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How to Write the Perfect Twitter Tweet that will Standout?

Creating the perfect twitter tweet Source: http://www.padi-islands.com/2012/08/20/using-twitter-for-business/After you have spent time to build your Twitter Followers, you need to tweet and retweet consistently in order to keep your followers following you.  However, each tweet or retweet you send is something your Twitter followers and target audience want to receive, or it is something that benefits them. You also need to create tweets and retweets that will standout.

Today, we will talk about how you can write a tweet and retweet that your followers and target audience would like to see from you.

If you haven’t built your followers yet, no worries, but before continuing on, you might want to refer to my tips on building your Twitter followers.

After spending time on Twitter and reading other tweets, I noticed the different elements of a Twitter tweets.

Elements to a Twitter Tweet in 140 characters

Anatomy of anatomy of the perfect tweet Source: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/The_anatomy_of_the_perfect_tweet_11926.aspx#

  • Message – Needs to be relevant and timely for your followers and target audience. Write like a headline.
  • Call to Action – Tell your followers what you want them to do. In some cases, your may want your followers to retweet your tweet, and you can ask them to do so.
  • Hashtag – Limit the #Hashtags in your tweets to one or two per post.
  • Retweet (RT) – If you retweet a message, use RT to indicate the message is retweeted.
  • URL – (Around 20 characters) Destination your Twitter followers end up. Make sure to shorten your URL’s by going to tinyurl.com or bitly.com.
  • Blank – (Around 20 characters) If your messages are retweeted, this is space for retweeters to add something.

After familiarizing yourself with the general format of a Twitter Tweet, let’s concentrate on the Message/Call-to-Action part of a tweet or retweet.  According to Gerry Moran’s How to Write the Perfect Tweet, it is possible to write the perfect tweet, but it does take practice. Moran’s article identifies that each tweet has 3 goals and must pass some questions.

3 goals for each Twitter Tweet or Rewtweet

  1. Amplify – You need to amplify your story with tweets.
  2. Engage – You need people to read, comment or pass the message on to others by encouraging Retweets.
  3. Convert – You need readers to complete some conversion-related activity, such as a click to visit a registration page or destination page.

Does your Twitter Tweet or Retweet answer Yes to these Questions

  1. Is it interesting and readable?
  2. Is it interesting enough to click?
  3. Is it compelling and built to be retweeted?
  4. Is “You” used instead of “I”?
  5. Is it timely?
  6. Most importantly, will your tweet benefit your Twitter followers and target audience?

If you answer no to any of these questions, make the necessary tweaks until your tweet can answer yes to these question. In some cases, you may consider not sending the tweet at all.

Conclusion

Spend some time on Twitter following your target audiences influencers and get a feel for the content your target audience is being exposed to on Twitter.  Especially, take a look at your competitors and see what they are tweeting about. Think about how can you do a better job at amplifying, engaging, and converting your followers with your tweets and retweets.

Next, develop the content you want to tweet about and practice writing tweets that contain all the elements, amplify, engage, and convert. Most importantly, make sure your tweet talks about something that will meet your Twitter followers/target audiences needs.

Take some time to digest the information contained in today’s blog.  Then, spend some time writing some tweets for your Twitter followers.

Side Note

Over the next couple of days, I will be attending the eMarketing Association Conference in San Francisco, CA, so you wont hear from me until later in the week.

Sources

Social Media News and Resources

 

 

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12 Twitter Tips that Increased My Twitter Followers by 328%

Increasing Twitter Followers - Follow Me Source - www.websiteandtechnology.comBy following the advice of influencers for digital marketing and social media marketing, I have been practicing a variety of Twitter activities to grow my Twitter following. Through my experiments, I increased my Twitter followers by 328% in 2 weeks.

Since my last post instead of blogging, I have been busy testing different Twitter activities to identify what works to increase my Twitter followers, and today, I am sharing share my findings with you.

Before dedicating the time to building a Twitter following, I honestly didn’t understand the value of Twitter. Now, after spending some time on Twitter, I am a Twitter believer, and I see the value of including Twitter in your social media marketing mix.

Twitter is a casual forum for buyers and sellers to connect. By following industry influencers, I gained access to news and resources that I hadn’t seen before. Also, I connected with fellow digital marketing managers and social media managers and discovered what they needed to help reach their goals.

