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How to Use Twitter for Business

27th January, 2014

Since its inception, Twitter has become well known for its quirky and often parodied publishing structure. When it comes to marketing via social media, Twitter seems to be the social network that companies shy away from. I’ve seen businesses that were reluctant to use the platform because they just weren’t sure how to leverage it.

Not all social networks are for all businesses, but there are some great ways to use Twitter for marketing and other business-related activities.

Twitter for Service

When you hear “social media” and “business” in the same sentence, it typically means marketing, communications, PR or some combination of those things. For the most part, that is true, but social media can be used for whatever is effective. Zappos has proven that for a while now by leveraging Twitter as a customer service platform.

They even have a dedicated Twitter account (@Zappos_Service)that answers all kinds of customer inquiries from whether a certain product is in stock to when there is an issue with an order.

Currently, we are out of stock. However, maybe we can wrangle some Twitter love for you. What do you say, @Luke5SOS ? @nialloandstitch

— Zappos.com (@Zappos_Service) January 24, 2014

I love Zappos’ example of using Twitter for customer service because it shows that you don’t have to use social media for marketing. It is a great medium for that kind of messaging, but you can also think outside the box and use it for other things.

You Want Images on That?

You can still only use 140 characters in your Tweets, which can be challenging, but a picture is worth a thousand words…or 5,000 characters…you get the point. Using images is important for marketing, especially if you have a product that lends itself well to imagery.

Domino’s Pizza does a great job of this in their Twitter feed, posting an image almost every other Tweet and using the hashtag #PizzaPics.

Who doesn’t love delicious looking #pizzapics? Follow @Dominos on Instagram. http://t.co/p8rWtDle76 pic.twitter.com/UCHCpi1xpH

— Domino’s Pizza (@dominos) January 15, 2014

Images liven up the feed, make things more interesting and act as a good way to showcase a product (pizza, in this case). If you have a product or service where images are easy to use, share lots of them. Get your followers to share images of your product or service. The web is a very visual world, so make the most of it.

The Basics of Marketing on Twitter

How you use Twitter to market your business will largely depend on your goals, how you decide to leverage the platform and who your customers are. There are some universal protocols that you should be following, though.

Grow Your Following

Don’t get me wrong here. Followers aren’t everything. You could have fifty thousand followers on Twitter and still be considered a failure at using it to market your business. You do, however, need a good following if you are going to be successful. Here are some tips for growing your connections:

Follow people (who you actually want to follow). They’ll follow you back.
Engage with people. Favorite, retweet, and reply to their Tweets. This exposes you to their followers just as if their friends saw them talking to you at a party, and they wanted to come meet you.
Advertise on Twitter. You’ll have to spend some cash, but it will work.
Share content that your followers will like.
Embed your Tweets on your website or on others’ websites.
Interact and share consistently. Do it daily, weekly or bi-weekly. For the most part, more is better, but no matter how often you are active, make sure it’s consistent.

Get People to Engage

Only you know your goals for marketing your business on Twitter. There isn’t really a universal result or drive to use the platform. For most strategies to be considered even a partial success, though, a conversation is required between company and followers.

You have to get people interacting with you. You can’t just push content out into nothingness and expect your activity on Twitter to get you anywhere. Here are some tips for doing that:

Be a real person, not just a mouth piece for the company. That is, don’t just spout information out. Post things in a way that gets people involved. After all, this is social media.
Run contests that encourage and reward followers for engaging with the brand.
Integrate online and offline marketing strategies that will drive engagement. For example, you might send out free versions of a product and get people to post images of themselves using it on Twitter.

Have a Goal

This should probably be closer to the front of this post, but as long as it gets mentioned, that is the important part. Before you go tweeting like crazy all over the web, sit down and think about a couple of questions.

What does success look like for using Twitter to market your business?
How will you measure that success to know when you’ve achieved it?

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions. You just have to answer them or your time will probably be wasted online. It’s very easy (even with goals in place) to get distracted and lose sight of your ultimate goal for using the platform.

Some common goals for using Twitter for marketing are acquiring customers, building brand or product awareness, serving customers in innovative ways or building a relationship with a target market. Whatever your goals are, make sure you write them down and revisit them often. The most important things to remember when using Twitter to promote your company are to be creative and have fun!

How do you use Twitter for business? Join in the conversation by leaving a comment below.

Webinars: Potential Problems and How to Fix Them

Shawn Manaher

24th January, 2014

Content Management

It’s every webinar marketer’s worst nightmare. You’ve painstakingly spent months organizing and preparing for an event that’s sure to be a hit—but most importantly, run smoothly—only to find disaster hits unexpectedly. What’s worse is that you were so focused on getting your presentation right that you forgot to develop a contingency plan for worst-case scenarios.

To help you prepare for potential webinar issues in the future, we look at some common mishaps, as well as how to fix them.

1. Your Guest Speaker Cancels At the Last Minute, Fails to Show, or Loses the Connection

Problem: Whether your guest speaker becomes ill, drops out for emergency reasons, or loses signal minutes into the event, the situation can cause any webinar marketer to sweat. Besides being unable to conduct your presentation, you have the embarrassing task of explaining to your audience that things have gone awry.

Fix: Don’t panic. Most people understand that things go wrong at the best of times. Simply apologize for the inconvenience and let your attendees know you’ll need to reschedule. As soon as you’ve arranged a new date and time, send out an email blast letting everyone know the details and invite them to re-register for the new session. Alternatively, you can record the webinar without an audience and then send your registrants the recording to watch in their own time.

2. Attendees Complain of Terrible Sound Quality or No Sound at All

Problem: No sooner have you started your presentation when your chat stream starts lighting up with messages from individuals who are experiencing sound problems. While some might stick around for a few minutes to see if things improve, there’s a chance that attendees will drop out and not return.

Fix: Even though you can’t fix all sound issues, especially if the problem lies with your webinar software provider or an attendee’s equipment, you still need to respond to anyone complaining about sound breakups, bad sound quality, or dead air. Besides apologizing for the interruption, you should let people know you’re doing what you can to rectify the problem, and then suggest that audience members wait for the recording. If there’s only one or two people experiencing issues, ask them to check the devices they’re using to ensure the problem isn’t on their side.

3. You Accidentally Hit the Wrong Button

Problem: If you’re moving your cursor around a lot during your presentations, there’s a possibility you may hit the incorrect button unintentionally. If you pushed a simple function like “mute,” you can likely undo what you did. However, something more serious may halt the broadcast or end the session altogether.

Fix: Depending on the webinar platform you’re using, you may be able to re-open your event as the webinar creator or host. However, there’s a chance that many attendees won’t rejoin. It’s best to send a follow-up email explaining your error and then add a link to the recording. You’re only human, so you should expect these types of mishaps to crop up from time to time.

4. You Lose Your Internet Connection, Mobile Phone Signal, or Power

Problem: Staring at a blank screen or listening to a dead line when you know there are hundreds of people waiting on the other end for you can be stressful. If it takes a while to get back online, the wait only makes it worse.

Fix: Although you can’t control outside forces, you can be prepared. Always use a landline if you’re calling in, make sure your devices are plugged in and fully charged, and choose a location that limits potential hazards. If there’s no way you can save the event when you’re able to get back online and reconnect, explain what happened in a follow-up email, and let attendees know you’ll reschedule.

The bottom line: be prepared for the unexpected. Don’t freak out in front of your live audience. Stay calm, maintain your professionalism, and be honest when things go wrong.

What’s the worst thing that’s happened during a webinar you’ve either hosted or attended? Share your embarrassing stories with us in the comment section below.

10 Responsive Email Newsletter Templates

Shawn Manaher

22nd January, 2014

Content Assessment

Even if you know how to program in HTML for web pages, making email templates for newsletters is a challenge. There are different rules when it comes to email, and sometimes it’s just a whole lot easier to buy a template. Of course, if you don’t have the budget, you can always find free email templates on the web, but if you want to avoid embedded branding that isn’t yours and/or limited functionality and options, here are some premium email newsletter templates.

Litta

Litta is responsive for mobile platforms. It can be used for newsletter campaigns, but also for product promotion. It has a modular design so you can rearrange things easily. It’s also compatible with leading email marketing platforms like MailChimp and clients like Outlook.

Note

This one is a little better for product showcasing, but it works well for livelier newsletter designs. It has a large background image instead of white space or solid colors, making the design eye catching and appealing.

Market

Market features eight prebuilt layouts and more than 700 HTML files that include inline CSS and layered PSD files. If you are good with PSD, a lot of these templates’ images can be modified to your specifications.

Festive

Every business should have a holiday template up its sleeve. Festive features responsive design and six different templates. What’s more, it is supported by leading email clients.

