In case you missed it...
This is one of my most important (and most
requested) issues I've ever written. Although with the holidays and
vacations summer brings, some folks have missed it. Heard about it from
friends and colleagues, and have been emailing me asking for a copy.
So I decided to resend this compelling issue,
again, with hope that all subscribers get to read it this time.
If you read it already, read it again. I'm
sure you'll discover something you didn't catch the first time. I also added
a few new insights for added value and timeliness.
If you missed the original issue, please check
this out. I can't stress enough how important content marketing, social
marketing and search engine marketing is ... especially in today's online
world.
All marketers, publishers and business owners
owe it to themselves to get the most information as possible on the subject
matter to increase visibility and ROI.
Enjoy (again)!
Yours for success and profits,
Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA
~President, Precision Marketing and Media, LLC. ~Publisher, Precision Marketing eNewsletter
~Bestselling Author, Content Is Cash:
Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and
Buzz [Que Publishing, 2011, Paperback]
~Blogger, MuscleMarketing(dot)Blogspot.com
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What Social Sites
Should YOU Be Using?: The Who, Why and How You Need To Know!
Most people know about mega-popular social sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, I get a lot of questions about
other, underutilized sites that are on the tipping point of mass
popularity-specifically, how these sites can be leveraged for marketing
purposes.
But before I go into that, I'd like to clarify the differences
between various "social"-type sites:
Social bookmarking, news and tagging are sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious and
Pinterest. These websites allow users to "bookmark" things they
like-content, images, videos, websites-and allow others in the community to
see what's been bookmarked and "follow," if they wish. This is the
epitome of viral marketing and community interaction. When groups of people
are like-minded, it's fun and easy to share feedback of things of common
interest. For business purposes, it's also a strong way to bond with your
audience through content, news and images that are synergistic and leverage
those interests for increased website traffic and more.
Social networking sites are communities like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. It's a way for groups of people to meet and stay in touch with each other, for personal and professional purposes. People can friend, follow or fan someone based on affiliation or interest. Another new site is Quora.com, which is a social question and answer site. Users can view by category and post questions or answers on virtually any business-related topic. Social media refers to sites like Youtube, Flicker or Tumblr, where groups of users share media content such as video, audio or pictures (photos). There's also new sites like Spotify.com, which are social music sharing sites, where users can listen to mp3 files themselves, as well as with friends, via Facebook.
The following are some social sites that you may want to include
in your online marketing mix as well as some other tactical tidbits:
Pinterest.com is a social community where users "pin" (think of a
bulletin board) things that they like. Quite simply, it's a virtual pin
board. Users can re-pin (which promotes viral marketing) or follow someone with
the same interest. Pinterest is a fun site because it focuses on the visual
element. You can leverage your keyword-rich content when you add your
descriptive text to your "pin." In addition, Pinterest asks for
your URL, which will be a back-link to that webpage. This will encourage
search engine marketing, branding and webpage traffic. Pinterest uses
graphics, images (pics) and video pictures. And that's what will grab
community members' attention, along with well-written descriptive text.
Important Tip! For marketing
purposes, you can use Pinterest to promote your business or websites related
to your business, such as landing pages, squeeze pages, product pages and
more. What's important to know is that if your website, or the webpages
you're thinking of pinning are flash (dynamic) webpages, you will be unable
to "pin" it, as there's no static images on a flash page for
Pinterest to "grab" for posting.
So if you're thinking about using testing Pinterest in your
social marketing plan, make sure to pick websites or modify your own webpages
to be graphic-, image- or video-rich. Also, like any marketing tactics you're
testing, make sure it's in sync with your overall marketing plan and target
audience.
If you're target audience is an older crowd, then this may not
be the best website, or channel, to reach them.
Quora.com is a great online resource community of questions and answers.
If you want to reinforce yourself as an expert, you can search questions
related to your area of expertise and post responses that are useful,
valuable and actionable. If you have a legitimate question about any topic,
you can post by category and view replies from others who may be versed in
that field. Quora is a great way to create visibility for yourself. As well,
it allows you to upload relevant back-links which encourage website traffic
and link-building.
Important Tip! It's important to
keep a steady presence on Quora. Stick to your areas of expertise (categories
and topics). Make sure you have a keyword rich descriptive bio about yourself
and include back-links to relevant websites. As with most all search, social
and content marketing strategies-relevance and usefulness is key. All of
these things help with credibility and branding. In addition, Quora's pages
are indexed by search engines and do appear in organic search engine results
pages (SERPs). That, in and of itself, can expand your reach and visibility,
which can lead to increased website traffic, which can then be parlayed into
leads or sales.
