The term “viral” is on everyone’s lips these days. Media outlets large and small are increasingly devoting time to covering the latest viral video or tweet. But what exactly is viral content? Does viral content tend to have certain characteristics that lend to its success? Why do we love it?  Simply put, what makes content go viral?

IS IT VIRAL?

By way of a social media marketing 101 working definition, content goes viral if it spreads very fast on the Internet, just like a flu virus would in real life. The content itself can be an article, a blog, a picture, or a video, but it must be very funny, controversial or thought-provoking so that people feel an urge to talk about it or share it on social media.

Marketers are always trying to create campaigns that go viral. Hubspot social media scientist Dan Zarella defines a viral marketing campaign as “any online content created with the intent to ‘go viral.’ This includes non-interactive media like videos, podcasts, articles or blog posts, as well as interactive content like tools, web-based games or ARGs (alternate reality games).”

IT’S ALIVE!

Viral content has three characteristics that lend to its success. Most obviously, people need to find the content exceptional for whatever reason. It needs to become a meme. First introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. Memes are the cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures much like a virus does.

Second, in order for content to spread quickly to a broad audience, it needs to appeal to market mavens or influencers with high social networking potential (SNP). Finally, viral content must be easily shared. This is where social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are ideal transmitters of viral content. Viral content should also engage viewers by allowing them to comment, share and get involved. The more engaging and shareable content is, the more likely it is to go viral.

WHY WE LOVE IT

According to an odlie but goodie infographic from Mashable, successful viral content displays one or more of the following characteristics:

• It’s Hilarious
• It’s unbelievable-makes our collective jaw drop
• It provokes an emotional response- positive or negative emotion
• It agrees with our worldview
• It’s thought Provoking
• It’s taboo-not covered by mainstream media
• It’s dramatic-makes for good gossip

Most online content does not go viral. Viral content is unique and rare. It is a living meme, tapping into the cultural Zeitgeist in a way other content just doesn’t.

What do you think makes content go viral? Share your thoughts!

Follow @chrshorton

Follow @SyneCoreTech

The ever-changing fortunes of daily deal site Groupon are reminiscent of the dramatic verve found in your favorite Rocky movie (come on, everybody has one). On November of 2011, Groupon’s stock was over $26; a year later it had lost 90% of its value, closing on November 13^th, 2012 at $2.63. Now it’s back around the $9 mark - still way down, but by no means out. To extend the Rocky analogy, one could liken the Groupon of November of 2012 to the battered fighter bleeding out on the mat just before the legendary comeback music kicks in, whereas the Groupon of today sees the bedraggled Rocky back on his feet, doggedly pummeling his incredulous opponent as the crowd stares in disbelief. 

Down but Not Out

Groupon’s initial demise was brought on by a combination of factors, including heightened competition in the local couponing/daily deals space from Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare (among others), coupled with the rapid consumer adoption of mobile along with some significant management issues. In May of 2012, with the foundations of his erstwhile daily deals empire crumbling around him, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason tried to rally the troops by announcing his vision to re-shape the company into a one-stop marketing solution for local merchants, or as he put it, “the operating system for local commerce.” I must admit, I was among those pooh-poohing the idea at the time, pointing out that Mason’s grand new vision did not really mesh with the company’s existing reality. Convinced of the soundness of my analysis, I smugly went on to write Groupon’s obit before the company had issued its last gasp.

Looks like I was wrong.

Groupon has been working hard over the last year to fulfill Mason’s pledge to become a one-stop marketing solution for local merchants, focusing on the two areas the majority of small businesses care about: lowering operational costs and increasing sales. Enter Groupon Reserve and Groupon Breadcrumb.

Reserve

In September of 2012, Groupon purchased Savored.com, a New York reservations start-up that had partnered with over 1,000 upscale NY restaurants to offer users significant discounts on their final bill for making online reservations in advance.

Leveraging the Savored.com platform, the company launched Groupon Reserve at the beginning of July, initially focusing on 600 upscale restaurants in 10 major US markets. According to a July 1^stpress release, though, the company has bigger plans for Reserve:

In the future, Reserve will also feature premium deals and experiences from top beauty, product, travel and entertainment brands, as well as similar reservations capabilities for spas, salons and hotels.

Groupon’s new CEO Eric Lefkofsky describes Reserve as “…an important step in our journey to become the leading marketplace for online deals, where consumers can come to Groupon and discover great businesses at unbeatable prices.”

According to Business Wire, Groupon plans on rolling out Reserve to the company’s existing iPhone app on July 30^th. The company also plans on rolling out Reserve to Android devices and the iPad in as well as launch Reserve in more cities in the United States and key international markets at some point in the (presumably) near future.

Breadcrumb

In May of 2013, Groupon relaunched Breadcrumb POS, its free iPad POS (point-of-sale) app for merchants. The product’s blog characterizes Breadcrumb as free, easy to use, and reliable – three things merchants are really looking for in a payments solution. Through its Breadcrumb Payments service, Groupon has set transaction fees as low as 1.8% plus 15 cents per-transaction, which is significantly lower than the 2.75%-per-swipe fee for Square (although Square gives merchants the option of paying a flat $275 monthly fee instead of giving the company a cut of every transaction).

In addition, Breadcrumb POS offers merchants a low price guarantee, pledging to “beat any comparable plan on credit card transaction fees.” This is smart, considering that transaction fees are a huge pain point for many merchants. To augment the user experience and insure reliability, the latest version of Breadcrumb POS also comes with customizable templates fit to specific business verticals, as well as offline payment functionality.

Groupon Redux

Businesses and consumers have two things in common: both are looking for convenience and cost-savings. To the extent Groupon can leverage new initiatives like Reserve and Breadcrumb to facilitate a win-win for businesses and end consumers alike, the company will find success once again. Once more, by building up customer loyalty on both the buyer and seller side of the transaction equation, Groupon opens up limitless possibilities for future expansion. 

Like Rocky, Groupon is down but not out. As the company endeavors to make an improbable comeback, let’s hope it follows the Italian Stallion’s example of confronting all challenges with the eye of the tiger.

--Image courtesy of VCAN.

Follow @chrshorton

Follow @SyneCoreTech

Nobody likes a broken record, but what if that record was playing music so good that you actually didn’t mind the repetition all that much – like Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde:

or Mumford’s Sigh No More:

T Swift’s Red:

(ok, I’m kind of kidding on that last one… and kind of not…)? And what if that broken record was spewing really wonderful news for marketers, like how video rules (have your heard that before?) and is the next big thing in digital advertising? You wouldn’t mind hearing more on that would you?

Well, according to data from the newly released Digital Video Roundup put out by eMarketer, video is the fastest growing of any digital ad format (Umm, YAY). Here are a few key stats from the survey:

Consumers are Watching Video

• This year, 74.4 million mobile users will watch video content on their phones, up 16.9% since 2012.

• By 2017, eMarketer estimates, about 45% of all mobile phone users will watch video on their devices.
• 182.5 million US consumers will watch video content online at least monthly this year, equivalent to 57.7% of the population or 75% of all internet users.

Marketers Oblige; Shell Out Lots of Dough

Given the popularity of digital video among consumers, it’s no wonder marketers are gravitating toward it. The Roundup cites a June 2013 survey conducted by AOL showing that almost three quarters of marketing professionals plan to increase their spending on branded video content or video ads in the next year.

The AOL survey also revealed marketers’ growing preference for digital video ads over TV ads in two key areas: brand awareness and engagement. Nearly half of marketers surveyed (47%) thought digital video ads were more effective at fostering brand awareness than TV ads, compared to less than a third (31%) who thought they were less effective. In terms of driving engagement, the majority (58%) of marketers regard digital video ads as more effective than TV ads. A small number (15%) felt they are less effective. When it comes to video vs. display ads, display is down and out: 9 out of 10 execs thought online video ads had equal or greater impact than display ads.

By 2017, video will account for nearly 15% of all digital ad spending. US advertisers will spend $4.1 billion on digital video ads in 2013. While this is only 9.7% of all digital ad spending, it’s the single fastest-growing format throughout eMarketer’s forecast period. In the coming years, digital video ad spending is expected to more than double, reaching $9.1 billion by 2017.

