Social Media for Sales: Responding to Assumptions and Beliefs About Social Media Marketing
At first glance, social media can seem confusing and largely unmeasurable. With hundreds of platforms dominating the social web and an equally vast interactive audience, the cost of stepping into the social media world can seem prohibitively large and the benefits relatively slim.
It doesn’t help that the largest social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, and others – are magnets for marketing assumptions and conjecture. Just five years old and particularly intimidating to small businesses, the lack of proven information surrounding social media marketing can make even the most lucrative opportunity seem strange, unfamiliar, and quite uncertain.
This marketing guide aims to highlight the value in social media, ideal strategies for marketing your business through social media, and the most common pitfalls for businesses unfamiliar with social media as a marketing platform. Unlike other social media guides, we aim to use qualified data when possible; all quoted examples have been taken from real social media marketing efforts.
What exactly is social media?
The exact definition of social media is difficult to pin. A variety of bloggers have voiced differing opinions on what social media truly means, and Wikipedia’s own definition is similarly vague and difficult to summarize. In essence, social media is any media created by users, published on any platform allowing such media and content creation.
What defines social media is its ability to develop dialogue from monologues. Facebook and other social media platforms rely on individual users, yet create content through the collaborative efforts of their entire user base working together. Simply put, social media is online conversation.
We prefer to think of social media as anything collaborative, or community-based. Social networks and bookmarking resources certainly fall under the ‘social media’ umbrella, as do discussion forums and other online communities. If it allows for collaboration and isn’t independently edited, it’s social media under even the strictest definition.
How can social media platforms be categorized?
Despite the umbrella ‘social media’ term, there is immense variation between social media platforms and user-powered websites. Some are powered by interaction and conversation alone, network sites such as Facebook and Myspace the obvious examples.
Others are built around shared content, with social news sites Digg and Reddit proving immensely popular within this domain. Many others are built around specific interests, with photography site Flickr and videography network Vimeo offering their users interaction and a specific content-based service.
What separates these websites isn’t just their design and user dynamic, but their value for online businesses and marketers. Thinking of social media as an all-in-one marketing source misses the immense variation that’s present within the umbrella term; social news and social interest websites show measurable differences in value for marketers and businesses.
How can social media complement other online marketing methods?
Online analytics firm Omniture worked extensively with National Geographic to craft a social media marketing campaign, aiming to increase subscription sales through the magazine’s website and immense content database. Their efforts revealed some interesting results, particularly about social media’s value when combined with other marketing methods.
The first was a distinct belief in social media, particularly amongst experienced word-of-mouth marketers and dedicated online advertisers. While display advertising and paid search placements saw a distinct drop in spending throughout 2009, social media marketing was treated to greater budgets and a significantly larger employee focus than ever before.
It also revealed a slight divide between social media usage in business-to-business and business-to-consumer fields. On average, B2B companies invest more heavily in social media marketing efforts, despite their reputation for limited marketing experimentation and slow adoption of new tactics.
In most cases, social media marketing efforts are paired with pay-per-click marketing and organic search. Research has suggested that this can heighten the effects of social media and organic search marketing, as the two forms of traffic generation tend to have positive benefits for the other. Direct mail and radio advertising were least likely to be used alongside social media campaigns.
How are marketers adapting to qualitative measurement and dynamic feedback?
What’s historically separated social media from other forms of marketing – both in measurement and in its perceived effectiveness – is the way in which it can be measured. While paid search and display advertisements can quickly be assigned a cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand income figure, creating such firm statistics for social media visitors can be difficult.
This has lead thousands of businesses away from social media marketing efforts, particularly those with low budgets and a limited capacity for high-risk advertising decisions. It’s also lead to a slight backlash amongst performance marketers, who believe that a lack of measurability is indicative of limited effectiveness and low direct marketing potential.
Of course, social media requires an adjustment in the way marketing campaigns are monitored and measured.
Marketers have stressed the importance of qualitative value – social media’s power as a form of long-term branding and complementary aspect of other marketing campaigns. Social media efforts can be beneficial for SEO campaigns, for example, as well as email marketing efforts.
In National Geographic’s case, the value of social media was demonstrated in the amount of time visitors spent on their website, alongside the type of content which was most frequently viewed. Social media visitors spent relatively more time viewing current content and news than others, giving National Geographic an idea of how to appeal to social media audiences more effectively.
Both large and small businesses are aware of social media’s power for confrontation and negative feedback, though large businesses tend to be more involved in active social media monitoring processes. Seventy-five percent of businesses polled by analysis company Omniture monitored social media commentary, though only thirty-five percent of businesses publicly respond to negative feedback and customer complaints.
The majority of polled companies, both large and small, lack a dedicated social media feedback policy, instead preferring to deal with public feedback on a case-by-case basis. Research has found that large companies are more invested in process-driven social media responses, a finding that’s unsurprising given their greater size and limited flexibility in dealing with public events.
For many businesses, the potential for a social media situation to spiral out of control prevents formal policies from being created. Many large businesses believe that a limited investment in social media provides greater benefits than a dedicated social media marketing effort, due to the potential liability from a poor social media response.
Social media branding, sales, and research in action
National Geographic’s social media marketing efforts lead to an unsurprising and quite familiar conclusion: social media is a huge driver of visitors and online traffic. After just one year, social media marketing tactics had directly contributed to 8.4% of National Geographic’s total traffic figures – a 200% increase from similar figures before the campaign commenced in June 2008.
