Content Marketing Today

Great MindMap from the Mindjet Folks Simplifies Twitter and Proves Power of Mindmapping

On the most basic level, it's easy to explain Twitter in a few bullet points:

• Twitter is a micro-blogging service that you can use from anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
• You sign up and give yourself an identity that lives on Twitter, such as mine--Twitter.com/newtbarrett.
• You can then post 140 character text messages which may include hyperlinks.
• You can choose to follow fellow members whose ' tweets ' will show up automatically on your Twitter page.
• Other members can choose to follow you to see what you have to say.
• The heavy hitters on Twitter may have thousands of followers and may post dozens of tweets per day.
• Every Twitter member can pass on or ' retweet' other messages so that the reach of what you have to say is potentially huge and global.
• All of this happens in real time

At this point, you may be thinking, "Okay, I understand that, but what's the point?  Why would I want to do any of that stuff?  That's where this great mindmap created by Mindjet's Michael Deutch comes into play. It illustrates why you need to care about Twitter for your business--and how to get smart about using it. Read More

It is so hard, but so important to explain what it is that you do and how it will benefit the person to whom you are communicating. Not at length.  But so concisely that it can be communicated in less time than it takes an elevator to go up a few floors. And, so compellingly that your listener will remember and repeat it to others. Actually, Nick Morgan is even more precise than this.  He says your elevator speech must be a single sentence. I have just begun to read his wonderful book, Give Your Speech, Change the World. It is absolutely must reading, even if the only speeches you give are internal presentations within your organization. Nick is the founder of Public Words, a communications coaching company. So he gives speeches--and teaches people how to give speeches--for a living. It's obvious from reading his book that he is a very, very good at it. Listen to what he has to say about that all-important elevator speech. Read More

You have plenty of screen real estate. So, use it. Use all of it.

In the early days of the Internet, online news pioneers such as the New York Times were constrained by the average size of a computer screen. Thus, they built very small homepages.  That was okay back then.  It's all wrong now. The New York Times changed its design completely to take advantage of bigger and better screens and of changed reader behavior--in which scrolling down the page to scan all the content is the norm. Effective content marketing depends not only on what you write but by how accessible you make it for those prospective customers who visit your home page. Envision your website as a great publication that will draw in readers just as the New York Times does every day. Read More

First, use it to understand your buyers and their needs. Then use the results to prove your credibility in the market.

Content marketers realize that understanding what is most important to your current and prospective customers is vital to your success as an organization.  You cannot possibly connect with your customers without that understanding. Just 10 to 20 years ago, the research necessary to develop that understanding was difficult, complex, time-consuming, and expensive to conduct and to share. All those reasons may well have provided small to medium-size companies with an understandable excuse to avoid their own primary research. Today, there are no more excuses.  It is fast, easy, and inexpensive to conduct high-quality research and to share it with the world. Here are some basics to get you started: Read More

Crank up your communications now.  Don't dial back your efforts.

The knee-jerk reaction for most companies when faced with the recession is to reduce their marketing efforts. However, decades of research show that those who maintain or increase their marketing will blow past their peers once the recession is over. If you accept this reality, you still may be faced with a shortage of spare cash to invest in marketing--particularly in traditional advertising.  What to do? You can and should focus on a content marketing strategy that will require a whole lot of thought and effort, but will not require a lot of money. Read More

Shama Hyder proves how powerful a website and blog can be for a solopreneur.

Shama is an online marketing expert.  How do I know this without having met her?  Because I have visited her website, "AftertheLaunch.com," read her blog, and downloaded her e-book, "Online Marketing Plan." There is so much great stuff inside this e-book that you'll be amazed she's not charging big bucks for you to buy it. How did I learn about her in the first place?  Because she wrote a great comment on one of my blog posts.  That prompted me to visit her website where I discovered all the terrific stuff she's doing. In other words, she is walking the content marketing walk. Read More

Billboard marketing is fine on Route 66, but it's all wrong on the information superhighway

Your job as a marketer is to make it easy for your buyers to buy from you. But making it easy for them may be hard for you, unless you can execute an effective content marketing strategy. Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what buyers need to know and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way.  This extends way beyond product information into the realm of best practices, case studies, success stories, and more. Why?  All the rules have changed.  You will need to relearn the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset.  Those that can adapt will flourish.  Those that don't...well... think of the fate of the dinosaurs. Read More

Don't get me wrong.  Public relations is still a critical component to any marketing strategy for companies of all sizes.  Nonetheless, I am convinced that we need to turn our notions of public relations upside down so that it functions within a content marketing context. I was inspired to think again about the transformation of public relations by a recent post from David Meerman Scott in his WebInkNow.com blog.  He was sharing some top of mind ideas relating to successful public relations strategies for small businesses.  Here are his top two out of ten: Read More

If you are a solopreneur, you certainly have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Imagine how much more you could accomplish if your website was actively selling for you 24 hours a day seven days a week! That's exactly what Stephanie Diamond is helping solopreneur, Natalie Currie, to accomplish using a custom MindMap. Natalie provides training and consulting in the pharmaceutical and biotech fields. Because she is so busy working in her business, she has been challenged to work on her business. and, like most entrepreneurs, creating a content marketing-driven website is not something she ever would've learned in school or on the job. Thus, her website is nice but is typical of the brochure sites most small business owners put up on the web. Read More

Way too many advertising agency and marketing company websites make it way too difficult to understand why you should use them. In many cases, it may be that they are not web savvy and that they have been talked into a wild and weird flash opening. As we have pointed out with many examples in the past, this kind of misbegotten eye candy is likely to drive visitors away before they ever get a look at the great work being done by the company. I found one marketing company site that does most everything correctly. But, the one thing they do wrong does diminish the site's overall effectiveness. Happily, you can learn from both the good and the bad. Read More