Sweet17

Minimalist design is the new trend in marketing and content distribution. Apple does a good job of this, even in its content-heavy marketing pieces. If you want to do a bare-bones email newsletter that cuts down on the clutter, check out the Sweet17 template.

Guttis

Guttis has an ultra-modern design, and is compatible in all major browsers. Similar to Note, it features large background images for templates.

Retinadore

Retinadore’s claim to fame is its optimization for retina displays on Apple products. You can also edit it using MailChimp’s template builder IDE (which requires no knowledge of HTML or CSS code).

Fusion

Fusion features responsive design and oodles of documentation. The Metro style design is similar to the tiles you see on Windows software interfaces.

Arini

Here’s another template with modular design layout. It is suitable for newsletter purposes, but excels for product/service type purposes.

Flexa

The name says it all. This theme is flexible with 7 different color schemes, the ability to delete, copy and replace table rows and 12 responsive templates. It’s also been tested with Litmus and Email on Acid testing tools.

Coming up with content is challenging enough; you shouldn’t have to worry about creating email newsletter templates. You can find these and a ton of other paid or free templates at themeforest.com.

What email newsletter templates do you use for your content? Join in the conversation by commenting below.

How to Use Google Plus for Business

Shawn Manaher

20th January, 2014

Content Promotion

When it was first launched, Google Plus was a shiny new toy many were clamoring to play with. Excitement for the social platform quickly waned as critics predicted its demise while Facebook’s title as market leader seemed secure.

While G+ can’t even compete with Facebook’s user base, recent data show that it continues to outpace Twitter as the world’s second-largest social platform with about 359 million active users as of 2013.

Businesses should sit up and take notice. Not only are consumers who may be interested in their products and services active on the platform, but the indirect benefits of growing a network and having it interact with content you have shared are many.

Using Google Plus for business is easy, and we have some simple tips to help you make the most of your business page.

Define Success

Before you start using Google Plus for business, you should define what success means for you on the platform. That means outlining what your goals are and how you will achieve them. There really isn’t a right and wrong here. Success is different for all people and businesses. Perhaps you already have a social media strategy in place?

The important thing here is that you know what success will look like. Is it building a following and getting your brand exposure? Will you measure success by the volume of engagement you have on the platform? Or will it be when you actually get a new customer as a result of using Google Plus?
Whatever it is, define it, write it down, and outline a plan to achieve it.

Growing Your Following

Using Google Plus for business means you have to get people to follow you first. There are several ways you can go about doing this.

Circle Sharing
I really like this one because if you do it right, you can grow a following in no time with a little bit of footwork. Circle sharing is the practice of grouping contacts into a circle in your account and then sharing it with whatever followers you already have.

Assuming you already have a few followers, create a circle that they would want to add to their accounts. If you, as a business, are at all relevant to the circle you’ve created (and you should make sure that you are), add yourself to the circle and share it.

The idea here is that people will see the circle of people or companies (or both), find it interesting or useful, and then add them all at once to their own accounts. Once they have added the circle (and your business), anything you post will begin showing up in their feeds.

When you build circles, craft them carefully. Don’t just mash a bunch of profiles and business pages together. Make them into a theme and name it accordingly. Make sure there is a common thread among all the accounts you have put into the circle. That way when you go to share it, you can describe it easily, and those for whom the circle is relevant will find it useful.

For instance, if you are a video game developer and you want to grow your following, you could create a circle of famous gamers and game developers to share. You could name it something clever, add your own company to it and then share it with your network. If people like it enough, they will add it to their own accounts and also share it with their own networks.

Great Content
Another good way to grow your following is to share good content. Put some effort into your activities on Google Plus, and don’t just do the bare minimum of sharing others’ content or sharing links to other websites. Those things are fine to do, but if you really want people to be interested and interact with your brand, you have to be original, entertaining, useful and/or fun to follow. Examples of good content to share are:

Infographics that you’ve made (hint: come up with your own data and you can make one here)
Memes: people love Internet memes. Google the term and you can get a lot of ideas on what you could do. Make it relevant to who you want to attract to your business.
Blog posts: write your own blog posts and share links to them on your account.
Video: share useful or entertaining videos as your brand.

For the most part, try not to just go through the motions. Think hard about what is relevant to your target market, and share things that resonate with them.

Advertising Your Presence
People may not search you out on G+, but if you promote your business page in places where customers are already seeing you, then they can find you there. Place links to your Plus page in email signatures, on your website, on other social profiles or on printed materials.

Engagement
You’ll find that by simply participating on Google Plus, your following will begin to grow. Comment on things others have posted, follow other users and businesses, add people to your account and interact in any other way you can think of.

This gets your brand exposure, and people who see the brand may decide to follow it. Using hashtags is another way to get found more often. When you use hashtags, you become part of a larger conversation that people who aren’t following you can see.

Although discounted in the beginning, G+ has become a vibrant community where businesses have an opportunity to make connections with their markets. The real keys to success on G+ (and other social networks) are to be consistent, genuine and original. People connect with brands when there is a two-way conversation.

What tips do you have for using Google Plus for business? Join the conversation by commenting below.

Hosting a Successful Webinar: A Checklist for Before, During, and After

Shawn Manaher

17th January, 2014

Content Assessment

Hosting a successful webinar can be stressful, especially if you’re new to this increasingly popular marketing platform. However, if you’ve been following our webinar series for the last few months, you’ll know how to develop and implement a webinar plan from scratch, create the necessary assets for effective promotion and content delivery, and attract highly targeted individuals who are ready to hear your presentation from beginning to end.

As a final control measure before you go live for the first time, here’s a checklist of items you shouldn’t forget before, during, and after your event.

Before

Conduct A Final Equipment and Volume Check – Besides ensuring all guest speakers, moderators and other participants join early and that you have your digital and hard copy materials ready, it’s crucial to check sound quality, microphones, recording equipment, and the webinar technology you’re using. If anything goes wrong during a webinar, it usually stems from a technical issue. You can save yourself embarrassment and limit potential problems by testing these things before you go live.

Get Active on Social Media – Connect with attendees using a dedicated hashtag, build excitement, start a countdown, or release a few interesting snippets about the topic you’ll be discussing.

During

Stick To A Basic Script – For the most part, you should let your presentation slides guide the conversation naturally. However, it’s far too easy to go off on a tangent and confuse your audience. To be on the safe side, take the time to develop a script around some key items like your opening, closing, and key points. You’ll not only help everyone stay on track, but you’ll also ensure your guest speakers know their cues.

Keep Abreast Of Social Conversations – Make sure someone monitors your social media streams for questions or comments you can address towards the end of the event.

Manage Discussion And Interaction Effectively – Depending on your format, you need to ensure all interactive features like polls are working and encourage participants to make use of them. You also want to ensure that no one is bombarding the chat box with comments or questions that may stop others from participating in the conversation.

Make Your Call To Action Clear – Prior to closing your session, let attendees know how they should proceed and why they should take action. Whether you want them to download a whitepaper, fill in a survey, book a demo, or visit a product page for more info, be explicit and explain the benefits. If your CTA isn’t clear, you’re unlikely to generate a response that’ll get you one step closer to achieving your webinar objectives.

After

Conduct A Webinar Survey – Most software providers allow you to survey attendees immediately after the webinar has ended. This is a great way to gain valuable feedback you can use to improve your webinars in the future.

Get In Touch With No-Shows – Never forget about registrants who fail to attend. A no-show doesn’t necessarily mean the person has lost interest in the topic, which is why you should send an invite for the on-demand version of your event as soon as possible. Most people who couldn’t make it for reasons such as unexpected schedule conflicts will appreciate the opportunity to catch up.

Respond To Queries and Other Interactions Immediately – Attendees who submitted a request, asked a question, or performed an action that demonstrates an interest in your content, business, or offerings, should be a priority. Therefore, you should make certain you contact them with answers or an offer of assistance shortly after your event.

Practice Good Etiquette – When you’ve wrapped up your webinar, be sure to thank anyone who helped make your event a success. Consider sending guest speakers a gift or offering something of value in return for their time and expertise.

Make Your Recording Available ASAP And Promote Your Archived Download – Whether you’re making your webinar available to the public at large or to paying attendees only, you should make certain you post your recording within a timely manner. While you should send a direct link in follow-up emails to attendees, you should promote a compelling landing page with a lead capture form to the public. It’s also a good idea to distribute or make your slidedeck and other materials available through platforms like SlideShare.

Implement Your Follow-Up And Lead Nurturing Plans – When it comes to live events, you have to strike while the iron is hot. Soon after you wrap up your webinar, you should follow up with emails, additional content, and other tactics that form part of your lead management strategy. If you leave it for too long, you may find your leads lose interest.

