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Tag: content marketing

  • Social Media Strategy Class Recap

    I’ve written before about how we learn more when we teach something.  Last night’s Social Media Strategy Mapping class at General Assembly was no exception for me.  I always learn from those whom I am supposedly teaching, and that is a very good thing.

    Thanks to everyone who attended.  I counted 35 in the audience, which was far more than I had expected, but it shows clearly that, while it’s easy to jump into social media, it’s a bit more complicated to (a) market using social media (b) for your company, and (c) to get it right every time.

    One of the topics that came up was the recent #fail by BestBuy, among others by various airline brands.  The bigger the brand, the harder the social media fail. That’s why you need a strategy and a plan when you engage in social media marketing for your brand.  We went pretty deep last night into how to create your own social media strategy, but here are the highlights.

    1. Define your brand. Atlanta Tech Village is a solid example of how to be intentional about your culture, values, and, hence, your brand. When in doubt, remember the core values of your brand.
    2. Define your audience. You have to know who you’re talking to, who you want to talk to, and where they are engaging in social media.
    3. Evaluate your competition. It’s easier than ever to follow and keep tabs on your competitors these days. Do it. Find out what they’re doing that’s working/not working.
    4. Set realistic goals. You’re not going to get a million followers in the first 12 months, if ever, so set some goals by which you can measure progress.
    5. Map out your approach. That means write it down, and follow it, like a map. There are no shortcuts.
    6. Define success. How will you know if you’ve succeeded? That’s what setting goals is all about.
    7. Measure everything. You cannot change what you do not measure. Measure everything at the start, then you’ll slowly learn the metrics that you need to live by.

    It was a great class, and I look forward to digging deeper into Digital Marketing for the next 10 weeks. Will you join me?

  • Learning Instagram

    When I learned that Instagram had overtaken Twitter with more than 300M users, I though it might be time to try it out. I was in the early majority on Facebook and Twitter, but obviously I’m way behind the laggard curve on Instagram.  Here’s what I’ve learned since joining and participating on Instagram since January 1, 2015.

    • The UI is great. I’ve read a lot of other people’s opinions on the Instagram user experience, and they’re right. It’s simple, and very intuitive. Capture, edit, add text, share.
    • Not friendly with Twitter. But don’t share directly on Twitter. Obviously, the higher ups on one side or the other have decided they don’t want to play nice. When you share an image from the Instagram app to Twitter, you get a link and not an image. Bad form, and I’m guessing it’s on the Twitter side. Anyone know for sure?
    • Integration with Facebook is complete. Instagram is a startup unicorn success story (<2 years old, 10 employees, sold for $1Billion to Facebook), and Facebook has done well in integrating the service into its main UI. When you share an image to Facebook from the Instagram app, it looks great; however…
    • The image in Instagram has to be square, or else it’ll get cut off like mine did yesterday, when I shared an image and quote from MLK. The quote got cut off, as you can see below, on both Instagram and Facebook.
    • “Take and share pictures that nobody else would see otherwise” is the main calling of Instagram, so it’s not (or at least no longer) about selfies (thank. you. God!).  That’s a great mantra, and I hope they continue to preach it.
    • Instagram breaks their own “Best Practices”. I teach classes on Digital Marketing for General Assembly’s Atlanta location (in fact I’m leading “Social Media Strategy” tonight!). Instagram is now a big part of the Digital Marketing strategy for any business. One of the best practices is to use less than 200 characters of text with any image.  Follow Instagram on Instagram, and you’ll quickly find out that they don’t abide by that rule.
    • You can’t share links. This one was the biggest surprise for me, but now I get it. Instagram wants the image to be the destination, not the bright shiny object that takes you someplace else. You can tag users (like @kevinrsandlin) and use Twitter-like hashtags, but not URLs to other sites.

    I avoided Instagram for a long time because I figured it was just selfie-central, but that’s not the case (or maybe I just don’t follow any selfie-kings).  It may have been like that early on, but because the crew at Instagram has done a really good job eating their own dog food and teaching their users how to use the medium very well. It’s a great place to share and see great images of life.

  • 6 benefits of outsourcing your content marketing

    Lots of people who are way smarter than me have written about why you must blog in this age of digital communication and social sharing.  I aggregated hundreds of reasons that you should blog in this post.  So you know you should blog, and you know why you should blog, but you still are not able to get it done.

    Here are the main reasons that startups and small businesses alike don’t blog, in no particular order:

    • Not enough time
    • You’re not good at writing
    • “We don’t have enough content“
    • No resources
    • Not worth a dedicated resource
    • Budget

    OK, all of those are legit.  It’s very easy to push the idea of maintaining an active blog down the priority list, but you really don’t have to.  You, as a (or the) leader in your startup or small business, are the best at telling your story, so it really is on you to find a way to get it done.  Because of all the reasons noted above (which ones are yours?), it may be that your best bet is to outsource your blog. Here are six benefits of outsourcing your content marketing.

    • Focused resource – it’s our job to create and maintain your blog on your schedule. You’re our customer, and we’re focused on you.
    • Excellent writing – we write for a living!
    • Good use of time – You don’t have time to blog, but you know you really need to, so this 30 minutes each week is a very good use of your time.
    • Dedicated PT resource – No, you can’t hire a full time resource to maintain your marketing content, but you can hire a part time resource that is dedicated to and focused on creating the best content your audience can consume.
    • Helps you tell, hear, and see your story – As I mentioned above, you’re the best at telling your story. That’s what we’ll do each week: you’ll tell a different part of your story, and we’ll create fresh new reusable content from that time together.
    • Gets it done – We’ll set a calendar, and get it done, period.  It’s off your plate.
    Johnson Cook recommends that you outsource everything possible.  An active, goal-oriented blog that serves your business needs is one of the most important parts of your digital marketing strategy, and it’s also one of the things you can outsource.

