30 ways to promote your blog posts – Love This!
April 25, 2013 in Content Producer, SEO/SEM, Social Media
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Best Practices Guide to Digital Marketing
March 12, 2012 in Content Producer, Design, Marketing, Public Relations, SEO/SEM, Social Media
The following is a brief outline of the various best practices tactics used for Digital Marketing Campaigns.
Create a Digital Marketing Plan
First things first, you have to have a roadmap to know where you’re going. Create some goals and a plan on how to achieve them.
A Digital Marketing Plan should consist of:
- Define Objectives – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time
- Asses Current Environment
- Business & Analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity and Threats or Customer, Company, Competitors and Change
- Tactics to be used
- Budget & Variables
- Measuring ROI
- Conclusion
Analytics
Analytics are not just important for tracking your progress, but essential to knowing how people view and find your website. Without this information you may not know what is hurting or helping your brand.
Suggested tools:
- Google Analytics
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Quantcast
- Alexa
Suggested Practices:
- Setup your analytics accounts
- Establish conversion goals & funnels
- Annotate important events in Google Analytics
- Create custom dashboard reports
- Discover under-performing areas of your site
Organic Search (SEO/SEM)
Improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will increase the amount of organic traffic that comes to your site. Organic being that when someone is searching for a solution that you offer, your page should be one of the first to come up.
Suggested Tools
Suggested Practices:
- Setup webmaster tools
- Architect your site for search
- Track your search rankings on a monthly basis
- Build quality backlinks to your website through PR efforts or community sites
- Research and define your core organic words – if you want people to find your website with a certain term or phrase, make sure to use that term/phrase in your website’s content!
Social Media Marketing
Social Media is the new “Word of Mouth”, but people online don’t like ads, so make sure your interactions with your audience are human and talk to their interests instead of just directly trying to sell them your products.
Suggested Tools
- YouTube
- SocialOomph
- Twitalyzer
- TweetReach
- FriendorFollow
- WeFollow
- Twellow
Suggested Practices
- Claim your brand name on social sites regardless if you’ll plan to use them or not
- Seed Fans/Followers (25)
- Have something to say, consistently
- Speak to the interests of your audience, do not just try to sell your product
- Create a Viral Contest
- Include social media information on all marketing collateral
- Make sure people can “Like” or “Tweet” your web pages
- Interact with like-minded and influential people on Twitter or Facebook
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
If your website is new or hasn’t been SEO’d, a well-funded PPC campaign can direct a significant increase in web traffic to you.
Suggested Tools
- Google AdWords
- Microsoft AdCenter
Suggested Practices
- Create Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter accounts
- Send traffic to landing pages
- One landing page per ad group
- Monitor and improve keyword usage on a monthly or quarterly basis
Content Marketing
Content is king on the internet, the more content you have about yourself or company online the better and more likely people will know and trust you.
Suggested Tools
- StumbleUpon
- Delicious
- Wikipedia
- Yahoo Answers
- Quora
Suggested Practices
- Start a corporate blog
- Submit blog content to aggregators/social hubs
- Bookmark your website’s content on social bookmarking services
- Create an editorial calendar
- Write guest posts for other blogs
- Write about others to build relationships
Email Marketing
Email is the easiest way to keep in touch with your customers and inform them of new products or solutions for their needs as well as any special promotions you’re offering. However, be cautious you don’t send too much email, or emails that aren’t relevant to your customers as this could drive them to unsubscribe from you.
Suggested Practices
- Choose an online email provider
- Create a branded email template
- Segment your email lists
- Do not send too many emails, but don’t send too few, find your balance
- Do not use your companies email server to mass email
Lead Generation
Every company has a lead generation practice that works best for them based on their market, but there are a few key things to think about to improve the amount of leads you gain.
Suggested Practices
- Track submissions
- Gather submissions for product launches
- Give something away in exchange for customer information
- Answer questions on LinkedIn, Quora or Yahoo Answers
Conversion Optimization
After you’ve increased awareness to your site through digital marketing you’ll now want to gather your data and begin planning on how to optimize your initiatives.
Suggested Practices
- Test your landing pages
- Gather feedback from site visitors
- Try a 5 second test – can someone find X in 5 seconds of coming to your page for the first time?
