Mon, 30 November 2015
How is your content marketing plan and strategy coming along for 2016? Are you ready to create and deliver valuable content that will inspire, connect and organically attack your ideal customer, audience, investors, stakeholders, and partners? Do you know what content you will be delivering on what month, week and day to inspire, empower, engage and activate the members of your online social communities? Are you ready to leverage content marketing to achieve your business and marketing goals and objectives? Are you ready to tap into the power of content marketing to generate more leads, earn trust with your ideal customer audience, establish thought leadership, connect with and foster relationships with influencers in your industry, and grow your business? Did you know: Only 30% of B2B marketers say their organizations are effective at content marketing. This is down from 38% last year. (Content Marketing Institute) We are thrilled to announce the availability of our 2016 content marketing editorial calendar template. The 189th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides a detailed tutorial to help you create your own content marketing editorial calendar for 2016. Step 1: Download our calendar here-> Content Editorial Calendar. Step 2: Listen to the 189th episode for step by step directions for how to use our content calendar template. Step 3: Subscribe to the entire series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Benefits of using a content editorial calendar: Helps you focus on the needs of your audience and ideal customer Prioritization of audience via our audience analysis worksheet Content marketing definition in a nutshell
Direct download: SZF_189_2016_Content_Calendar_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:11pm EDT |
Fri, 27 November 2015
Do you know what your ideal customer and audience wants from you? Do you know the perfect content that would help them solve their biggest problems and inspire them to connect with you and your brand immediately? That would be the perfect content marketing scenario wouldn't it? The scenario where your ideal customer visits your blog, website, or other social or digital platform and is provided with exactly what they want and need! Content marketing is an amazing way to build your brand awareness, foster community, establish thought leadership, generate leads and grow your business. Content can come in many forms such as text blogging, video blogging, audio and podcasts, visual marketing, infographics, live streaming mobile content and the list goes on. While it may be tempting to start testing every social network and content medium available, it's better to crawl, walk run and ensure you have a plan before wasting a ton of time, resource and money on content that your audience may not even like, read, watch, listen to or engage with. The first step in creating your content marketing, digital marketing and social marketing plan is to ensure that you know your audience. You need to know what your audience needs and wants from you. How can you help them solve their real problems? How can you offer a unique perspective and solution that stands out from the crowd of noise in your industry? A top goal for social and digital marketers should be to ensure their content is providing value for their ideal customer and audience. The better the content can inspire, connect with and engage the reader, viewer or listener, the higher the return on investment the content is going to provide. Check out the 188th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips and strategies to help you write for your ideal audience. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 10 ways to create content for your ideal customer and audience
Direct download: SZF_188_Write_For_Audience_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:33pm EDT |
Tue, 24 November 2015
The new always on, always connected, digital and social world provide amazing opportunities for smart digital brand marketers and business leaders to develop, test, and launch marketing programs, campaigns, products and services to market in far less time than days past. Gone are the days of waiting weeks and months to see how a multi-touch direct mail campaign performs to receive feedback on how well the program and message was received and acted upon by the target audience. Thanks to social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope and even native Twitter video, marketers can literally obtain real-time customer insight within seconds and begin using such data to optimize their digital and social marketing programs for the highest success and ROI possible. Social media is equivalent to one big fat focus group that never sleeps. There is not a time of day or night that you can't crawl up in your cozy chair with your laptop and learn what people think of you and your brand. It's there for the taking. Smart marketers know how to tap into the research and testing power of the social networks without becoming a spammer. Would you like to... know how your new message and brand platform resonates with your audience? Take a listen to the 187th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 8 ways you can leverage social media for test your own marketing with social media starting today! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 8 ways to use social media to test your own marketing and social media programs
Direct download: SZF_187_Social_Marketing_Research_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:04am EDT |
Fri, 20 November 2015