What is the biggest factor in the success of digital video advertising? According to the marketers in the AOL survey, the ability to quantitatively micro target specific audiences and then measure results. In fact, 73% of survey respondents said that better targeting was the biggest determinant in how much money to invest in digital video advertising; 67% cited better measurement.

The concrete data that accompanies digital advertising allows the big guys and gals pulling out the check books to get a better bang for their buck. Very appealing, don’t you think?

Video Loves Social

In part, the power of digital video lies in social sharing, or “social video.” A December 2012 Netbase study found that video sharing was the 2^nd most popular online activity of US Internet users in the key Millennial and Baby Boomer demographics, rating just behind social networking. People share what they love, and the social platforms offer a prime arena to obsessively share that weird cat video or the Dove video that made you cry.

You can be sure that the major social networks know that video is not only here to stay but is fundamentally changing the concept of the thirty-second spot during the latest episode of whatever-hot-new-primetime-drama of your choosing. And that means big bucks for them in the form of video ad revenues.

Facebook

Rumors around the Facebook mill have been swirling. We know Facebook video ads are coming; the only question only is when. Facebook’s audience size, which it proudly proclaims to media buyers as “the equivalent to three Super Bowls happening every day (roughly 300 million people per day),” challenges TV’s still large audience. According to Business Insider sources, the 15-sec advertisement rollout to the Newsfeed won’t happen until Q3 or Q4, even 2014 according to some. Either way, I’ll be anxious to see how quickly TV ad spending comes toppling down.

Instagram

Of course there’s Instagram video, or Instavideo. Yes, we all did cartwheels and backflips when Instagram announced its new video feature back in June. After we landed back on Earth and got our heads straightened out, we marketers immediately got to thinking how we could use this to promote our selves (psh, typical). While the 15-sec clips certainly aren’t rivaling the big time ad dollars, the new feature offers yet another way for marketers to capitalize on the consumers’ growing affection for video. But please brands, please make sure that we stay true to the sepia-toned goodness that Instagram has to offer and don’t pump primary-colored, stock reel content into my feed (I’m looking at you Carnival Cruise Lines).

Twitter

Twitter is opting for a more subtle approach to video advertising with “Twitter Amplify,” taking the “I’ll be your best friend approach,” with the networks, complementing TV ads with tracking and pushing brands’ social reach. However, both my friends at TechCrunch and I are skeptical about how long this friendliness will last.

LinkedIn/Google

LinkedIn isn’t quite threatening the likes of TV video advertising, but it definitely threw its hat into the ring this year with video advertisements for brands.

Google AdWords for video currently runs ads on YouTube as part of the TrueView family, which only requires payment for the amount of views the video gets. Again, with the growth of online video consumption, this is a much better option for brands.

The Takeaway

The research is clearly showing that consumers are integrating video more fully into their everyday lives, though they’re not necessarily sitting on their couches in their living rooms to fulfill this need. Increasingly, they’re watching video on tablets and mobile devices, anywhere and everywhere. If your brand is really interested in connecting with these consumers, you may want to experiment with digital video advertising.

This does not mean video should be treated as a solo initiative. As with all marketing in the Digital Age, you want to integrate video advertising with other existing social media strategies; just remember to use a consistent voice and message across all digital channels.

A final note to brands and marketers: don’t let the prospect of yet another digital medium to master send you cowering in a corner with a pad of paper and a pen crying for simpler times. No, no. Instead, see video advertising for what it really is - a precision weapon that allows you to efficiently navigate the online clutter to reach your target audience with pinpoint accuracy. Or, alternatively, it’s a way to blow tons of your client’s dough without posting any results.

I kid you, I’m a kidder…

Follow @alyssaceline33
Follow @SyneCoreTech

Sharing is caring, they say, but for online marketers creating content it’s absolutely essential. Sharing, or syndication, is an art form in itself, which is why we’ve assembled some of the best tips on how and where to post links to other websites. 

1. Make syndication part of your publishing routine

It’s quite one thing to produce great marketing content – blog articles, ebooks, webinar recordings, and so on – but if you’re not telling people about it, it’s all for nothing.

Create a checklist of syndication outlets, the most obvious being social media. Write your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages under your blog article draft, within the Word, Pages or Google Docs document you’re working on. This makes sharing after you upload your article that much quicker. 

2. Set up social media profiles, sharing buttons and use a management platform 

Create Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn business pages or profiles. You can also look into Google+, Pinterest and other networks growing in popularity.

Make sure your content platform includes social media sharing buttons. This will make things quicker for you, and also encourage visitors to do a little syndication for you. The popular blogging platform Wordpress – if you're using it – has many plugins that will add share buttons, the most popular of which is ShareThis. 

Use a social media management tool like HootSuite or TweetDeck to administer all your accounts in one place, and do useful things like automatic URL shortening and scheduling. No more hopping between multiple tabs, cut and pasting links between windows.

3. Distinguish between community management and syndication 

A community manager maintains a social media presence, including posting updates, interesting articles and engaging in discussions with followers.

Syndication is purely the task of sharing links to your content on any other website, including, but not limited, to social media.

You can of course task your community manager with syndication, but we find it’s more efficient for the person who uploads the article (i.e. publishes it) to post links to external websites as part of their routine (see Point 1).

4. Schedule your syndication in advance

This works particularly well on Twitter. Use TweetDeck or HootSuite (see Point 2) to schedule tweets with links to your article, to be sent out periodically over the next few weeks or even months depending on how often you want to remind people about your content.

Always make sure these tweets are unique – there’s nothing worse than repetitive, robot-like automated messages.

Facebook and LinkedIn are slightly different, because while you can alter the wording, scheduling an update with a different image might be problematic. We tend to only syndicate to Facebook once.

If you have something newsworthy to blog about, why not create a media release? Distribute it on popular newswires like PR Newswire, PRWeb and PRLog. You may need to pay to use these services, but there are obvious benefits in media attention, as well as positive search engine effects. 

6. Guest blog, but don’t duplicate 

Guest blogging is the big thing right now, and is essentially when you write content for another website and vice versa. The benefit to your business is an inbound link to your website, usually from the bio in your guest post – great for off-page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but only if the hosting website has good Google authority.

If your company hosts a guest post on its website, the benefit is additional indexed material (as registered by Google) and hopefully links from the author’s various social media accounts. Again, great for SEO, if your guest blog host has a sizable social media following, especially on Google+. 

Never duplicate your content, that is, don’t send a published article to another website. Google doesn’t like duplicate content, which may negatively affect your rankings. 

Recently, Synecore Tech's fearless leader Sean Royer sent a post around the office by Jay Baer. The title? “The 6 Lifelong Laws of Content Marketing for Agencies.” My reaction:

I kid. Well, kind of. Let’s backtrack a bit. I’m a content creator for Synecore Tech, which is fabulous because I love to write. But I must admit that I am routinely exhausted by article after article of why content marketing is the greatest thing since sliced bread and how my agency will die a cold, lonely death if it does not participate in it.

(Reality check: I am guilty of this, too. I’ve written this and this.)

But then I started to read Baer's "6 Lifelong Laws of Content Marketing" and a sense of rejuvenation washed over me. (I’m not kidding – it was like a marketing Baptism, people.) In his post, Baer really gives the quick and dirty of what content marketing costs, in terms of time and money. Perhaps it was his honesty but whatever the case, it’s a motivating article that I highly suggest you read.

In reflecting on his stripped-down, no-frills explanation of the importance of content marketing, I came up with three strategies I’m currently using in order to solidify a consistent, rocking content marketing strategy that even Mr. Baer would be proud of.

Create a content team

While everyone says they’d love to write a blog on this-and-that, let’s be real honest with each other: those people are lying and most will never follow through – at least not consistently. And that’s what your content marketing needs: consistency.

