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Social Media and Conversation Marketing –Writing for the web

Eoin Kennedy 24 April

©Elucidate 2010

Eoin Kennedy

• 18 years communications experience. • Current chair IIA SMWG. • Freelance consultant • Knudger.com & PledgUp.com • PRII, MII, UCD, H Dip. • www.Congregation.ie • Elucidate

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Mobiles off or silent Exercise

Discussion

Actions

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Agenda •  Introductions •  Trends •  Strategy •  Audience •  Channels •  Content Creation

–  Types content –  Stacking content –  Editorial calendar –  Content guidelines –  Curation/UGC

•  SEO •  Sharing content/Earned •  Measurement

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Trends

• Interruption Marketing Decline. • Inbound marketing. • Brand Journalism. • Paid for Visibility. • X5 Promotional Effort. • Ever Green Content/Repurposing. • Blurring of Own, Earned & Bought. • Content Marketing Cross posting. • Negative SEO and Guest Blogging. • Curation Works. • Social Proof Matters. • Increased automation. • Google authorship. • Findability, Engagement, Shareability.

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Inbound Marketing

“Establishing yourself as authority, offering useful advice over time, so you’re the first one they think of when ready to buy.”

Sticky Marketing Club

Hubspot.com

Why content marketing Not  about  selling   Helpful  &  Informa5ve   Happy  to  share  

Happy  to  endorse   Socially  validated   Tell  your  story  

Drive  higher  quality  traffic  

Leadership/Authority  posi<oning  

Rela<onships  built  on  trust.  

SEO  ranking   Builds  Loyalty   Word  of  mouth  

BeGer  Customer  understanding  

Creates  connec<ons   Engagement  

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Brand Journalism

• http://www.coca-colacompany.com • Lifestyle Magazine • Included branded content

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Repurposing Content

• http://www.inthecompanyofhuskies.com/blog/our-news/how-to-save-your-organic-reach-on-facebook/

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Content Marketing is Older than Advertising

Photo courtesy of jimduell(CC ShareALike)

Think real world

Storytelling

The  Boyhood  of  Raleigh.  Sir  John  EvereG  Millais  

Twitter Story Telling

Listening

Image:  prusamarke-ng.com  

Think Strategic

http://www.verticalmeasures.com

Research  &  comparison  

Purchase  

Hubspot.com

• Draw them

• Become them

Exercise 1 Post up your buyer personas?

Ideally a pencil picture and some data from:

• Background & Demographics • Goals & Challenges • Quote & Objections • Marketing

• (include groups and likes)

Hubspot.com

Facebook •  2.3 m Irish FB profiles •  1.7 m mobile •  280 friends average •  120k over last 6 months •  59% •  Like 79 average pages. •  70% Irish business. •  Monday •  T & Cs.

IPSOS MRBI

Facebook Analytics

Great ability to track users User trends; time of visit Demographics Weekly update of user activity on page

Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm

•   7%  reached  •   Alogorithm  

•   Promoted  post  

•   Nega<ve  Feedback  

Twitter

* Ipsos MRBI Ref: Eight Twenty Irish Independent

• 27%  • 160  tweets  • Wednesday  

• Poli<cs  &  Sport  

• 10-­‐11pm  

LinkedIn

•  700K + Irish LinkedIn Profiles •  23% •  Linked in growing x3 faster than FB •  Average user is 35 to 44 living in Dublin AB

social class •  Surface content in groups •  Use to grow Twitter

Google+

Flickr & Pix.ie & Pinterest

• Photosharing sites • Great for broadening • your digital footprint • Don’t tell. Show. • Great for user generated content which can be reintegrated into your website. Eg. Guinness Storehouse

YouTube

Second biggest search engine 1.3 Million Irish users in 2010 400 million views per month Think how you can make sticky video content, eg. Bacardi Ireland

Boards.ie

• 400k. • Threads & Forums. • Talk to. • Non Commercial. • Transparent.

Facebook, Foursquare & Location

• 1% Foursquare • Great scope for promotions • Reward regular customers • Users recommend according to location

SlideShare

•  PowerPoint Presentations. •  Add key components of release. •  Add video, music and photos. •  Tell the story. •  Share.

