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• 15 Easy Fixes to B2B Blogs
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:10 am on January 16, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blog Marketing (201), Blogs, WOM B2B (47), WOM How-to (575)

  It’s one thing to start a B2B blog. The work really begins when creating and promoting the content. Done correctly, a blog can generate a lot of leads. Consider this:

  

  Hubspot recently released an eBook that offers easy fixes to common blog problems. Among their tips were:

  1. Too Much Promotion – You like leads, but your reader wants to learn. Post content that shows your expertise. People like to hire experts, not relentless self-promoters.

  2. Publishing Infrequently/Inconsistently – Pick a schedule and stick to it. People expect a regular frequency for blogs. You don’t have to post every day. Just stay on top of it.

  

  3. Failing to Cross Promote – If you have a blog, you probably have a Facebook page and Twitter account. Share your new posts to cross pollinate your audiences. It will strengthen engagement and reduce the amount of time spent on generating content.

  Download the full eBook from HubSpot

  

  

   

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• RSS vs. Social Lens
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:47 am on November 9, 2011 | 1 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blogs, WOM and Social Networks (683), WOM Trends (718)

  There really is no shortage of content. Online media has reached a rather overwhelming point. RSS readers, once one of the most efficient ways to find the content you want, have started to fall out of favor. The cited post by Bob Troia, Co-founder and CEO of Affinitive, details why he hasn’t used an RSS in over a year.

  The culprits were all his connections. Through Facebook, LinkedIn and other social platforms, content is curated. He’s still going to many of the sites he used to, just not reading every post or article.

  Research shows that he’s not alone. Yahoo! Research found that 50% of consumed URLs originate from 20K “elite” users on Twitter. These users range from pop stars to news media, but each acts as a powerful content filter for their individual communities.

  Key Takeaway: RSS isn’t dead, but the social lens is growing. Finding how you can get your content shared is becoming much more important than having it followed.

  Read more about the social lens at Social Media Playground, Affinitive’s blog

  Affinitive is a WOMMA member.

  

  

   

• Gawker Gets a Paid Pitch
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 8:39 am on October 28, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blogs, FTC Guidelines (72), WOM Ethics (134)

  Big online publications like Gawker, The Huffington Post, and Technorati employ writers – no surprise there. But since these sites draw quite a bit of traffic, they also are coveted places for brands to be. Enter the PR pitch.

  PR and journalism have had a long standing relationship that occasionally flirts with questionable ethics. The basic and stalwart rule is that pay-to-play arrangements don’t fly. Recently, Hamilton Nolan, a writer at Gawker, got pitched by a company called 43a to insert links into his articles. These links would lead to 43a’s supposed* clients.

  Hamilton, out of curiosity, engaged the 43a representative to understand more about how the company operated. He also published all the emails he received from 43a. Here’s the quick and dirty procedure:

  1. The writer links to a company’s website in an article.

  2. If the editor doesn’t cut the link, 43a pays the writer. In this case, they offered $175 per link.

  3. Everybody acts like nothing happened.

  This practice is misleading because at no point was disclosure mentioned. At WOMMA, one of our goals is to ensure clear and honest disclosure of brand relationships between bloggers and brands. Read more about our Ethics Code and other ethical resources.

  Read more about the 43a story at Gawker

  *A late update on the original post had responses from several of the companies named as clients that refuted 43a’s claim, which is why they weren’t named in this write-up.

  

  

   

• Content Supply Chain Advice from ComBlu
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:18 am on August 10, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blog Marketing (201), Blogs, Content Creation (10), Content Marketing (38)

  ComBlu recently released an eBook for brands struggling with the realities of now being a publisher. Anyone who works in content management knows that creation and publication are just the first steps.

  The 33 page book is a bit hard to summarize in this format (that being one of the difficulties of content production.) But the overall theme of the book focuses on producing relevant, sharable and effective content that drives sales. The graphic below serves as a good visualization.

  

  Key Takeaway: Notice how the process loops after Measurement? Content production is never a static task. Constant evaluation is imperative to success.

  Download the full eBook at ComBlu

  

  

   

• 6 Steps to Focus your Social Media
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 9:25 am on July 22, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blogs, Community Management (123), WOM and Social Networks (683), WOM How-to (575)

  Chris Giovagnoni, the person behind Compassion International’s blog 3^rd place winner in Social Fresh Top Corporate Blog Awards, wrote a great post that outlined 6 ways to focus your social media.