With Twitter, You can Connect with Your Target Audience by

  • Providing information they need to make purchasing decisions
  • Giving them information to satisfy their needs
  • Giving them tips to better use your products or services
  • Starting two-way conversations
  • Building relationships

Before diving into Twitter, I identified the following items

  • My target audience
  • My goal to increase my number of followers that meet my target audience criteria
  • Find and Follow my market influencers – find experts using wefollow.com or twibes.com

Twitter Hashtags Source - http://www.waftr.com/2013/04/how-to-increase-twitter-followers.html

  • Popular Hashtags used by market influencers
  • Additional Hashtags for my market to use in my tweets – Some of these Hashtags are my keywords. Test by using the URL https://twitter.com/hashtag/(yourkeyword)

12 Twitter Tips that Increased my Twitter Followers by 328%

Follow Twitter Followers, Tweet, Favorite, Retweet Source - http://blogginggeeks.blogspot.com/2012/12/Increase-twitter-followers.html

  1. Follow relevant followers.
  2. Follow the Influencers – They include journalists, analysts, and bloggers for your market.
  3. Thank people who follow you.
  4. Retweet and Favorite Tweeted Content – Content you think might benefit your target audience.
  5. Tweet or Retweet Events – Inform your target marketing of upcoming webinars or events that are relevant.
  6. Especially, Retweet Relevant Content from Influencers
  7. When Retweeting, include a Quote when Appropriate – Quotes should add value, include a call to action, or link to similar content created by you or someone else.

Effect of quotes on retweets Source - http://heidicohen.com/twitter-16-ways-to-increase-retweets-research/

  1. Hashtags – Tweets with hashtags are posted on twitter streams seen by people outside of your followers.
  2. When Retweeting, include a Quote when Appropriate – Quotes should add value, include a call to action, or link to similar content created by you or someone else.

Effect of hashtags on retweets Source - http://heidicohen.com/twitter-16-ways-to-increase-retweets-research/

  1. Include Hashtags in your Tweets and Retweets – When applicable include hashtags to increase the exposure of your Tweets and potential people to follow you.
  2. For Followers or People that Favorite or Retweet your Tweets – Always thank them, and if they don’t already follow you, encourage them to follow you.
  3. Ask for the Retweet – When appropriate, in your tweets, you can ask your followers to retweet your content to gain exposure of your tweet.
  4. Most importantly, Tweet Consistently – If you don’t tweet consistently, your followers will stop following you and all your hard work to build your followers will be for nothing. I experienced this one the hard way. My followers decreased when I didn’t send and tweets for a couple of days.

Conclusion

To build your Twitter followers, you need to spend time on Twitter and consistently tweet, favorite, and retweet.

Start spending 30 minutes to an hour each day on Twitter applying the tips discussed today, and you can build your followers that meet your target audience criteria.

Once you reach your ideal number of followers, you need to keep tweeting to keep your followers. Consistently tweeting will keep the followers you have and help continue to increase your overall number of followers.
Maintain your Twitter Followers by tweeting consistently Source - girlsleadblog.com

Call-To-Action to Increase your Twitter Followers

  • Identify your Market Influencers
  • Follow your Influencers
  • Follow me on Twitter @cplough
  • Follow your relevant Twitter Followers
  • Identify your Market Hashtags
  • Start Tweeting, Favoriting, and Retweeting
  • Come back tomorrow to learn about How to Write the Perfect Tweet

Major Sources Where I found Twitter Tips to Increase my Twitter Followers by 328%

In other Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook News and Tips

In other Social Media Marketing News, Research, and Tips

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Social Media Marketing: Listen to Your Target Audience to Help Build Relationships Part 2

Listen to help build relationships with your target audience Source - http://brandlegendary.com/5-signs-you-arent-using-social-media-effectively/
On Monday, we discussed the advantages of listening to your target audience. Now, let’s discuss how you can go about listening to your target audience via Google Alerts and the different social media networks.

By listening, your brand will be able to build relationships with your target audience, create superior content, and deliver exceptional experiences.  If you missed part 1, you can still review the advantages to listening to your target audience.

By paying attention to the ongoing social conversations in your industry, you can pick up on emerging trends, new customer pains, and other valuable information. Here are some ways that will help you follow your brand and industry easily.

Gathering information from a multiple of sources will give you well rounded view of your brand, industry, and target audience.

Different Methods to Listen to Your Target Audience

  1. Google Alerts and RSS Feeds
  2. Facebook
  3. Twitter Hashtags
  4. Twitter
  5. LinkedIn
  6. Google+
  7. Blogs

#1 Set up Google Alerts and RSS feeds

When you create a Google Alert, you will receive email summaries on the subject matter you specify. Google Alerts will pick up anything included in Blogs, and you should follow any blogs that appear on your Google Alerts consistently. You should also identify any RSS feeds that consistently talk about your brand, competitors, and industry.

Different Google Alerts and RSS feeds you should follow

  • Your Brand
  • Keywords specific to your industry
  • Your Industry
  • Your Competitors

#2 Facebook

First, follow your competitor and listen for keywords or emerging trends.