Recommendations

TripAdvisor & Yelp & Louder Voice Use your fans to tell their friends about how great you are. All about incentivising

Wikipedia

•  6th most visited. •  365 million readers •  22 million articles •  100,000 editors •  WikiProject Ireland •  Search Ranking = Key

Wikipedia

Blogs

Your own online presence Free software & hosting makes it

easy to set up and manage •  Wordpress •  Blogger •  Tumblr

Live Demo

http://eoinkennedy.ie/blog/wp-admin/

Great Irish Blogs

•  www.spiderworking.com •  Tips •  How to guides •  Lots of simple multimedia

•  www.razorsocial.com •  Tools expert • Guest blogging/mega group blogs •  Auxillary services

Great Irish Blogs

•  www.wholesome.ie •  Lidl advocate •  Book published

•  http://doneganlandscaping.com/blog/ •  Publishes actual work •  Evolved Podcast •  Avid twitter

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Blogging Tips

• 5 hr per post • Content length matters • More links, shares, ranks

• 750 words • Less but quality • Readable.

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Blogging Tips

• Tools • Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/

• Domain Authority • Moz http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

•  https://socialcrawlytics.com

• Keyword research • http://tools.seochat.com/tools/related-keywords-tool/

Exercise 2

What platforms work best for your customers?

What is your domain authority?

Find an associated influential blog you could guest post on?

Find the keywords for you sector and audience?

http://tools.seochat.com/tools/related-keywords-tool/

https://adwords.google.com

Content Brain Storming Ideas

• Read books. • Company/Customer Group Brainstorm. • Invest in self-development. • Question basic assumptions. • Take a contrarian view. • Create a story. • Interview others. • Social networking. • Keyword Analysis.

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Content Marketing Types Formats   Types  

Blog  Posts   Lists  

Guest  Post   How  to    

E-­‐books   Cura<on  

Email  NewsleGers   FAQs  

PowerPoint  Presenta<on   Data/Stats  

Podcasts   Excerpted  Content  

Standard  Videos   Newsjacks  

Micro-­‐videos  (Vine)   MegaGroups  Post  

Social  Media  Posts  

Live  Presenta<ons  

Webinars  

White  Papers  

Infographics  

Exercise 3

Name type content that matches consumers and ability.

10 ideas for things you could post about.

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Content Funnel

Pitch  =  idea  

Planned  =  date  

Assigned  =  who  

Dra`  without  Image  

Pending  review  

Final  Review  

Published  

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Content Calendar

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/how-to-build-a-content-calendar-plus-a-free-template-for-2014/

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/how-to-build-a-content-calendar-plus-a-free-template-for-2014/

Exercise 4

Produce an outline 12 month editorial calendar.

Present it.

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Web users scan, they don’t read

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How people read websites

Jakob Nielsen, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. Available from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html (19 March 2009)

Writing good content

1 Focused Keywords 2 Open strongly 3 Be lively and entertaining 4 Write well 5 KISS (Keep It Short and Sweet) 6 Think visually 7 Stay current 8 Be accurate 9 Make your content easy to navigate 10 Be paranoid about proof reading 11 Be obsessed with data

Pat Wootton, PromptProofing.com

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Content – Placement and Length

•  Place content in a prominent position

•  Large enough font size to be read easily

•  People prefer to click, rather than scroll

•  Keep pages to two screens/scrolls or less

•  Break content into subsections, and link – but don’t overlink

•  Align your content left!

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Keep a consistent style across your website

•  Page layout

•  Images

•  Navigation

•  Content

•  Tone/Voice

Consistent Style

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www.elucidate.ie  

•  Use headings that are descriptive, of 4-8 words

•  Keep word count short: –  8-20 words per sentence –  3-10 sentences per paragraph –  300-500 words in total

•  Provide 20 word introduction, if needed

•  Use bullets, paragraph breaks & •  sub-headings

•  Provide links to internal and external related content pages, especially at the end of an article

Rules of Thumb

Rutgers, Web Toolkit and Resources – Web Writing Tips. Available from http://toolkit.rutgers.edu/web_writing.shtml (19 March 2009)

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Make It Active

•  Avoid the passive tense

•  Consider the call to action of the website on all pages

•  What do you want potential customers to do?

