This is post 3 of our 4 part series on our discussion of the importance of engaging in Blogging, Social Media and Content Marketing to enhance your business visibility online.

Website Content vs Print Content

As you begin to write compelling content for your new blog and website, you need to understand that writing a blog post is different to that of writing for print. People read differently from a screen than from a printed page. With Content Marketing, you are writing for two audiences: your visitors and the search engines.

There is a difference to how people read web content vs printed content. People will read something more completely when it is written on paper compared to a website where they skim the information that is presented to them looking for headings and links that would interest them. They usually tend to ignore details, reading only short paragraphs or bulleted lists especially when they contain the keywords that they used to find your website.

Why is this?

People read paper documents 25% faster than screen content. It is proved that it is physically harder to read from a screen as it is harder on the eyes. There are many reasons for this such as font size, sharpness in the font, position of the screen or the contrast.

In print, you can control the reader from introduction to conclusion. With blog and website content the visitor is in control and they choose their own path of what to read next. They will also follow the navigation and links according to what interests them.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE REST OF THE ARTICLE >>> CLICK

Technorati Tags: Content Marketing, marketing

By Adam Needles, on March 26th, 2010

We’ve recently expanded the popular B2B Marketing University series to include a monthly Webinar component — which we’re calling our ‘Virtual 201′ sessions.  In these sessions, we take a deeper dive into specific topics that both a.) build on the B2B marketing basics and b.) can help you take your skill set as a B2B marketer to the next level.

The first webinar in this new series — held earlier this week — was titled, “Content Marketing Basics:  Improving the Success of Your B2B Marketing Campaign.”  It focused in part on the context surrounding the evolution and importance of having a ‘holistic’ content marketing strategy (i.e., why ‘all eyes’ are on B2B content marketing).  It also identified key strategies for finding success with content marketing.

Joe Pulizzi, founder and Chief Content Officer of Junta42, as well as co-author of Get Content Get Customers, joined me for this Webinar.  His recommendations and the dialogue with Joe were great, and so I wanted to share with you some of the highlights.

We also had many great audience questions — so many that we weren’t able to tackle all of them in the timeframe — so Joe and I took notes on the questions and are presenting an even deep(er) dive here.

Webinar Highlights

First, a quick overview of the core presentations, which we delivered in two parts:

> Context for content marketing: I opened the session with several slides that explain why the average B2B marketer increased his/her budget for custom content to nearly 32% of total budget in 2009, according to a report by the Custom Publishing council.  I highlighted the fact that a changing B2B marketing environment — where the buyer is more empowered and in control than ever before — is pushing marketers to adopt new approaches, especially content marketing.  There is a growing body of research that suggests that B2B buyers are doing more of the education for their buying cycles online and on their own time, versus calling a live salesperson.  Thus, they are consuming large amounts of substantive content — particularly peer-authored content — to form initial opinions and to conduct early assessment of where they might find solutions to their problems.  “[I]t’s common to take … partially defined need and flesh it out through online research,” explained Canadian Web firm Enquiro in a 2009 report as part of The Buyersphere Project.  “The result of the research is fundamental in determining potential candidates, defining comparison criteria and formalizing the purchase plan.”  I also highlighted how content marketing, lead management and marketing automation work together as critical elements in building buyer-centric demand generation programs.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE READ >>> CLICK

Technorati Tags: Content Marketing

• Marc Meyer, Principle at Digital Response Marketing Group
• Jim Cossetta, cofounder of 4what.com
• Paul Mussina, President, Business Technology insight

Attendees from the building industry and related companies struggle with two simultaneous challenges:

• They are suffering from our a especially steep downturn in building that limits both people and dollar resources.
• They need to transform from traditional marketing methods to content marketing and social media.

Fortunately, there is a new generation of affordable tools and techniques that can make that transformation inexpensive—and with a bit of outside help—almost painless.

Here are some practical lessons on content marketing and social media that I’d like to share from the St. Patrick’s Day session.

CLICK HERE for the rest of the content marketing article…CLICK

Technorati Tags: Content Marketing

The traditional marketer focus

Most optimizing efforts go into optimizing the different online marketing channels to generate higher conversion like this example.

CLICK HERE for the rest of the content marketing article…CLICK

Technorati Tags: Content Marketing

I am still sometimes haunted by the response I gave to an executive’s question in a strategy meeting a full decade ago. My then-employer was a B2B internet company struggling with its identity as the organization grew at an explosive rate and morphed from a publisher of online trade journals to a combination publisher, builder of B2B communities, and enabler of B2B commerce in the form of auctions, exchanges, and online lead generation.

The executive leading the meeting asked each of us at the table where our content and community efforts best fit into the equation. Should they come under the umbrella of marketing and audience development, reporting up through the CMO, or should they remain in Operations, which encompassed everything from site design to sales fulfillment to product development and IT support, all under the direction of the COO?

CLICK here for the rest of the article…CLICK

Technorati Tags: Content Marketing

Here’s the Goodwill Fashionista has to say about the project:

Dear Readers,

As I mentioned here yesterday and have been tweeting about for the past few days, today we launch the first part in a series of video vignettes about the green benefits of shopping at Goodwill. The videos follow Miss District of Columbia, Jen Corey, and yours truly, the DC Goodwill Fashionista, as we set out on a Goodwill treasure hunt searching for recycled furniture and accessories to furnish Jen’s new apartment transforming it from empty and bland to chic and colorful…without breaking the bank!
Jen’s platform for the Miss America Pageant on January 30^th is recycling, and she chose to work with us to showcase her personal recycling efforts and the value of donating and shopping at Goodwill.