Other retailers have reported similar results from their social media marketing efforts. Online shirt retailer Threadless reported over 73,000 visits to their website during a 24-hour promotion using Twitter and Facebook as marketing outlets. Threadless recorded high conversion rates throughout the promotion, with one in twenty-five Twitter visitors purchasing a t-shirt.
Of course, the true value in Threadless’ marketing campaign goes beyond the initial purchases and social media coverage. The online retailer retains a community focus on their website, encouraging users to submit their own shirt designs and take part in competitions. With over two-thousand new customers and a huge selection of new members, Threadless’ social media efforts will likely lead to thousands of future sales and boosted member retention rates.
How engaged, worthwhile, and lucrative are social media visitors?
National Geographic found that an increased social media effort reduced traffic from pay-per-click advertisements and other paid advertising outlets. The publisher had previously drawn in visitors through search advertising and display banners – two forms of advertising which saw reduced demand with the large increase in social media attention throughout 2009.
However, the increase in social media traffic also came with a change in user engagement and browsing patterns. Social media visitors were noticeably less engaged while viewing the National Geographic website, viewing an average of just 4.2 pages per visit – a figure far below the 10 page average for pay-per-click advertising visitors and 13.6 for email subscribers.
Marketers noticed another interesting pattern when they observed social referrers; news and bookmarking websites accounted for as little as one page view per user, while social sharing websites were responsible for an average of eight page views per user. News and bookmarking visitors were also less likely to view advertisements, instead opting for photo and video content.
It’s this phenomenon – known to some as the ‘social media bubble’ – that’s pushed many marketers away from pursuing social media as a realistic revenue option. National Geographic found that sales were equally weak amongst social visitors, with pay-per-click advertisement visitors over 100 times more likely to purchase a subscription than social media website visitors.
But it’s important to separate the limited revenue generated by social media visitors from their value. National Geographic again experimented with social media promotions, discovering that the ‘snowball’ effect of social media growth can generate sales quite effectively. A Facebook promotion failed to find customers on social media channels, yet was cross-posted on a community forum and found thousands of customers within days.
This study shows a strange quality in social media. Despite being less engaged and significantly less likely to purchase directly from sales-driven websites than other users, social media users often contribute to exponential marketing exposure. Threadless and National Geographic experienced the ‘snowball’ effect first-hand, seeing their coupon code and t-shirt promotion spread rapidly across the internet.
Beyond income, why should social media be monitored and engaged?
When compared with Threadless’ successful social media promotion, National Geographic’s social media efforts appear to be unprofitable. However, the two marketing efforts shared little in common other than a platform, differing quite extensively in their duration and audience focus. Threadless maintained a focus on connecting with their current audience, marketing to Twitter followers rather than anonymous social news readers.
It’s this reason – connection – that requires a social media focus. Threadless saw success from their social media campaign as a result of their previously established connection with users. Similarly to National Geographic, their promotion ended up reaching a far wider audience than it had expected to, yielding a financial bonus for both companies and contributing to the study’s immeasurability.
The increased adoption of social media reflects a reality of new marketing: marketers are no longer talking about customers, but communicating directly with them. Social media provides a new link into how customers and prospective customers are responding to business decisions, giving online companies the ability to quickly generate, adapt to, and incorporate feedback into new products and services.
This mix in value makes social media a difficult proposition for many risk averse businesses, yet one that’s measurably beneficial for others. The financial cost of a social media presence remains low, giving businesses with adequate tracking and measurement infrastructure an inexpensive and potentially effective method of driving traffic, increasing online exposure, and communicating with their customers.
Social media tidbits, facts, and figures:
- Facebook claims to have over 400 million active users. Approximately 70 percent live outside of the United States, and over 100 million access Facebook using a mobile phone.
- Almost all social media case studies have highlighted social bookmarking and news websites as major traffic sources, despite their limited potential for short-term income.
- Social bookmarking website Digg.com was visited by over 43 million unique users in August 2009, making it the most popular social bookmarking property on the internet.
- Business-to-business social network LinkedIn has over 50 million members, and has been expanding its audience rapidly over the past two years.
- While less valuable on a per-user basis than pay-per-click advertising and organic search, social media visitors are capable of generating ‘viral’ traffic to a website.
Get Noticed: 9 Words, Phrases, and Language Features That Will Help You Sell
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3492yt8
Who says direct marketing is dead? While the internet has opened hundreds of alternative avenues for marketers – long-term techniques, list building, and word-of-mouth marketing methods – it certainly hasn’t made the old favorites any less competitive or successful. From sales calls to crafted copy, the world of direct marketers has adapted to the internet age more effectively than almost anyone else.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no room left for improvement. From copy-driven marketing techniques to simple content changes, there are hundreds of ways for online direct marketers to improve their messages and boost responses. These nine words, phrases, and language features won’t make your copy hot overnight, but they can help you significantly improve your sales figures.
Use them sparingly, or all at once; one-at-a-time or independently. Whatever your social media marketing strategy might entail, these nine power words, sales phrases, and language features can and will help you refine and improve it.
1. Use ‘Free!’ sparingly.
‘Free’ is good. Marketers love free, customers love free, and audiences like hear ‘free’ assigned to products they love. The problem with free is that it’s overused; in an effort to become the most visible offer on the face of the earth, just about every marketer has exhausted the free prize or free report to the point of irrelevancy.