Hosting a successful webinar (or any live event for that matter) essentially boils down to planning. You’ve heard it before: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Be sure to keep a cool head if issues do arise—remaining professional is key.

How do you manage your live online events? Share your tips and advice with us in the comment section below.

The Top 100 Inbound Marketers

Shawn Manaher

16th January, 2014

Content Promotion

Social media connects people. It helps them stay in touch, find people they once knew and develop new connections that may have never happened otherwise. One of the most powerful things about social media is that it helps spread ideas and knowledge. Those ideas and knowledge come from real people, and we would like to take the chance to highlight some of the top inbound marketers (both people and businesses) who are working to drive the web-marketing world forward. In no particular order, here they are in all their glory. If you don’t have these individuals and organizations in your circles, make a point of adding them.

12 Stars Media

Helping to produce real simple video is 12 Stars Media. Video is a great inbound marketing medium, and it is the activity that people spend the majority of their time doing while online.

13th Beach DIY Web Assist

Helping make web marketing easy on small businesses from Down Under.

98toGo Inbound Marketing

Helping businesses with their inbound marketing needs in the Atlanta area and beyond.

Aaron wall

SEO practitioner at SEO Book and all-around optimization expert.

Adam Dince

Digital marketer and customer experience evangelist working at MNSearch.

Adam Sherk

Adam is an enterprise SEO consultant (wow, sounds fancy!). He works for Define Media Group, which was once a part of the New York Times (also fancy).

AJ Kohn

Owner of Blind Five Year Old. According to AJ’s about page, the odd name comes from his totally not odd philosophy on search engine optimization.

Alchemic Dream

Gaming is certainly its own community online. Alchemic Dream specializes in community management, game mastering, localization and a whole bunch of other things I don’t quite understand. Interestingly, they have employees on five continents.

Analytical Solution

Got big data that needs analyzing? Analytical Solution is the…solution. Not only can they analyze your data for you, but they can train you how to do it yourself.

Applied Inbound Marketing

From small mom and pop shops to Fortune 500 companies, Oregon-based AIM provides inbound marketing services that leverage performance-based metrics.

Art of Inbound Marketing & Design

A marketing and design firm that helps attract leads, Art of Inbound is a one-stop shop for web design, marketing, logo design and a host of other services.

Avinash Kaushik

Avinash is the co-Founder of Market Motive and the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google.

B2B Inbound Marketing Agency

In January 2012, Marguerite founded the inbound marketing agency, ReLaunchU, for the express purpose of supporting training, coaching, and consulting businesses.

Barrington SEO

Barrington SEO is a local Internet marketing consulting firm dedicated to helping local businesses with every facet of Internet marketing.

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is most notable for his role as an editor for Search Engine Land.

Beth Browning

“I love teaching and helping people understand the power of the Internet, and how they can make the most of their online presence to generate new leads and convert them to customers.”

Branching Out Europe

Branching out provides sales, digital marketing and lead-generation services to businesses large and small.

Brand Metasis

“We are a results-driven, Integrated Inbound marketing agency. We help transform your brand into a sales and marketing magnet with a well-designed online presence, compelling content, creative marketing designs and precisely targeted inbound marketing.”

Brian Whalley

Director of Marketing at HubSpot and inbound marketer in Boston.

Brice Hourdin

Bragging rights: Master II – E-Business / Master I – B2B Marketing

Chad Pollitt

Web traffic controller, author of ebooks, member of a Forbes Top 100 list, former Army Commander, current Battle CPT and Dir. of Marketing at @drelevance

Chris Winfield

“I’m a passionate digital marketing executive, innovator, strategist & leader. For 14+ years, I have helped many of the world’s best-known companies (Disney, Virgin, Macy’s, Viacom, Conde Nast, Intuit, NBC, Time, Inc. & many others) leverage technology & the Internet in unprecedented ways to spur enterprise growth.”

ChrisParente.com

Former tech company executive and current managing director and partner at Strategic Communications Group.

Content Crossroads

Content Crossroads creates, publishes and tracks original and good-quality content that will help you in your online marketing efforts to attract and engage customers regularly.

Dan Moyle

Dan is a writer and content creator in the multimedia space. Employed by AmeriFirst Home Mortgage as a Certified Inbound Marketing Specialist, brand manager, multimedia marketing & communications specialist.

Dan Shure

“Obsessed with making people’s websites work better for them, I help out a handful of clients through my company EvolvingSEO, and can be found as a Moz Associate helping people in the SEOmoz Q&A.”

Daniel Berger

Contributor to mcccode.com and gpndata.com.

Danny Sullivan

Founding Editor, Marketing Land & Search Engine Land, covering Google, Facebook, Twitter, SEO, SEM & all things digital marketing, search marketing and search.

David Meerman Scott

Marketing strategist, keynote speaker and bestselling author of “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” and six other books including “Real-Time Marketing & PR” and “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead” (written with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot).

Dennis Carpenter

Director of Marketing services at Stamats Business Media.

Digital Diary

A resource for Online Marketing, Lead Gen, SEO, SEM, UX, Social, Mobile & Strategies.

Donna Fontenot

eBusiness coach, inbound marketer, and novelist who believes, “You’ll never shine if you don’t glow.”

Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape provides small business marketing consulting, ideas and strategies

Eric Kuhn

Eric writes about startups, marketing and technology.

Fuzz One Media

Fuzz One is a full-service digital marketing agency with a strong focus on Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Gabriel Reynoso

Digital Marketing Manager at Universal Energy Corporation.

HubSpot

HubSpot is the world’s #1 inbound marketing platform designed to replace the world’s interruptive and annoying marketing with marketing people love.

Ian Lurie

Internet marketing blogger. Founder and CEO, Portent, Inc.

inBlurbs – Inbound Marketing Agency

Certified Inbound Marketing Professionals, Authorized Inbound Marketing Educators and HubSpot Certified Partner.

Inboud Visibility

Inboud Visibility is an international digital marketing agency.

Inbound Marketing

HubSpot Certified Partner and Interactive Digital Media Agency.

Inbound marketing & SEO by AZ

An online marketing consultant who enjoys helping businesses and individuals succeed in online marketing.

Inbound Marketing Agents

Inbound marketing experts with a passion for empowering small businesses.

Inbound Marketing Association

An inbound marketing association: promoting inbound marketing companies.

Inbound Marketing Deutschland

Inbound Marketing, B2B social media, lead management – website, SEO, blogging, landing pages, nurturing, konvertierung.

Inbound Marketing Expert

Inbound Marketing Expert Pvt. Ltd was founded on the 1st of January 2012 with the aim of delivering consulting tips and tactics to startups and small businesses that don’t have larger capital to market and grow their organizations.

Inbound Marketing Geek

Helping small business owners grow their businesses online

Inbound Marketing MasterMind

The name says it all.

Inbound Marketing Results

Based in Colorado, providing Social Media Marketing and Website Development for small- to medium-sized businesses.

Inbound Marketing Specialists

Inbound Marketing Specialists is a group of trendy marketers who deliver engaging content for companies to increase their online presence!

Go Time Marketing

Go Time Marketing is a Sacramento, CA inbound Internet marketing agency that develops holistic online strategies to successfully market your product or service online with a measurable ROI.

Jackson Marketing Services

Jackson Marketing Services helps small businesses and individuals with their marketing needs–from traditional to SEO, PPC and social media marketing.

Jigsoar Inbound Marketing

One of the first full-service inbound marketing agencies in the UK.

John Doherty

John is online marketing manager at Hotpads.com. He was formerly with Distilled in NYC. Along with Danny Sullivan, he is a good one to follow.

Jon Henshaw

Co-Founder of Raven Internet Marketing Tools for SEO, Social Media and Paid Search

Jonathon Colman

Helping people build, find, and use the best stuff on the web for over 15 years.

Julie Zare

Director of Client Services at SEO software firm UpCity.com.

Kane Jamison

Content Marketing & Organic Search Specialist and founder of Content Harmony.

Keith Laskey

Keith is an insurance agent with a passion for personal development. He seeks wisdom about the latter topic and then blogs about it.

Kevin Gallagher

Works for Stargazer Digital and is obsessed with SEO.

KI Agência

Web marketing and development firm based in Portugal.

Kipp Bodnar

Does Inbound Marketing at HubSpot. Proud to be the Co-Author of The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More.

Knowles Kreative, LLC

Specializing in providing creative and strategic digital marketing solutions, Knowles Kreative has been enhancing clients’ brands since 1996.

Krista Kotrla

Vice President of Marketing for Block Imaging.

Kuno Creative

Kuno Creative provides content marketing, demand generation, lead nurturing and marketing automation services to deliver more qualified leads to sales teams.

Lauren Drell

Assistant editor at Mashable.