Social media presents tremendous opportunities for digital and social brand marketers to conduct market research. Long gone are the days of spending months and years in long drawn out focus groups, hiring expensive 3rd parties to gather people, rent expensive venues, pay for their insight, analyze the data for months and the list goes on. While there may be times that these longer research projects are required, most modern businesses of today don't need them as often as they may think they do. Social networks present all of us with focus groups that are alive and dynamic 24/7, 365 days of the year. Any time of day or night there are people online, ready to engage and likely give you feedback by way of their actions or conversations. It is important for marketers to focus on the needs of their customer as a top priority before developing any marketing program, campaign or piece of content marketing. Would you like to learn... what people think about your brand? Do you know the emotional driver behind the actions your audience and customers take online or offline? It is critical that brand leaders understand what is driving their audience and customers action. Why are they clicking? Why are they engaging? Why are they choosing to take a certain action? What is the business or personal driver inspiring them to take such an action? What was the emotion behind the specific driver of the action? Take a listen to the 186th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 5 easy ways you can leverage social media for customer and market research today. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 5 Easy ways to use social media for customer and market research
Direct download: SZF_186_Social_Market_Research_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:36pm EDT |
Tue, 17 November 2015
One of the most foundational elements in creating a social and digital marketing platform is building a platform that works when you are not working. Unfortunately too many marketers think they need to be the loudest brand on the social web to get attention. They focus on quantity versus quality. The truth is you want your audience to discover and find you in a natural and easy way. A goal for smart marketers should be to build a platform that helps you achieve defined and measurable business and marketing goals in the most efficient way and with the highest ROI possible. The platform should be constantly increasing brand awareness, inspiring people to connect with the brand, generating leads and even sales without the marketing and social media teams having to sit at the keyboard all day spamming links. The goal is not to spam the digital and social web with massive quantities of the same content every other brand in your industry is publishing, or to win the award for sending the most tweets on a daily basis. The goal is to work smarter, not just harder. Digital marketers must find a way to create unique, valuable content that is discoverable. You must find a way to create content that your ideal customer finds without you having to push it to them. You must find a way to create unique and personalized experiences that your customer, partners and audience will remember for a lifetime. Discoverable content is easy for the right people to find and engage with and share. It's content that is relevant to what they are searching for. Discoverable content that is relevant will give your reader that "oooh I like this" feeling after reading only the first paragraph. They should know they have landed on the right page, with the right content source and are about to read, hear or watch content that is going to help them solve their problems, achieve their business and life goals. Would you like to know how to... Optimize content for discovery
Direct download: SZF_185_DiscoverableContent_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:18am EDT |
Mon, 16 November 2015
People will not remember every word you say. They will not remember every tweet you write or the Facebook post you publish. They won't remember every visual image posted to Instagram. However, people will remember how you make them feel. When it comes to marketing, experience is everything. Smart brands know how to create personalized experiences that are memorable, meaningful and inspire the human on the other end to connect with the brand in a real and human way. The truth is, customer experience is your brand. You can spend days, weeks, months and years and hundreds of thousands of dollars crafting the perfect brand story, brand and message architecture and still miss connecting with your audience, customers and broader community in a personal and human way. You must realize it's not about you. It's about the people. It's not about being perfect. It's about being human. It's about creating human experiences that give other humans a glimpse into who you are, what you are and what you can and will do for them. Would you like to better inspire and connect with your audience, customers and online or offline communities? Would you like them to feel they know you and you know them? Take a listen to the 184th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 3 reasons why you should create personalized experiences for your audience and customers. You'll also learn 7 tips and strategies to help you start creating these unique and amazing experiences today. You don't have to have hundreds of thousand or a million dollar digital or social media marketing budget. Even if you are working for or own a startup or small, medium business you can learn from these examples. You need to embrace imperfect perfection and accept the fact you are human and so is your customer. Give them a feeling they will remember for life and maybe you will have them as a customer for life. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 3 Reasons why you should be creating personalized customer experiences today
Direct download: SZF_184_PersonalizeExperience_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:23pm EDT |
Thu, 12 November 2015
