in it, you have an idea of what’s going on and some interesting thoughts about the event.

Now there are those that use hash tags a little too much or a little too less ( I don’t know which one I fit into to, but I’d like to think a healthy amount ! ) whatever the case, you can’t ignore it or let go of the opportunity to participate.  I know people who were using them on Facebook even before they made it live on Facebook!

So go on, get in to the world of hash tagging and have fun with it!

Let me know what you use them for? Were they as easy as it seems?

Happy hash tagging!

How much of hardware is software, and do the differences even matter any more?

The dynamics of Hardware and software are changing- and fast! “we will see some of the most exciting products when software is connected with the possibilities of hardware ” – Great post, possible where we are headed

Gigaom

The worlds of hardware and software were once quite distinct: hardware products sat on shelves in boxes, while software was something you purchased or downloaded for your computer. However, that dynamic is changing — and fast.

Today, offering consumer hardware without great software isn’t viable anymore. With the emergence of connected devices, consumers aren’t just looking for great hardware or specifications; they expect great, connected experiences – from their televisions, watches, thermostats, cars, phones, etc. As Apple’s success in the market shows, it’s often the overall end-user experience, rather than category-leading specs, that determines a product’s success.

The experience begins when you open the box

Traditionally, hardware manufacturers focused on getting products to the retail shelf where consumers bought the product, and the cycle ended there. Yet today’s hardware experience is only just beginning when the customer takes the device home and opens the box. Now that everything is connected…

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Where’s Content Marketing Headed? What’s new in 2014?

Hello !

I promised you more stuff on content marketing so here it is!  If you’ve read my last post on content marketing, it will give you an idea of what it is and why you need it.  Dabble with it a bit and see how it works for you, B2B and B2C use content marketing and  have reaped its many benefits.As 2013 is drawing to an end and we will soon enter 2014, we need to prepare and analyze what content can do for us and what we need to change in 2014 to make it better.  All over the world people have embraced content marketing and used it to drive sales, build relationships, retain customers, gain new ones, and have worked hard to reach people and not target audiences.   Customer engagement is essential for customer acquisition and retention and yet,

Simple. Go ahead and do those face-face conversations you weren’t doing before, do the online conversations, and get everyone on board! Yup, I’m talking senior management; middle and lower levels even the customers on board!  Choose the right channels to do that.

 Facebook is deemed to be the no .1 global social networking platform with a whopping 11 million users! 51% of which is Australian penetration and 21% belonging to Australian users in the age group of 25-34 (marketingprofs.com). B2C use these channels,

• Twitter
• Youtube
• Google+
•  Pinterest
•  Instagram
• Blog
• Tumblr
• Slideshare
• Yelp (for online reviews, it is vital)

LinkedIn is best for B2B.

TRENDS FOR 2014

According to Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends research report; content marketers are using more tactics than ever before!  They’ll be using more of customer testimonials, in-person events, social media, blogs, videos, Articles  , e-newsletters and case studies.

Using lesser of podcasts, printed ads or material in newspapers and microsites.  Here are the trends I predict will happen in the year 2014 and why:

Trend 1:  More Customer Engagement – Better, Richer content with more companies using content marketing

Trend 2: Using Social media channel mix– Blogs; Social Media will be used more effectively and efficiently.

Trend 3: Community driven content

Trend 4: Influencer becomes more influencing– Better engagement leads to the influencer  doing more of the influencing. Good old’ word of mouth tactics using the social feedback cycle.

Trend 5: Increased budgets for content marketing- if companies were allocating about 20% of their marketing budgets towards content marketing before,that will change leaps and bounds now. Why? Because they see that content marketing is driving more traffic to their websites than SEO.

Trend 6: More custom branded content – Absolutely! A perfectly healthy mix of custom created/branded content along with a smattering of other content will prove more effective in terms of cost and time. You can create content that is yours and repurpose it across channels to create a better mix. This will save you hours of time and keep fresher ideas pouring in.

Trend 7: More companies will be using whitepapers as a content marketing technique – Most of the white paper is generally content, but a small fraction of a white paper consists of direct marketing material. A blog might take a while before you generate leads, so white papers will be faster. Use white papers to generate leads, Referrals, sales presentations to clients and  for directing followers to your website.