Leadsgenie – Inbound Marketing

Leadsgenie provides web lead generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing, email marketing, inbound marketing, A/B testing, social media marketing.

LinkCaffeine | Inbound Marketing Agency

A small yet creative inbound marketing agency with a team of writers, marketers, social media strategists and all-around great people.

Luke Summerfield

Consultant at Savvy Panda. Speaker, writer and coach.

Mark Traphagen

Senior Director of Online Marketing for Stone Temple Consulting.

MarketLikeAQueen

Helping Christian women leaders market their businesses more intelligently while honoring God in both their lives and businesses.

Marketo

Marketo provides easy, powerful, complete marketing automation, social campaigns, inbound marketing, sales apps, and ROI reporting — all in one place. More sales leads. Less work. Faster.

Marsden & Associates

An Atlanta B2B marketing agency specializing in integrated marketing campaigns.

Martin Macdonald

A long-term practitioner of SEO, since before it was called SEO.

Matt McGee

Editor-In-Chief at MarketingLand.com and SearchEngineLand.com.

Matthew Scyoc

Freelance writer and outreach specialist interested in content marketing.

Max Traylor

Director of Client Services at Innovative Marketing Resources, a full-service inbound marketing agency.

Meghan Sullivan

Inbound Marketer

Moz

Moz develops inbound marketing software, provides robust APIs for link data and social influence, and hosts the web’s most vibrant community of online marketers.

OverGo Studio Inbound Marketing

OverGo builds and executes marketing processes that stimulate growth for their clients.

Paul Roetzer

Founder and CEO of PR 20/20. Author of The Marketing Agency Blueprint (Wiley, Dec 2011).

Pop Results

Pop Results is an inbound marketing agency specializing in inbound marketing services.

Rand Fishkin

Moz founder; frequent traveler/blogger/speaker; passionate about all things tech & inbound marketing.

Red Website Design

Affordable web design for businesses and individuals on a limited budget.

Seth Godin

Seth is the author of 14 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 25 languages.

Shawn Manaher

Entrepreneur and marketer. Founder at The Content Authority and Nexus Affects.

sindiwithans marketing

SindiWithAnS is an inbound marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses grow through successful marketing strategies.

SocialBiz

SocialBiz is passionate about helping companies and professionals design and implement social media marketing strategies to help create a buzz for their biz.

Spark Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing agency offering a full-service approach to web marketing and lead generation.

Stargazer Digital

An inbound marketing company based in Scotland.

Steve Jack

Marketing analyst at Inbound Visibility.

Sticky Marketing

We are a boutique online marketing agency working with socially aware companies to grow their communities and expand their global impact.

The Inbound Marketing Company

Simple and effective inbound marketing without all the confusion.

Timothy Dearlove

Inbound Marketing Consultant at HubSpot.

Tom Critchlow

Creative Labs marketing manager at Google (very cool!)

Try Muller

A product marketing and management professional using Google Plus to share business insights and source great content.

WebMedia Inbound Marketing & SEO

Helping small and medium size businesses be found, be seen and be successful online through inbound marketing; identifying actionable insights to build an effective marketing strategy to capitalize on their Internet investment.

We hope you enjoyed the list. These folks are some of the most influential people in their respective fields and niches. Following them means you’ll have a steady stream of great content and great advice.

Who are some of your favorite inbound marketers? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

How to Use LinkedIn for Business

Shawn Manaher

13th January, 2014

Content Promotion

Each social media network is unique. Each one has its own audience, its own strengths and indeed its own style. LinkedIn is one of those networks with a distinct style and audience. It is frequented by professionals and is often used for professional networking as opposed to sharing images of your children and casual status updates. It’s the place where people go to show what they know and to connect with others on a professional instead of personal level. Following are some tips for companies looking to leverage the platform for more exposure. According to Hubspot, 43% of marketers have acquired a customer on LinkedIn.

Make the Most Out of Your Company Page

You have several opportunities to brand your page and insert information about products and services. Use the banner section of your company page to showcase your logo or an image that symbolizes what you do as a company.

Administrators can add company specialties, additional logos, recruiting posters, groups, and a company description to the page. By adding keywords in some of these sections, you can increase the likelihood that your company will show up for specific queries.

LinkedIn also features service pages where admins can add a bunch of information on the products/services that the company offers. These pages will be visible to users and the visitors can add recommendations for services.

Take Note of Your Demographics

Naturally, you should grow your following on LinkedIn just like on any other network, but unlike other social platforms, LinkedIn places an emphasis on the professional status of the people connected to your page.

Specifically, you can see the professional ranking of those connected to your page. See if your audience is comprised primarily of entry-level people, CEOs or a mix somewhere in between. Think carefully about the content you share as the brand with your audience in mind. This is true for any network, and on LinkedIn, you want to share content that is relevant on a professional level to your audience.

Post Thoughtful Content

You should be posting content as your company page at least a couple of times a week if not more. Not only should your content be relevant to your audience, but it should be helpful and insightful. You should also be following the 80/20 rule. That means 80% of your content should be non promotional and the other 20% can be about your company.

Links, images, useful data and video tend to get the most interaction; however, this is a time when you should watch your analytics closely. Plan out content to post for about a month and make sure you have a good mix of different kinds of content.

After the month is over, go back and see which posts got the most clicks, the most interactions and were viewed by the most people. Model future content after that which got the most interactions.

Tracking Conversions

When using 20% of your time on the platform to post self-promotional items, make sure you are measuring your activities. If you are using an analytics platform and you are sending traffic back to your website, you can use customized URLs for your posts.

Make sure you have well-optimized landing pages so that visitors can easily convert when they arrive at your site. You should also be laying out clear goals. Are you using LinkedIn to sell things? Are you using it to generate leads? Make goals that are measureable and attainable so you can see if the platform is working well for you as a business.

LinkedIn is a powerful networking and marketing tool. As a business, you can leverage the personality of the network to get people engaged with your brand. Craft your profile to stand out, know your audience, be thoughtful, be helpful and measure your marketing activities.

What tips do you have for using LinkedIn for business? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

22 Powerful Ways to Promote Your Webinar Effectively

Shawn Manaher

10th January, 2014

Content Promotion

Last week, we covered five tips for developing a promotional strategy that drives webinar registrations and attendance. One of those tips focused on choosing the right promotional methods for your webinar campaign. To help you out with ideas for both pre- and post-webinar initiatives, here are 22 powerful and creative advertising tactics for generating awareness and publicity.

#1 – Create a compelling announcement for your website. Tap into your imagination to create an original banner or interactive concept that gets your target audience clicking through to your signup page.

#2 – Write relevant blog posts. Developing posts around related ideas or topics and then slapping a captivating call-to-action on the end is the perfect way to drive interest and registrations.

#3 – Send a persuasive email invitation to your list of prospects and clients. Don’t bombard your lists with marketing messages, but ensure you create a series of email blasts leading up to the event so that you effectively build the urgency to register. You should also encourage any guest speakers you’re collaborating with to send a webinar invite out to their lists.

#4 – Post a series of engaging social media snippets to your feeds. While you want to avoid overdoing it, you also want to ensure you create a group of interesting messages for each webinar you promote. Social posts have very short life spans, so think about creative ways you can keep your webinar visible without destroying your credibility and reputation as a well-balanced social media user and marketer.

#5 – Produce a short, entertaining Youtube clip. A great video ad is ideal for providing extra info about your event, enhancing engagement, and adding value through additional insights. Be sure to add call-to-action overlays to your video when appropriate, as well as a link to your landing page in the description box.

#6 – Use background and cover images on your social properties. An appealing graphic with an eye-catching design ensures visitors to your profiles won’t miss the message if your promotional posts are eventually buried.

#7 – Create short, dedicated hashtags for each webinar. Hashtags offer a great way to generate conversation and build excitement around your event on social media platforms.

#8 – Leverage your company newsletter. Besides the fact that your subscribers are already interested in what you have to say, your brand’s newsletter offers an opportunity to gain exposure and funnel readers to your webinar registration page.

#9 – Solicit a guest post from your speaker. If you’ve managed to nab an industry expert who already has a large following, ask the individual to craft a post for your blog and then encourage your speaker to promote it via his or her networks. You’ll not only prompt signups to your webinar, but this tactic can help you attract a new audience to your site. Don’t forget that you can also submit guest posts you’ve written to relevant bloggers within your community.

#10 – Add a call-to-action for your webinar event in your email signature. Although you should always send out an official promotional email, your email signature is attached to all communications. This conveniently allows you to spread the word to those who might not have received your email blast, but have received other correspondence via email.

#11 – Promote your event to relevant Facebook and LinkedIn Groups already talking about the topic you’ll be discussing. A highly targeted campaign will ensure you drive qualified traffic to your webinar signup form.