Other Activities to Consider
Create a Benchmark
Take a look at your competition or businesses that are similar to yours and see what they are doing that works well. While you never want to copy others, you can get ideas that will benefit you with your competition’s successes or failures.
Things to consider:
- What social media outlets do they use? Which ones seem to have the highest engagement?
- How much traffic do they have? Estimate using tools like Quantcast and Alexa.
- What is their demographic? Use above mentioned tools.
- Do they use a unique web service that may work for you as well? This could be unique community sites such as RealSelf.com or Yelp.com
Website Makeover
Thinking of having a website makeover? Make sure you do your due diligence and come up with a project scope and timeline and stick to the plan. Also, now is a good time to really evaluate your website’s content and messaging focus.
A project scope should include:
- Project Overview
- Project Approach
- Project Schedule
- Hosting Overview
- Project Approval Requirements
Why CMS won’t replace your Web Personnel
July 27, 2011 in Content Producer, Off The Cuff
/rant on
Somewhere out in marketing land someone has been trying to sell people on the idea that installing a CMS, such as WordPress or Drupal, will somehow make all your Webmaster or Web Designer needs go away. If you’ve believed this, I’m sorry to tell you, but unless your site is just text, you’re probably wrong.
While you can hire a Web Developer or Agency to build out a custom theme for your CMS, you’ll still need someone to maintain the site. Even if that person is only plugging in content they’ll need to touch HTML and CSS at some point. If you don’t believe me, try building a complex table with any WYSIWYG editor in Drupal the next time you really want to post that excel data online and you’ll either settle for a simple table or you’ll kick the project over to your web person so they can style it for you, or at the very least add in the proper Class=”blah” tags where needed.
And that’s just for general page information. If you, like most groups, ever want something built out that that requires anything from different links on the side bars to a block or widget of additional information, you’ll probably find that you need someone who actually knows how to work with modules like Views or Panels for Drupal or Widgets and Page Templates if you’re using WordPress.
Unfortunately many business managers out there hear the words Content Management System and they think that their receptionist or office manager will just be able to simply copy and paste the Word documents he sends over into the companies CMS backed website and magically it will look just the way he wants. Sorry, unless it’s text only, that won’t happen. This is why you’ll more than likely need to hire a Content Producer at the very least.
Oh, and we haven’t even gotten to the actual Web Operations part of a site, which is probably the only portion of your website you could most likely outsource to a hosting company.
/rant off
Cloud Computing Round Two
December 16, 2010 in Content Producer
Last month I was a speaker in a webinar on Cloud Computing, from Concept to Reality. For those that are not familiar, this opportunity presented itself when I took over web operations last year for Team San Jose where we moved the web hosting to an Amazon EC2 setup from a shared hosting platform.
The webinar was hosted by DMAI, Destination Marketing Association International, which is an organization where I sit on the Technology Committee. My work on the migration was looked at by DMAI as a potential case study for other DMO’s within the US and ultimately something they felt could be beneficial to look into.
I had initially been disappointed with the turnout; only nineteen attendees were listed, though I have been told that this is actually a substantially higher amount than most of the organization’s webinars. My initial thoughts here are that more needs to be done to promote the webinars if this is the case. That aside, both the Technology Committee and the user feedback was positive. Only one of the nineteen felt it could have been better.
While the webinar was focused around concepts, with my reality part a very short segment, I was glad to hear that DMAI is requesting we do a follow up webinar where we can go more in-depth with hands on, technical insight. Something I think is very important to understand when considering moving to or utilizing any cloud service.
Content Creation for Beginners
October 18, 2010 in Content Producer
I was recently on a brief vacation where the subject of local content distribution came up, though primarily, how one can start putting together an online portfolio of sorts around content creation.
Now the following is simply my own advice and what I deem are worthwhile activities for those looking to go into this type of career.
While it goes without saying that you have your own site, even if it’s simply a blog to display your writing, content production is a little different than your typical creative. For example, if I were simply a graphic designer, artist or photographer I could put up a site with my artwork, photos, etc. and when asked I could send a link to people who were interested in seeing my work. They look at it and if they like the style they hire me – very simplified; but accurate.