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Make It Active

Rutgers, Web Toolkit and Resources – Web Writing Tips. Available from http://toolkit.rutgers.edu/web_writing.shtml (19 March 2009)

eMail us now

versus

Contact us by completing the online form available on this site.

Book your place

versus

Contact us by email to book your place now.

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Support Assertions With Facts

•  Just because you believe something is right, don’t assume that everyone else will

•  Make sure the facts are there

•  Use imagery to reinforce and entice

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•  Web is a linking medium: split content into small coherent pieces to avoid scrolling

•  Make headings brief, break up with subheadings

•  Use “calls to action”, where possible, to more information or take action

•  Short paragraphs: –  Newspaper: 60 words –  Novel: 110 –  Web: no more than 50

•  Know your audience (consumer and business) and engage with them

Some General Guidelines

Exercise 5

Pick one article.

Build Article Map/Break into 10 bullet points.

Identify keywords & images.

Write subject line and opening paragraph.

Curating Stories. Finding them

• Gathering  • Comment  &  share  

• Add  value  • Feedly.com  

Top 10 Free online tools

Spundge (www.spundge.com)

Curation Tool

•  Content Curation

•  Discover •  Curate •  Create

Curating Stories.

• Storify.com  

• Curate  the  story.  • Leverage  addi<onal  commentary.  

• Collate  press  clippings.  • Track  and  promote  related  topics.  

Crowdsourcing/UGC

Use your audience as a research group: •  Doritos Attack on Westminster •  Mountain Dew Dewmocracy

Forest Whittaker asked for the next flavour. The winner (called Voltage was unveiled in 2008.

• Sugru • Glenisk

Exercise 6

Use feedly.com and identify 5 pieces of content you could curate.

Identify where you could share and why.

Use Keywords:

Page title

URL

Image alt tags

Headings

Hyperlinks

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website content +

website code +

links to/from other sites

= position  

keyw

ord

s

Anchor  text  Search  engines  put  a  lot  of  weight  on  anchor  

text,  so  use  keyword  phrases  accordingly  

!  This is the text that is the clickable part of a link

!  You should avoid using ‘click here’ type text as

it is meaningless to search engines.

!  Anchor text is useful to both people and search

engines, as it tells them what the page they are

about to visit is about.

!  Consider using a use a call to action to

encourage users to click a link or button and

complete a task.    

Anchor text.

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Content - Make it Search-Friendly

•  Include your “have-to-have” keywords a number of times

•  Include your “good-to-have” keywords a smaller number of times

•  Avoid Flash

•  Always use good ALT tags for your images

Checking keywords.

www.wordle.net

Exercise 7

•  Insert paragraph or website site text into wordle.

•  Pick anchor text and url destination.

The Press Release 2.0’d

Giving new life to the press release.

More photo options.

More video options.

• 6  Sec  video  • Simple  opera<on  

• No  hos<ng  • Social  seeding  

• 15 Sec video • Cover frame

Amplifying Earned Media Content.

• Surfacing  content.  • Other  stories  from  the  web.  

• Publishers.  

• Ricochet  New  York  Times.  

• Ad  S<tched  to  content  link.  

Exercise 8

•  Identify where you could share your article.

• Could it be repurposed.

Measurement

• Offer uptake • New contact rate • New leads • Page views and traffic • Inbound links • Social media shares • Conversion/bounce rates • Email sign ups • Cost per acquisition/click

Exercise 9

•  What would you measure from your article?

Strategy

http://www.verticalmeasures.com

10 great monitoring tools

1. Google Analytics

2. Google Keyword Tool

3. Klout (www.klout.com)

4. Social Mention (www.socialmention.com)

Top 10 Free online tools

5. Topsy (www.topsy.com)

6. Boardreader (http://boardreader.com)

7. Postling (www.postling.com)

8. HyperAlerts (www.hyperalerts.no)

10 great monitoring tools

9. Bottlenose (www.bottlenose.com)

Blogger Relations

Cs of Blogger Relations • Concept • Context • Consumption • Credibility • Community • Conversation

Also remember: • Real people • Individual • Vocal • Connected • Busy • Voluntary • Enduring • Exclusive • Time consuming • Test influence • Cross platform

4000

Ref: Brian Solis