  1. Don’t worry about the other guys – Knowing your competition is important, but placing too much focus on them could leave you creatively narrow-minded.

  2. Give’em what they want – Before you post, think “Is this valuable to the community?” To be honest, your latest press release may not be. Always add value.

  3. Get some old school social skills – Social media involves lots of interaction. Seems obvious, but it’s often forgotten. Tact, intuition and understanding go a lot further than knowing all the fancy tools and toys out there.

  Read Chris’ other 3 steps at Social Fresh

  

  

   

• 3 Reasons Why Relevant Content Matters
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 9:59 am on July 15, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blog Marketing (201), Blogs, Content Creation (10), Content Marketing (38), WOM How-to (575)

  Content draws accolades day in and day out. But if your brand’s content isn’t relevant to the reader, it’s a wasted effort.

  “The Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that individuals need to hear/read/see things three to five times before they actually believe it.” –Michael Brito

  Your all of your content needs to drive to a your goals. In the cited article, Michael Brito offers three reasons why relevant content is critical:

  1. Relevant content adds to the conversation – First find the naturally occurring conversation that correlates to your goals and then figure out a way for your content to add to that conversation.

  2. Relevant content positions the brand as a trusted advisor - As more people see your work and how it elevates the community, more will be driven to your brand.

  3. Relevant content is authentic but more importantly, believable – Your customer has their guards up against charlatans. If your content isn’t relevant, you’ll be ignored.

  Read the in depth article at Social Media Explorer

  

  

   

• The Content Grid v2
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:16 am on June 29, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blog Marketing (201), Blogs, Content Marketing (38), Microblogging (76), Research (498), WOM How-to (575)

  If I had a nickel for every time I heard that content is king, I’d be knee-deep. Guidance on what content connects with which consumers in what place has been lacking.

  The folks over at the Content Marketing Institute recently released their second version of The Content Grid.

  

  You’ll see that it is organized by the stage of knowledge and interest a potential customer has against their closeness to purchase.

  How to use this: Take an inventory of what you are currently doing. Compare it to the chart and see if you are missing any content opportunities.

  See the full chart and read more at the Content Marketing Institute and Eloqua

  

  

   

• Your Review is Awaiting Copy-Edits
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:02 am on June 13, 2011 | 2 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blogs, Customer Care (57), Online Retail (2), WOM Ethics (134)

  Some online retailers have been copy-editing comments on their sites based on recent research that found well-written reviews sell more products. Oddly enough, it doesn’t matter whether the review is positive or negative.

  But is a review authentic if the copy has been edited to say “love” instead of “luv?” The idea is the same, but something is lost. The revelation of this practice has won over some and angered others.

  We want to know your opinion. Should brands clean up reviews?

  Please comment below. (Grammatical errors will go unedited.)

  

  

   

• A Blog You Should Follow
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 9:26 am on June 10, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blogs, Creative WOM Ideas (244)

  Andy Sernovitz, one of WOMMA’s founders and head of GasPedal, writes a pretty fantastic blog, Damn I Wish I’d Thought of That!. I point it out because his posts don’t really fit the WOMMA Word format, but the content certainly does.

  Some recent posts:

  Focus on the first 10 minutes

  The secret to finding original blog topics

  Referrals by the dozen

  GasPedal is a WOMMA governing member.

  

  

   

• Inbound Marketing: What’s the Hold Up?
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 9:38 am on June 1, 2011 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Blog Marketing (201), Blogs, Inbound Marketing (4), WOM and Small Business (35)

  HubSpot’s “2011 State of Inbound Marketing Report” found that small businesses are adopting inbound techniques much faster than big businesses.

  

  This is despite the overwhelming growth of the importance of leads generated through inbound techniques.

  

  The sluggishness of many larger businesses may be to blame. But it could also have to do with the fact that many traditional lead generation techniques still work.

  This won’t work forever though. SEO is critical to any company because their webpage is, in most cases, the first impression. Blogs and social media factor into SEO. They are digital embassies that lead to your website, your main digital hub.

  Read more about the report at ClickZ