So use it sparingly. Don’t make every promotion or event a free giveaway; don’t make every user entitled to free privileges, and don’t plaster free on every billboard. Instead, use free sparingly and create a more effective promotional tool in the process.
2. ‘Guaranteed!’ can boost sales.
Scams, spam, and annoyances are notoriously common online. We’ve all suffered through email blasts for the same old products, complete with minimal after-sales service and a transparent promise of poor quality. It’s exactly what you don’t want to be, and it’s the perfect anti-model for your promotional writing.
Instead, focus on guarantees that build security and trust with your audience. If you can promise just enough to win people over, don’t be surprised when your eventual delivery blows them away. Create guarantees that don’t just win people over, but build long-term trust and confidence in your product or service.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/37oqrkd
3. Use ‘Now!’ to gain attention quickly.
‘Now!’ creates urgency and grabs attention. It also causes anxiety and a distinct lack of trust when overused – two emotions that almost every marketer wants to avoid. When used in balance now can be a powerful written weapon, but overuse has made it a blunt instrument for many marketers.
Save your attention-seeking copy and urgency-building phrases for the most important parts of your copy or presentation. Think of them as isolated elements in your grand plan; each should be used in limited quantities to ensure it doesn’t become tired, boring, and repetitive.
4. Don’t explain how you do it, explain what you can do for them.
Take a look at the technology industry and you’ll see an interesting paradox. Developers and manufacturers that focus intensely on performance and development find a small audience of dedicated professionals, while their design-focussed rivals end up dominating in terms of sales. Few experts were surprised that Apple overtook other manufacturers in the MP3 player market – their focus was on what they could do, not how the technology made it possible.
Process doesn’t sell, results do. Whenever you find your articles, sales pages, or promotional materials covering the process and technology involved in your business, rewrite them to focus intensely on the positive effects of those processes.
5. Bullet points convince, convert, and sell!
Bullet points are a mixed blessing. They can be highly effective when used to summarize, explain, and demonstrate value, and equally ineffective when used as an all-purpose writing tool or on-page element. For every example of great bullet points there’s another of poorly used bullet points, often in a situation where a simple paragraph or page header would have been more effective.
Like other sales writing tools, bullet points are best used as a divider. Limit their usage to essential points and benefit summaries and you’ll see a distinct improvement; use them almost everywhere and they’ll become less of a benefit and more of a curse.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/2wrzc7m
6. Use bold type to help skim readers absorb your message
Leading magazines teach their writers to employ a different style and syntax for the internet. Unlike print magazine audiences – disciplined readers who have grown used to looking at everything – online audiences tend to be focused on the key points of an article. Small details are glossed over, paragraphs are ignored in favor of headlines, and bold text becomes a speed bump instead of a tool.
Don’t fight the skim readers, encourage them. By incorporating bold sentences, calls-to-action, and section dividers within your articles, you’ll end up capturing the attention of both in-depth readers and focus-challenged skim readers.
7. Always have a call-to-action planned.
Marketing is all about purpose and intentions. The smartest marketers don’t write a single word without a goal in mind, be it improved sales, long-term trust, or merely a temporary interest which can later change into desire or desperation. Every word, every sentence, and every paragraph is planned in advance, each leading up to an eventual call-to-action sentence.
Always plan ahead, even when you’re writing basic promotional articles or one-off letters. Every transaction, be it attention or business-based, is an opportunity to form patterns and generate eventual results. Have a call-to-action in mind before you start, and keep it in mind whenever you use language to promote your product, service, or business.
9. Explain key points in italics.
Alongside bold type, semicolons, and call-to-action headers, italic text is one of the most frequently misused parts of promotional writing amongst marketers. From all-italics essays to annoyingly frequent highlighting, italics misuse tends to do more bad than good for marketers, alienating readers and pushing away people that would otherwise have considered opting in to your form or expressing interest in a product.
So eliminate it, except when dealing with key points, quotes, and important information. When used sparingly italics can draw attention to your text and give you a different promotional voice – when misused they’ll do nothing but confuse readers and limit your promotional text’s ability to flow.
Call the shots with 08Direct
We write hundreds of link baits each year for dozens of clients and we expect nothing in return… except some of that durable paper with the Queen’s head on of course. But it’s always nice to give a bit back which is the honourable approach portrayed by one of our top clients, 08Direct – who have provided us with some complimentary non-geographical numbers. We feel like we’ve gone truly global!
Out with the 01772 and in with the new, which means numbers such as 0845, 0844 and 0800 which come in handy when it comes to handling inbound calls whilst also helping us to further improve our high standards of customer service.
08Direct, hailing from Leeds, are the UK’s leading provider of non-geographical numbers which can help to provide your business with a national or even international look and feel. You can even pick your own easy-to-remember number which means clients and potential customers will find it easier to get in touch – and after hearing that a recent study by Henley research reported that 68% of people felt that companies using freephone numbers cared about their customers – it was a no-brainer!
Head to 08Direct if you’re interested in 0845 numbers and the rest…
10 Social Websites to Help You Get the Most From Your Linkbaits
Does your website need more attention? With a growing number of people searching for businesses online, the difference between getting and losing sales, clients, and contracts is becoming ever more thin. From online service businesses to local industry, the internet is rapidly becoming the world’s most popular business resource.