With content production you don’t always get to write how you want. You’re hired to produce content for company XYZ that makes ABC item. Ideally this means you have to be diverse in your abilities to write for any given niche at any given time.
So while a personal blog is a good idea, it’s hard to get traction with a blog that covers various topics. My blog is a good example of this as it makes SEO very difficult. It’s worth noting here that if you’re really only interested in writing about one thing, and one thing only, you should probably focus more on being a freelance writer or journalist instead of a content producer.
In either case you’ll still need to build an online portfolio of content, but there are a couple things to consider. One, if I write for other sites and I’m not being paid, how much effort should I put into this? Two, can I get paid while doing this so that I don’t have to starve while I look for work?
If you’ve never written anything online before, or at least not something you can portfolioitize (heh that word is fun) then I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time on non-paid sites like Yelp and EzineArticles. Yelp because you don’t have to be a good writer to get your reviews on there, but users are very active here and you can gauge how good you’re doing from the interaction your reviews receive. I know EzineArticles is hated by many online writers and content producers because they don’t pay their authors, but I still recommend it as a good starting point as they actually have people who review your writing. This helps if you tend to struggle with grammar and spelling.
But what about making some passive income on the side? For that there are a lot, though the sign up is generally easy enough to do. Some places like Examiner will have you submit a piece first, then if they like it they will accept you as a writer, after which nothing is ever checked again accept by users of the site or spot checkers – this can be good and bad obviously. Other sites include: Hubpages.com, About.com, TextBroker.com, Helium.com, eHow.com, and AssociatedContent.com (Yahoo). While you could join all, I’d recommend just focusing on one or two, anymore than that and you’re either planning on making this you’re full-time job or you won’t have enough time after getting a job to maintain all of them.
Once you have your articles up you’ll then be able to take advantage of the backlinks to your site, the RSS feeds you can utilize and you’ll be well on your way to creating a diverse online portfolio of content that you have created.
Playing with Bloomfire
October 4, 2010 in Content Producer, Social Media
Note: This is my first look at Bloomfire. The following are initial reactions to the first peak at an alpha release. That said, these opinions are based solely on what is available, though understanding that any of this could change.
Today I spent an hour playing with the Bloomfire Alpha. Without going into specifics that might change during testing, the idea is a content distribution outlet for companies, though technically individuals could use it as well.
The idea isn’t new, just a retooling of other services out there. You log in and create a “community”, the concept reminded me of Ning, though the UI is completely different. You can post Q&A’s, upload videos/presentations, include white papers, etc. As an admin you have control over who is allowed to participate in your community similar to any type of forum/group setup via a subscription base.
Something I thought was interesting is that they offer you the ability to charge subscribers of your group. My initial impression was that this could be a potential revenue stream for artists as you can set the rates as low as you want. So a popular artist who has 6,000 subscribers paying $1.00 a month could actually quit his day job. A neat idea, though I don’t know how feasible that really is. Personally I’m a cheap bastard so I wouldn’t bother.
This led me to another page where my interest waned. The problem I have with it, which is something that surprised me as there was no mention about this in their initial pitch to me, was that the cost to use the Bloomfire service has a pretty hefty monthly fee.
Prices are currently free during alpha, but the pricing plans available as of today start at $99 for 10GB storage, 10GB downstream and the ability to have an unlimited amount of members. The next tiers are $299 and $499, where you have up to a maximum of unlimited features, though the downstreams are capped at 50GB and 100GB.
Clearly this platform is targeting larger commercial entities that are looking for another outlet for their content distribution, though from my personal take, I don’t see the cost value. Sure on paper with enough subscribers you could create buzz and produce a direct profit. On the surface this would look like it’s better than having 10,000 freeloading Facebook fans, but realistically, how many of those Facebook fans would be willing to pay $5 a month to subscribe to another content distribution site?
I could probably see a company like Blizzard pulling it off as they could offer special WoW in-game items to subscribers of their Bloomfire group and given their multi-million count subscriber numbers, if only 10% of them opted to pay a $1 a month fee they’d make hand over fist. So who knows, maybe this will be another outlet for MMO micro-transaction games like DDO and LOTRO.