#12 – Encourage your sales reps to contact relevant prospects and promote the webinar to them. Since your sales team is on the frontlines, they’ll know who might be interested in joining your event.

#13 – Get your affiliate marketers involved. Provide your team with compelling promotional materials and tools such as social media snippets, email copy, articles, and banners. Consider boosting their motivation with a little contest and a cool prize to sweeten the deal.

#14 – Publish a well-written press release. An interesting and professional piece for a newsworthy webinar can be a great way to enhance your reach and generate publicity for your event.

#15 – Design appealing and “pinnable” graphics. If your business’s social media strategy includes Pinterest, consider fun ways you can establish a board, as well as shareable images for your webinars.

#16 – Use word-of-mouth advertising tactics when the opportunity arises. Invite registrants to share the signup form for the live event and ask satisfied viewers to share the on-demand version with their peers. You’ll also want to provide links and promotional materials to any upcoming webinars you might have in the pipelines.

#17 – Create highly targeted Google Ads. PPC campaigns are extremely effective for driving traffic to a site. Be sure to set up Google Analytics so you can track the performance of your ad copy.

#18 – Check out advertising options for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Sponsored stories, promoted tweets, promoted trends, and social media pay-per-click ads are just a few of the methods you might want to consider if you have the budget.

#19 – If you’re involved in local business meet-ups, then let your group know about the event. Create a brief elevator speech and tell them where they can register.

#20 – Leverage the power of article marketing. Expert SEO articles that benefit from extensive distribution and include a relevant link in a cleverly written resource box can help you gain search visibility, topic authority, and brand credibility.

#21 – Talk about your webinar event on industry forums where you’re likely to find your target audience. While some forum hosts are strict about outright promotion, you should be able to subtly promote your webinar, as well as add links to it in your profile signature.

#22 – Advertise your upcoming webinars at live seminars, trade shows, or other industry events. Sometimes a face-to-face connection is more effective than an email or banner ad.

Although you need to keep your budget in mind when assessing your advertising options, it’s a good idea to cover all your bases in one way or another. A good mix of tracked activities through different promotional channels will ensure you reach a wider audience, as well as figure out which advertising methods work best for your business.

Are there any other webinar promotional methods you’d recommend? Share them with us in the comment section below.

500 Free Inbound Marketing Offer Ideas

Shawn Manaher

8th January, 2014

Content Promotion

Inbound marketing is all about paying it forward and offering your market something useful. A good way to do this is to offer a free ebook download that people can exchange their information for. The concept is simple enough, but coming up with things to write about can be a daunting task. This post is meant to show you all of the different potential topics you can use to make content that your market might find beneficial.

You can take any one of these ideas and create an ebook on it. Some topics may be harder to come up with content for than others, and you may not have the expertise to write on all of them. You can definitely draw inspiration from the list, though.

Categories

Inbound Marketing

Landing Pages

Lead Generation

LinkedIn

Marketing Automation

Analytics

Popular Tracking Platforms for Your Website

There are a lot of different tracking platforms available for websites besides Google Analytics. You can write a pretty interesting comparison piece on what those are, their prices, their pros and cons, etc.

How to Install Analytics on a Website

Even though Google has a lot of documentation on this already, sometimes it helps coming from another source. You can delight your audience by providing useful information on how to install Google Analytics either manually, or via a CMS plugin.

Best Practices for Google Analytics Account Configuration

Even though Google has one of the most powerful, user-friendly and free platforms on the market for web tracking, people generally have little knowledge on how to use it. You can help them out by providing an ebook on the best ways to configure profiles, set up filters and goals, and do other common configuration tasks.

Resources for Learning About Analytics Platforms

You might be great at Google Analytics and know everything there is to know about it, but pointing people to other resources is always helpful. Provide a list of other places online where people can get instruction on the platform. Google’s Conversion University is a good one to start with.

Linking other Google Products to Google Analytics

Google account relationships are pretty flexible, and many services can share information by default. Bring attention to those that you can link together (such as webmaster tools, Analytics and AdWords) and how that can be beneficial to web marketing work.

Key Metrics You Should Be Watching

As mentioned before, Google’s Analytics platform can be easy to use, but many suffer from data paralysis. That happens when there is so much information to look at and no clear understanding of how to use it. Give people tips on basic reports they can look at to make sure their website is doing ok.

Customizing Your Tracking

Along with all the other great things about Analytics, it’s also very flexible in terms of configuration. This is a more advanced topic, so you may have to research it a little if you don’t already know how to customize tracking code. Your audience will love you for the useful information, though.

Tracking Specific Interactions on Your Website

Once people have a handle on all the basic things tracking platforms can do, give them ideas on specific things they can track. For example, maybe they want to see video views, downloads, purchases or some other special action.

Setting Up a Basic Conversion Funnel

Conversion funnels are important for online sales and lead generation. They are often very simple to configure, but people may not know a lot about them. Give a basic overview on how to set up a conversion funnel with best practices and things to watch out for.

Measuring Social Engagement

Social has become an important part of online business. Many tracking platforms have new reports that show social engagement metrics like comments, likes, plus ones, etc. Give an overview on how to interpret such reports, how to configure various or specific platforms to track social interactions and how to define and recognize success.

Tracking Your ROI

Return on investment is an important measurement for any online business activity. You and your audience want to know if your efforts are paying off (literally). Write an ebook on the elements necessary for determining return on investment and how to calculate it.

Developing Business Goals to Track in Analytics

As mentioned before, people can often suffer from data paralysis. The shear amount of data produced by many analytics platforms is staggering. That’s a good thing, but these tools work much better when the people using them have clear goals they want to reach. Help your audience define their business goals and talk about how Analytics can help them achieve those goals.

Using Goals in Google Analytics

Goals in Google Analytics are different than the goals described above. These are features that users can configure to track when specific interactions happen on their websites. Write a piece on how goals are beneficial, how to configure them and how to interpret reports.

Writing Customized Tracking Code for Google Analytics

Using Google’s API and some JavaScript knowledge, you can write customized code snippets to track things like keyword ranking in Google. This is another topic that will require some homework, but if your audience likes knowledge like this, they will thank you for it. You don’t have to be a programming wizard, either. Posts of others like Justin Cutroni’s can either give you inspiration, or you can reference them in your own posts.

Using Google Analytics With AdWords

Teach your audience how to import data from AdWords into Google Analytics. AdWords has its own data that it collects, but you can get a deeper view of how your ads are performing by pulling the data into Analytics.

Setting up Filters in Google Analytics

Delve deeper into this feature and tell people how to set up filters properly in Google Analytics. This is often a misunderstood feature of analytics, and many marketers use it improperly.

Ecommerce Tracking for Google Analytics

Ecommerce tracking is a whole other animal for Google’s tracking platform. It’s one thing to look at visitors and their behaviors, and quite another to track monetary transactions. You could even spread this topic out over a couple different beginner and advanced ebooks.

Tracking Activity on Social Media with Analytics Platforms

Marketers are increasingly interested in finding ways to track ROI from social media interactions. Show them how to use reports available in Google’s platform as well as other tracking-software programs.

Interpreting Reports

Data in analytics reports may seem pretty straightforward, but it can be confusing. Write a basic overview for people on how to interpret basic reports in analytical platforms. This can be as simple as answering questions like, “what does bounce rate mean,” “what is the difference between pageviews and unique pageviews” or “what does ‘keyword not set’ mean?”

Blogging

The Benefits of Blogging

Share either your personal benefits or those that you have learned from others about blogging. This could be from a personal blog that you’ve monetized, a business blog or some other kind of publication hosted online that you contribute to.

How to Set Up a Blog

Give advice on how to set up a blog. This is a very versatile and in-depth topic. For example, you could go into great detail on one platform or process, or you could give a broad overview of many different options.

How to Come up With Content for Your Blog

Come up with tips on where to look for content for blogging. Think creatively here. Come up with ideas for your audience to tap their own unique industries and spheres of influence to come up with a constant stream of content.

How to Leverage Your Blog for Business

Provide ideas on how to drive business using blog posts. You might give examples of others who have been successful at creating conversions using content on a blog. Talk about using calls to action, interlinking blog posts with product pages of a website and presenting offers that are similar to the content of posts.

Best Practices for Configuring Blog Posts

Give an overview of best practices for configuring blog posts. Show people how to use headers, images, links, and other elements in a way that makes posts easier for visitors to use and navigate.

How to Promote Your Blog

Promoting a blog can be an ambiguous task. Show examples of people who do a good job of promoting their blogs. You could also provide tips on blog promotion that have worked for you or your clients.