Second, identify and participate in any Facebook groups that impact your brand. The more people in these groups, the more it gets promoted to their friends and social networks.

Next, organize different lists for different topics and influencers that you want to follow. These lists allow you to view and post to different groups or companies.

#3 Listening via Twitter Hashtags

Hashtags have become one of the best ways to monitor the discussion around a particular topic, trend or idea in your space.

Hashtags to Follow

  • Your Brand
  • Specific Keywords
  • Your Industry
  • Your Competitors
  • Your Competitors

#4 Listening on Twitter

First, conduct a couple of searches on your brand, keywords, industry, and your competitors. Identify the influencers, analysts, journalists, and other knowledgeable people in your arena who appear in your searches and follow them. Monitor what your influencers say and discover who is retweeting your influencers tweets.

Twitter Lists

  • Organize all of the people you identified into different Twitter lists.
  • Each list should be segmented/grouped together by similarities.
  • Twitter lists can be public or private.
  • Consider making your influencers group public to show that you are actively collecting information from knowledgeable sources.
  • Monitor what each group is saying.
  • If there are any complaints, develop a customer service method on how to handle the complaints.
  • Discover if you need to make tweaks to your services to satisfy your target audience.

#5 Listening on LinkedIn

Search for any groups based on your brand, industry, competitors, or keywords. Next, follow your competitors to monitor the conversations happening on their company pages. Finally, pay attention to any comments that are said on your company pages.

#6 Listening on G+

First, conduct a search on your brand, keywords, industry, and competitor and see what comes up.

Google+ Circles
Similar to Twitter lists, you can create different Google+ Circles of people. Each circle can have their own personas allowing you to tailor your communication based on the personas. When you notice people talking about your brand or industry, include them in one of your circles.

Google+ Hangouts
You can also use Google Hangouts makes to connect people in different circles. Google Hangouts gives you face time with your target audience on their terms.

#7 Listening on Blogs

Back in #1, you should have started following any blogs that appeared in your Google Alerts consistently. Listen for any news about your brand. Every once in a while you may choose to make a comment to show your target audience that you are listening, and this will indicate that you care.

Once you set your methods of listening, you may feel a little overwhelmed. However, you have access to an abundance of intelligence about your target audience to help you build relationships with your target audience.

My suggestions is to set aside some time once a week or take 30 minutes everyday just to listen(read). Don’t comment on anything or post anything. This is time for you to just learn about what people are saying. Take notes and make a list of action items.

When listening, look for consistencies and patterns. This will help you prioritize any action items you need to take. Look for potential marketing messages, or opportunities to connect with your target audience.

As you listen, remember to your purpose is to build stronger relationships with your target audience, so your brand can deliver exceptional experiences.

After reading today’s post, please comment on any ways you like to listen to your target audience via social media.

Take Care and Happy Listening.

Sources

Additional Social Media News and Resources

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Social Media Marketing: Build Relationships with Your Target Audience through Listening Part 1

Listen to help build relationships with your target audience Source - http://brandlegendary.com/5-signs-you-arent-using-social-media-effectively/One benefit by participating in social media is building relationships with your target audience. To build effective relationships, listening is extremely important.

Just like effective relationships in our personal lives, listening is essential.

I too want to build relationships with my target audience, which includes you. So I encourage you to leave a comment at the end of this blog post about building relationships or digital marketing topics you want to learn more about.

Additional Benefits to Listening to Your Target Audience

  1. Customer Opinion – Via social media, you can get unbiased opinions and learn about your target audience’s likes, wants, needs, hates, and desires. This information will help you form marketing messages and deliver your target audience’s wants.
  2. Potential Leads – Identify members of your target audience and develop methods to establish a relationship and start a two-way conversation with them.
  3. Understand your Market – You can stay up to date with your industry and learn about the factors that influence your market. Eventually, you will be able to discover emerging trends.
  4. Identify Your Influencers – On average, approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic. By listening, you can learn about the 1%, and you can start building relationships with these influencers.
  5. Where does your Target Audience Hangout Online? – What social media networks do your target audience participate in? If you find out where they hangout online, you can start creating content for those specific social media networks.
  6. Possible Content Ideas and Formats – What kind of content does your target audience respond to?  By knowing what type of content sparks action with your target audience, you know what kind of content to produce.
  7. Keywords Used by Target Audience – What are the words and phrases that your target audience uses when talking about your brand? You can also learn what keywords or phrase are use in their search queries, and this can help you form your keyword strategy saving you lots of time and analysis normally involved in keyword strategy.
  8. Target Audience Needs – How can you fulfill your target audience needs with your marketing messages and products.
  9. Brand and Products They Use – What brands do they use? what are the similarities and difference to your brand? What experiences do these brands deliver? How can you improve these experiences better?
  10. Competitors – Are your Competitors a part of your target audiences conversations?