As we continuously refine our process here at Synecore, we’ve designated specific people to commit to a weekly blog in their area of expertise. With all of the other days left (Baer says shoot for posting everyday and kill the blog if you can’t do two days a week), we have a designated content team that commits to writing blogs for the other days not dedicated to a “weekly” spot. These are then the people that are responsible for most of the blogs as well as eBooks and webinars (or other sorts of premium content).

A note to respond to Baer’s article: he suggests that higher level execs should be writing blogs; however, since we are a smaller agency with a very loose, if any, hierarchy of employees, this model doesn’t make a ton of sense to us. Therefore, we aim for more of a tightknit (and totally rad and awesome) content team.

Make a freakin’ calendar

Although they don’t have the same bureaucratic power as your seventh-grade teacher demanding your algebra homework, armed with a nasty ruler that needs not be used to exercise its full intimidation power…

…calendars do work to maintain consistency in your content marketing.

Our vision at Synecore is to create an editorial calendar each month, which includes a new campaign centered around a piece of premium content like an eBook. Couple that with a complimentary webinar and blogs, and we’ve got a solid month’s worth of content. In addition to the content that is part of our monthly campaign, we’ll sprinkle some timely posts in each week.

The editorial calendar, especially if displayed publicly in the office, is a great way to foster transparency and motivate your content team to keep up with their work. Nobody wants to be that guy that misses the deadline.

Avoid writer’s block

Many times people, myself included, feel as though they don’t have a burning idea for content in their head and thus are prevented from writing anything at all. While it’s easy to say, “Well, if you can’t find anything in your industry to write about, you need to re-think your career/entire existence,” I know that sometimes you’re just completely stuck. To avoid such frustrating existential dilemmas, I try to practice these habits to help with the idea-flow:

• Designate time in your day to reading industry articles and publications (I use feedly to get the most up-to-date posts in one place). Doing this will give you timely and relevant information or new research that will spark some ideas.
• Use personal experiences to inspire your content. Remember, you are actually a real person, not just a robot content creator. Your readers will appreciate that they can relate to your personal experiences and that connects them, consequently, to you as a writer. For example, I recently had a completely awesome social media interaction with one of my favorite brands, ModCloth. I did a little research on what others were saying about their social media strategy and voila: a blog!
• Help out your content team members. My colleague and I are the two main content creators for our company blog, Marketing Technology for Growth, and we often will shoot each other interesting articles that get our wheels turning (I must admit that he is usually filling me with ideas more so than I to him). Or one of us will be working on a blog and then get stuck in an “I-have-no idea-what-the-hell-I’m-writing-about” kind of moment. We hash it out in a quick (or not so quick) conversation and are left with more complex and thoughtful posts. #win

The Takeaway

While there are significant time and cost investments in content marketing, content - in whatever form your company chooses - is useful and vital to your brand. The three tips I outlined above are what Synecore aims for, but make no mistake our strategy is not perfect. And when we get swamped and client work floods in, our own content marketing suffers. However, continuous refinement and improvement is what keeps you growing.

I’d love to hear your brand's strategies for sticking to your content marketing. Please note that I work in a small agency (2-10 range), so these tricks mostly speak to smaller companies. However, if you’re part of a bigger company, I’d love to hear some of your content marketing motivators too!

Follow @alyssaceline33
Follow @SyneCoreTech

NBC News, The Associated Press, The New York Times, Burger King, Fox News, PayPal, Jeep, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg News, CBS, and "60 Minutes" are all part of the community of thousands of brands engaging with consumers through social media channels.

They are also all victims to having those social media channels compromised by unwanted hackers.

This past weekend, Chipotle’s twitter account appeared to have joined the growing list of accounts to go haywire. The series of twelve tweets were a rather odd list of commands: 

 Chipotle was quick to apologize, telling Mashable "I'm glad no one went Anthony Weiner on us, but everything seems to be fine." 

Many are now questioning whether this mishap was in fact a mistake, an unwanted intruder, or just a carefully placed act of PR (They do have a new major promotional contest in full swing).

The bigger question I have is why are these unwanted tweets still appearing…and what can companies do to stop it?  

Staying Secure

Chipotle’s recent Twitter stumble is minor compared to the mess that Burger King’s account suffered earlier this year.

For the hour that the fast food chain’s account was unknowingly exposed, it had been changed to appear as being sold to McDonald’s, while displaying tweet after tweet of inappropriate content. 

 In an attempt to curb these embarrassing invasions, Twitter recently updated their login system in order to provide users with the option to implement a two-factor authentication for account access. Users will be asked to register a phone number and e-mail account, providing a unique six-digit code that will be send to the number and required for each successful login. 

"Every day, a growing number of people log in to Twitter," Jim O'Leary, member of Twitter’s Product Security Team, said in a blog post. "Usually these login attempts come from the genuine account owners, but we occasionally hear from people whose accounts have been compromised by email phishing schemes or a breach of password data elsewhere on the web."

Unfortunately Twitter can only do so much in providing protection, and companies need to be aware that security responsibility and control lies directly in their hands.

Companies should follow these guidelines to help increase their account security and reduce the risk of becoming the next hacking victim:

• Strong Password Creation: Your password should not only be difficult to guess, but should include numbers, special characters, and capitalized characters to create maximum strength.

• Private Internet Access: When using a public Wi-Fi, it becomes much easier for your account to be accessed by unwanted users. Always login to your accounts under the security of a private internet connection.

• Consistent Log Out: Remember to log out of your company/client accounts when not in use! This is crucial to prevent outside users accessing your account, especially in the event that your electronic device gets lost or stolen.

• Resisting the Phishing Net: Hacking victims often fall trap to deceptive phishing schemes asking for personal information. NEVER give away secure information to suspicious requests, and always check the source of the e-mail address.

Cry for Attention?

Over 30,000 new followers, 73,421 retweets in over an hour, and a spot on the trending topics list.

No, this is not the result of Burger King’s perfectly executed social media campaign, but rather the exposure hackers have gained for the account they have exploited.

Turning a negative into positive, companies can take what can appear to be dreadful situations into ones of massive brand exposure and attention.

Unfortunately, others have tried to take advantage of this PR opportunity and in turn stage their own account “hacking.” 

But not only have those attempts for attention been deemed unethical, they actually turned users away from engaging with them in the first place. 

Takeaway

Like any other type of information, keep your social logins secure and safe because no one likes a hacker – especially a fake one. Although the hacked or, uh-hem, “hacked” tweets generate a lot of RTs and possible followers, what does that say about your brand? Aren’t you supposed to be crafting authenticity in your social media strategy?

Remember this, brands: your PR stunts may produce some laughs, but a month from now the general public won’t really care. Instead, they’ll be demanding quality, relevant, genuine content, and if they don’t get it, you can be sure they won’t hesitate clicking “Unfollow.”

**UPDATE: Only hours after this post was orignally published, ABC news has reported that Chipotle's twitter account was indeed hacked...by none other than Chipotle themselves.

"Chris Arnold, director of communications at Chipotle, told ABC News that the planned tweets were part of a broader 20th anniversary promotion...'The idea was to incorporate it into our broader social media promotion,' Arnold said. 'We did it to get more people talking about that short string of posts.' "

Dear Chipotle, people have a tendency to unfollow liars. You've got us all foiling your plot on this one rather than unfoiling your burritos...was it worth it? 

Presentation sharing website SlideShare this week announced enhanced support for infographics, which is great news for content marketers. But what is SlideShare, and what’s the fuss about it and infographics? Read our guide to find out.

A brief introduction to SlideShare

SlideShare is a popular ‘web 2.0’ website for sharing presentations – simply upload your slides in PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF or OpenOffice format. It’s especially useful because the presentations can then be embedded into any web page, much like a YouTube video. 

Also, like YouTube, SlideShare is almost a social network in its own right. Pages can be optimised for keywords, and there are even some enhanced lead capturing features such as forms that pop up when someone views your presentation. 

Why is SlideShare popular with content marketers? 

SlideShare was bought by LinkedIn in May last year, a very natural fit as both have B2B and professional networking appeal, with very similar – if not identical – audiences. In short, LinkedIn pages can now be enhanced with SlideShare presentations.