Yet so many businesses just don’t know how to be found. Whether you’re offering a boutique online service, tailored and delivered apparel, or simply a local service for customers in your neighborhood, the internet is without a doubt the best way to get noticed by your clientele. These ten social websites will help you raise awareness, boost online exposure, and boost sales.
1. Facebook
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3ay8dl8
If social websites had a leader, it would be Facebook. This giant social networking website has amassed a bigger membership base than any other online property – over 400 million users spread across almost every country on earth.
While Facebook is slightly more private than social news, bookmarking, and community websites, it’s an essential tool in any marketer’s arsenal. Whether you’re posting updates about your company or building a fan page to create buzz, put Facebook at the top of your priority list.
2. Yahoo Buzz
Source: http://tinyurl.com/37s9476
Buzz is Yahoo’s primary community website, attracting millions of users from the ultra-popular search engine’s homepage. Built to share news, events, and local interest stories, Buzz is the perfect outlet for marketers and journalists looking to shake things up and attract attention.
If your company uses press releases, targeted news stories, and a blog to build attention, Yahoo Buzz could be the ultimate outlet. Sign up to the website – or simply use your existing Yahoo ID – and get busy contributing with votes, comments, and your own news stories.
3. Digg
Source: http://tinyurl.com/38lole5
The granddaddy of social news websites, Digg was built as an experiment in web design by Kevin Rose in 2004. Since then the website has undergone numerous revisions and design expansions, each adding more functionality for social marketers looking to find an audience for their stories, press releases, and blog posts.
Despite the occasional rumor about the website’s profitability – or lack of it – Digg has remained a strong force on the web since 2004. New websites are routinely brought down by the ‘Digg effect’ – the potentially disastrous effect of Digg’s own web traffic to smaller submitted websites.
4. SlashDot
Source: http://tinyurl.com/343lljp
Billed as ‘news for nerds,’ Slashdot is one of the internet’s oldest social bookmarking and publishing websites. An epicenter for all things tech-related, the website attracts the opinions, ire, and rants of thousands of geeks daily. From technological rants to code-related community projects, Slashdot has been responsible for some of the web’s most impressive community coding efforts.
However, it’s also been home to some disastrous predictions and half-researched stories. Marketers have had trouble cracking into SlashDot, largely due to the website’s tech-savvy crowd. However, if you’re in the business of processors, gadgets, or software, this is the place to be.
5. StumbleUpon
Source: http://tinyurl.com/2vzz8or
Calling StumbleUpon a mere ‘social website’ isn’t quite right. Unlike its social bookmarking competitors – websites built on links, community response, and interfaces – StumbleUpon works as an independent function of most browsers. Users click the ‘stumble’ button in their browser, and are automatically brought to a content page that could interest them.
If your website is pumped full of rich content, useful advice, and engaging information, it’s perfect for StumbleUpon. Despite the platform’s slight focus on deep content and engaging social media, many short-term marketers and direct response advertisers have been able to turn StumbleUpon into a highly profitable media outlet.
6. Twitter
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3xvvrco
If StumbleUpon is the engagement center of the internet, Twitter is an online refuge for those with ultra-short attention spans. The micro-blogging service has quickly become one of the most popular websites on the internet, attracting millions of active users from a truly huge span of countries.
However, it’s not the marketing goldmine that many believe it is. From low engagement levels to poor customer interest, a number of businesspeople and marketers have had trouble cracking into Twitter for anything more than web traffic. While some very public successes have been built using the micro-blogging website as a base, few long-term marketers have embraced Twitter.
7. Reddit
Source: http://tinyurl.com/33b8fcc
A popular social news website with a love of all things sensational, Reddit is the ideal place to gain buzz for your timely, relevant, and potentially revolutionary business. While marketers occasionally trade stories of the platform’s limited attention span and penchant for all things instant, Reddit can be a powerful resource for businesspeople with a clear plan of action.
The beauty of Reddit lies in its depth. Unlike Digg’s rigid structure and limited categories, Reddit is home to thousands of different directories and category options, each more interesting than the last.
8. Del.icio.us
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3yogbho
Built by Joshua Schachter in 2003 and acquired by search giant Yahoo! two years later, Delicious is one of the most popular social bookmarking tools on the web. A truly giant directory of peoples’ favorite websites and online resources, Delicious is the ideal tool for marketers and businesspeople to monitor how effective – and how popular – their online properties are.
It’s also a highly convenient tool for keeping track of your own bookmarks. Sign up for a Del.icio.us account and you’ll gain access to an entire new network of rewarding content and cool resources, each ready to be shared with your friends, colleagues, and family.
9. Technorati
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3y8t5ms
The Google of the blogging world, Technorati is one of the world’s most popular social directories and an all-out goldmine for anything blogging-related. While currently limited to English language content, the overwhelming majority of global bloggers use Technorati as a reference for their blog’s popularity and influence.
If your company is invested in blogging as a social media marketing strategy, a dedicated effort towards Technorati’s many users could be worth its while. Search engine optimization extends beyond Yahoo and Google – often all the way to Technorati’s results page.
10. Newsvine
Source: http://tinyurl.com/2upgdtd
A social resource for all things journalism-related, Newsvine is one of the most popular reference websites on the internet. Owned and operated by MSNBC, the website keeps no editorial agenda or news opinion, merely acting as a platform for users to distribute their own news online.
