I think the term Content Marketing has definately become the latest buzzword of the last 6 months or so. Used and abused by digital marketers and consultants it is this season's "social media", "web2.0" or "information superhighway" and it will stay dominant until 'Semantic Web' or some other equally fancy term hits the digital mainstream soon enough.
Note: The only contender for it's crown of hype right now is 'big data'.
I think I've previously given the subject a fairly good coverage on this blog. I've written up a good explanation of what Content Marketing is & isn't, given examples of when it's crap, described how to optimise it and even gone into detail on how to measure it. However, when I also look back at posts on this blog from several years ago, I find I've covered the subject, but I've just not called it by that specific term.
From optimising press releases for social media in August 2010, through to considerations for making your content more portable in April 2008 (my, that does seem a long time ago).
So I'm going to make a bold statement.
I'm definately not getting into Content Marketing because it's now the latest and greatest thing to be into...
.... as it seems I've already been into Content Marketing for almost half a decade.
Showing posts with label social media press release. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media press release. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Friday, August 27, 2010
The digital PR toolkit
In recent posts I've provided my thoughts on the convergence of digital PR, Marketing and Conversion.
Post 1: Discussing how the roles now blur
Post 2: Covering how SEO is no longer just for marketing
Post 3: Showing the AIDA customer acquisition process
Now I've gone into a fair amount of detail about the process of customer acquisition that they all contribute to and the overlapping roles they play in this process. But now I'm going to cover the respective digital tools and methods that each role can use, based on the model that I created in my previous posts.
The first one up is digital PR and to illustrate this I've provided the diagram below with the simple key:
The things you can do on your target site are within the circle and the tools used off-site are logically outside it.
(Note: I've also tried to group these tools near to similar or relevant ones both on-site & off)
Off-site:
Post 1: Discussing how the roles now blur
Post 2: Covering how SEO is no longer just for marketing
Post 3: Showing the AIDA customer acquisition process
Now I've gone into a fair amount of detail about the process of customer acquisition that they all contribute to and the overlapping roles they play in this process. But now I'm going to cover the respective digital tools and methods that each role can use, based on the model that I created in my previous posts.
The first one up is digital PR and to illustrate this I've provided the diagram below with the simple key:
The things you can do on your target site are within the circle and the tools used off-site are logically outside it.
(Note: I've also tried to group these tools near to similar or relevant ones both on-site & off)
The respective digital PR tools that I believe you can use are:
On-site:
- Keyword targeted content
Are you producing content that whilst being readable also focused on specific keywords typed into search engines? - Blog/Editorial
Have you considered that writing a blog - with whatever name you give it - will also creates great content that user like to read - as well as for search engines - and that could deep link to interesting useful content around your site? - Analytics
If you don't know what works (gets more traffic, converts more users, etc.) then how are you going to do more of it? - Press & News Content
If you're not using this on your own site to highlight your own successes, then you should. If you don;t want to set up your own content managed press area on your site, then either create one using a blogging platform or even just take a relevant feed from your PR company's site. - Community
Providing forums or even just a place for users to comment on articles and blogs gives a sense of community to visitors. Rewarding frequent ones goes a step further. These user generated comments are not just great content to read and spider, they are great PR fodder.