Marketers wishing to reach out to professionals do well to upload interesting presentations or slides from webinars, which can then be embedded into blog articles, thus extending the life of content and adding extra value to broader campaigns. You can see an example from our very own SlideShare account, showing slides from our Content Marketing and Customer Personas webinar.

There are also plenty of useful analytics and marketing features, telling you how many people have downloaded your presentations and even the URLs of websites where they’ve been embedded.

What’s all the fuss concerning infographics?

Infographics are very popular with content marketers due to their proven ‘shareability’. People love to retweet, share, comment on and blog about infographics because of the highly visual and creative way they portray information that would normally be hard to grasp. 

The terms infographic and data visualisation are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences. The former can be quite broad and more informational than number-based, whereas the latter are like charts but more creative, often helping the reader to put complex data into perspective. 

SlideShare has made the very smart move of allowing people to upload and embed such infographics. Technically this was possible before, but the landscape dimensions of the SlideShare window weren’t perfectly suited to infographics which are (typically) not only portrait, but very long as well, requiring much downward scrolling. 

To wrap things up, here’s a great example from our Inbound Marketing partners HubSpot:

Some may call it silly. Some may call it a waste of time. But, you just can’t argue with the power of social media. It’s real-time connection with people across the globe. Sometimes it makes your head spin with the constant updates and the “always on” feel, but sometimes it’s like one big party.

That's what it felt like yesterday when the news that the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to baby ________, the third in line to the English Crown. While I’m sure you’ve had it up to your little peasant heads with the Royal News, the Royal Birth yesterday afternoon sparked proof of just how powerful social media can be, even if you're not Oreo or Pampers.

While these two social media powerhouses gave us all some laughs... 

... We didn't want them to have all the fun.

As my colleagues and I sat at our desks, hungrily scrolling through our Twitter feeds, letting out squeals of delight over the social media goodness happening and maybe, possibly, dancing around in celebration at all of the Royal excitement (so maybe it was just the ladies in the office…), we thought “Hey, we can get in on this action.” We have an Instagram account. We happen to have a cake and balloon in the office. Let’s do it.

This is what came of just a little silliness:

And then this happened:

Which turned into this. Thanks for the nod, Deborah Acosta, Cannon Hodge and The New York Times.

When we stumbled upon the NYT article this morning, after we had all sent the link to our mums and plastered it across our social channels, I got to thinking how this was a prime example of what social media can do for brands large and small. SyneCore has a rather modest following on Instagram, but our use of the prolific, in my humble opinion, hashtag, #RoyalBaby, lead a NYT reporter to snatch it up for a story. While I am sure we won’t triple our business in the next year because of our 10-sec spot on a NYT video, it proved to be a spot on way to create awareness for our brand.

So, keying off of our experience, here are three social media marketing takeaways for your brand:

Be a part of the conversation.

SyneCore is an integrated digital marketing agency – we don't really have anything to do with the Royals. But neither does Pampers nor Oreo. With the rise of content marketing, brands are being forced to become their own newsrooms, providing relevant content to their audience. Relevant content doesn't have to just pertain to your industry; becoming a part of the larger cultural conversation can also build your brand.

Use #hashtags.

I’ve said this before, so I won’t bore you with another #long, #obnoxious #list of #hashtags, but they do really work, especially when you’re getting in on a big event. Case in point: the #RoyalBaby. Deborah probably wouldn’t have stumbled upon our silly little Instagram video had we not used it.

Don't always strive for perfection in your social media strategy. 

Whoa, did she really just say that?

Yep, I did. But I’m not talking grammar – you must nail your grammar. I’m talking about quick, on-your-feet, just-do-it kind of posting. While there is a place for strategic, crafted and scheduled posts, social media is real time, and in order to be a relevant part of the conversation, you must infuse your social strategy with unstaged, candid posts. Our Instagram video isn’t close to perfection; there are some directional cues and awkward pauses in there, but the reality is that it’s, well, real. And that’s what social media does for brands – it connects us in an authentic manner; this can serve to humanize a brand that was traditionally only categorized by a static logo.

How neat.

P.S. Sorry to Deanna, whose birthday celebration was hijacked by The Little Prince. In our opinion, you are totally as cool as the little guy.

Follow @alyssaceline33
Follow @SyneCoreTech

Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ have all received the Versio2 marketing guide treatment – now it’s the turn of Twitter, but with a twist. We highlight some recent events from the Twittersphere and their significance in the world of social media marketing.

1. Give your Twitter followers what they want

According to the Guardian, Pope Francis (@pontifex) is granting time off purgatory to people who follow his Twitter page, bringing the pontifical practice of awarding ‘indulgences’ for faith-related tasks into the 21st century, social media and all. 

Whether you agree with what the Catholic church is reportedly doing or not, it is an example of an organisation’s attempt to modernise and offer traditional services through new online channels, and to offer followers a little of what they want and perhaps expect.

Give your followers something of interest that’s relevant to your company and business activities. For example, product discounts, related news and the opportunity to engage directly with company representatives.

2. Know what you’re doing on Twitter

Unfortunately, it would seem that Denver’s Chipotle Mexican Grill (@ChipotleTweets) did not. Both the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed reported on what appeared to be a series of 12 meaningless tweets posted yesterday. To the credit of Chipotle, they’re still there for all to see – you can see them for yourself below or head to the Chiptole Twitter page.

Bizarre marketing stunt? Perhaps. But as it's such a new Twitter account, it seems more likely that it's a mistake of some kind. Regardless, it does rather give the impression that someone at Chipotle didn’t know what they were doing – a very bad idea when it comes to very public social media.

The moral of this little story is, if you're going to handle community management in-house, ensure adequate training. Otherwise, outsource the job to an experienced community manager or an agency, both of which you should spend time with developing a communications strategy and approval process.

3. Show a little Twitter conviction

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they first start tweeting is to not take Twitter seriously enough. If you want to Tweet as a way to promote your business, be sure to dedicate some time or resources to engaging followers, sharing interesting content and syndicating your own content. 

In short, have plenty of ‘Twitter conviction’. @MasoneDylan, according to Marketing Pilgrim, ran on to the field last week during a televised baseball game. Why? Because he said he would if he received 1,000 retweets, which he did.

While we would never recommend such a ridiculous stunt for the sole purpose of stirring up Twitter engagement, his followers did have an expectation of him that he was obliged to fulfil. The lesson here is do be conscious of what you tweet and follow through with your promises. 

How important is social media when it comes to driving traffic and generating leads? Download Marketing Benchmarks from 7000+ Businesses for charts on not only social media, but landing pages, website pages and blogging as well.

As another one of our strategy sessions moved off topic into a discussion of the philosophical implications of the digital world and ultimately the fate of human nature (we get deep at Synecore), my colleague Horton and I moved into a discussion of the future of education, including MOOCs (massive open online courses). He directed me towards sites like Coursera, edX, Udacity and, just… #mindblown.

Get Online and Learn

While many MOOCs began just a couple of years ago – edX, founded by MIT and Harvard in 2012 and Udacity, founded by Sebastian Thrun in 2012 – they have welcomed millions of online learners and unearthed enormous debate about the future of education. University agendas aside, one can’t argue how cool this is. I can imagine late nights and Saturday afternoons learning about the history of the solar system and Renaissance art...

Or is that just the forever-nerd inside me talking?

Even if you didn’t love school, with the constant threat of grades or the in-your-face teachers looming around, I’m sure there are some topics that you’ve always been interested in. MOOC offers this to you, for free, without all the other crap that came with your education (seriously, no braces, no horrific picture days, no popular kid table).

Opportunity for Businesses

The MOOC movement is also a golden opportunity for businesses, as owners begin to realize that their companies must adapt to today's digital environment or risk being left behind. The mentality of adaption is nothing new; it’s a common refrain echoed throughout human history, from Darwin to H.G. Wells. Wells knew well (sorry) what he was talking about when he said, “to adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.”