These are really good reasons to listen to your target audience. Listening can make our digital marketing jobs a little bit easier, so let’s take a look at some tips to make us superior listeners.

How to become and Effective Listener?

  1. Don’t Pretend to Listen – If you want your target audience to know that you a really listening, discover what are the best methods to find your target audience and hear what they are saying.
  2. Reduce Distractions and Background Noise – Identify the barriers that prevent you from truly listening to your target audience, and remove them.
  3. Take the Time to Comprehend What Your Target Audience is Saying – Take advantage of this intel to improve your relationships with your target audience and deliver superior experiences.
  4. Respond with Superior Content – Make your target audience indicate that you understand them by delivering superior content and experiences.

Over time, you will refine your listening skills, and you will learn how to take advantage of the information you gain when you listen to your target audience.

In conclusion, it is worth your time to develop methods to listen to your target audience via social media.

In the next social media marketing discussion, I will explore methods on how to listen to your target audience via multiple social media networks.

Until then, I welcome your comments about listening or anything else about digital marketing.

Sources

In Other Social Media Marketing News
social media news source - http://www.socialmediadelivered.com/2014/02/26/top-20-social-media-news-sites/

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5 Tips to Create Relevant and Engaging Email Marketing Messages in this Week’s Email Marketing Topic

email click through rate source:http://www.egluu.com/blog/Once your email subscribers open your promotional emails, your email messages need to quickly tell them why they should click through to your website and fulfill your request.

Easier said then done!

First, congratulations on getting your email opened. Now, let’s focus on how you can craft engaging content for your email marketing messages.

According to an Email Benchmark Survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa, 68% of firms say delivering relevant content for their email messages is a top priority. However, only 28% of organizations report sending relevant email communications.

If you prepare email marketing messages with the tips discussed today, you will be able to create relevant and engaging email messages that will increase your click through rates and conversion rates.

Tips to Create Relevant and Engaging Email Marketing Messages

magnetic content to help email click through rates source:http://blog.mailigen.com/increase-email-delivery-of-relevant-content/

  1. Be Human
  2. Personalization
  3. Educational
  4. Entertaining
  5. Timely

1. Being Human

  • Write the content as if you are writing an email to a friend.
  • Make the content light and get rid of that corporate tone.
  • Make it conversational.
  • When applicable, empathize with your email subscribers.

2. Personalize your Email Message

  • Use your email subscriber’s name in the subject line or message.
  • Use dynamic content to insert blocks of content that is tailored to your email subscribers personas.
  • In The Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing from Marketo, the guide provides an example where a company received a 175% lift in conversion rates when the company used dynamic content.

3. Educational

  • Teach your email subscribers about your brand’s benefits.
  • Include a testimonial from your customers.
  • Provide statistics about customers who used your brand.
  • For repeat purchases, provide tips in using your brand.
  • No Hard Sells – Hard selling will alienate your email subscribers.

4. Entertaining

  • Your email messages should leave your email subscribers with a smile or feeling good.
  • Even if your email subscriber does not respond to your email marketing message, leave them with something valuable.

5. Timely

  • Tie real-world events or industry news to what is going on in your email message. For B2B email messages, I’ve had success in tying industry news to the content of my email messages.
  • Any upcoming calendar events to mention in your email? For example, since many families travel during the summer, a luggage store may want to send an email marketing promotion with travel tips plus a discount on a purchase.
  • A Word of Caution – Be sensitive if real-world events negatively impact your email subscribers or if your email subscribers don’t participate in certain holidays.

Example of an Engaging Email Message

Recently, I received a promotional email from a colleague about purchasing her household organizational services. The email message discussed preparing tax documents for Tax Day, April 15th, and organizing tax and any other paperwork lying around the house.

The email mentioned the dreaded event and reminds you of something that you have to do. Her suggestion of taking the time to review and organize all your paperwork makes sense, so she plants the idea of organizing in your head. Then, she mentions the offer to hire her services in helping you organize the papers around your house.

How does the example compare to the 5 tips to create engaging email marketing messages?

relevant and engaging email marketing messages checklist Source: http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/2013_07_01_archive.html#.UxhA6D-YZdg

  1. The email was human by empathizing with her email subscribers about April 15th.
  2. The email was personalized when it included my first name.
  3. The email educated me by mentioning the suggestion to organize my tax documents and my other paperwork.
  4. The email entertained me by making me happy with the thought of having a nicer home if I organized all my papers.
  5. Lastly, the email was timely by mentioning the preparation for April 15th.

Conclusion

After you write your next email marketing message, do a check like I just did. Identify the points in your email message that comply with all 5 tips to help you create engaging email marketing messages.

