A common hurdle to effective inbound marketing is time. Whether it’s creating an enticing call-to-action, email blast, or lead nurturing campaign – the common denominator for all of these is time. Blogging regularly, as an example, is an effective yet time consuming way to increase your website traffic. To that end, here are some tips that have worked for me in creating valuable yet efficient blogs:
- Write In Your Head First - use your time driving to work, waiting in line at Chipotle for lunch, or maybe even while you exercise, to develop a structure and key points for your blog post. Figuring out the structure and planning the writing before you actually sit down to put fingers to keyboard is a key time saver.
- Beginning, Middle, End – as you write in your head, determine the beginning, middle, and end of your post. Naturally, you’ll have an introductory paragraph that sets context and a closing paragraph that asks questions or provides a summary. The meat of your post – whether it’s data or recommendations or analysis - should be focused in the middle of your article.
- Finishing Touches - is your goal to spur discussion, gain conversions, or take a position? Drive that point home by asking questions or asking for feedback on a particular position. Have a catchy graphic and, per the first point, think about the graphic you’ll need before you write. For example I’ve used Compfight to search for a graphic for this post.
What helps you write an effective and efficient blog post? Do you write during a certain time of the day? How do you blog ideas come to you?
Full disclosure here: this blog post took me 38 minutes to write. Biggest time suck? Finding a graphic. It look me probably 5 more minutes than I anticipating to find the right graphics. Any tips on that? Let us know.
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Filed under Internet Marketing by on Sep 2nd, 2011. 
Is anyone else concerned about far Google is taking its social search strategy?
Google has many irons in the digital media fire these days, but Google, the search engine, is our primary association with the information giant. That is because Google fought passed AOL, Yahoo, ASK, etc, by continually revising its search algorithm to deliver the most relevant search results. The level of trust the general public has for the search engine is evident through the consistent majority of the search market share that Google holds.
In February we got the first taste of Google social search capabilities. Since then we have seen routine developments by Google to make the search engine experience increasingly integrated with social preferences. The Google +1 button is added to contend with ‘Likes’ and then Google launches a living breathing social platform project of its own in Google+. All of these social media implementations and more will certainly play a role in how searchers find information on Google in the future.
This month the search engine continued its social Online Cruise Director role through Google Places updates. Using information gathered from social media, the improvements will prioritize listings in Google Places based on the searcher’s personal interests and recommendations made by friends.
This increased reliance on social media for search requires users to take their social activity much more seriously to be served useful search results while logged into Google. If I half-heartedly ‘Liked’ a brand or business a year ago, I may have made a long lasting search commitment to that entity that I wasn’t ready for at that time. The same is true for casual acquaintances. Like it or not, their opinions are going to be important to Google through rank, whether or not they are important to me.
I wonder if this growing social search focus will have any implications for how Google’s relevance is perceived in the future. Especially since not all search queries performed are appropriate for social integration. I have heard many people express their intention to make sure they are not logged into Google when they are performing searches to ensure their search results are reliable and not skewed by social engagement.
Google indicates in its recent announcement regarding the Google Places update that the changes are based on the “loud and clear” feedback Google has received about how friends’ reviews will allow search engine users to find the places that are the best fit for what they are looking for. Although a search engine supplying recommendations and comments of known acquaintances certainly makes it easier to get that information, it appears that the newest social development will inevitably lead us another step farther away from actually participating in our online social world. Keeping up with friends primarily through social platforms like Facebook is arguably driving more distance between social interactions. The depth to friendships will likely lessen the more it becomes the norm to share important milestones solely through status updates and wall photos. “No need to make the time to see Sally and Bob’s baby boy because they posted an album last night .” With the new developments for Google Places we now don’t even have to reach out to our social contacts for recommendations. We can just get their feedback through the Google search engine, thereby limiting future exchanges within our social community.
The integration of the worlds of social and search are technologically fascinating, and will often be a great help for certain search queries, but I think there is a significant possibility that making social a dominant part of search is a giant step back for information discovery.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Jul 31st, 2011.
Until recently, Nielsen’s data suggested that the heaviest media consumers were the heaviest across every type of media – streaming, mobile, standard TV, etc. Basically, that meant that if you watched a lot of streaming content online, then you also watched a lot of television.
In their latest Cross Platform Report, they found that simply isn’t the case anymore.
A subset of consumers from television and Internet homes has now emerged that defies that notion, with the lightest traditional television users streaming significantly more Internet video, and the heaviest streamers under-indexing for traditional TV viewership.
This behavior is led by those ages 18-34. The group of consumers exhibiting this behavior is significant but small. More than a third of the TV/Internet population is not streaming, whereas less than 1% are not watching TV.
This means that nowadays, if you are heavy into streaming, you most likely aren’t turning on the cable. Here’s a visual demonstration of this:
And the next graph shows that the tendency is more pronounced in people aged 18-34. Makes sense, since that is the generation that has grown up on Netflix and YouTube.
This is interesting news, and unsettling news I’m sure for TV executives and cable providers. Among a set of people (the heavy online video connoisseurs), albeit a small set, they are satisfying themselves almost exclusively with streaming video. Is it only a matter of time until it is not just the heavy internet users who are watching traditional TV less and less?
As of right now, however, it looks like Americans simply love any type of video you put in their faces. According to Nielsen, overall TV watching increased 22 minutes per person per month year-over-year. Nine out of ten households with TVs have cable service. DVR usage continues to grow and even mobile video has increased 41% year-over-year.
Will internet video ever completely knock the crown off Television? Let us know what you think.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Jun 15th, 2011.
It’s no secret that some people are uneasy with Facebook’s privacy practices, despite the company revising its policies repeatedly. Netpop has released an interesting study finding that 8 in 10 social media users feel “uneasy” or “ambivalent” about sharing personal information on social media sites.
Here’s the break down (also pictured above):
“Social media is growing in the United States and around the world, prompting Internet users to share an ever-growing amount of personal information,” says Netpop. “Social media platforms are, of course, in the business of making it fun and easy to share more, and do more, with more people. But where does the information go? Who sees it? Who owns it? And how is it used? These questions become increasingly important as social media expand and sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are driven to better leverage (and monetize) our information and social connections.”
“Findings reveal that the vast majority (80 percent) are uncertain or uneasy about the social sites they use,” the firm says. “This is particularly true of Facebook: 85 percent of Facebook users are either uncertain or explicitly concerned. Findings also show that privacy concerns and distrust bear a negative impact on social brands: Users have a significantly lower perception of social brands if they are concerned about privacy or distrust the site to use their information appropriately.”
The study also found that users with privacy concerns rate social sites significantly lower. This is something to think about in all of the Facebook-connectedness of the web today. It’s gotten to the point where it is pretty hard to find a site that doesn’t use some kind of Facebook integration.
The fact is that it is simply to attractive to webmasters to use Facebook for a variety of reasons, – engagement and traffic among the top. The study brings up an interesting point of discussion. Are some consumers trusting you less because of your Facebook and other social integration?
I don’t expect the findings will sway too many site-owners away from Facebook integration, but perhaps it does highlight the need for giving consumers different options in terms of how they connect with your site.
Facebook’s own score drops over 100 points in the findings, among those who distrust the social network to use their information appropriately.
Another study released this week, finds that 47% of Facebook users have profanity on their walls.
Now here’s how you can get more Facebook likes, more traffic from Facebook, and more search traffic stemming from Facebook.
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Internet Marketing Tools For The DIY’er HERE
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 25th, 2011.