- Link building
Encouraging sites to link to yours in their news items and articles (although try to avoid reciprocal links) - Social News & Social Bookmarking
Posting your Press Releases to Digg, Delicious, etc. is a way of getting your story to a wider audience - Email
Both one-to-one and more general email marketing techniques can be used to announce news to those who want this form of communication. - SEO
This speaks for itself and I've covered this already in a number of topics. But if your PR company doesn't already understand and use SEO techniques...... - Feeds & syndication
An RSS feed empowers those who want to pull this information and consume it (or re-publish it) in their own way, rather than via email or traditional means. - Social Media Press Release
Consider posting your Press Releases online, with other useful information such as: RSS feeds, links to previous relevant releases, imagery, audio & video, etc. - Blogger engagement
Look for them, understand them, communicate in a relevant manner and build up engagement with them. - Twitter
Make sure you are promoting your releases via this important medium. Also use it to build up a community of followers who you can ask things of (e.g. feedback). - Social Media monitoring and tracking
Listen in to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc and find out who is saying what. - Photo sharing
Use sites like Flickr.com to build up an online PR image library - Video sharing
Use sites like YouTube.com (although personally Vimeo.com is my choice) to build up an online collection of suitable video clips. - Facebook
Its pretty easy these days to build up a Facebook presence and grow a community. Its also quite easy to integrate Press Releases (potentially with comments allowed) and other content from different sources into this popular social media site. - Online surveys
This is a quick way to understand if your content is reaching it required audience and finding out what other information or data they would find useful.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
News Releases Matter!
What percentage of your press releases gets coverage today? Most press releases get no media coverage. This isn't suprising considering that Google News and Yahoo News between them have 50,000 Press Releases a month!
This is a shame as News Releases are often the best quality and most frequently updated content on a corporate site.
I recall David Meerman Scott, author of the book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" (which sits on my desk at a client's office), commenting in a recent podcast that
According to him studies show that a higher level of education you have, the less likely you are to click on adverts - therefore organic content such as your press releases becomes more important to a more intellectual audience.
As the Press Release also evolves as within the digital space, e.g. into the Social Media Press Release, its important to remember that quality still matters!
This is a shame as News Releases are often the best quality and most frequently updated content on a corporate site.
I recall David Meerman Scott, author of the book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" (which sits on my desk at a client's office), commenting in a recent podcast that
News Releases are still powerful and effective channel to reach the media
According to him studies show that a higher level of education you have, the less likely you are to click on adverts - therefore organic content such as your press releases becomes more important to a more intellectual audience.
As the Press Release also evolves as within the digital space, e.g. into the Social Media Press Release, its important to remember that quality still matters!
Monday, February 11, 2008
The hunter vs the fisherman - Part 1
For over a year the Social Media Press Release has been in existence and its been gaining adoption since.
For example WebitPR in the UK have released a video explaining all about it:
Dana Theus has covered her thoughts on this very well (so I will not duplicate them) and I think that its an important step forward in online PR.
However, just as this evolution provides greater 'tracebility' or control of the article as its copied through the blogsphere and across the wider web, what I feel is also needed is a similar way to pick up when its content is quoted or analysed (or regurgitated). When, by interpretation of the original, it becomes so altered at to be unrecognisable, how do we see continue to see and understand the impact it has on companies and brands?
What you then need is a different way to monitor what's going on. Something that accepts that control is lost and as Andy Sernovitz says in his blog
Just like a hunter trying to track down an animal that is faster (and prone to multiplication) than himself, what he needs is a net that is cast widely enough and then to wait, adopting the fisherman's trawling approach instead....
For example WebitPR in the UK have released a video explaining all about it:
Dana Theus has covered her thoughts on this very well (so I will not duplicate them) and I think that its an important step forward in online PR.
However, just as this evolution provides greater 'tracebility' or control of the article as its copied through the blogsphere and across the wider web, what I feel is also needed is a similar way to pick up when its content is quoted or analysed (or regurgitated). When, by interpretation of the original, it becomes so altered at to be unrecognisable, how do we see continue to see and understand the impact it has on companies and brands?
What you then need is a different way to monitor what's going on. Something that accepts that control is lost and as Andy Sernovitz says in his blog
When you open up to customer participation, your brand belongs to yourNow this traceability comes not from trying to chase after your content as its duplicated and published, but by waiting for it to come to you.
customers, not you.
Just like a hunter trying to track down an animal that is faster (and prone to multiplication) than himself, what he needs is a net that is cast widely enough and then to wait, adopting the fisherman's trawling approach instead....
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