Many Dallas interactive marketing agencies started out as SEO firms, churning out keyword spreadsheets and mastering the rote tasks of directory submissions and article marketing, but knowing very little about what ultimately drives real success online today: quality content. Produce quality content and share it with the world effectively, and you have a winning SEO strategy.
ADVICE: In Content Marketing, Seek Virality Over Conversation
Internet marketing expert Brian Carter recently recounted a telling exchange with someone at a big public relations firm. The PR guy seemed to think that the value of content marketing is derived solely from the “conversation” it creates.
“I felt like I was talking to a guy whose definition of social media came from 2008,” Carter said. “Conversation is basically comments and reply-tweets. That’s a limited portion of the kind of response we need from people in order to achieve business objectives.”
“In 2012, we need content that gets likes and comments on Facebook so your page remains visible to fans. On Twitter, if you want visibility and clicks, you need a lot of retweets. So, I wouldn’t call that conversation at all. I would call it virality, content that’s good enough to pass on. They’re not necessarily talking about it; they’re passing it on to their contacts.”
The power of social media to stimulate conversation is unprecedented – so much so that it’s tempting to focus only on conversations. Of course, no one in marketing or public relations is shy about creating interest. It’s what we do; and our opportunities have only grown with the advent of social media. But starting conversations can’t be all we do.
As marketers we have to be mindful of what we’re saying. The message has to be the starting point. The message is carried by content and stems from a cohesive marketing strategy. Social media isn’t a strategy, it’s a delivery system – a delivery system for content.
It’s the quality and durability of their content that should motivate marketers more than the direct response received. Great content marketing sets organizations apart. It establishes authority and encourages trust. It builds over time into a compelling case that builds a brand. But it has to be worth passing along.
HEADS UP: The Case for Content Continues to Build
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … .” Were it written today, it could be about one of our favorite things: storytelling.
For generations, journalists have been among our society’s most important storytellers. Their recent struggles are well known, and 2011 was another miserable year. An estimated 3,775 newspaper journalists were laid off or took buyouts over the course of the year, up from the 2,970 downsized a year earlier. And those numbers don’t come close to the ones from the industry’s dark days of 2008-09, when more than 30,000 newsroom positions were eliminated. Continue Reading
HEADS UP: A Content Marketing History Lesson from Joe Pulizzi
Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute just came to town to remind us that content marketing is not only here to stay, it’s been here for a long time.
As members of the Social Media Club of Dallas tweeted busily, Pulizzi introduced them to The Furrow, the quarterly journal of agriculture published in 12 languages and distributed in 40 countries by Deere & Company. It debuted in 1895.
“Brands have been publishers for a long, long time,” he said, before introducing a free 1905 recipe book featuring recipes for Jell-O. “We can do a lot of what media companies can do, and sometimes we can do it better.”
The key difference between the media and the marketers, he said, has been their monetizing method. While media companies look for advertising, marketers seek new customers. “Everything else is the same,” he said. Continue Reading