What You Can Do

To keep up with changes in technology, which seem to be coming faster and faster, you need a team that is not just smart and sharp but also willing to accept the inherent chaos of constant change. You need people who are going to continue to navigate your brand through a crowded digital landscape filled with business after business fighting a war of pixels, #hashtags and data in an alternative reality on a geo-targeted Cloud.

You have two choices: You can hate the digital evolution for forcing you to adapt, or you can take advantage of the solutions placed at your fingertips - solutions like the online knowledge centers Udacity and Coursera. Think what a wonderful resource they could be for your employees. How can you leverage them to build a team that is constantly thinking and learning?

Imagine a program where your company requires employees to use MOOCs to continue to advance their skill set. Yes, you could go the traditional route of sending your employees back to school for an advanced degree, but think of how many more employees you could continue to educate given the easy accessibility and low-investment of these online education platforms?

The Takeaway

There is no excuse for “I don’t know” anymore. The world of information is at our fingertips, and those who survive the digital evolution will be the ones who learn how to use its tools to improve themselves and their organizations. As the changes compound around us, it will be the minds who learn and make connections in our connected, integrated world who will thrive.

So, although the nostalgic old soul inside me would love to send you off with a paperback book somewhere, the digital marketer in me is inclined to encourage you to take advantage of all the digital resources awaiting you and just go learn something.

Follow @alyssaceline33
Follow @SyneCoreTech

By now, whether with hugs and shouts of joy or with tears and dragging feet, we’ve all (hopefully) accepted that social media is no longer merely a fad or even a tool; rather, it has ushered in a paradigm shift in how brands connect to consumers. Social media is not just a platform to shamelessly promote yourself, but it is an extension of your storefront and all that that encompasses - it is a hub for customer service, a tool to create your brand identity and culture and, as a new study finds, a place to purchase your products.

It looks like social media does indeed have a hefty ROI, according to a new study, “From Social to Sale: 8 Questions to Ask Your Customers” by Vision Critical.  The report – one of the most B-E-A-U-tiful ones I’ve come across – is a lengthy, in-depth look into the consumer’s path from specific social platforms – Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest – to the transaction, whether online or in-stores.

While I could give you a lengthy book review that would frankly just look like an uglier version of the twenty-eight-page study, you’re probably better off digging into it yourself (tip: grab a bottle of wine). However, the Vision Critical study does bring up some very important questions brands need to wring out of their would-be customers. Even though I’m a words over numbers kind of gal, I'll first take you through a couple stats for you to reflect on:

• 4 in 10 social media users have purchased an item online or in-store after sharing or favoriting it on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. It breaks down between the networks as follows: Pinterest 29%; Twitter 22%; Facebook 38% (Fun Fact: 73% of the population is on Facebook. Marketers, you should be salivating).

• Pinterest is the network most likely to drive spontaneous purchasing – 47% of purchasers “happened-ed” upon the product – while Twitter and Facebook purchasers are more likely to make social media-related purchases of products they were already researching or considering.

• Social media drives roughly equal amounts of online and in-store purchasing.

• Half of social media-related purchasing takes place within 1 week of sharing or favoriting the ultimately purchased item.

Now that you’ve got some foundational numbers, I’ll continue to expand on some of the key takeaways. Vision Critical structured the report using eight questions brands need to ask their customers. Here are three of my favorites:

What do your customers want from each of your social network presences?

A common mistake brands can fall into when beginning their social media strategy is simply blasting a stock post across all of their platforms. Eeek! Please, please stop, OK? I know it’s easier and simpler to do mass, mindless posting, but why should I follow you on 47.39 different channels if I’m going to see the same thing on every one?

This sentiment is followed up in the study, showing how different topics and different styles of posts are popular on the different networks. Vision Critical advises businesses to match their presence to the three C’s of each network: content, culture and category.

Given this, brands should ask these kinds of questions when determining their social strategy on each platform: What type of posts appear on this network? What is the tone and social norms? What kinds of products do well on this platform?

Does purchasing lead to sharing or does sharing lead to purchasing?

Don’t worry, this might be easier to figure out than “what came first: the chicken or the egg?” When asked, “When you shared or favorited this item, were you already thinking of purchasing it?” most survey respondents across all three platforms were at least vaguely thinking about purchasing the product, if they weren't already researching it. However, 29% of respondents on Pinterest were not thinking of purchasing the product (16% on Facebook, 9% on Twitter).

What can brands do to target these social purchasers? Engage those sharing your product or products in the same category. For example, say you’re in the professional dancewear industry. Seek out those social mavens that are engaging in dance-focused G+ communities, use advanced Twitter search to find those tweeting about their favorite ballet shows – you get the idea. Once you find these consumers engaged in the world of dance - or whatever industry you're in - you can then engage with them on a personal level, bringing your kickass brand to "top of mind" among these consumers. #score

How does mobile move your customers from sharing to purchasing?

We know the future is mobile, and given these new findings by Vision Critical, as a brand, consider using tried and true SoLoMo tactics to connect with these social shoppers. Invest in mobile development, like a responsive website that will allow your consumer to consult you wherever they are on what whatever device they choose. Offer mobile deals that motivate your consumer from within the store. Also, consider your in-store signage. How can you engage mobile users with your brand?

The Takeaway

Social media is a beast that can eat you up – if you let it. The best thing you can do? Don’t stay silent in front of your screen racking your brain on how to engage your consumers. Remember: this is social media. The name itself invites interaction and conversation with others. Don’t wallow in a party for one – go out and ask your customers what they like and what they don’t when it comes to their social networks and how they use social media in their purchasing decisions. Your customers are just as unique as your brand; they are the best research you’re going to find.

So get out and start asking questions (and listening). Your motivation? Besides a higher ROI, your brand can avoid the same fate as Eric Carmen.

Follow @alyssaceline33
Follow @SyneCoreTech

Continuing on from our recent Facebook and LinkedIn social media marketing guides, it’s the turn today of Google+. Like it or loathe it, Google+ is becoming an increasingly important social network, so it may be time to jump on the Google train. Read our top tips for an introduction to some of the recent Google+ changes in 2013.

If Google+ has recently appeared on your radar as a new channel to add to your social media strategy, you’ll probably want to know how to go about creating a business page. 

These are very much like the ones you would find on Facebook or LinkedIn, so if you have one of these set up already, it’s a reasonably simple task of cut and pasting across your company information. Also, if you use Gmail, Google Docs or sign in to Google Search, you'll already have a Google+ profile that you can set up very quickly.

One major difference between Google+ and its rivals is its enormous cover image, which is 2120 x 1192 pixels if you want to make the most of it as branding real estate. You can go smaller with the image – just make sure the proportions fit a ratio of 16:9, and don’t go too small otherwise your image will pixelate or blur.

Finally, beware the circles! The new profile logo is displayed within a circle, so if you upload a square image the corners will be clipped off.

Here are two great examples on business page visuals from Coca Cola and Ford. The latter really shows how the cover can be used like an advertising billboard or magazine spread: 

This resonates somewhat with the success we’ve had on LinkedIn Groups, the idea being to participate in discussions to promote yourself as a thought leader and influencer. 

However, Google+ goes one further by allowing you to post to communities as your business page, unlike Facebook and LinkedIn where you can only post outside your business page as an individual.

As with LinkedIn, focus on a few communities to begin with. Engaging in groups and communities can be time-consuming. It will also take you a while to work out which communities are the most relevant and receptive to your input.

You can of course start your own community if you find that one is lacking in a particular area – perhaps your industry has yet to be represented in your region, on Google+?

Remember Google Places? This was merged into Google+, so if you have a local business and want Google to associate it with an address (so it will appear on Google Maps) and your contact details, setting up a Google+ local business page is essential.

A local business page is different from a standard business page – you’ll need to provide a physical address, phone number, and, of course, a website. All of this will be verified by Google, either by phone or mail (postcard).

The importance of setting up a Google+ local business page, if you are a small, local business, cannot be stressed enough. It helps you get found on local directory listings run by Google, and flags you up as a place on Google Maps. Customers can also leave reviews, and you can add events that will appear in Google listings elsewhere.

When your Google+ business page appears in search results, underneath it will be your most recent posts, so keep it fresh. 

