Content Marketing Today

Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking Deliver Awesome Results for Users. Their eNewsletter. Not So Much.

In perhaps the ultimate  irony, I am using Dragon Dictate from Nuance to write this blog post which criticizes their eNewsletters.  I use Dragon Dictate to compose 80 to 90% of everything that I write from blog posts to book content.   So, it does pain me a bit to brand their eNewsletter as mediocre.

Oddly, even though their eNewsletter is a major missed content marketing opportunity, Nuance has a tremendous amount of content available. As an example, they have a wonderful series of YouTube videos that teach you how to get the most out of Dragon  Naturally Speaking, the PC version of their software.  That's compelling because, although dictation is the most critical component of their software, you can also use Dragon to  search the web, give application commands, find documents, etc.  In addition to the YouTube content, their website actually provides very useful and well organized training tools to get you started and to turn you into an advanced user.

In other words, they have a ton of raw material that could make for an incredibly useful and compelling E-news letter that would be must reading whenever it arrived in your inbox.  Alas, hardly any of that content found its way into their May 2012 eNewsletter. Read More

Lynda McNutt Foster Delivers with Her Weekly Launch List

 

Lynda  overflows with brains, enthusiasm, creativity, and fun.

So, I wasn't surprised to find her new weekly newsletter unique in its approach to its recipients. The 'Launch List' is a quick read that delivers much-needed Monday morning inspiration. Although it reflects Linda's positive personality, it's not all about her. It's all about her customers, colleagues, and friends. Read More

Pay  Careful Attention to the Upper Right hand Corner of Google Search Results

If you have recently checked your category's Google search results, you may well have been as surprised as was when I recently checked  our first page placement in the  'content marketing'  topic.

In weeks and months past, text ads would have appeared in the upper right-hand corner. Those ads still appear, but they have been bumped down by a gigantic Google+ area that features 2 content marketing gurus,  Joe Pulizzi and Brian Clark.

Interestingly, the Google+ content has exactly the same prominence as the major sponsored search results that appear above the organic search results. I cannot imagine that advertisers are overly pleased by that. Read More

Rethink Your Content Marketing by Aiming at Billions of Buyers on the Move

For those of us who been around computing since the early days of PCs, the consumer move to mobile devices and away from desktop and even laptop computers is astonishing--and maybe a little terrifying.

Smartphones Soar

First, smartphones such as the Blackberry, Nokia, and iPhone entered the picture. But, as recently as 2007 total smartphone sales were only 122 million. Alex Cocotas of BI Intelligence predicts that annual smartphone sales will hit 1.5 billion units by 2016. That's 10X growth in less than 10 years.

Tablets Triumph

In the first year of its existence, 1981, the IBM PC sold 100,000 units. Most of those buyers were geeks or leading-edge business users. Apple's new iPad sold 3 million units in its first weekend and more than 50 million units since the introduction of the first iPad just 2 years ago. Read More

It’s All About Making It Easier for the Customer to Buy

OK, I’ll admit it. I not the primary grocery shopper in the family. But, I’m always happy to hop over to Publix, Fresh Market, Whole Foods or SweetBay to buy stuff.  Since I’m not a grocery aisle guru, it usually takes me way too much time to find the items I have been entrusted to buy and bring home.    Occasionally, that makes me a little cranky.

SweetBay Shopping Carts Saved My Day

But,  Sweetbay has achieved the equivalent of a user-friendly e-commerce interface with its shopping cart. In a move that is as brilliant as it is inexpensive to design and deploy, they have equipped each shopping cart with a sheet that lists major grocery items alphabetically and shows the aisle in which they can be found.

At Sweetbay I was looking for coffee. Because my shopping cart helpfully listed coffee in aisle 6, I found it within 30 seconds rather than the 5 minutes of aimless wandering it would usually take.

The genius of the Sweetbay shopping cart content marketing strategy contrasted with my Publix experience.
While there, I went through the frustrating aisle-wandering exercise to find when I needed. Publix is an excellent supermarket. But, they sure made it much harder for me to buy what I needed to buy.