For many of those users, Newsvine has been hugely successful. The website promises 90% of advertising revenue for its users, dishing out the remaining 10 percent in referral fees and website maintenance. If you’re made the news, be sure to check out Newsvine for accurate, valuable, and inspiring community responses.
8 Ways Linkbaits can Save Your Business Time, Money, and Marketing Effort
Content marketing is one of the oldest and most effective forms of marketing around. A mainstay of 20th century newspaper marketing, content marketing has since developed into complex online marketing blogs, press releases, and ultra-specialized trade marketing materials.
At the top of the viral marketing food chain is the linkbait – a highly targeted, reader-friendly article designed to achieve massive online exposure. For businesses, there’s no better tool for gaining search authority and valuable online marketing power. If you want to make linkbaits a part of your online marketing strategy, read on to find out exactly how they can help you.
1. Linkbaits go viral quickly.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewfield/2306001896/
You’re the owner of a successful performance car parts store. After just a few months of operation, your business is already profitable, with a stream of returning customers and loyal service clients coming back week after week. However, your business needs an extra push – a new wave of marketing power and customer exposure.
After briefly studying online marketing, one platform seems to appeal above all others: article and content marketing. This is where the divide begins, between boring how-to or specialized articles, and potentially explosive link bait articles. While both provide long-term online exposure and growth, its delivered in a different fashion, and at a different speed.
As a marketer, you’ve got to put yourself in your audience’s shoes when marketing online. An article entitled “The fundamentals of a performance engine” isn’t going to attract attention outside of car enthusiasts and mechanical circles. However, a linkbait article entitled “10 Amazing Performance Car Accessories” will do just that – attract attention.
2. Linkbaits are cheaper than ultra-specific articles.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/2942333106/
There are two ways to gauge expense: through time, or through spending. While specialized articles – how-to guides, detailed case studies, and technical content – require serious expenses, most linkbaits can be created relatively quickly and inexpensively. Rather than hiring a professional mechanic or engineer to craft an article on car parts, most businesses can simply hire a motoring journalist or marketing firm at a lower per-article cost.
3. Linkbaits appeal to a wide audience.
Measuring the effectiveness of any online article always comes down to the goals and intentions of the marketer behind it. Some writers post their work to gain attention, others for SEO power and inbound links, while others do it to build their online credibility. Linkbaits, as their name suggests, are all about inbound links.
Inbound links require one thing: mass appeal. The greater the amount of readers, the higher the chance of valuable inbound links. By moving away from ultra-specialized content and focusing on wide, reader-friendly, and marketable linkbaits, your business could receive the online SEO boost that you need.
4. Linkbaits can be consumed quickly, but leave a lasting impression.
Speed readers will know how wildly a piece of writing can control reading speed. Light fiction texts lend themselves to quick and easy consumption, while dense academic studies and papers require constant analysis and revision. These analytical requirements share one more difference – a change in the level of involvement and connection.
While complex texts and difficult pieces require intense concentration, they typically fail to involve the reader or present any long-term recognition. A faceless academic study requires work for consumption, while a light piece of fiction or a magazine article can be quickly glossed over in minutes.
Linkbaits follow the second principle: simplicity and connection. While frequently dealing with topics that just aren’t that personal, most linkbaits tend to connect with readers more effectively than in-depth articles and complex guides. Accessibility counts for a lot, especially online, and many businesses are better off using simple and effective linkbaits instead of difficult, complex, and intimidating studies.
5. Linkbaits are favorites for aggregators and communities.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/370282903/
Traditional articles act as a funnel for content. Effort goes in one end, and is subsequently diluted to the point where it’s almost completely ineffective in amassing an audience. Rather than maximizing the promotional value of their content, most articles deal with topics so irrelevant and ineffective that businesses end up limiting their promotional audience right from the start.
Linkbait articles are a magnet for content. By employing a list structure instead of a typical article, writers no longer conclude the conversation with their content, but start it. Top-10 lists empower readers to comment on their own personal favorites, while how-to lists invite readers to chime in with advice and information. This involvement aspect, one that’s so often missing from traditional articles, is what makes linkbaits such a hit with news aggregators and online communities.
6. Linkbaits are thin on connection, but deep on branding.
It’s not difficult to tie “The Best Moto GP Crashes” to your motorcycle business. While most articles appeal to an audience that’s already invested in your niche or industry, linkbaits give businesses an avenue to attract new customers to their niche. While most linkbaits provide little in the way of personal connection or tailored advice, they provide a lot for businesses looking to brand themselves.
7. Linkbaits are fun!
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/2765083201/
Product manuals are boring. Traditional marketing materials are headache-inducing. Advertisements can be fun, but they’re mostly useless as an SEO resource. Few online marketing materials are fun, especially outside of the entertainment industry.
Linkbaits give marketers an avenue to entertain and engage their audiences. The reason for the popularity of list and “how-to” style articles is clear – people enjoy reading them. When your business promotes itself with content that prospective customers enjoy, then you’re already a step ahead of your competition and certainly a step closer to becoming the online leader in your niche.
8. Linkbaits are short, punchy, and social-media friendly.
Pay-per-click advertisers are constantly complaining about social media platforms. Engagement is low, click-through rates are abysmal, and overall ROI can be disastrous, especially for eCommerce and affiliate products. The human element of social media takes away marketing power, especially for companies that have built their success on marketing to audiences that want to buy.