But in either case, it’s something that is going to only interest a niche group of users. I’ve been trying to think of a way this platform would benefit the non-profits I work with, but with those price tags and lack of physical or virtual profits, I think we’ll end up sticking to just relying on our website, Facebook and YouTube.
Sample Writing for Examiner
September 22, 2010 in Content Producer, Off The Cuff
I recently did some writing for Examiner.com (links coming after their site finishes migrating data over), very similar to my writings for SanJose.org, especially since my section is Nightlife-ish topics. But for those curious, here was the writing sample that got me approved by them.
San Jose plays as hard as it works!
You may be familiar with our California Casual style of dressing, and this relaxed theme carries over into our nightlife as we love to let loose and unwind. When it comes to San Jose nightlife, the Bay Area offers some of the most popular comedy clubs, pubs, ultra-lounges and evening gallery showcases. From fine dining and drinks at the Left Bank to downtown’s iconic dive the Caravan, San Jose has got you covered.
While San Jose is the perfect place for those demanding the best food and wine to take their taste buds on the town, it’s also a great place for hedonists who like to play in the dark. Whether you enjoy the dancing scene of clubs such as WET and Pearl or decide to catch some nubile entertainment at one of the local gentlemen’s clubs you never have to stop with last call thanks to the card tables at Bay101 and Garden City Casino.
If you don’t have the fortune of being a local, why not plan your trips around the first Friday of the month to take part in downtown’s First Friday Art Walks from 8pm to “late” and experience some of the best in local arts and entertainment – for free! Of course for those feeling a bit more active, why not participate in the San Jose Bike Party’s adventures on the third Friday of every month. It just goes to show, no matter when you come to San Jose, it’s a going to be a great time!
Mercury News, Team San Jose and the Pink Poodle
August 30, 2010 in Content Producer, Off The Cuff
The following is in regards to my posting on the Things to do page on SanJose.org here
Team San Jose supports Pink Poodle “… sort of
“Have you ever been to a strip club that let you hose down a fully nude nubile in a shower tub only inches in front of you?”
Nope? Neither has IA, but that didn’t stop the folks at Team San Jose, the beleaguered nonprofit that runs the city’s convention center and several downtown theaters, from listing a visit to “the lovely ladies of the Pink Poodle gentleman’s club” as a top recommendation on the group’s website, www.sanjose.org.
IA found a disclaimer on the site: “These pages do not in any way constitute official Team San Jose content. The views and opinions expressed in the pages are strictly those of the page authors.”
But we’d bet most casual readers might not realize that.
Also, IA has to note: even though a jaunt to the Pink Poodle and other “adult’s play” activities are listed on the website under the category, “Things to do in San Jose,” the infamous strip joint actually sits in an unincorporated pocket of Santa Clara County. We’re just sayin’.
I had to laugh at the Mercury News’ Internal Affairs section mentioning this. They seem to forget that SanJose.org, and Team San Jose, exists to promote all of San Jose’s, and to an extent much of the Bay Area’s, activities, nightlife, culture, etc. and this includes the Pink Poodle. While TSJ has always been a little more conservative than sites such as SanJose.com which features the club with photos of the dancers and has a directory of adult places, it doesn’t make sense to try and ignore these legitimate businesses that many visitors and locals enjoy going to.
And as far as the Pink Poodle being in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County…really? The intersection of Bascom Avenue and San Carlos is smack in the middle of San Jose, so I really don’t see how anyone would dissociate that corner from San Jose at all, regardless of this small block’s zoning.
Maybe the writers of IA should try visiting this venue more often, my wife and I would be more than happy to pay for your first semi-private dance.
What CMS is right for you? Tell me.
May 17, 2010 in Content Producer, Design
Over the last couple years the company I work for has been working on the development of a site using a CMS (Content management System) platform, a good change in my opinion and something that many companies are moving towards with their sites now as it allows for quick and efficient changes to a site without requiring a full time developer or web designer on your staff.
That said, as CMS platforms become more popular, more choices for systems begin to pop up. It was only a handful of years ago where we were limited to Drupal or WordPress, but now we have a plethora of new emerging alternatives, though in all honesty these are still by far the most popular and efficient platforms to date.