If a supermarket were a website, I would've been off like a shot from Publix to Sweetbay, knowing that they would take me by the hand to find exactly what I needed in a minimum of time.

Read More

We Got Coverage and Kudos from David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, and All Top

Yesterday, we discussed how Sasha Baron: successfully newsjacked the Oscars with his successful Red Carpet stunt. Posing as the Dictator, he spilled the alleged ashes of the late North Korean dictator Kim ill Jung on  Ryan Seacrest.   Although we loved the stunt for its own sake, we also hoped that we might pull off a bit of newsjacking ourselves. And, it worked, albeit on a more modest scale.

Because it was a hot Hollywood story, the Red Carpet stunt got all kinds of attention on TV, online, and in print--with lots of YouTube coverage.   So, I decided to see if we could inject ourselves however modestly into that same story.

Grab a hot story that conveys a key concept to maximize  the reach of your important message

If I had been writing a basic, just the facts, ma'am, story that described what newsjacking was and why it might be useful for public relations and marketing professionals,  I doubt that much would've happened. Regular readers of our blog would have benefited. But, I probably would not have generated much attention or additional readership.

Because I was able to inject a real-time element  into our story that incorporated both a hot concept--news jacking--as well as a hot event--the Oscars, we achieved a level of visibility that would've been otherwise impossible.  Read More

Sasha Baron Cohen Grabs the Spotlight with Only a Beard, a Uniform, 2 Pretty 'Security Guards', and the 'Ashes' of Kim Il Jung.

Every year the American Academy Awards attracts tens of millions of viewers, no matter how boring the 3+ hour television event might be.  In 2012, the ceremony itself may have been even more irrelevant than usual, featuring movies that hardly anybody saw and hosted by an aging Billy Crystal most of whose jokes were as creaky as the ceremony itself.

But, never mind, because the real story of the  Oscars in 2012 was the brilliant Newsjacking of the event by Sasha Baron Cohen who grabbed zillions of dollars of free publicity for his upcoming movie, The Dictator (which will never win an Oscar, but who cares?).

Comic Genius Becomes PR Genius, Too

Cohen displayed not just comic genius, but PR genius well. He may not have read David Meerman Scott's great book, Newsjacking, but he could well have been a case study. The basic concept is that, in these days of 24-hour news cycles and real-time public relations, marketing pros can  newsjack an event  by finding a way to do something that is highly newsworthy and is somehow connected to that event. Read More

What is it that women seem to love and understand and guys don't? (about Pinterest, of course)

Perhaps, it's Pinterest's self-description which doesn't make it sound like a guy thing:

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

Check out this great Slideshare presentation  from 6S Marketing to understand what's going on with Pinterest? Read More

Infographic from CopyBlogger Gives You Both Inspiration and Practical Tips 

 

I love visuals that communicate complex ideas simply. This is a perfect example. And, I can relate to the need to cook up great blog ideas.

Enjoy the complete infographic below:

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Social media marketing is a trend, not a fad.  Moreover, it's a terrific extension of your content marketing strategy.

What’s clear from current research is that when we evaluate social media, we are not talking about the marketing longevity equivalent of the hula hoop or the Lambada. Social media marketing is here to stay.  If you are not already active in venues such as a business blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Slideshare, and YouTube, you should be asking yourself whether it's way past time to jump in with both virtual feet. The answer to the question is yes with an important caveat… …Before making the commitment to one or many possible social media outlets, it is vital to determine whether:

• you understand the target audience that you intend to reach
• you have something valuable to communicate to that target audience
• you have someone with the time, skill, and enthusiasm to execute a consistent social media program--either inside or outside your organization
• you will make the time to listen and respond to your social media audience.

There is nothing sadder than a business blog whose most recent post was a year ago. And, there is nothing less impressive than a Facebook fan page with only a few fans and hardly any messages to or from those fans. Yes, social media can be an extremely effective marketing tool. But, you will need to make a serious company commitment to ensure that it is effective for your organization. Read More