If you’re running a blog with keyword optimised articles – which we hope you are – always post the content to Google+. If you’re already syndicating content top Facebook, it’s easy enough to paste the exact same update to Google+. However, you’ll be missing out on the advantages arising from one key difference: Google+ posts rank in search results for keywords; Facebook posts do not. 

This really could be one of the deciding factors in the battle between Facebook and Google+. We’ve always known that Google would put its search muscle behind the success of Google+ – we now have Google Search Plus, for example – but only recently has it emerged that certain posts appear on search results pages for certain keywords.

Essentially what it means is that Google+ will have a greater effect on search rankings – the realm of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). To make the most of it now, post more of your blog content to Google+ than you would normally on Facebook.

Rather than posting a one or two-line teaser with link to your article, post the first third or even half of your piece – you want to get as many of your keywords on to Google+ as possible. This way you can still drive traffic to your website by offering up no more than half your article, and there's the added benefit of increased ‘shareability’ – Google+ users in particular are more likely to share entire articles than simple teasers.

If you have blog posts, special offers, ebooks or anything else you want lots of people to know and talk about, then Twitter presents great opportunities. However, you needn’t settle for just our word on that – we have data from more than 7,000 businesses that shows the impact of Twitter on actual inbound traffic.

1. What is the impact of Twitter reach on inbound traffic?

Our Inbound Marketing partner HubSpot has made available a wealth of marketing data from its thousands of customers. We’re pleased to present it to you in the form of our latest ebook Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000+ Businesses. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chart shows that the more Twitter followers a company has, the greater the impact on inbound traffic. The biggest changes occur when the following goes from 51-100 to 101-200, and from 201-500 to 501+.

2. What is the impact of Twitter reach on traffic for B2B and B2C companies?

The chart below shows gradual changes in traffic related to increased Twitter following, until we get to more than 1,000. Interestingly, Twitter seems to be of fairly equal benefit to both types of company, but really comes in to its own for B2C businesses with more than 1,000 followers.

Twitter has always had more influence with consumers, who tend to trust the opinions and recommendations of their friends and family. It is these same users who are more likely to share things too, such as interesting articles about – or pictures of – impressive new products.

3. I run a small-to-medium size business – is Twitter for me?

According to our data, an emphatic yes! Benefits of increasing Twitter followers helps medium-size businesses of 11-50 employees more than businesses with fewer than 10, but the difference does not become pronounced until we reach more than 500 followers.

Large companies of more than 1,000 employees tend to see the greatest increases in traffic tied to Twitter following, on average, largely because the brands and products involved are already well known, marketing budgets are more sizable and the campaign initiatives that come as a result more imaginative.

To sum things up with a couple of statistics:

• Companies with 50-100 followers generate 106% more traffic than those with 25 or fewer.

• B2C companies experience a larger increase in traffic than B2B companies after reaching 1,000 Twitter followers.

To see more charts linking not only social media but landing pages, website pages and blogging to traffic and lead generation, download our free Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000+ Businesses.

Earlier this week we covered six social media marketing tips for Facebook. This time it’s the turn of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, which presents new opportunities for companies in Switzerland and throughout Europe.

In March this year, LinkedIn acquired SlideShare, a popular platform for sharing presentations online. LinkedIn has now incorporated SlideShare into its ad platform.  

Below is an embedded SlideShare presentation about the LinkedIn SlideShare Content Ads. You can also read about it in more detail on the LinkedIn blog.

Did you know, you can send out LinkedIn connection invitations to members of your groups? This is a good way to extend the reach of your network beyond colleagues and professional contacts, but try not to send out too many to people you don’t know. It’s best to actively participate within your chosen groups for some time, striking up a rapport with other members and making a name for yourself. Then, you can request connections with those members you more frequently interact with.

Focus on a few groups to begin with and involve yourself in discussions as much as possible – this will help to establish you as a thought-leader within your industry. If you want to promote your own content – blogs or ebooks, for examples – be sure to also promote articles from other sources.

LinkedIn notifies members whenever their connections update their profiles, so if you want people to visit you regularly, update yours every couple of months. Include new projects, changes of job title, blog articles you’ve written, new skills and experiences, and so on.  

The more people who see your profile, the greater your potential to drive traffic to your main website, landing pages or other social media channels.

Refresh your list of skills, adding new ones as you acquire them. Also, optimise your profile headline using keywords from your own marketing strategy– this will help you to get found in LinkedIn searches, very much like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Google Search. You can use a similar methodology here, always ensuring your headline and skills include keywords from your approved list.

LinkedIn provides metrics to help you evaluate engagement with your posts and followers. These include ‘per post insights’, ‘follower insights’ and ‘page insights’.

Per post insights tell you more about engagement – how many people saw your update, was it shared, was it clicked? Follower insights goes into more detail about your business page network with useful demographics and follower trends. Lastly, page insights is very much like the Google Analytics of LinkedIn – page views, unique visitors, and so on.
 

We’re refreshing our Top 5 Facebook social media marketing tips for 2013. You can see the original article here.

Timeline covers – the large picture at the top of your business page – are relatively new enough. However, Facebook recently rewrote the rules concerning placement of CTAs, formerly a definite no-no, now a yes-yes. As long as you keep the amount of text to less than 20% of the total cover image area, you can direct visitors to visit your website, take up a discount offer, download a new ebook, and so on. 

Likes on posts are great, but comments are thought to have a greater influence on EdgeRank – the algorithm Facebook uses to determine where items appear in a user’s news feed. The more EdgeRank your business page and posts have, the more likely you are to be seen by your followers. It’s a lot like Google Search’s PageRank (PR) algorithm.

One new way to encourage comments is to use picture replies, a new feature for 2013 which we cover in some detail in The Marketers’ Guide to Facebook Hashtags & Comment Images. One idea is to post a picture and ask followers to post versions of their own, or anything that will encourage them to post images as replies. This will work wonders for your EdgeRank. 

The positive EdgeRank factors are: 

• Affinity – users that interact with a particular page and its posts will be more likely to see subsequent content from the same source. This also includes interactions of other users, so if there are lots of comments and likes for one post, Facebook will consider it more interesting and increase its chances of being seen in news feeds of other page followers.
• Weight – a user that interacts with photos more, will see more pictures in his or her news feed. The same goes for different post types such as videos, status updates and shared articles.
• Time decay – much like Google’s freshness factor, Facebook will seek to provide new content over old.

For more on these factors, as well as negative EdgeRank, read SocialMediaToday.com’s EdgeRank’s Newest Factor: Negative Feedback. 

A picture is much more likely to attract attention than a simple status update, or even a shared article. Resize your image to 407 x 407 pixels and it’ll appear in full in news feeds without any cropping – larger pictures aren’t truly cropped, but do tend to have their edges clipped in previews so that they fit nicely within a person’s timeline. 

We share our own blog articles (including this one if you came her via Facebook), as image posts rather than shared links. 

Overlaying text on your shared images – and thus converting them into elaborate CTAs – is a great way to increase their marketing potential. Just be careful not to get too wordy, as the 20% text rule we mentioned in Tip 1 may also apply to posts.

This is very important if you’re going to follow Tip 3 for promoting blog posts, ebooks or landing page offers, because you’ll need to include the URL in the image description. Usually Facebook would remove URLs and simply include a preview with a clickable title, but for images it can’t do this.

A long URL will seem unsightly, so always use a URL shortening service like Bit.ly, which will also track clicks for you. Better still, personalise your shortened URLs – visit Bit.ly for help on how to set up a custom short domain. 

We couldn’t really write a piece on Facebook marketing tips without mentioning one of the latest developments to receive a lot of attention – hashtags. Use these very much like you would on Twitter, but try to keep it focused as they can be quite polarising. Use too many and you risk annoying people, the rules governing Facebook hashtag etiquette are still unclear. 

Turn to your keyword strategy – you’ll have one if you Search Engine Optimise (SEO) your web pages and blog articles – for help with hashtags. Although they have no effect on Google or Bing SEO that we know of, you’ll still need some focus and a strategy behind the use of hashtags as marketing tools. Also, keep your hashtags consistent across all your social networks, including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+. 