Now, you have what it takes to deliver compelling email messages. Just apply these tips when writing your email content.

When you create engaging content, not only will your content be relevant and timely, you will increase your click through rates and conversion rates.

Keep this blog post to to guide you through the writing process for your next email marketing promotion.

For tips on creating engaging subject lines, check out my email subject lines blog post.

Source

Email Marketing Promotion News and Resources

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How to Boost SEO by Optimizing Your Content on Every Web Page in this Week’s SEO Discussion

Digital Marketing Managers need to consistently create relevant high quality content in order to maintain it’s search engine rank, and each new page of content on your website needs to be optimized for search correctly.
Components involved in on page seo to optimize every page of content on a website to boost seo source - http://www.reliablesoft.net/5-on-page-seo-techniques-thatll-boost-your-rankings-checklist-included/
Recently, many SEO articles mention the end of the SEO Manager because of Google’s updates in 2013. However, I believe the new role of a SEO Manager includes optimizing new content for SEO.

Items to Optimize for All Pages of Content to Boost SEO

Keywords Phrases

  • Pick 2 to 3 keyword phrases to include in each piece of content to avoid keyword stuffing.
  • Anticipate differences in search behavior and account for them while preparing your keywords for your content.

Title Tags

  • HTML Tag – <title>.
  • Prepare a unique title tag that accurately describes the content on the page.
  • Be brief but descriptive.
  • Can include one keyword phrase.

Meta Description Tag

image of where the meta description is located for a single results on a search engine results page Source - http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

  • The subheading for this section links to a previous post about meta description tags.
  • HTML for tag – <meta name=”description=” content=”summary of content goes in meta tag”>.
  • Should be unique for each page.
  • Should summarize the content on the page and spark interest to potential readers.
  • Length should be 140 characters or less.

URL Structure

  • URL should display the words contained in the title of the page.
  • Make URL’s as simple as possible.
  • Have one URL for each page.
  • The image below is an example of what a link should look like for a web page about hosting applications.

example of what an URL should and should not look like Source - http://www.gossamer-threads.com/blog/moving-up-the-ranks-an-seo-introduction/

Navigation

  • Should be organized to help visitors quickly find the content they want.
  • Group pages with similar content into categories.
  • Navigation should feel natural to your visitors.

Components of Content on a Page

  • Easy to read and focuses on the topic of your page.
  • Unique, relevant, and helpful information for the visitors.
  • Include your 2 to 3 keyword phrases sporadically throughout the page.
  • Visitors should view your content as authoritative and trustworthy.

Anchor Text for Internal Links within Content of Page

  • The words used to link to another page should be concise and descriptive.
  • Give the reader a clear idea of where they are going.
  • Make the links easy to spot.
  • In the example below, your visitor would only see “Jon Wye’s Customer Designed Belts,” and the rest is the HTML code that is hidden.

example of anchor text code source - http://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text

Images & Alt Text

  • Supply Alt Text to describe the images posted on a webpage.
  • Since Google can’t interpret images, Google uses the description of your images in the Alt Text to calculate the overall rank of your web page.
  • When saving images on your website to your images folder, use file names that briefly describe the image.

Heading Tags

vimage of the different heading tags Source:http://blog.woorank.com/2013/04/how-to-use-heading-tags-for-seo/

  • Create Subheadings making it easier for readers to scan and consume your content.
  • Anything in your H1, H2, and H3 heading tags are taken into consideration when ranking your page.
  • Use Heading tags sparingly throughout page.
  • If you want to highlight text but don’t want to use a heading tag, you can bold text using <em>, <strong>, or <b> tags.

Link Building

  • Look for websites that hosts similar content.
  • Submit a request to the sites to host your link.
  • Include internal links to relevant content previously published on your website.

Social Signals via Social Media to Promote Your Content to Boost SEO

image of social signals and seo source- http://stpaulmarketingteam.com/smm/social-media-seo-and-social-signals/

  • When content is published in WordPress, it automatically posts the title of the new content to your social media networks via the Publicize feature.
  • If your website development tool does not provide this feature, you should manually post the title of your new content to all of your social media networks.
  • Place social media icons on each page for your visitors to share with their connections.
  • The more Likes, Favorites, and Reweets you receive the more Social Signals Google notices, and the higher your content can rank.
  • For Facebook and LinkedIn – If you participate in any groups, ask the group manager if you can promote your new content to the group.
  • Post new content to any other Social Media Networks where your target audience participates.
  • Visit last week’s SEO weekly discussion to learn more about using Social Media to boost your SEO efforts.

In the fight for page rank, optimize all your current and new content with the components mentioned in this blog post, and the search engines will recognize the new content.