(Axonn Research)

What’s the bottom line?

There is a widespread awareness of content marketing!

 Make the most of content marketing: It doesn’t really need big budgets or expert writers in order to effectively reach your audience, just a good content strategy, planned calendar of events and goals as well as how they can be re -purposed or repackaged to suit the need.

This is my take on the upcoming trends on content marketing to look out for. I’m sure that they will have it’s own set of challenges which I will talk about in the next post.

If you’ve predicted other trends or have faced challenges with content creation, I’d love to hear about it!

Let me know!

 

Apple’s Growth Rocket Has Hit A Wall. What Will Get It Started Again?

What’s next on the road for Apple? Can anything propel Apple’s growth the way the iPhone and iPad did over the past 6 years, and the iPod and Mac before them?

By Wrapping Sensors In A Plushie, “Teddy The Guardian” Aims To Sell Medical Tech For Kids

Teddy the Guardian , more than just a cute soft toy

Using Twitter’s Golden Child-the Hash tag on Facebook

As you would have noticed, Facebook has now officially brought the use of hash Tags to it’s social network. Although there were users  using it before Facebook made it official, people can now fully utilize the use of hash tags in their posts, updates and photos making it easier to find their content. The implications of this are huge!

Bringing me to the next point of using them. How to use Hash tags on Facebook :

Hash Tags turn topics and phrases into links that are click-able on your posts and your timeline or your page. So when people look for topics, they are interested in, it will help them find posts on those particular topics! #TotallyNeat, Right?

Prior to it becoming official, there were users using it on their status messages and photos , but others weren’t able to see more on the topic.

How does it work on Facebook?

1.You can search for specific topics on your search bar. Ex: Cupcakes

   

2. Click on the hash tag that comes as a list on   your wall

3. You can also create posts from the hash tag feed & search results

 

Share the photo and start or continue the conversation or start a cupcake conversation on your wall using hash tags.

It’s easy to do and much like twitter hash tags , so give it a shot and let me know what you think!

hmm , all these cupcake snaps make me hungry, think i might just indulge in one 🙂

#HappyHashtagging

#CrazyAboutCupcakesc 😉

Who needs a smartwatch? This shirt monitors breathing and heart rate

Handy!

Gigaom

Sensors that monitor wellness are cropping up in bracelets, phones, socks and even inside the human body. But startup OMsignal noticed they were missing from one particularly ubiquitous possession: the shirt. Later this year, they’ll launch a compression shirt capable of reading a person’s heart rate, breathing levels and movement.

The shirt meant to be worn under everyday clothes or on its own at the gym. The data it collects is sent to a a computer or smartphone app where the user can view instant and long-term exertion, stress and even mood. The app can share data with loved ones, including sending an alert when it detects high stress or a potentially dangerous situation.

The company’s major breakthrough was figuring out how to weave the sensors into the shirt during the manufacturing process. They are placed just below the chest to best collect heart and breathing data. Redmond, Wash…

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Lucky Number 29 !

Don’t you just love the world we live in?

Things change faster than a girl changes her hair color ! From using social media as an after dinner activity, it’s progressed to being something of a necessity. One that I can’t do without anyway!

No, I’m not obsessed with it but I find that having it is such a good thing! There are a lot of social media platforms out there and with more coming out everyday! So how do we chose amongst the ones that are already there? If you’re relatively new to using social media it can be daunting to get your head around it. So I have broken it down to the essential 29 across different platforms that I believe is good to get you started, up and running in full swing.

Whether it’s for business – needing to market your company , personal branding, reputation management or just  plain networking; you need the right set of tools and resources to get you through it.

With the wave of websites, apps,tools ,blogs & resources to choose from, here is the list of my personal favorite that I use and recommend to get you accustomed to this wonderful social media world.

1.Blogging and Blog comments:

It’s a no brainer but I love WordPress because of it’s flexibility, user friendly interface and it’s a good beginning for low cost users. There are over 200 themes to choose from for a unique blog design without all the ground work !