Linkbaits, however, are different. There’s no direct marketing goal for a linkbait article, only an indirect SEO goal. Their short structure, punchy and quick content delivery, and perfect topic choice for conversation makes linkbaits one of the most effective resources for marketing on social media. By bypassing the purchasing aspect of marketing altogether, linkbaits have moved social media from an unmarketable platform into one of the most valuable marketing resources available.
8 Must-Haves for your Promotional Linkbait Articles
Linkbait articles are one of the most effective tools in any online entrepreneur’s arsenal. While many businesses prefer to outsource and subcontract their online promotion, an ever-growing wave of online businesses are taking promotion into their own hands. Whether you want to write a linkbait article from scratch or simply edit one that’s been written for you, these eight must-have features will help you create something that generates attention, discussion, and – if required – controversy.
1. Style your headlines on the New York Post.
Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GvFEduhv030/R-wEY8F3hLI/AAAAAAAAAEg/4yN2LMbB6i8/s400/headless.jpg
When it comes to bizarre, attention-grabbing headlines, no tabloid newspaper comes close to comparing to the New York Post. From sex scandals to mundane daily events, every possible news story was reported as if it was a play-by-play disaster recap, complete with ludicrous claims and sensational photos.
Online content is all about competition. When there are millions of articles out there for viewers to read, what’s going to drive them towards yours? Use a tabloid-style headline and get attention right from the beginning, then drive it home with content that lives up to the hype.
2. More than one image.
The blogger standard seems to be a single image at the top of every post, but a great linkbait article requires much more than just one image. Structure your article so that images can weave between paragraphs and major talking points, giving you an opportunity to clarify in the caption. If you need a fool-proof guide for adding images to your linkbaits, try keeping a 1:200 images to words ratio.
3. A list, comparison, or how-to guide.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aheram/409863531/
Look at the front page of any social bookmarking website and you’ll see an awful lot of one thing: lists. Online readers, particularly those that consume a lot of media per day, prefer lists and how-to articles for their simplicity and reader-friendliness. Lists attract attention online, even if the subject is somewhat dull and uninteresting. The next time you find yourself stuck promoting a dull niche or business, use a list or how-to article to make your writing more marketable.
4. A casual, reader-friendly tone.
Finding the perfect balance of simplicity and readability can be difficult, especially when you’re writing for a mass audience. While it’s tempting to go “newspaper-style” and write a piece that wouldn’t be out of place in a tabloid, many marketers and writers find that this type of content simply doesn’t gain that much attention.
Instead, write as if you were speaking to a friend or acquaintance. There’s no need to be too formal, but at the same time it’s best to keep things reasonably clean. Keep sentences relatively short and don’t let your article become something that it’s not. It’s never worth sacrificing readability for complexity, especially if your article is aimed at a wide audience. Leave the academic terms for a thesis and keep things simple.
5. A resource box.
The point of a linkbait article is, not surprisingly, to generate links and online attention. As noble as it may be to put a piece out to raise attention and awareness, most marketers want to make sure that the online exposure is directed in their direction. When it comes to linkbait articles, this attention and exposure is channeled through a resource box.
Whenever you publish an article externally, for example on a directory or a niche-related blog, use a resource box to make sure you get due credit. Include links to your business website, a short writer profile, and any other information that you think is relevant.
6. A valuable blog or publishing platform.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/antigone/457089364/
linkbait articles are typically promoted through social bookmarking link services – Digg, Delicious, or Reddit – and rarely gain attention without a valuable or authoritative publishing platform. A two-post WordPress blog is unlikely to be enough to put your content on the front page, though a leading industry blog could be.
If you don’t have an established blog or website, don’t be afraid to use someone else’s. Most bloggers are very comfortable with guest posts, especially if they come with a chance to hit the front page of Digg. If you’re stuck between publishing on someone else’s blog or creating your own, it’s best to use the external blog and work your way towards your own successful publishing platform.
7. Humor, controversy, or enlightenment.
One of the internet’s greatest strengths is its ability to provide content for everyone. Whether you’re interested in Mongolian wrestling or designer shoes, there’s specialized content out there for the thin, highly interested portion of the online population that you belong to. This niche-based content is great for webmasters and companies that grow through long-term customers, but for linkbait marketers it’s a strategy to avoid.
Don’t provide content that only interests a tiny portion of the internet. Go wide and create articles that everyone is interested in. If you’re having trouble thinking of anything to write, stick with the three topics that have consistently provided results for short-term article marketers: humor, controversy, or enlightening content.
8. Topicality or timelessness.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/januszbc/292473978/
Pick one or the other. You can either create an article that will be relevant the moment it hits the social bookmarking and aggregator websites, or an article that will be relevant all the time.
Timeless content includes life and business advice, personal stories or anecdotes, or top-ten lists that aren’t based on current pop culture. It doesn’t generate attention as quickly as current content, and it has a minimal chance of going viral, but it does give you a long-term linking resource.
In contrast, topical content rarely provides long-term traffic or online attention, but it generates extreme short-term exposure. Highly successful in social bookmarking communities, topical content is the best pick for marketers that need rapid exposure and a quick wave of online attention.
Smart marketers don’t stick with one strategy or another – they combine them. Shape your output to resemble both a newspaper and a magazine. Provide sensational short-term articles when required, but back them up with in-depth features and long-term link resources.