How to Rank Your Blog Posts Well in Search

Many businesses and individuals start blogs in order to promote their websites. Show people how to best configure their posts to rank well in search.

How to Get Links for Your Blog

Links are an important part of search engine optimization. Of all tactics related to SEO, links are quite possibly one of the most mysterious and most difficult to accomplish. Give people tips on how to get links for their blog.

Step-by-Step for Setting up a WordPress Blog

WordPress is by far one of the most popular content management systems on the market. Setting up a self-hosted WordPress site is pretty simple, but it requires guidance. Show your audience how to arrange hosting, get free software for the setup, and configure their new WordPress site.

Step-by-Step for Setting up a Joomla Blog

Joomla is another popular CMS. While not a lot of people are using this for blogging, it remains an option. You can show people how to set up a blog on this platform, as well.

Step-by-Step for Setting up a Drupal Blog

A lot of bloggers use Drupal sites instead of Joomla or WordPress. Give people a step-by-step guide on how to set up a blog on the Drupal platform.

Onsite vs Offsite Blogging

When starting a blog, you can attach it to your existing domain or start one in the cloud. An ebook explaining the pros and cons of each approach could be very valuable to someone just starting out.

How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

Teach your audience how to get more visitors to their blogs. Tactics like being active on social media, paid advertising and SEO can help get more exposure for your content.

How to Incorporate Your Blog Into an Existing Website

Websites can be constructed in a variety of different ways. Show people different ways to build a blog onto their existing site. For instance, you could give examples of adding a blog to a customized site, a CMS, a site hosted in the cloud, etc.

How to Create Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are a great way to visualize your audience. You can compose an ebook on how to go about developing buyer personas.

How to Research Your Audience

Marketers know they need to understand their audience, but they don’t always know how to get that information. Provide tips on how to go about researching a target market such as interviews, mining customer data or surveys.

Awesome Plugins for WordPress Blogs

There are a lot of really cool plugins for WordPress. Do an ebook on some of the most useful or most popular plugins.

How to Develop an Editorial Process

Blogging on a regular basis is a difficult thing to maintain. If you have a good editorial process, though, the whole endeavor can be a little easier. Talk about how to develop an efficient editorial process for blogging.

Incorporating Social Media Into Your Blogging Strategy

Blogs are meant to be interactive. Show your audience how commenting plugins, social sharing plugins or add-ons that do the same can help enhance their blog.

Tips for Blogging Success

If you run a blog yourself, share your own experiences of success with your readers. Alternatively, you could put together a best-practice guide on how people can have success with blogging.

Proper Search Engine Optimization of Your Blog Posts

Give an overview of best practices for optimizing blog posts. This could include things like keyword focus, linking, length, and architecture of the post page, among other factors.

Doing Keyword Research for Your Blog

Not every post needs to rank for something specific, but some should. Teach your audience how to do keyword research properly, and show them the tools to do it with.

Stats on Blogging

Offer statistics on why blogging is important for business. Link to research, data or other information that supports your argument. If you have firsthand data from your own blog, that is even better.

Tips for Monetizing Your Blog

Not all blogs are attached to businesses, but you may still want to try and make money of it. Show your readers how to monetize a blog using popular platforms like AdSense.

Tips for Getting More Subscribers to Your Blog

One of the main goals for any blogging endeavor is to get subscribers. Show people tips on how to get more followers on their blog.

How to Start a Business Blog

There are a lot of steps that go into starting a blog specifically for business. Show your readers what those are and give them a good step-by-step plan on how to get started blogging for business.

Calls to Action

What Is a Call to Action?

Give a basic overview of what a call to action is, where they are seen, and examples of calls to action.

How to Use a Call to Action Effectively

Write an ebook on how to use a call to action effectively. For instance, how to use them effectively on landing pages, in emails, or in blog posts.

Examples of Effective Calls to Action

Provide real-world examples of calls to action used by prominent companies. You could go the extra step here and find some real data on calls to action.

Making a Call-to-Action Template

Make different templates for different scenarios that your audience can use to easily make calls to action.

Assigning Calls to Action to Your Buyer Personas

Sometimes a company may have different markets that they serve. Talk about creating calls to action for the different buyers that they have.

CTAs That Convert

Write an ebook on calls to action that convert well. You might find secondary research somewhere on the best calls to action to use for various scenarios.

Content Creation

How to Create an Editorial Calendar

Editorial calendars help bloggers stay organized and create content on a consistent basis. Show people how to make an editorial calendar using excel.

Where to Look for Good Content

This could be a list of tips where people can look for content ideas. Give tips related to your audience’s business for where they can find a constant stream of content.

Tips for Doing Primary Research

Primary research is research you compile yourself. Show people how to get primary research. For example, instead of gleaning information from someplace online, show them how to get it by interviewing customers, recording data, etc.

Content Categories and how to Use Them

Show your audience how to group their content into different categories. You could also include tips on how to effectively use content categories on a website.

How to Create Great Content When You Can’t Do it Yourself

It’s common for people to not have the time, energy or talent to create content
themselves. Offer tips like hiring writing or video making services, buying content or other strategies for content creation.

How to Know What Content Your Target Market Likes

For this ebook, you can talk about how to find out what a target market likes in terms of content. This could be both the mode of content (i.e. blog posts, white papers, videos, etc) and the genre (i.e. how to, news piece, etc).

The Necessary Tools for Content Creation

Talk about tools for creating content. You might segment these into free and paid programs. For instance, Gimp is a free image editing program.

Getting Past Writers Block

Offer some tips on how to get past writers block. For example, taking a break, reading a novel, brainstorming or similar behaviors.

A Guide on the Different Types of Content for Marketing

Give readers a comprehensive guide on the various types of content marketing and how they can be applied.

Tips for What Kind of Content Attracts People

The content here will depend on your audience’s industry, but there are certain themes that are typically crowd pleasers. For instance, Internet memes are a good form of content to share.

Resources That Will Give You a Constant Stream of Good Content

Here, you can show your audience how to find resources that will supply them with a constant stream of content. For example, you might use old newsletters, stories from your sales staff, or information from industry trade shows you attend.

Choosing Genres That Will Resonate With Your Audience

Depending on the industry, some genres of content resonate better than others. For example B2B companies may have better luck blogging about industry trends than how-to topics.

Tips for Creating Expert Content

Some businesses cater to highly educated markets. Providing content that comes from experts in their fields helps bolster a brand’s image. Give your audience tips on how to get that expert content.

Repurposing Your Content to Extend its Lifespan

Give tips on how to reuse content for other purposes. You might tell people they can transcribe videos into blog posts. They can use ebooks as blog post as long as they haven’t been indexed.

How to Leverage Others to Create Content for You

Sometimes it’s better coming right from the horse’s mouth. Get others who have more clout with your target market to help you create content. For instance, having salespeople in the field blog about things they know helps get different points of view.

Finding Content in Unlikely Places

Think of creative places that you can suggest for your audience to find content. Share industry knowledge from an event that you attended.

Share Industry Knowledge From an Event That You Attended

Give people tips for extracting knowledge from industry events they attend. For instance, taking notes during presentations at events that can later be used for blog posts.

Tell Your Audience how to Do Something

How-to videos, posts and/or white papers are a great way to promote. People love it when businesses provide content on how to do something.

Design

Why Design is Important for Your Website

Provide tips on why proper design is important for a website. If you know how your audience uses their websites, provide industry-specific tips.

Design Tips for Your Website

Aside from usability, provide tips on what looks good, how to use colors and images, etc.

Resources for Design When You Can’t Do it Yourself

Like resources for having content produced, offer tips on how to find design resources. For instance people can use freelance websites, contractors or other resources for design.

Basic Web Design Conventions

Give a basic overview of common web design conventions and how to use them. For example, logos for companies typically go in the top left corner of a site.

How to Design an Email for Email Marketing

Email messages for marketing have design conventions that should be followed. Offer tips on what those conventions are and how to use them.

How to Design an Email Marketing Newsletter

Another piece of content that requires careful design input is a newsletter. Do some research and find out what kind of design tips you can offer for an eNewsletter.

Tips for Designing Effective Online Advertising Campaigns

Offer advice on how to design effective advertising campaigns for your audience.

Show Users Common Elements on a Landing Page That Make Visitors Convert

Landing pages are extremely important to get right for online ad campaigns. Give users tips on how to design landing pages that convert well.

Email

Using Email to Market Your Business

Talk about the benefits of using email to market a business online. This would be a broad overview and it could possibly include some stats on email marketing in general.

A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing

With this ebook, you could go a little more in depth and talk about the steps necessary to start email marketing.

Writing Compelling Subject Lines

Go into what makes a compelling subject line for email marketing. What language makes people open emails? Should you use symbols? What language is a no-no?