  • Your college degree is worthless!

    That’s what retired talk show host Neal Boortz told me this morning (on the radio). Specifically, he said my degree in English is equivalent to one of those “BlahBlahBlah Studies” degrees. Ouch. But it made me think of two things, the first of which is the subject of this post. Follow up tomorrow.

    What learning is important in today’s digital economy?  Hint on tomorrow’s post: it’s digital expertise, in various forms.  But for today, my English degree has never served me better than it does right now.  Think about it. You can communicate like this:

    sum ppl thnk they cn alwys use txt 2 tlk 2 any1 lol

    Or you can communicate in language that anyone – not just my 13 year old daughter – can understand. There’s nothing wrong with texting, so please don’t get me wrong. I’m so very much in agreement with Jeff Hilimire that voice mail should die a rapid death. However, whether you’re a back end Java developer or a social marketer or the leader of your company, the one thing that everyone has to be able to do is communicate in writing.

    • How many emails do you send every day?
    • How many times do you tweet each day?
    • How many times do you update a project status in Google Docs, MS Project, or Basecamp?
    • How often do you update your startup’s investors and advisors?
    • What do you write on your Instagram posts?
    • Do you run your company’s blog?
    • Do you respond to and engage with your customers on social media?

    Every one of these – and this is just scratching the surface – instances requires good communication skills.  I majored in English because I intended to go to law school. Didn’t work out that way (I went to B-School instead), but my ability to write is even more valuable today than it was when I was writing and editing the first edition of the CWNA Study Guide.

    What did you learn in college that you’re actually still using today?

  • Atlanta’s Tech Startup Blogs

    Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of Atlanta Tech Startup Blogs in alpha order.  Raise your hand if you’re not here.  Seriously, if you don’t see your favorite Atlanta Tech & Startup Blog listed, please tell me.  I’m personally blown away by the sheer number if high quality blogs from Atlanta. Have you read all these?  Wow.  There are only 49 here.  I bet there are well over 100.

    Whether you are or are not on this list, please keep in mind the following simple basics of blogging / content marketing:

    1. Make sure your blog has a valid RSS / Atom feed.  About 1/3 of these don’t.
    2. Make sure your blog has a decent fav icon. More than half of these don’t.
    3. It’s a good idea to use an image in each blog post. WP calls these “featured image”. Blogger calls them a thumbnail and displays the first image (if you have more than one) as the thumbnail image in your RSS feed.

    On the right is my initial categorization: either “About Startups” or “From a Startup”.  I may or may not categorize these more specifically.  What do you think?

    Source URL Startup
    Stephen Fleming academicvc.com About
    AcuityCFO acuitycfo.com/blog/ From
    Allen Nance allennance.com About
    Jon Birdsong atlantastartupcommunity.wordpress.com/ About
    Atlanta Tech Village atlantatechvillage.com/buzz About
    Jeff Hilimire JeffHilimire.com About
    ARPR arpr.co/blog From
    Marketing Eye marketingeyeatlanta.com/blog.html From
    CallRail callrail.com/blog/ From
    Scott Henderson causeshift.com/connected-awesomeness/ About
    CheckAction checkaction.com/blog From
    Cooleaf blog.cooleaf.com/ From
    Synapp.io datavalidation.com/blog/ From
    David Cummings davidcummings.org About
    Digital Assent digitalassent.com/blog/ From
    Dragon Army blog.dragonarmy.com/ From
    Flashissue flashissue.com/blog/ From
    Lance Weatherby blog.weatherby.net/ About
    friendly human friendlyhuman.com/blog/ From
    Paul Freet getoutofthebuilding.com/ About
    Hypepotamus hypepotamus.com/ About
    Kyle Van Pelt inceptionselling.com/ About
    John Saddington john.do/ About
    Johnson Cook JohnsonCook.com About
    Kevin Sandlin kevinsandlin.com About
    Kevy kevy.com/resources/blog/ From
    Kyle Porter kylegport.com/ About
    lindsay trinkle lindsaytrinkle.com/ About
    MailChimp blog.mailchimp.com/ From
    Michael Tavani https://medium.com/@tavani About
    Mike Marian MikeMarian.com About
    John Melanakos notonlyluck.com/ About
    Patientco patientco.com/category/blog/ From
    PerfectPost blog.perfectpost.net/ From
    Pindrop Security pindropsecurity.com/pindrop-security-blog/ From
    QASymphony qasymphony.com/blog/ From
    Rigor rigor.com/blog From
    RippleIT rippleit.com/blog/ From
    Rivalry rivalry.com/blog/ From
    Roam meetatroam.com/blog/ About
    SalesLoft blog.salesloft.com/blog/ From
    ScoutMob scoutmob.tumblr.com/ From
    SherpaDesk sherpadesk.com/blog/ From
    Everett Steele daily.everettsteele.com/ About
    The Iron Yard blog.theironyard.com/ From
    InsightPool insightpool.com/blog/ From
    Venture Atlanta ventureatlanta.org/category/blog/ About
    Voxa voxa.com/blog From
    We Get Around we-get-around.com/wegetaround-atlanta-our-blog/ From