Keep this blog post on hand to use as a checklist when preparing new web pages, and you should make sure every page of content your website publishes contains all of the items mentioned.

Recent SEO News and Resources

Recent Local Search News and Resources

Recent Link Building News and Resources

Recent PPC Google Adwords News and Resources

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Content Marketing Weekly Topic: Repurpose Your Content to Extend Your Reach in Your Target Audience

Repurpose your Content into different forms of content Source - http://www.boom-online.co.uk/2014-new-years-resolutions-of-an-internet-marketer/#axzz2urapa82wCreating original content everyday is difficult, but to help Content Marketers and Digital Marketing Managers, you can repurpose your current/story content into other forms and expand your reach within your target audience.

People consume many different forms of content, but we all have our favorite forms of content.

Below is a table on the form of content I prefer based on the topics.

Topic My Preferred Form of Content
Friend Updates Social Media
“How-To” or “Tips” Article or Blog Post
Deploying a Marketing Process Checklist
New Product/Service White Paper or Webinar
Product or Service Update Social Media or Email for a heads up that leads me to an article or blog post
Marketing Process eBook, webinar, or Infographic of Process

As you can see, I prefer different forms of content depending on the topic.

However, someone else may prefer to see the same topic in another form than me.

Therefore, when you are writing about a single topic, make sure you prepare different forms of content about the same topic.

In other words, you want to repurpose a single topic into different forms of content, which will help extend your reach within your target audience.

This reminds me of an analogy that I learned during a Jason Miller
presentation, and Jason Miller learned about this analogy from Rebecca Lieb.
Different forms of content for the same topic Source - http://marketing.linkedin.com/blog/leftover-turkey-a-content-marketers-dream/
“I use a Thanksgiving analogy. You cook up this giant bird to serve up on one glorious occasion and then proceed to slice and dice this thing for weeks on end. If you are like most families you are going to be repurposing this bird as leftovers for quite some time creating everything from sandwiches, to soups, and more. Your content marketing strategy can be thought of in the same way.” – Rebecca Lieb

So for every topic you write about, think about how you can produce additional forms of content about a single topic.  For example, if you have an eBook, you can create a webinar, video, and a series of blog posts.

By creating different forms of content a single topic, you are delivering information to your target audience in the form that they want. So, listen to your target audience and find out what forms of content they prefer.

25 Forms of Content at Your Disposal

  1. Blog post or Article
  2. Lists of different blog posts/articles about the same topic
  3. How To Guide
  4. Customer Opinion/Testimonials
  5. Tips
  6. Survey/Quiz
  7. Images
  8. Competitions
  9. Social Media posts – one example is live tweets of a webinar or conference
  10. Interview with thought leaders or guest blog from industry influencer
  11. Google+ Hangout
  12. Whitepaper
  13. Case Studies
  14. Video
  15. Webinar
  16. eBook
  17. Infographic
  18. Checklists/Tip Sheets
  19. Podcasts
  20. Thought Map
  21. Visual Note-Taking
  22. Slideshows
  23. Show Example of what not to do
  24. Create a Timeline
  25. Q&A or FAQ Web Pages

Enjoy creating multiple forms of content about the topics you recently released to maximize your reach in your target audience.

Keep in mind, create forms of content about a single subject that make sense.  For example, it does not make sense to create a podcast for a list of tips, but it does make sense to create a podcast for an eBook.

Call to Action in Repurposing your Content to Extend Your Reach within Your Target Audience

  • Choose a current piece of content (preferably a white paper or eBook)
  • Think about the different forms of content you can create using the same information
  • Create new forms of content with the same information and deliver it to your target audience
  • Check out next week’s content marketing discussion that will describe the different forms of content listed above
  • The next blog post will discuss SEO

Sources

Additional Content Marketing News and Resources

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3 Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers in this Week’s Social Media Discussion

Nurture customers with social media strategies source - http://blog.proresource.com/how-to-nurture-leads-online-using-social-media/Social Media can be used a variety of ways, but today we will discuss social media strategies to nurture your current customers, to build relationships, and to generate repeat purchases.

As Digital Marketing Managers and Social Media Marketers, delivering on revenue goals is crucial. Nurturing current customers via social media for repeat purchases will help you accomplish this task.

The idea here is to keep your brand and expertise in the forefront of your customers’ minds, so when they need you, they remember to come back to you.

When communicating with your customers, you need to be genuine. If you are not genuine, your customers will see through you, and you will not be successful in building relationships to help meet your revenue goals.

Now, that you realize the importance of being genuine when nurturing your customers, let’s move on.