How to Increase Your Open Rates

Give an overview of strategies that you can use to increase open rates. What are the pros doing and what is an example of a good open rate?

Email Marketing Tools

There are a lot of third-party tools used for email marketing. Describe some of the leading ones and what makes them useful. Do a compare-and-contrast post.

Creating an Email Marketing Campaign

Everyone pretty much gets the gist of what’s involved with an email marketing campaign, but they may not know where to begin. Describe in detail how to go about making a basic email marketing campaign.

Tracking Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Tracking is important for websites, but it’s also important for email and advertising in general. Give your audience tips on how to track email campaigns.

Best Practices for Configuring the Body of Your Email

Overall, there are things you should and shouldn’t do when composing emails for campaigns. Write an ebook on how to best craft an email marketing message based on what it is meant to promote.

Email Marketing Automation

Talk about what email marketing automation is and how it can help streamline your efforts.

How to Use Email Marketing to Grow Your Business

For this content, you could speak to the specifics of how email marketing can generate leads and sales.

Top Things You Should Never Do in Email Marketing

This ebook could be entirely focused on what not to do in email marketing. You could include things like spammy words not to include in subject lines, reducing the amount of images, etc.

Data Related to Email Marketing as it Relates to Your Target Market

Dig up information on your audience’s target market. You could find industry-standard open rates, conversion rates and other data that would be very helpful to them.

Industry-Specific Email Marketing Tips

Maybe there is a different set of rules for your audience’s industry when it comes to email marketing. Find some creative tips that apply only to them.

Best Practices for Executing Email Marketing Campaigns

Write a piece on best practices to use overall with email marketing. What should people do, and what should they not do?

Facebook

Using Facebook for Business

This could be a general overview ebook on the different ways Facebook can be used for business. Don’t just focus on sales and marketing, but also on customer service.

Differences Among the Various Profiles on Facebook

Talk about the differences among Facebook user profiles — for instance, the difference between a business page and a personal profile. You can highlight the strengths for promoting different business models.

How to Grow Your Following on Facebook

Give your audience tips on how to grow their followings on Facebook.

How to Leverage Facebook Applications

Talk about what Facebook applications are and how to leverage them in order to accomplish your marketing goals on the platform.

How to Engage With Your Market on Facebook

Getting a lot of likes for a page is all well and good, but it’s engagement that is important. Teach your audience best-practice tips for engaging with their following.

How to Set up a Facebook Business Page

Create a step-by-step guide on how to set up a Facebook business page. Include best-practice tips and things to avoid.

How to Know if Facebook Is Where Your Business Should Be

People shouldn’t be on Facebook because it’s the next, latest thing. There should be a reason for marketing on the platform. Provide tips for finding out if a business’s target market is present and active on the platform.

Other Uses for Facebook in Business

Come up with clever tips for using Facebook in business. For example, maybe it could be used as a customer service or data-mining tool.

How to Make a Simple Facebook Landing Page

Create a step-by-step guide on how to make a simple Facebook landing page application.

Tips for Integrating Marketing on Facebook and Offline Marketing

Provide a list of tips on how to integrate online and offline marketing related to Facebook.

Using Facebook Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Facebook has a robust PPC platform. Offer tips on how to best utilize Facebook PPC.

Tips for What Kinds of Content You Should Be Sharing on Facebook

Posting on Facebook may seem simple enough, but there is a method to the madness. Provide best-practice tips for what kinds of content should be posted on Facebook.

Creating a Facebook PR Emergency Roadmap

As a company, you have to prepare for the event that there is a PR problem that starts on your Facebook page. These sorts of things can typically be remedied quickly if you have a plan in place. Give examples of companies that have crafted well-made PR emergency road maps.

Tips for Responding to Negative Feedback on Facebook

There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to negative comments on Facebook. Give some tips on how to handle disgruntled fans.

Using and Interpreting Facebook Insights

Facebook has developed a pretty good tracking interface for engagement. Give some tips on interpreting reports and how to measure goals.

A Guide for When and What to Post on Facebook

Knowing when and what to post on Facebook is almost as important as actually doing it. You might have to follow your audience’s industry standards and let them know how frequently and what kind of content they should be posting.

Awesome Applications That You Should Use for Your Facebook Page

Create an ebook about some of the most popular or best Facebook applications that are available. This might be from personal or professional experience, or maybe gleaned from other articles online.

Setting Business Goals for Your Activity on Facebook

Teach your audience how to set business goals for their activity on Facebook. For instance, it might be a reasonable goal to try and attract one new customer a month using Facebook. How will they measure their goals? How will they know when they’ve reached them?

A Guide to Hiring a Facebook Page Manager

Give advice on what to look for in someone who will manage a Facebook page.

Tips for Allocating Multiple People to Managing a Page

Talk about best practices for assigning roles in managing Facebook accounts.

Google Plus

Setting up Your Profile on Google Plus

Give an overview of how to set up a Google Plus profile.

The Basics of Google Account Relationships

Talk about Google’s one-to-many account relationships and how that works with other services.

How to Use Google Plus for Business

Like Facebook, there are a lot of ways to use Google Plus for business. Give some tips on how to do that.

Why Google Plus is Beneficial for Business

Provide stats, real world examples or personal experiences on why Google Plus is good for business.

Growing Your Network on Google Plus

Write a piece on tactics for growing a network on Google Plus.

How to Leverage Shared Circles on Google Plus

Shared circles are a good way to grow a network. Talk about the details of doing that on the platform.

Who to Follow on Google Plus

Influential people are always good to follow. Give a short list on who would be good to follow on Google Plus.

How to Make Your Google Plus Business Page

There are personal profiles and business pages. Talk about how to set up a G+ business page.

Leveraging Google Plus for Business

Provide tips on how to use Google Plus for business.

Social and SEO Benefits of Google Plus

Provide statistics, examples or personal experiences on the social and/or SEO benefits of using Google Plus.

How to Make an Animated GIF Profile Banner on Google Plus

A step-by-step guide on creating an animated GIF banner image for a G+ profile.

Using Google Plus to Promote a Blog

Talk about tips for using G+ to promote a blog.

How to Find Out if Google Plus is a Good Place to Promote Your Business

Give advice for “listening” on Google Plus to see if it’s the right network for your market.

Creative Ways to Use G+

Come up with a list of creative ways to use Google Plus for business.

The Top G+ Influencers and how They Got That Way

List the top G+ influencers and link to them (Hint: this is a good way to get more links to your site).

How to Integrate G+ Into Your Website

Here, you could give examples on how to add “plus one” buttons to a website.

How to Drive Engagement on Google Plus

Talk about how to get people to engage on the platform.

Content That Gets People to Engage on Google Plus

What is the best content to share on Google Plus? Talk about images, video, links or other good content to share and why.

Engaging With Thought Leaders and Influential People on Google Plus

Give tips for getting the attention of thought leaders on Google Plus.

Business Pages vs Personal Profiles

Talk about the pros and cons of marketing yourself via a business page or a personal profile.

Using Authorship and Google Plus

Give advice to your audience on how to set up and use Google Authorship.

Plugins for Chrome That Make Google Plus Better

Give a list of the top plugins for Google Chrome related to Google Plus and how to use them effectively.

Inbound Marketing

What Is Inbound Marketing?

An overview ebook on the basics of inbound marketing.

The Elements of Inbound Marketing

Create a more in-depth ebook about all the elements that are encompassed with inbound marketing.

How to Leverage Inbound Marketing for Your Business

Talk about how to leverage inbound marketing for promoting a business.

How to Learn More About Inbound Marketing

People like to find other resources to learn from. Provide a list of resources where people can learn more about inbound marketing.

Why Inbound Marketing Is Essential for Success in Today’s Business World

For this piece of content, you could provide inbound marketing statistics or examples from other businesses. HubSpot is a great resource to start with.

Who Uses Inbound Marketing

Provide a list of people or companies with specific inbound marketing examples that you can showcase.

Inbound vs Traditional Marketing

Talk about the differences between inbound and traditional marketing approaches.

How Much Will Inbound Marketing Cost You

Go in depth on the different kind of campaigns you can engage in with inbound marketing and what it will cost you.

Inbound Marketing Offer Topics for Your Business

Create an ebook similar to this post that provides a list of inbound marketing offers for your clients.

Major Influencers in the Inbound Marketing World to Follow

This could be sort of an exposé piece on the top influencers in inbound marketing. Not only would it be good link bait; it would help people learn about the industry.

Inbound Marketing Software Platforms

There are a few inbound marketing software platforms out there such as HubSpot and Silverpop. Help people learn about what they are, how much they cost and why they might want to use them.

Inbound Marketing Stats

This could be similar to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing report. You might not be able to get as much data, but you could get some.