2. You can also use Themefuse for a varied range of WordPress themes as well as packs including domains and hosting.

Okay, So to manage comments on blog posts, Disqus    is a good tool as it makes commenting easier, works with many different platforms like Tumblr,Blogger, Drupal etc however it doesn’t always work with other plug-ins.

3. Twitter Tools:

You will need tools to manage and control the tweets, here are some that I recommend.

Socialoomph – Professional edition. This tool does the scheduling and publishing of tweets, recurring tweets , auto follow back, tracking keywords among others. All time saving options

Tweetdeck – For serious tweeting!  It is invaluable for updating twitter,facebook and LinkedIn Simultaneously. schedule tweets,arrange feeds – the works basically!

Tweepi – Manage and grow your twitter account- with statistics.

Twitterfeed Have blog content to share? This little wonder allows you to share bloggers content without having to manually tweet your latest blog posts. It’s handy when you want your content to be available to your twitter followers too.

TwitterCounter Want to be Mr Popular? This tool allows you to see how many twitter followers you have from  as far back as 6 months ago to a month ago and compare with other users you like! Nifty huh?!

Tweetadder Twitter marketing and promotion is done best with this tool! All within the rules of twitter

Tweetcaster   for twitter Add photos, unique profile view, send tweets to Facebook, operate multiple accounts -all with this app.

4. Facebook  Tools:

If you’re not on facebook, get in there now! It’s the biggest social network to be on ! Apart from networking , Facebook allows you to have business pages as well

Shortstack If you’re not a programmer (Like me 🙂 ) and you want custom Facebook pages, this is the tool for you. customize your page with promotions, videos, contests etc.

5. Virality and Search

SEO- Google Analytics  one of the best tools that is not only free but also excellent at measuring phrases that drive traffic to your site.

Google Adwords Keywords tool- Also free, it tells you what keywords potential customers are looking for as well as the level of demand for those words. It is now being moved to Keyword planner.

Topsy – Virality, tracking , social listening all rolled into one. it also has great metrics. Find a tweet that your competitor has sent and check how many times it was retweeted! ( Cool ain’t it ?) great data analysis tool

6 .Photos

When using social media, it is vital to have striking images or photos. they are great for traffic building and conversation generators. So here’s what I recommend

Flickr- Access free photos under a creative common license. The pictures are varied and of great quality

ShutterStock -Absolutely wonderful collection of images and photos!- but they don’t come free

Big Stock photo– Perfect for high definition photos that has a paid service.

Skitch- I love a little photo manipulation, and although I’m not a Photoshop whiz I love this tool. It’s great for saying a lot through it’s annotation and shapes

7.Tracking

Bitly – this is very good at tracking  and analytics , apart from being a URL shorten-er. Add “+” at the end of any bitly URL to see how many times it’s been clicked on , and by whom. Pretty neat eh?!

Swix ( Source metrics) – All your social media analytics in one nifty dashboard. Track your audience and engagement, integrate campaign publishing, check your blog traffic, subscribers, fan followers  and so much more!

8.Content marketing

Hubspot – One of the best software providers! Generate traffic leads, manage your sales funnel, improve search rankings and so much more.

9.Content creation

Slideshare Upload and download thousands of presentations on various topics, grow your audience just through its magnifying power of shares. I find that the content posted or shared is both varied and up to date

10. E-mail

Mail Chimp – easy to use email marketing platform that is cost effective.  features include, email templates, Multi -user accounts,spam filter accounts, RSS to email, analytics and others.

FeedBurner – Power your RSS feed and send daily emails using Google  feed burner service. It’s free and easy to use

11. Listening

Social Mention – Most comprehensive social media searching tool that indexes tweets, blogs,posts etc. real time social media search and analysis

Radian6 – Advanced social media listening tool that helps gains insight about your brand, products and those of your competitors, get all the latest trends. It offers a wide range of services- that comes as different packages

Google Alerts – Very valuable tool for finding bloggers that have linked to your posts, get email updates on all the latest news, web  based on your queries while also keeping an eye on your competition !

There you are! 29 of my most used tools broken down to what I hope is easy to understand and use right away.

Check them out and let me know how it has worked for you! Looking forward to your insights and feedback.