Digg.com.com is one of my favorite content bookmarking sites. You can upload
content "snippets" or news nuggets. The site will also pull in any
images and well as back-links appearing on the same page as your content.
Content can be given a "category," so that the right readers will
find it. The more popular your content (number of "digs"), the more
people in the community it gets exposed to. Viral marketing and traffic
generation (to the source website in the "digg") are typical
outcomes from this website. Reddit.com is a similar site, which allows
users to upload a content excerpts (article, video, picture) and link to the
full version. This is a great site to increase your market visibility and
extend reach. It's also a powerful platform to drive website traffic.
Important Tip! Use content that is
"UVA"-useful, valuable and actionable, something newsworthy and/or
interesting to your target reader. It's very important to have a strong,
eye-catching or persuasive headline that people in the community will want to
read. There's so much background noise on Digg that you want your
content/headline to jump out at the reader. Also, include a back-link in the
body copy you are uploading. This will help with branding, link-building and
traffic generation. With Reddit, your content excerpt space is limited, so
make sure to pick content that will not only resonate with the target
audience, but also screams out to the reader to "click here" to
read more. Then link to your full article, which should be posted on an
inside page of your website.
Google+. Google Plus is Google's attempt at social networking. It's not
as popular ... yet ... as behemoth Facebook (900 million users as of April
2012), but it's got "teeth," at around 90 million users. And
because it's Google, there's some great search-friendly benefits built right
in. For example, it's indexed by Google, so your messages can get found
faster. This helps with search engine visibility and website traffic.
Important Tip! For business
purposes, you can share relevant information and personalize your
"social" circles; thereby, targeting your message better for each
group. It's easy to share and rank (a combination of Digg and Facebook)
content such as posts and messages. And there's also a variety of sharing
options like content, video, photos (similar to Pinterest, Flickr and
YouTube).
With social marketing, it's a matter of matching the content
type to the most synergistic platform and audience. Social marketing may not
be for every business. But I believe it's certainly worth a strategic test.
Just remember an old copywriting rule of thumb, which is "know your
audience." If you know who your target reader (prospect) is, then you
can craft enticing messages and pick social platforms where those prospects
are likely to congregate.
Most any social marketing site can be leveraged for marketing
and business purposes. But make sure to keep your messages fun, entertaining,
engaging and interactive. Because, after all, that's what the
"social" in "social marketing" is all about
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Reader Questions On Content Syndication,
Duplicate Content and Back-Links
As a subscriber you've likely read about the SONAR Content
Distribution Model and how it uses quality, original content through
strategic, synchronized and targeted distribution on organic online channels.
Readers of my ezine as well as my book, Content Is Cash, often
email me questions about 'SONAR marketing' and I thought it would be helpful
to publish these real-life questions, as it may be something that was on your
mind.
So here goes...
Q: Do I have repurpose the original content every time I
add it to a new SONAR site or do it only by individual SONAR
categories?
A: Yes. Your original 'catalyst content' should be the source
content that goes to your in-house audience first (i.e. blog, email), then
you should take that source and repurpose and reuse it -- adapting it accordingly
-- to each SONAR site you disseminate it to as well as for each target
audience within those select SONAR site. SONAR's key is using quality,
original, content that is useful, valuable, and actionable. For each
site/audience, you can repurpose it in many ways:
--add new sentences, remove sentences
--add/change headlines, subheadings and intro copy --change closing paragraph/call to action --modify bullets, mix them up, or add/delete to existing ones
A press release of your repurposed version is a completely
different format as the original source. It's written in third person and
using quotes. It also should have a headline that is newsworthy and gets
readers attention quickly. This version is different from a version that is,
let's say, used in article marketing (article) or in social networking sites
(content blurbs) -- yet all of these uses originated from the same source.
Q: If I have two Social media bookmarking sites, like Digg and
Reddit, do I have to repurpose the article for each site or use the same
content for the SONAR Social Media Bookmarking sites?
A: Yes, but it doesn't have to be heavy edits. You may change
headline and add/remove sentences or paragraphs based on each audience and
headline being used. It needs to be relevant and make sense to your target
reader. That's what makes SONAR unique -- it's targeted and relevant -- it
also leverages high quality content and is uploaded to synergistic website's
where that audience would find it relevant.