Facebook advertising got a whole lot more sophisticated this year. If you have a list of email addresses, export them from your address book or CRM and import them into Facebook Adverts Manager. You can then target display advertising at any users Facebook finds as a match for your email list – a powerful new targeting option.

The Lookalike Audiences extension allows you to match users who aren’t already your followers, to the custom audience lists you create. Read more about it all in 7 Steps to Mastering Facebook Custom and Lookalike Audiences.

A company blog is an excellent way to generate valuable content to attract visitors to your website. But how often should we publish articles, is it the same for both B2B and B2C companies of all sizes, and what’s the true impact on traffic and leads? Data from more than 7,000 businesses reveals all.

Blogging has many benefits to both B2B and B2C companies. First and foremost, as online marketers we blog to create new, valuable content to attract people to our websites. 

Secondly, blog content provides us with material that we can share on social media, which our followers can then pass on to their own networks. 

Finally, fresh content, regularly produced and properly keyword optimised has a positive effect on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). In general, the more indexed (registered by Google, Bing etc.) pages your site has, the better.

However, effective blogging requires planning, scheduling and oversight, not to mention the actual writing if you want to do it in-house. Even outsourced, there is still commissioning, editing, approval and upload (publishing).

All companies that consider blogging ask the same important questions: how often should we do it, what’s the impact on traffic, how many more leads will we get? Fortunately, HubSpot has made available data from 7,000 of its customers, and as a Swiss Inbound Marketing partner we’re able to present you with the results. 

A quick note before we discuss the data

As with all surveys, the information presented is an average. For one company, blogging daily might work wonders, while for another two-three times per week may suffice. The effect may also differ – so much is dependent on how and where you share your content and how well optimised it is for search engines.

The following information should serve as a general indication, based on a large sample of companies engaged in Inbound Marketing activities, including blogging but also social media, SEO, email marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM or PPC) and landing page creation. 

At the end of this article, we’ll make our own recommendations based on what we know of our readership here in Switzerland and across Europe.

1. How often should we blog to increase website traffic?

The following chart is taken from our latest ebook – Marketing Benchmarks from 7000+ Businesses – created in partnership with HubSpot. According to this, the more your company posts per month, the better.

The chart clearly shows that a company that blogs more than 15 per month receives five times more traffic than one that doesn’t blog at all, on average. That works out as at least four per week – a tall order indeed, especially if your company is just starting out.

We recommend starting small at one or two per week and then ramping it up as your fledgling content schedule finds its feet. This should give you around twice as many website visitors per month, according to our chart.

2. How often should we blog to increase my leads?

In this chart, we differentiate between the effect of blogging on leads for B2B and B2C companies, both of which see huge increases in leads when going from one to two articles per month, to more than 15. 

The data shows that two to three times per week is a solid starting point, still offering large rewards in lead generation over two and fewer per week. 

Why the differences between B2B and B2C, especially at 15+ times per month? Blog articles are no less appealing to industry readers as they are to consumers, it’s simply a matter of generating the right content for your chosen audience. One of the more obvious reasons for this marked difference is social media. Blogging goes very well with sharing e.g. liking on Facebook and retweeting on Twitter, two networks with huge consumer audiences. Professional networks LinkedIn and Xing – frequently used to share B2B blog content – have far smaller audiences, thus skewing the data in favour of B2C.

3. How will all of our blog posts together affect traffic? 

Again, a slightly different chart this time. This one shows the impact on traffic according to business size (number of employees). Also, here we discuss total published blog articles, rather than a per month frequency. 

Blogging has noticeable benefits for companies of all sizes – each group at least doubling its traffic when reaching the 200 blog post milestone. However, its good news for small companies, which see more than eight times the amount of traffic with 200+ published articles, on average.

What it means to companies in Switzerland and Europe

Blogging with the intent of generating traffic and leads requires discipline and a keen understanding of who your audience is and how to reach out to them. Starting of small is a good way to establish a solid blogging foundation. Even if you outsource the writing, there is still a certain amount of direction, approval and oversight on the part of your company.

Use of social media by Swiss companies is lagging somewhat behind the rest of Europe and the US. However, as Versio2 partner Julien Renaud asserts in  EDITORIAL: Swiss & European Marketing Trends, “in Switzerland, especially in B2B, great opportunities await on professional networks such as LinkedIn and XING.” Such opportunities include establishing yourself as an industry thought-leader by regularly participating in group discussions and sharing links to not only your own articles, but others’ as well.

Download Marketing Benchmarks from 7000+ Businesses to find out how web pages, blogging, landing pages and social media affect traffic and lead generation – information which will help you make your own decisions about your company’s promotional activities, and how best to invest your marketing spend.

In the final instalment of our nod to Douglas Adams’ classic radio plays and books, it’s the turn of ‘measurement, analysis and refinement’ and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) including Pay-Per-Click (PPC), to receive the “Don’t Panic!” treatment. See Part 1 and Part 2 here.

1. Measurement, Analysis and Refinement

• OVERVIEW: A marketing strategy implemented but not monitored and measured is a little like a sports team that both wins and loses games, but never watches replays, discusses how or why, or finds ways to improve tactics for the next game. Measurement, analysis and refinement is an essential part of a comprehensive, closed-loop marketing strategy, allowing you to gauge the effectiveness of your efforts, understand any strengths and weaknesses, and make changes. It’s also an essential part of determining your marketing ROI.

• PRACTICALITY: There are many tools within the spectrum of online marketing that provide measurement. Google Analytics is almost an industry standard for website analytics such as visitors and bounce rates, but also useful information such as traffic sources and demographics, and content analysis. Search query information is provided by Google Webmaster Tools. For email marketing, the free newsletter platform MailChimp provides in-depth measurements of your send-outs, such as open and click rates, but also who exactly clicked on what items. For social media measurement, Facebook has its own Insights suite for measuring the reach of your posts, and if you’re engaged in SEM, AdWords and other PPC ad platforms have extensive reporting features. Once you’ve explored and familiarised yourself with all your measurement options, analysing the results and knowing where to make changes is relatively simple.

• WHAT’S NEW: HubSpot has released version 3 of its comprehensive marketing platform. It’s one of the few truly closed-loop systems, incorporating content, social media, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), lead capture, lead nurture and email marketing, along with measurement and analysis tools, and the ability to refine all processes. We would be happy to give you a demonstration of the HubSpot 3, just get in touch with us here.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) 

• OVERVIEW: There are many forms of SEM and PPC, but the ones you’ll see every day are those that sit at the top and to the right of search engine results pages (SERPs). On Google, the paid or sponsored results appear at the top within a pale yellow box. As a marketing manager, you’ll be familiar with the concept of paying for clicks – depending on your bid, you’ll pay a different amount per click or 1,000 ad views (impressions). 

• PRACTICALITY: Debate rages as to their effectiveness, but there are signs that PPC ads are once again driving traffic and justifying the money spent on them. Practically, for Google, AdWords is the platform you’ll need to familiarise yourself with. For every ad you create, you’ll have to bid an amount you’re will to pay – either Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Mille impressions (CPM). The higher you bid, the more likely it is you’ll appear at the top of results pages. 

• WHAT’S NEW: Google is particularly keen to keep PPC alive, and is constantly innovating. There’s a new AdWords extension out almost every week – the most recent is a function which will soon allow advertisers to include a testimonial and a free link to a reviewer’s website. There’s also AdWords for Video (YouTube), and the more visual Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are proving very effective for drawing in consumers looking to purchase items online.

We hope you enjoyed our Marketing Manager’s Guide series, which will soon be available as an ebook. Stay tuned via Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn and Google+, or subscribe via email (top-right). You can also read a lot more about measurement, PPC and all the practicalities of internet marketing in our Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing (2nd edition).

Representing the vanguard of a new marketing movement in Switzerland has been a tough but worthwhile challenge for Versio2, largely because the introduction of US-born Inbound Marketing has highlighted some interesting challenges. Some of these stem from obvious cultural differences between the Swiss and North-American way of conducting business, but similar economic pressures are driving an alignment as companies on both sides of the Atlantic seek to gain a competitive edge by reducing marketing spend, growing their worldwide audiences, and increasing ROI.