The holiday season is here. We're jumping smack dab into the middle of the time of year where digital and content marketers must balance keeping their family and own soul fed while at the same time ensure they are giving their audience, community and customers the content they need and expect from you. The truth is that the holidays are an amazing time to rise above the noise by providing real value. There are so many brands both big and small that fall to spammy sales tactics, pushing products and services, coupon codes and constant in your face promotion. Brands and marketing leaders that can focus on providing relevant, contextual content that inspires, connects and serves their audience will grab the mindshare, attention and heart of their readers, viewers, listeners and online communities. Maybe you are feeling overwhelmed and have no idea how to keep up your social presence, content marketing and overall brand during the holiday? You want to take time off but you don't want to do it so much that you lose the connection with your audience you have worked so hard to nurture this entire year. I believe wholeheartedly that we must take time to unplug. We need to disconnect from technology, social networks, mobile apps and connect with the people who are often the WHY we are connected to all of these devices in the first place! Take a listen to the 183rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips to help you not just survive the holiday season but leverage the holiday to inspire and connect with your audience in a human way! Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 10 tip to maximize every piece of content during the holiday
Direct download: SZF_183_Contentholidaysurvivial_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:00am EDT |
Thu, 5 November 2015
Do you have a dream so big it scares you? Is it a dream that keeps you up at night and zooming turbo all day, every day? Many entrepreneurs, business owners, business leaders and marketing leaders have dreams so big even some of the closest people in their life and business can't understand them. Many people struggle with getting people on board to join their journey. How do you get past the starting block to build the life and business of your dreams? How do you bring your dreams to fruition? The truth is you must start small but continue to build the dream. Most people have limited resources, time and budget. Very few people have millions of dollars sitting in a bank account ready to help them make their dreams come true. Dream it, plan it, do it, live it, love it! You can build your dream business and life. The only catch is that you must have plan to get there. You must be realistic. You must set goals. You must prioritize. You must learn to say no. Say no to the wrong thins so you can say yes to the right things! You can't spend the next year chasing shiny objects and implementing random acts of marketing and business and expect to be in a better place than you are today. Take a listen to the 182nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 7 tips for how to dream big and execute small for the win.
Direct download: SZF_182_ThinkBigExecuteSmall_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:20am EDT |
Tue, 3 November 2015
Social media is changing the game for events and conferences. It seems like just yesterday conversations were limited to the stage, break out sessions and show floors. Now event organizers have the opportunity to almost immediately ignite community, inspire, delight and entertain audiences like never before. You are serving an audience of audiences. Event conversations are now happening on every flavor of social network from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, to Snapchat. Attendees are live streaming what they see, hear and experience via live streaming on their mobile devices. They are using mobile apps such as Periscope, Meerkat to give their audience a real-time behind the scenes and front row view into exactly what they are experiencing. If you are a marketing or business leader planning an event in this ever changing social landscape, you better understand the social and digital landscape of today. There are tremendous opportunities to build community and increase overall business results and ROI if you integrate social media into your event with a well thought out, planned and organized approach. Event organizers and business leaders must understand the opportunities as well as the associated risks. What will you do if your hashtag gets spammed heavily? How will you curate attendee and user generated content? How will you organize your live stream video, audio, visual and other marketing assets to make it available pre, during and post show? How will you maximize use of all investments and the content that others are creating on your behalf? How will you handle wi-fi issues if too many attendees are live streaming? How will you handle intellectual property if people want to live stream your event and you prefer they don't? What is your plan B when something goes wrong with a social network? How can you maximize the conversations with hashtags? How will you maximize investment in paid speakers? How will you ensure maximum value for sponsors, partners, speakers and attendees? If you wait until the last minute to setup your Twitter account, choose a hashtag and jump on Periscope you are setting yourself up to fail. Marketers must educate themselves and truly understand both the art and science of inspiring and connecting with their audience. Even if you are brand new to social media, your audience and attendees are not. Take a listen to the 181st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast and learn 25 tips and strategies to increase ROI at events and conferences by integrating social media. Learn how to plan, how to align to business goals, build community and more. In person events are the perfect medium to fully embrace the power of social media and social business. Social media is really one big conversation. |