Check this out and learn my incredibly creative marketing and advertising professionals >>> DC Goodwill Fashionista.

Technorati Tags: advertising, branding, Content Marketing, creative services, DC Goodwill Fashionista, Goodwill, Goodwill Fashionista, Jen Corey, Miss DC, Miss DC 2009, Miss District of Columbia, video content marketing

Junta42.com – Joe Pulizzi

I’m extremely thankful this year…for many things. Re: business, it’s hard to imagine just a few years ago I was working for “the man” and how this year I have been able to spread the word about content marketing all over the world.  It’s quite humbling actually.

Here’s what I’ll be doing more of over the next year to insure more good things will happen in 2010.

1. Share more expertise. This is the hardest part about content marketing.  Most businesses feel they need to protect their expertise. They believe that’s their competitive advantage. The truth is, the more expertise you share, the more business you will get.  Every time I give a speech, I get more speaking offers. Every time we blog about a key issue, the more of the right web traffic we get and the more people spread that content for us. What will you share next year?
2. More audio and video. Slideshare is fantastic, but more and more Junta42 readers have been asking for video or audio with our Slideshare presentations.  It’s not hard to do, we just have to do it.  We’re thinking if we add this component, more good will happen.
3. Continue to be human. This is a challenge for businesses, and a key to successful social media. How do you act online?  Like a person.  Throw out the corporate speak and be real.

Effective content marketing means more sharing, more giving and more marketing with meaning. When you help your customers on a consistent basis, you’ll get chosen (more than not) when they are ready to buy.

Now that’s something to be thankful about!

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, branding, content, Content Marketing, creative services, Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, marketing, re-brand, re-branding, re-content, re-contenting, stella, stella pop, stellapop, stellas pop factory, yostella

Get over it your sh*# is not that good. And the whole wide world is one big scrape. To prove this just follow a big content marketer on Twitter.

The Content Pyramid – David Naylor & Paul C arpenter

I was thinking about the different types of content the other day and how you to organise your approach to it – in terms of both building content and acquiring links from that content. And now, I present to you the result of my deliberations: The Content Pyramid.

Content Marketing - Content Pyramid

THE ORIGINATORS

At the top of the content pyramid are the real ideas guys – people who have resources, time and the sheer smarts to come up with things that can change your perception of an issue. Not wishing to suck up to Dave, but he’s the kind of guy I mean. In a 60 word post he can put out an idea or observation that sets lightbulbs off over people’s heads.

THE COMMENTARIAT

At the second level of content are the people who follow the originators. Often they have more audience reach because they dedicate more of their time to honing their style or are attached to a big publication.

They’re still smart – because they not only understand what the originators are saying but can contextualise it for non-specialists. They can also see the implications and will often put together something that speculates on where an idea will end up.

The difference between these guys and the originators is probably like the relationship between a chef and a restaurant critic. The critic probably has more readers every week than the restaurant could sit in a year. This is where ‘word of mouth’ really starts.

Case in point: our original story about the Twitter hack got a fraction of the retweets that the rewrite on Mashable did over the first days as the story was breaking.

THE AGGREGATORS

The third tier are people with an interest in a subject but with no real insight of their own. The kind of people who retweet the aggregators or make a list of “10 Great Resources” from stuff they’ve read in the papers that week. You’re looking at the kind of content that is read just by a small circle of people.

I class my own blog in that kind of sphere – I could probably give you the names of 50% of my daily visitors and I don’t really write anything of consequence there. But! The people who come there have a laugh and remember it. There are a lot of these blogs out there, and they touch each other in unexpected ways. You might not get relevant links from a site like this, but the ripples can spread quite widely. These people are probably also susceptible to a little flattery or cash 

THE THIEVES

The bottom feeders of the content chain are those who outright steal from any of the points above. It could be a direct content scrape or a respouting of an opinion or fact without any real addition. The people who visit these sites are probably accidental, one-time only visitors.

WHERE DO YOU SIT?

Arguably, being at the top of the content pyramid is the best place of all. You’re the domain expert. People can’t talk about the subject without touching on your work or ideas and it is your content that goes out through the aggregators. But, the aggregators might be where the traffic and exposure really is to push down into the volume sectors.

As a general rule, very few of us sit at the top of the pyramid (that’s why it’s a pyramid, doofus). We should all aim for it when writing content – because from there your influence can spread through and define a whole market. Realistically, most markets are saturated and you’re swimming in an ocean of Same – who really needs another article on link building, ferchrissakes?

If that’s you, then you need to look for a longer term strategy. You need to have opinions and develop a writing style that engages an audience. You need to spread the word so far and wide that people will learn about ideas from you, even if it all proves is that you subscribe to the blog of someone much smarter. From that comes traffic… and links from lower down the chain… and ultimately authority: the holy grail.

Finally, if you’re looking at getting links from people, think about where they sit in the pyramid. If it’s a splog, move on. If it’s an aggregator you need to get in front of them. If it’s an originator, you probably need to sidle up to them at a bar the next time they’re speaking at a conference and ply them with booze.

Technorati Tags: advertising, branding, content, Content Marketing, creative services, marketing, re-branding, re-content, re-contenting, rebranding, stella, stella pop, stellapop, stellas pop factory, yostella