3 Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers

  1. Reaffirm your customer purchases after the decision is made – There is time between when the decision is made to make the purchase and the action taken to make the actual purchase. During this time, use social media to reaffirm their choice to purchase your product by featuring customers who discussed their satisfaction after purchasing from your brand.
  2. Create lead nurturing campaigns for your new customers – Just like you have created social media tactics for potential customers, you want to deploy social media tactics for your newer customers to think of you for future purchases. Invite your new customers to follow you on social media networks, welcome them to your social media communities, post helpful information on how they can reap the benefits from their purchases, and create opportunities for cross sell and up sell products.
  3. Listen to your customers social media conversations for new needs, and requirements, or potential jumps to your competitors – By following your customers in social media, you can keep tabs on your customers satisfaction with their purchases. You want to listen for cues on the timing for repeat purchases, cross sell, or up sell opportunities. You can also listen to your customers to discover ideas for more relevant content for your social media and content marketing efforts.

Call to Action to Deploy Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers

  • Be active on the same social media networks where your customers are active.
  • Look at your current lead nurturing efforts for new business and see if anything can be used to nurture new customers.
  • Create social media posts to welcome new customers to your social media community.
  • Without giving your customers a sales pitch, prepare social media content giving your customers an idea about repeat purchases, cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities.
  • Listen to your customers on social media to identify cues for potential repeat purchases.
  • Where it is genuine and makes sense, like, favorite, or retweet your customers social media posts
  • Listen for potential content ideas.
  • Come back for next week’s social media discussion about social media content ideas.
  • The next Digital Marketer’s blog post will explore the different types of content for your content marketing efforts.

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How To Improve your Email Marketing Deliverability from the Digital Marketer’s Weekly Email Marketing Topic

Get your email marketing messages delivered to your email subscribers inbox Source:http://www.inwise.com/features/send/high-deliverability.aspxSince only 82% of emails from our email marketing efforts reach the inboxes of our email subscribers, Digital Marketing Manager and Email Marketing Managers need to explore how to improve delivery of email marketing messages to email subscribers’ inboxes to obtain revenue goals. (Source: Return Path’s Email Intelligence Report Q3 2012)

Return Path’s report also indicates that 70% of the emails in SPAM folders are actually legitimate emails.

Given these statistics, let’s talk about how you can deploy email marketing deliverability best practices to boost your email marketing performance and prevent your email messages getting blocked or sent to SPAM folders.

Before diving into the details about best practices for email marketing deliverability below, I want to give you some background information to help you formulate a better email marketing deliverability strategy for your brand.

Definition of Email Marketing Deliverability

The percentage of your email messages delivered to your email subscribers’ inbox.

Email Marketing Deliverability Fundamentals

email marketing deliverability fundamentals source - http://blog.campaigner.com/2013/10/the-3-keys-to-great-email.html

  • Algorithmic Filters – If an incoming email contains similarities to an email already marked as junk, the incoming email will be marked as junk. These similarities include email sender, links, or content. Also, if an incoming email contains an URL that is blacklisted by an ISP’s (Internet Service Provider), the email will be marked as junk.
  • Spamtraps – An email address was set up but never receives email.  These email addresses are created by Spamtrappers and set up to catch spammers. Deploying secure opt-in technique prevents you from collecting spamtrap emails.
  • Blacklists – Reports IP and URL addresses that send unsolicited commercial email. ISPs use these reports to block emails sent from these IP and URL addresses.
  • Bounce Handling – Understand ISPs and your ESPs bounce codes to help you manage your email marketing efforts effectively.  Bounce codes are values assigned to email addresses that are not delivered, and different types of bounces are handled differently. Work with your ESP to better understand your bounces.
  • Authentication Protocols – Use protocols to help email receivers separate legitimate and non-legitimate messages. According to Marketo’s The Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing, the most common email authentication protocols are DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), SPF (Sender Protection Framework), and SenderID.
  • Email Receiver and ISP Relations – Choose an ESP to help you manage your relationship with ISPs on your behalf and let them handle email messages that get marked as non-legitimate.

Now, let’s talk about best practices you can deploy to prevent getting labeled as a spammer.

10 Best Practices for Email Marketing Deliverability

Tips to precent SPAM complaints Source - https://econsultancy.com/blog/62852-five-tips-for-reducing-email-spam-complaints