Our European neighbours also exhibit slightly different attitudes towards the adoption of the latest online marketing techniques than Swiss companies. The UK is a good example of an ‘early adopter’ that  has traditionally been bridging the transatlantic cultural gap. What happens in the UK and other early-adopting countries, such as the Netherlands or Nordic countries, tends to spread to other European nations with time.

In a recent report by HubSpot, a leading provider of marketing software, called the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing – which saw its first European edition this year – Richard Baxtor, CEO of SEOGadget.com, said:

“We see Europe, and the UK especially, as a market where more businesses are making the decision to create an inbound marketing budget for the first time.”

The report has inspired me to write about our experiences in Switzerland, and the trends we think will shape future adoption of internet marketing in our market, while comparing them with the rest of Europe and the US. Swiss-specific data on the use of various forms of online marketing is scarce, but there are some important experiential observations we can make.

• Read: 12 Surprising European-US Internet Marketing Statistics

1. Switzerland is mostly familiar with SEO, Social Media and PPC

Swiss companies often believe online marketing is simply Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), social media (limited to Facebook and Twitter), and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, overlooking the importance of content marketing in the form of blogging, lead management and email marketing as core elements of an Inbound methodology – Versio2 Managing Partner Stephan Burckhardt discussed the Swiss focus on SEM or PPC in last month's EDITORIAL: Beyond Google AdWords and Social Media.

Of the European marketers surveyed by HubSpot, some listed blogging among their top three sources of new leads – in addition to SEO and social media – while the US also ranked email marketing highly for generating contacts as precursors to actual sales conversions.

• Read: How to Generate Leads and Get More Business Online

2. Swiss companies are put off by SEO techno-babble

Jargon in SEO is off-putting to many Swiss companies looking to engage in internet marketing activities and SEO alone has often disappointed. We are often at pains ourselves to tone down technical terminology in our frequent blog articles, also because we are more interested in results and see technology as simply an enabler, no more and no less.

Compare this to our French neighbours, who are far more comfortable with SEO than marketing on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media strategist Isabelle Mathieu, as quoted in the HubSpot report, said:

“In France, when a company has to choose between investing in SEO or social media, the priority is too often given to SEO. SEO is now a trusted marketing channel in France, whilst social media still raises a lot of questions such as, where is the ROI, how do I get results from social media without having to allocate huge amounts of time to it, how do we engage with the different communities in our market, etc.”

Her comment about social media will ring familiar to our readers, and leads me nicely to my next point.

• Read: How to Dominate Search Without Paying 

3. Switzerland is missing out on opportunities on LinkedIn and XING

It’s easy to see social media as only Facebook and Twitter, and like the French, there is an uncertainty in Switzerland as to the true value of such dominant networks. Our case study proves otherwise, showing how a well conceived Facebook campaign can yield excellent B2C results. In our example, a hotel client went from 400 followers to more than 12,000 in just one month while creating 22 million impressions.

In Switzerland, especially in B2B, great opportunities await on professional networks such as LinkedIn and XING, of which the latter has recently been over-taken by LinkedIn in Switzerland, is growing much more rapidly and therefore has a more promising future. 

• Read: The 5-Step Strategy Guide to LinkedIn Groups
• Read: Quick Things to Do With Xing

4. Content marketing is not well understood 

The most important aspect of internet marketing today – content creation – is often overlooked. The focus has been on SEO, PPC and social media, rather than on content marketing, despite it being a relatively mature marketing concept. 

Many companies have yet to understand how content – blogs, ebooks or case studies, but also videos and recorded webinars – drive all other aspects of internet marketing today. In fact, recent changes in the Google algorithm have strongly favoured content in terms of SEO effectiveness. They have given new impetus to content marketers placing the concept squarely at the center of search. 

The Swiss aren’t alone in this lack of understanding. The average age of a European blog, according to HubSpot, is less than twelve months compared to three years or more in the US. In the study, “Creating quality content” was only listed fourth among five marketing priorities, both in the US and Europe – strange when “reaching the right audience” was hailed as the top priority in both markets. Are we failing to see the obvious link between content creation and audience engagement?

• Read: Content Marketer or Publisher, What’s the Difference?

5. Economic pressures will drive adoption of Inbound Marketing

Switzerland has so far remained relatively unscathed by the economic woes of our European neighbours and the US. Culturally and politically too, the Swiss have enjoyed comparative stability throughout modern history. However, adversity drives innovation and a desire to adopt new trends, as we’ve seen in the US, UK and other European countries more susceptible to global economic head-winds. 

In a global market, the very same wind is blowing our way. If and when economic pressures do indeed arise – which some here see as inevitable – Swiss companies will look for more effective ways to lower marketing costs and increase ROI while growing their global market presence. Early adopters will gain a competitive edge.

We expect that effective methodologies in marketing and sales will be sought out, and that Swiss companies too will adopt Inbound Marketing strategies that have helped many  companies on both sides of the Atlantic lower their cost per customer acquisition, generate leads and get more business online.

Responsible for the French speaking part of Switzerland, Versio2 Partner Julien Renaud molds client visions into well-defined digital solutions. His taste for the Internet started 15 years ago when studying at Syracuse University, where he was among the first graduates to receive an education in digital marketing. He founded an online branding agency in Estonia and joined forces with Clinton Hailey. They bonded over a passion for technology and a desire to help businesses grow online.

The HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing report has always been US-focused, but a new European edition for 2013 has revealed some interesting, and sometimes surprising, trends when comparing online marketing adoption in Europe with the US. We’ve picked twelve of the best snippets from this survey of 443 marketers across Europe. 

• Adoption of Inbound Marketing in Europe is almost on par with the US. Of European and US respondents, 58% and 59% respectively said they had implemented Inbound strategies.

• Around 20% in both Europe and the US said they simply didn’t know if the techniques they were using were Inbound or not, indicating a need for specialist marketing agencies to better inform and educate.

• Inbound Marketing in Europe is growing at an impressive rate, with 42% of companies set to increase their inbound spending in 2013.

• ‘Reaching the right audience’ was given as the top marketing priority by an equal percentage (23%) of European and US respondents. Increasing lead generation was of far more importance here in Europe, while in the US, lead conversion was of greater concern.  In both markets, ‘proving marketing ROI’ was the lowest priority.

• More European than US companies said Inbound Marketing was “completely integrated” into their marketing strategies, but only by a small percentage (36% versus 35%). An equal number (44%) said Inbound was “somewhat integrated” while just 4% said it wasn’t integrated at all. 

• Only 22% said they had a formal Service Level Agreement (SLA) between their marketing and sales teams. A lack of an adequate SLA can lead to misalignment over responsibilities and procedures, and confusion over goals and metrics. 34% said they had no idea whether they had a formal marketing-sales SLA.

• The top three sources for lead generation reported this year in Europe have been SEO (13%), social media (13%) and blogging (11%). In the US, email marketing replaces blogging in that list. 

• European companies are starting to shift their focus away from outbound channels towards inbound. 15% of respondents said direct mail was less important in 2013, followed by trade shows (14%) and telemarketing (12%). 

• Facebook and LinkedIn are equal in terms of customer acquisition in Europe, with 40% reporting new business from these social networks. However, we’re still some way behind the US, with 49% and 46% reporting new business from Facebook and LinkedIn respectively. 

• In the US, social media is the top source of lead-to-customer conversions, while in Europe Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the winner by quite a margin – 14% reported this compared to the next best converters, direct mail and email marketing, at 9%.

• 49% of European companies do not test their Inbound Marketing efforts, making it impossible to know whether they’re working or not. The US is somewhat better at 43%, but only around one in five in both markets said they were conducting any testing at all.

• Of European respondents, 41% said they either could not or did not calculate marketing ROI. However, “proving ROI” was listed as the top concern in a quarter of all marketers surveyed. This indicates that 25% of European companies want to calculate their marketing ROI, but don’t know how.