So who are these emerging platforms and why should I care?
For anyone who has to be a decision maker for choosing a CMS, it’s going to happen that at some point, someone in your office will ask you why you chose brand X over Brand Y.
So what are the alternatives to WordPress and Drupal?
The third most popular CMS is probably Joomla, though that popularity isn’t all positive. Many users seem to have a strong love and hate relationship with the platform, but based on the amount of third party modules, plugins, and themes, there are definitely enough users out there to attempt to rival the big two.
While there are others that various groups will mention such as Silverstripe, Radiant CMS, Concrete5 and Frog; I’ve recently taken a look at two I thought may be worth watching as well, Modx and Business Catalyst (BC).
My first impression of Modx was that I liked it, but I liked it for the wrongs reasons. It has a lot of control over the code handled by each page, as well as assigning individual templates to my pages; however, the interface and controls are built based on the assumptions that someone with a web design background who has a good grasp of HTML and PHP would be facilitating the changes. This in my opinion is not always the person behind the CMS. Similar to Drupal, you’d probably end up having to hire a developer to build the initial layout and functionality and then hand it off to someone to manage the content.
Business catalyst on the other hand is much more intuitive and friendly, while still allowing its users to touch the code if needed. Very similar to WordPress in the feel of it, but the thing that makes me hesitate is the price tag. Yes, “BC” as it’s referred to has a free version, but it comes with some limitations and the whole model of the organization is to make a big push for developers to buy into the partnership and then sell it to their customers. While it may work for some, I don’t think BC would be the most appropriate CMS for every customer, but if I’m financially invested in it, it’d be hard in my mind to NOT want to push it on all my customers.
I’ll continue to take a look at other CMS platforms as they pass through my inbox, and I’d welcome users to comment about their experiences with any of these platforms and tell me what they like best about each, or even what they don’t like. In my mind, I’m still a fan of Drupal and WordPress, though for two different groups and two different reasons, but feel free to tell me why others are better.
The Wall
April 12, 2010 in Content Producer, Marketing
In my attempts to come up with new ways for our city to promote its businesses and ultimately bring in sources of revenue I’ve recently felt as if I’ve been hitting a wall. Not walls with my ideas mind you, but rather a wall with what the city and the organizations that surround me are willing to do.
One idea I recently had was to partner with a hotel who would be interested in reaching out to local or foreign businesses that could set up mini “shops” within the rooms of the hotel instead of in a meeting facility. Essentially businesses could set up a bar in a hotel room for people walking by or another place could be selling clothes and another novelty items.
This would on one hand create immediate revenue for the hotel given its rooms would be filling quickly, but it would also give them a lasting exposure with the foot traffic and word of mouth that would spread with such an event.
We could do an event like this once a year, once a quarter, or maybe even once a month and keep moving it from hotel to hotel, rotating through all those who would participate.
Unfortunately, I have lots of people who would like this to happen, but we don’t have anyone who can make it happen, and to top it off it’s something that falls outside of the model of the company I work for.
And to reference my previous post I still can’t get a hold of anyone at Foursquare to set up a special badge for people who have checked in at all of our venues or to talk with about working on a promotion no matter how many times either myself or my boss fill out the forms on their website or post on Foursquare’s GetSatisfaction.
Marketing with no money
April 5, 2010 in Content Producer, Marketing
With budget cuts and everyone trying to keep a buck in their hand I’ve been looking at various ways to promote businesses with little to no money involved.
Now the easiest thing is always going with the social media angle, a reTweet here for a mention or a cross post amongst Facebook pages, but I needed something that was going to draw in foot traffic to our downtown core. While social media can do this, our pages, and our partner pages, don’t have enough draw right now to really make a large movement happen yet. So what was I to do? I decided to try applying my same cross promoting social media plans to business scenarios and came up with the following two promotions.
The first promotion I had, which is still yet to be determined if it’s worked out or not, is a cross promotion I set up between Cryptic Studios, makers of the Star Trek Online game, and our Tech Museum, which has been featuring a Star Trek Exhibit. I started approaching the marketing department at Cryptic back in December, and our office heads here at Team San Jose. Through a long series of events it took until just a few weeks ago before I could get all of the decision makers together on a conference call. In the end Cryptic agreed to mention the Star Trek Exhibit to their player base in exchange for us letting them distribute STO game time flyers at the exhibit.