  1. Include Unsubscribe Links in Email Messages – To comply with Anti-Spam regulation, you need to include an Unsubscribe link in all email marketing messages.
  2. Fulfill Your Promises – When you collect email addresses, you make a promise to provide them with timely, targeted, and relevant content that will meet their needs or solve their problems.
  3. Consistent From Email Addresses – By using the same from email address when you send email marketing messages, your email subscribers will recognize your emails and mark them as SPAM.
  4. Consistent Subject Line Wording and Tone – When the wording and tone of your email subject lines are consistent, your email subscribers will recognize your email messages and not mistake it for SPAM.
  5. Honor Your Email Subscribers Requests – Let your email subscribers manage their email subscriptions. If they only want to receive product informational emails, don’t send them promotional emails.
  6. Use Ethical Methods to Build Your Email Subscriber Lists – Verify all new email addresses through a double opt-in email address collection methodology, or you can send Welcome Emails to evaluate the validity of your email addresses.
  7. Regularly Remove Inactive Email Addresses – Review my 4 Ways to Reactivate Inactive Email Subscribers to Increase Deliverability blog post to learn about removing inactive email addresses.
  8. Choose a Reputable Email Service Provider (ESP) – Pick an ESP that have tools to handle email bounce codes, feedback loops, connection optimization, manage complaints, authenticate the quality of your IP addresses, and help you manage your relationship with ISPs.
  9. Manage Your Complaint Rate – If your ESP warns you about a lot of complaints take them seriously. According to Marketo’s Blog 7 Best Practices for Email Deliverability, set up an email address — abuse@your-domain.com — that your ESP can use to contact you with any complaints. Register that email address with www.abuse.net, an anti-spam advocacy group, to show that you take email abuse seriously.
  10. Be Proactive about Monitoring your Reputation – Work with your ESP to create relationships with ISPs to maintain a positive reputation and change whatever it takes to improve your reputation to get your email messages delivered to your email subscribers inboxes.  Both Return Path and SenderBase offer reputation monitoring services.

Call to Action to Improve your Email Marketing Deliverability

  • Develop your Email Marketing Deliverability Best Practices to increase your delivery rates and boost your email marketing results
  • Work with your ESP to deploy your Email Marketing Deliverability Best Practices
  • Visit Next Weeks Email Marketing Discussion: Always being Relevant with Your Email Subscribers
  • Visit the next Digital Marketer’s blog about Social Media including the latest news and updates from social media networks

Sources

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SEO Weekly Topic: How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking

Use Social Media to Increase Your SEO Source: http://www.smartonlinepros.com/using-social-media-seo-campaign/
As Google tightens it’s reins on search and link building efforts, Digital Marketing Managers and SEO Manager are looking for alternative SEO tactics to increase it’s search ranking, you can let your Social Media do the SEO work for you.

Earlier today, Social Media Examiner published 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking by Patricia Redsicker.  This article has a lot of great tips on how to use Social Media to assist your SEO efforts that I cancelled my original idea for the Digital Marker’s SEO Weekly Discussion to share this article with you.

As you gear up your social media efforts to help your SEO strategies, just remember to participate in social media networks where your target audience is located. Don’t waste your time with social media networks where your target audience does not participate.

Having a hard time convincing your boss to try social media?

Discuss Stephanie Frasco‘s 6 Reasons Social Media Is Critical To Your SEO at Social Media Today

  • Link building was always about social proofing
  • Social media allows you to crowd source your link building
  • Being social is the fastest way to multiply your presence online
  • Social signals is a real think
  • Social links bring real traffic to your website
  • Google hates link building

Now, that you have convinced your boss to pursue social media to promote your brand, you can focus executing your social media efforts to boost your SEO with some best practices.

Patricia Redsicker Shares 5 Social Media Best Practices to Increase Your Search Ranking

  1. Publish High-Quality Content – As always content is key to drive your SEO and Social Media success. After producing content that meets your target audiences needs, you can post your content in a multiple areas of the web including your website, your social media networks, your newsletters, and your blog.
  2. Make Social Sharing Easy – Produce content that your target audience wants to share.  For example, I saw the 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking article, and I immediately wanted to share it with you.  As you produce content, you will have alter the content based on platform where the content is posted. Quick example, if you write a blog post, you can’t post the entire blog post on Twitter, but you can type the title of your blog post with a link to your blog.  With this example, you have basically the same content shared on two different platforms with the additional benefits of SEO finding the content.
  3. Boost Your Images and Profiles – We are a visual society, and visuals help us comprehend the written word.  Therefore, we need to use images.  First, save image files using your keywords. Next, when using images for your content, write an Alt Text tag that describes the image using your keywords for search engines.
  4. Don’t Forget Authorship Metadata (Google+) – Post your content to Google+ and indicate you are the author of your content.
  5. Measure Social Media Performance – As with SEO, it is critical to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Develop KPI’s and dashboards to demonstrate how your social media not only increased traffic to your site, but you should create reports showing how your social media helped increase your SEO search rank. Then, you need to develop reports how your social media and SEO efforts increased revenue.

While this blog post shows the importance of using social media to increase your search rank, take your time to read 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking and devise a plan on how to effectively use your social media to increase your search ranking.

Additional Resources on How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking:

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