4 Reasons to Build Your Marketing Strategy Around Linkbait
There’s no shortage of content on internet marketing, but unfortunately most of it simply isn’t applicable to most or even slightly practical. With the world of online marketing rapidly changing, thousands of businesses are forced to completely change their plans, all at the drop of a hat. Despite being highly effective, when not built on a scalable strategy, internet marketing quickly falls apart.
Luckily, there’s an online alternative to the hustle and bustle of traditional internet marketing. While thousands of businesses engage in an all-out fight for low quality links, smart businesses are giving their fans, customers, and audiences great content, and are picking up valuable exposure naturally. Through some slick and interesting linkbait articles, your business can go from a one-on-one linking strategy to an ultra-powerful, low-maintenance online marketing method.
If your business is getting tired of endless reciprocal linking and low quality writing, check out these four reasons to build your long-term marketing strategy with linkbait articles:
1. Linkbaits are popular, no matter what your niche is.
Some niches are, let’s face it, a little bland. While it’s difficult to craft a brilliant article on stained wood, it’s certainly not impossible. The greatest thing about linkbait articles is that once they’re out there, they quickly become popular. Invest some time into a great linkbait that covers your niche and you’ll end up with some serious online exposure, powerful SEO backlinks, and explosive popularity.
2. You don’t promote linkbait – other people promote it for you.
There’s one rule for online content marketing: write things that are worth reading. Simply put, the majority of press releases and grand advertisements just aren’t effective for connecting with a wide audiences. Instead of sinking thousands of dollars into a media-level press program, create an article that will appeal to your audience. That way, you’ll have thousands of people passively promoting you, all while you sit back and plan your next marketing move.
3. Linkbait doesn’t just generate links, but viral exposure.
Most internet marketing articles are good for one thing only: SEO. Instead of being designed as mindless keyword fodder, link baits are written to appeal to a die-hard audience of fans. As a result, you’re not just generating links when they spread from website to website, but real viral marketing exposure. There’s no need for separate viral marketing and SEO strategies with linkbaits – just create some ultra-fun articles and get your audience busy reading, linking, and talking about you.
4. Linkbaits are linked to 24/7, causing passive SEO power.
Link building is a tedious and often unrewarding task – one that can suck up resources and slow work output to a crawl. Search marketers despise link building, as it’s such a mindless task that even outsourcing it is uninteresting.
So why not crowdsource it? Linkbaits aren’t built using the same template as a standard SEO article – they’re interesting, eye-catching, and above anything else, 100% linkable. Instead of wasting time and money on manual link building, craft some popular linkbaits and enjoy completely crowdsourced link building for your web presence.
5 Tips for Writing Great Linkbait
Amongst internet marketers, linkbaits are the holy grail of link-worthy content. Designed to attract attention, inspire backlinks, and bring in a wave of social media traffic, linkbait articles are a favorite amongst search marketers and viral marketing experts.
So what exactly is a linkbait article? Put simply, it’s an article that’s designed to attract links and online attention. Rather than the standard, somewhat boring internet article, linkbaits are designed from the ground up to draw readers’ attention, entice people to click through, and finally, encourage people to link back to the article itself.
Unfortunately, not many marketers know how to write great linkbaits. For every truly inspiring article, there are hundreds of imitators and poor copies. These five simple tips will help you get your linkbaits up to scratch, and potentially help you untap a highly lucrative online marketing method.
1. Give it a good headline.
Most headlines are boring. They’re non-descriptive, uninspiring, and patently uninteresting. Online, it’s a constant battle for clicks between you and your competitors. With a boring title, no one is going to click through to your article. Spend an hour or two brainstorming great titles, and don’t settle for something that doesn’t shock, inspire, or entertain you.
2. How-to guides and lists are where the money is.
If you’re writing a quick list of tips on painting, don’t just call it “Painting Tips”. Add some inspiration, and make it clear that it’s a list. “5 Ultra-Useful Painting Tactics” is going to draw attention from painters and art enthusiasts. Lists are gold for click-through rates, especially on ultra-popular social bookmarking websites. Feel free to experiment, but for guaranteed clicks it’s best to stick to the list or how-to format.
3. Keep your sentences short.
People love to skim read, especially online. Long sentences might be great for explaining and expanding on topics, but they’re overkill for link bait articles. Keep sentences short and you’ll find that readers finish your article; bloat them unnecessarily and you’ll lose people halfway through.
4. Bullet-points are either your best friend, or your worst enemy.
When used properly, bullet-points are a great addition to a linkbait article. However, there are a few guidelines to stick through. Before you start your article, get your notepad ready and note them down:
- Keep bullet points short.
- No more than seven words per line.
- Indent them from your paragraphs.
5. Don’t be afraid to use pictures.
They say an image is worth one thousand words, but when it comes to linkbaits it could be more accurately described as ‘one thousand extra views’. Simply put, adding images to your linkbaits gives you an edge that few online articles have. You’re more linkable, more interesting, and significantly more reader-friendly. Spend the extra time and find a great image for each and every article.
Use Social Media To Improve Customer Relationships
So the last couple of weeks I have been banging on to you guys about, “how the world is changing” and “get involved in social media” (you need to know that in my head I was saying that like a medieval jester announcing the arrival of the King…something along those lines anyway…sorry, I’m digressing slightly!).