Q: Wouldn't Google
pick up that the back-link found in each repurposed articles as the same link
as the original content and declare them the same?
Read my blogposts (below) on what is duplicate content and what
isn't. If you target the content for each audience and repurpose it -- as
long as it's quality content, relevant to each site and audience, and are on
different domains -- it's not duplicate content or spam. Your press
release is targeted for one audience type; and your article marketing or social
marketing blurb is targeted to another audience. Google's updates like
Farmer, Panda and Penguin are targeting sites that use irrelevant links, poor
quality content and that are spammy.
SONAR's uses are relevant to each audience/site it's on. It's not the same article over and over again, it's repurposed and modified. It's also not on the same domain -- it's all over the web in targeted locations that you're hand selecting.
I like to mix up
back-links as well. So some repurposed versions may link back to your source
content. For example, your online press release may link back to the press
release on your website or blog in the 'Press' or 'Media' section of your
website; I also put in two other links in my press releases (in the About Us
section, including social media account and free ezine sign up page -- for
lead gen purposes). Your article (full or excerpt) may link back to the
original article in your 'Newsletter archives' section. Your social media
blurbs may link to 'Newsletter article', home page', or 'ezine sign up page',
and so on. Your links should be strategically chosen based on
your call to action
Extra reading:
|
SONAR Marketing: More Comprehensive
and Targeted Than Content Marketing Alone (Really!)
Here's a great article about content marketing, from a strategic
standpoint with SEO.
It's important to note, especially to the naysayers of content
marketing,
that SONAR marketing and the SONAR Content Distribution Model are similar to content marketing, but more comprehensive and targeted ... it's like content marketing on steroids. SONAR is organic and combines SEO/SEM, social marketing, viral marketing, online PR, and more. It's just as effective as article/content marketing, only better. And it incorporates the same staple strategies as search engine marketing and keyword selection.
Of course, the major difference is that it's a systematic,
synchronized methodology.
Quite simply, SONAR is a manual way of disseminating quality, re-purposed content on the Web in targeted, strategic locations based on audience, website objectives, content, and SEO keywords.
The key to success with SONAR is to truly educate your marketers
and SEO folks on it's core principals and how to deploy it properly.
It's proven. It's organic (free). It uses high quality content for natural relevant back-links. And it hasn't been negatively affected by search engine algorithm updates like Farmer/Panda, and recent, Penguin. If done correctly, SONAR will work and make a difference to your site's traffic and visibility. If you or your SEO folks have questions about SONAR and how it can be, and should be used correctly, to get the most out of YOUR high quality content, feel free to drop me an email at support@precisionmarketingmedia.com. |
You Heard It Hear First...
Recently, I did a wonderful and informative interview with
LA-based radio host, Rey Ybarra or NewMediaRadioHour.
We chatted about my SONAR Content Distribution Model as well as
social marketing, duplicate content, Google updates, content creation, and
more!
I really think it's a 'must listen to' for any marketer,
entrepreneur or business owner.
To hear the full interview, visit:
Enjoy!
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See What All The Buzz And Accolades Are About...
If you haven't read my book, the former #1
Amazon web marketing bestseller, Content Is Cash. You really should
check it out.
You can read free chapter excerpts here: http://www.amazon.com/Content-Cash-Leveraging-Increased-Biz-Tech/dp/0789741083.
Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and
the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing, Paperback], which in less than 10 hours
skyrocketed to #5 in Amazon's Internet Marketing book category as well as #3
in Amazon's Hot New Releases. Content Is Cash has been an Amazon bestseller
for over 10 weeks. It's gotten 4 out of 5 stars and 42 reviews. On Sept. 26
it hit #1 for 'Internet Marketing' and #13 in 'Business & Culture' books.
Content Is Cash has also been featured by Newsmax.com and Target Marketing Magazine as recommended reading for web marketing and business enthusiasts. It was also named 'Hot Reads for Marketers' by Websitemagazine.com as well as '25 Top-Selling Ecommerce Books in August 2011' by Practicalecommerce.com.
Quick Links...
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Content-Is-Cash/262572457102646
https://www.facebook.com/WendyMontesDeOcaMBA (new! author fan page) Like what you've read? Feel free to retweet it on Twitter! RT @PrecisionMktg |
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