Hopefully we’ll see if we can’t drum up some business for the Tech, and maybe the MMO as well.
The second promotion isn’t so much a marketing promotion, but rather an opportunity for the city. We were recently approached by a company called Hear Planet, who has developed a phone application that allows users to listen to descriptions of places via their phone. Don’t know what something is, open the app and listen to the narrator tell you what the museum, club or store are all about. We’ve set it a partnership with them so that our entire database of businesses is being uploaded to them. While this doesn’t bring in a monetary value for us, it allows us to be one of the main providers of information for the city of San Jose, as well as make sure all of our venues and partners are getting listed.
I’m currently working on trying to get a city-wide event planned with Foursquare, but it’s yet to be seen if this will happen and I have a few other ideas I’d like to implement before the end of June. I’m hoping at some point during the next few months I’ll be able to follow up with this with some good news.
Are you Hot or Not?
March 24, 2010 in Content Producer
So in preparation for the new website I’m working on for TSJ, I’ve been asked to come up with a list of the four “Hot & Happening” places for Dining, Nightlife, Arts & Culture, Shopping, etc. They’ll ideally rotate every 30 days or so.
My first thought was that I needed to come up with a system to rank places. While I could go to Yelp and pick out the four highest rated places, I needed to experience each one for myself, as well as I need to see how the owners or managers interaction with us would be.
I start with pulling a list of the ten top places in each category from Yelp and as long as they have over 50 reviews. Anything under 50 makes me leery, though if it’s a new place, like six months old I’ll consider it. I then visit each one of these places as a patron, and I don’t mention who I am or what I am doing. I then go back about a week later on a different day and mention that I am, what I am doing and if I could meet with the manager or owner. It’s relevant to note that my reception is usually different once people know that I’m more than just a typical visitor.
I find the first time it’s very beneficial to ask other patrons or even the venues staff “so what’s been really popular downtown lately, it’s been a while since I’ve visited?” this question will give a lot of useful insight the first anonymous visit, though the second visit when I introduce myself will only give me a rundown of the current places activities and events. So it’s useless to ask this any other time, but on the first visit before you introduce yourself.
I then talk to the owner/manager and discuss cross promotion opportunities with them, as a non-profit everything we do is a free service, so I’m not selling anything to them, simply just offering an exchange of promoting them on our site in exchange for a link back to us or a onetime shout out on their social media feed. This part here is a bit interesting because it wouldn’t actually matter if these companies wanted nothing to do with us as it is TSJ’s job to promote the city of San Jose and therefore, you’re a sure in, even if you don’t want to work with us, we’ll list your business on our website and repost your events on our social media pages.
Now it’s time to pick the places for Hot & Happening…If a place gets three check marks I put them in the slot. If I have more than four places then I put which one I liked more in and save the other one for next month’s list. So how do my check marks work?
Check Mark 1: You have an average of 3.5+ Stars on Yelp. I find this to be very generous.
Check Mark 2: When I visited your venue the first time anonymously patrons were telling me they come here often or like the place rather than telling me “eh, it’s ok, it’s close by” or “I just came in and I don’t know if I’d come back” or, and I have heard this, “I don’t know why I come here, I hate this place, my friends make me go” – note: this goes the same for how the staff at the venue like or dislike the place too.
Check Mark 3: Did the manager/owner blow me off, not follow up or did he call me back, meet with me and listen to what I had to offer him?
Check Mark 4: Personal and Professional Bias. Ultimately the decision is mine alone to list a place on our website, and while I consider myself fair, if we have a business owner who is good friends with our CEO, or my boss, or even myself, I’ll probably nudge them in first before anyone else, provided they pass the first two Check Marks. At the same time, if a business has been bashing our company or has had an altercation with an employee, they may get bumped down, though honestly this hasn’t happened with anyone who has passed the Yelp and Visit marks.
So what now? We’re still a few months away, so all the ones I picked for this Hot & Happening may change shortly, but it at least gives me a good list to keep an eye on as I funnel in new or additional places to check out as we get closer to launch.
Social Follow