Well I wasn’t lying…in fact a big dog in the marketing world, located on the other side of the pond, has reviewed social media for businesses in 2009. In fact, by all counts it seems to be a rather poor performance for businesses.
It was found that in 2009 businesses struggled to keep up with their customers on social media networks.
When the ball started to roll for social media there was only a handful of sites to keep track of, but now there are so many, companies need a social media marketing plan to ensure they don’t miss a trick. Not only are there so many sites to keep track of, there are so many users using them.
The recession hit everywhere pretty hard, and it was responsible for making marketing budgets a bit on the short side so what did the most intelligent of companies do? They turned to the internet of course. Whoever the bright spark that came up with that idea was should have either got a bonus for thinking of it or sacked because they didn’t think of it earlier!
Facebook itself boasts a huge 350 million users. That alone is greater than the population of North America. So think of the amount of people these companies have at the touch of a button. So many that can be exposed to a brand and all for the cost of an internet connection to start with.
Realistically, it is slightly more complex than that. Social media marketing shouldn’t be taken lightly. Businesses should be careful not to focus specifically on Facebook promotion or Twitter promotion or agencies that push for these kinds of strategies. It should be a strategy that targets the consumer with the aid of social media.
Social media is a fast, constantly varying industry and it is very difficult to have particular targets for social media when it comes to forecasting a marketing plan. Focusing on specific technologies can prove to be detrimental. It’s the overall trend that requires the most attention. It is a rising trend that customers are using these social media sites more and more, and therefore, companies should react to this positively with an open mind.
6 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking!
Social Bookmarking is a term thrown around by online marketing companies or social media companies to clients, but what does it actually mean? Yes, it sounds pretty good, when said in an enthusiastic tone, but when you stop and think about it, it doesn’t really explain an awful lot. It’s rather like some comedians…you either get it, or you don’t!
Look no further, i will turn your thoughts into a language everyone understands. Peter Kay language! You’re probably thinking, what on Earth…but stick with me…may you be shown the light through the tunnel of confusion and directed off “The Road To Nowhere.” (“Now, we’ve started, now we’ve started!”)
1. What is it?
Now the term ‘bookmarking’ is commonly used as a way of saving or tagging a web page so that you can quickly access it again. Well ‘social bookmarking‘ isn’t much different. It can be defined as:
“the practice of saving ‘bookmarks’ to a public web page and ‘tagging’ them with keywords.”
These bookmarks are uploaded or shared onto social media sites so that other users can view them as well. Users can create a collection of these bookmarks, just by signing up to these social media sites, such as Digg, Delicious, Stumbledupon and Mixx to name a few.
Users often log on, read these articles or bookmarks and often reference them on their own blogs or websites.
2. Who Is Doing It?
Everyone is doing it, that is because Anyone can do it. The question is, if you aren’t doing it, why not? From online marketers, to university students, social media has become the realm of all information. Whether its gossip you’re looking for, factual information or even a ‘How To’ guide, there is something for everyone. In a nutshell, there are users looking for useful information, and there are other users looking to share it with you.
3. How Does It Work?
The creators or the writers of these bookmarks assign ‘tags’ and categories to their articles (just like I do with this blog post…you see at the bottom…tagged keywords!) to make searching for information easier for the user. Instead of crawling through pages and pages of content, searching by keywords or categories makes things so much easier. Not only that, but each bookmark provides access to other bookmarks by that particular writer that you may find interesting.
Searching via Twitter can help as well. Often users of the social media sites post their bookmark names with links on Twitter. This can make it easier for you to follow the people you want to follow, and read what interests you most. This is especially useful if you are searching for information or users in your business industry.
4. Why Is It Significant?
The significance of this is that it is very easy to tune into, what I call, ‘tunnel vision’. By that I mean that, you may not be aware of other perspectives, and the social media network can help you broaden your horizons and see a new light.
The social media network is becoming rapidly the greatest source of education. The World Wide Web can provide you with all the information you need about anything, it’s just a case of picking it out. So learning more about different industries is all at the touch of a mouse…and a few buttons as well then.
These significances are responsible for users signing up in the first place, but also returning once they have signed up. This keeps information current, active and engaging. Everything you need for a good browse on ‘t’internet’!
5. What Are The Downsides?
So all that seems well and good, but to put a bit of a black cloud over it, it’s all just a bit amateurish way of informing the world of your expertise. There’s no right or wrong way of ‘tagging’ or categorising something, which can make searching quite ambiguous and as a result leading to inconsistency. Also, with all these different points of view flying around, how can you be sure what your reading is true or not…in fact, thinking about it, how do you guys know I’m not just feeding you a load of codswallop…you don’t…but I can assure you I’m not…or am I…you see, you have no idea…sorry guys, but, “it’s spitting, everybody in!”
6. Where Is All This Going…Tenerife?!
Once you have put your foot through the door of the social media gateway, after taking a deep breath, you will find it’s not a difficult concept to grasp really. Anyone can do it. As I mentioned last time, times are changing, sources of information are expanding and new systems and new resources are being developed as a innovative method of managing information.
So what’s it going to be? Are you one of those people that thinks, the old ones are the best, like some of the classic Peter Kay jokes I’ve managed to slip in? Or are you willing to dive in and give it ago…be innovative, creative, find something new because, “I tell you this for free,” (well I’m not going to charge you) just like garlic bread was…”It’s the future!”…(sorry I couldn’t resist!)