By Leo Valiquette
Summer, as I wrote in my last post, is no time to slack off from a marketing and PR perspective, but this raises the obvious question, what to do through July and August?
Most community business networking events are on hiatus. So too are conferences and trade shows. On any given week key spokespeople and thought leaders in your organization may be on vacation.
It may be a quiet time, a down time, but there are still things you can do.
The most obvious is focus on your social media channels and your blog. Throughout most of the year, busy marketing and communications teams struggle to keep these machines fed and use them as they are intended to engage in valuable dialogue with target audiences on a consistent basis. So use these summer workdays constructively to create and ingrain good social media habits into your organization. And if developing a sound and comprehensive social media strategy is one of those things that just keeps sliding off of the plate, now is the time to tackle the project in earnest so you are ready to pull the trigger when everything shifts into top gear again following Labour Day.
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By Hailley Griffis
As per our usual Friday schedule, we have rounded up some of the best articles we’ve come across in the past week to share with our readers. Front and centre this time around are Social Media Today, SocialMediaB2B, Marketing Sherpa Blog and Econsultancy.
How much content do you need? Here’s a formula
Jay Baer looks into a formula for content marketing. Is there a certain amount of content required? According to Jay, if you want to make your content useful, there absolutely is. You need to look at personas, budget stages and the number of questions you need to answer, before moving to the next stage. The formula involves all of these numbers and helps you figure out how many of your customer’s questions your content should be answering.
Daily social media usage includes B2B customers and prospects
Though some companies seem to think their customers aren’t on social media, Jeffrey Cohen writes about recent statistics that reveal that 40 per cent of the world uses a social media site every day. The study goes into which social networks are used and when specifically their traffic peaks throughout the day, with information such as “2.1 billion search queries are conducted on Twitter every day. That’s almost half as many as performed on Google.” The importance in these numbers for marketing lies in understanding where your customers are on social networks. With that information, you can create the presence, and the content, to find them.
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By Megan Totka
Most people understand how to use social media to find friends, activities, games, etc. Businesses are also becoming more adept at finding both their current customers as well as new ones by using social media sites to their advantage. But social media can be a dangerous creature if you don’t know how to harness its power properly.
Social media marketing is quickly becoming a focus for many companies. Since some social media sites, Facebook in particular, are viewed millions of times per day, it’s critical to the success of small businesses to keep their page(s) up-to-date and use them as tools to interact with customers.
However, there are many pitfalls to social media marketing. Here are some common social media gaffes and how to avoid or remedy them:
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By Hailley Griffis
Last month’s content lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about listening to feedback from investors, the future of the tech-world for entrepreneurs and how far a little cleverness can take you in your marketing strategy. We also looked at the International Startup Festival being held in Montreal this month for the third year in a row and the astounding importance that neurons play in our day-to-day lives.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
June 18 : The art of ignoring feedback, by Anil Dilawri
June 04: Where do the next opportunities lie for savvy tech entrepreneurs?, by Denzil Doyle
June 26: International Startup Festival hits Montreal for third edition, by Francis Moran
June 17: A little cleverness goes a long, long way, by Leo Valiquette
June 19: You are what you think, by Bob Bailly
June 12: Why my pony tail ain’t my brand, by Francis Moran
June 06: House renos and the art of customer service, by Francis Moran
June 05: Your local newspaper may be your hardest to crack, and least relevant, media outlet, by Leo Valiquette
June 24: Why confidentiality, by David French
June 27: Running faster is not the solution to Canada’s productivity challenge, by Denzil Doyle
June 10: 4 reasons why you need a mobile website, by Debra Kaye
June 11: With clients, you must sometimes be cruel to be kind, by Leo Valiquette
June 20: Are developers responsible for how their products are used?, by Francis Moran
June 25: Summer is no time to slack off, by Leo Valiquette
June 13: Customer surveys are great. Unless you ask the wrong questions, by Francis Moran
Image: June 2013 Calendar Printable
By Hailley Griffis
Every Friday, we round up some of the best articles we’ve come across in the past week and share them with our readers. Front and centre this time around are Marketing Tech Blog, TopRank, CopyBlogger and Business2Community.
Expectations on your marketing investment
Douglas Karr, President and CEO of DK New Media, goes over the importance of understanding where your marketing dollars are going, and how to optimize that. He compares outbound, advertising and inbound marketing, concluding that for a lot of people, inbound marketing is one of the best investments if you have the right resources and strategy.
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