Landing Pages

Tips for Landing Page Design

Provide best-practice tips for landing page design.

Making Landing Pages That Convert

Give tactics to readers on what elements of a landing page help increase conversions.

Tracking the Success of Your Landing Page

Give users tips on how to set goals for their landing pages. You can also show them how to know if they’ve reached those goals.

Landing Page Testing

Show people tips or get an expert to post on how to properly test landing pages using A/B or multivariate tests.

How to Use Images Effectively in Your Landing Page

Provide tips on how to use images on a landing page to assist in conversions.

How to Use a Call to Action in Your Landing Page

Give tips on where to place calls to action and how to style them so they are most
effective.

Actions Users can Perform on Your Landing Page

Here, you can write an ebook on common actions that users can perform on a landing page.

Creating Landing Pages Using Automated Marketing Software

Many automated inbound marketing software programs give you the ability to create landing pages within their interfaces. Write an ebook on how to create a page using these platforms.

A Listing of Top Landing Page Optimization Tips

Create a top-20 list of landing page optimization tips.

A Listing of Examples for Well-Designed Landing Pages

Give examples of landing pages that are well-designed, then link to them.

Lead Generation

Information to Ask for With an Inbound Marketing Offer

Write tips on what information people should ask for in exchange for the content they offer online.

Timeline for Lead Conversion

Provide a guide showing the timeline and steps for converting leads to sales.

How to Generate Leads with Inbound Marketing Offers

Here, you can provide tips for your audience on how to get leads using inbound marketing offers.

The Best Methods for Lead Generation Online

Create a numbered list on the methods for generating leads online.

Coordinating With Your Sales Team

Often, there are multiple people that need to be involved to make a lead turn into a sale. Make a guide on how to interact with sales teams in order to convert leads into cash.

Creating Offers That Attract Qualified Leads

Teach people how to generate content that attracts the types of leads they need for their businesses.

Leveraging Social Profiles for Lead Generation

Show your audience how to generate leads using social media.

Using Your Website to Generate Leads

Having contact forms, phone numbers and other lead-generation opportunities in strategic locations on your website can help increase sales. Show your audience how to implement these.

Ways to Ensure You Are Generating Only Qualified Leads

Provide tips on how to get only the leads that will produce sales instead of giving you the runaround.

CRM Software for Managing Your Leads Once You Have Them

Customer record management software can assist in converting leads to customers. Write a pro-and-con piece on the different CRMs out there.

A List of Lead Generation Tips

Give a numbered list of the top lead generation tips.

A List of Opportunities to Capture Leads Online and Offline

Talk about the different opportunities that businesses have to capture leads both online and off. For instance, on a “contact us” page on their website, at industry events or even when people come into a physical location.

Creating Offers That Are Impossible to Ignore

Create offers in the form of ebooks that have information so valuable to a target market that they will not pass them up.

Determining Metrics Like Your Average Cost Per Lead

Show your audience how to gather all the data necessary on how to calculate the cost of a lead.

An Overview of the Lead Generation Process

Give a brief overview of the lead generation process.

A List of Source Examples for Lead Generation

Provide a list of external resources that people can go to for tips on lead generation.

Overview of Different Lead Capture Processes

Talk about the different ways to capture leads using a website.

Tools for Managing Your Contact Database

Provide a list of free and/or paid tools for managing a contact database. For instance, using Microsoft Excel.

Methods for Tracking Your Lead Generation and Conversion Process

Give methods for tracking lead generation and software to do it with.

Growing Your Professional Network on LinkedIn

Provide tips for growing a network on LinkedIn.

Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Business

Give tips for using LinkedIn to promote a business.

Leveraging LinkedIn to Stand out as a Thought Leader

Here, you can give tips on how to build yourself as an authority on a particular
subject area by answering questions and engaging with people on LinkedIn.

Creating a Profile on LinkedIn

A basic ebook on how to create a profile on LinkedIn using best practices.

Creating a Business Page on LinkedIn

A basic overview on how to create a business page on LinkedIn.

Leveraging Groups on LinkedIn

Write about how to use groups on LinkedIn to accomplish goals of promotion for a business or personal profile.

Tracking Your Activity on LinkedIn

This could be about LinkedIn Analytics or using customized URLs in Google Analytics to track visits from the platform.

Why LinkedIn Is Good for Business

Write a research-based ebook that includes stats on why LinkedIn is good for business marketing.

Marketing Automation

How Marketing Automation Can Help Your Business

Talk about what marketing automation is and how it can help make a business more efficient at marketing its products and services to customers.

Marketing Automation Software

Highlight popular marketing automation software programs and do a comparison of features. You might also highlight cost.

Best Practices for Using Marketing Automation

Write a guide on best practices for using marketing automation software.

Elements of Marketing Automation

Explain the different components of marketing automation and how they work together with inbound marketing.

How to Implement Marketing Automation for Your Website

Write about developing a plan and a strategy for implementing marketing automation on a website or blog.

The Benefits of Marketing Automation

Talk about the major benefits of using marketing automation software.

How Marketing Automation Can Help Grow Your Business

Give real-world examples of how marketing automation helps grow businesses. You could also use your own professional experiences for this.

B2B Marketing Automation

Write an ebook on marketing automation from a business-to-business point of view.

How Your Customers Can Benefit From Proper Marketing Automation

Here you can talk about how marketing automation benefits customers and not just businesses that serve them.

Setting up a Pinterest Business Page

An overview on setting up a Pinterest business page.

How to Use Pinterest for Business

Give readers ideas on how to use Pinterest for business.

How to Integrate Pinterest Into Your Current Social Media Strategy

Talk about how to integrate Pinterest with other social media initiatives you are involved with.

How to Tell if Pinterest is Right for Your Business

As with the other social networks, you can give tips on how to listen on Pinterest and find out if a target market is present.

Stats Related to Pinterest

Write an ebook containing statistics on how Pinterest has helped businesses market themselves. You might try and find small business owners who have their own success stories.

Unique Ideas on how to Leverage Pinterest for Business

Come up with a top-20 or top-30 list on creative uses for Pinterest for business.

Building Your Personal Brand Using Pinterest

Tips on how to build a brand on Pinterest.

Incorporating Pinterest Into Your Website

Write a Piece on how to Incorporate Pinterest with Images on Your Website.

A Cheat Sheet for Using Pinterest

Create a cheat sheet for doing basic tasks in Pinterest.

PPC

PPC’s Place in Online Marketing

Talk about the strengths of PPC and where it can be leveraged in online marketing.

What is PPC: A Basic Guide

A basic guide talking about what PPC is, how it is used, and leading platforms.

The Different Leading PPC Platforms Compared

Talk about the leading PPC platforms and do a price and feature comparison.

A Basic Guide to Using AdWords PPC

A beginners’ guide to using AdWords including keyword research and setting up your first campaign.

A Basic Guide to Using Facebook PPC

A beginners’ guide to using PPC on Facebook, including creating an ad and best practices for targeting, among other tips.

How to Do Keyword Research for AdWords PPC

Create an in-depth ebook on how to do keyword research properly for AdWords.

How to Get the Most out of Your PPC Budget

Provide tips on how to best allocate a budget for a PPC campaign.

Tips and best practices for using PPC

Do a general best-practice guide on using PPC. This could be platform specific or it could be a more generalized guide.

How to Know if PPC is Right for You

Give a list of things to consider when deciding if PPC is the right method of promotion for your business.

How to Improve Your Quality Score in AdWords

Provide a focused overview on how to improve an AdWords quality score.

The Best PPC Resources

Compile a list of the best PPC resources for advertisers to use when optimizing their campaigns.

The Best AdWords Resources

Like the PPC resources, you can provide a list of AdWords-specific resources for your readers.

PPC Platforms You Might not Know About

Compile a list of lesser-known PPC platforms that people could try.

Best Practices for Running an AdWords Campaign

Give overall best practices on running a successful AdWords campaign.

Getting Certified in Google AdWords

Provide tips on how to become certified in AdWords.

Best Practices for Adding Keywords and Creating Ads in AdWords

Here, you can write a more focused guide on adding the right keywords to a campaign in AdWords, as well as how to write compelling ads.

SEO

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

This can be an overview piece defining search engine optimization and its elements.

How to Use SEO to Promote Your Website

Talk to readers about how exactly to leverage SEO to promote their websites.

Black Hat vs White Hat SEO

Compile a comprehensive guide on black hat and white hat SEO tactics. Show people the consequences of using the different methods.

Using Local SEO to Promote Your Business

Talk about local SEO tactics specifically. What do you do differently when trying to rank a website for local queries?

Tips for On-Page Optimization

Give a comprehensive list of on-page optimization factors. You could also generate a template for people to follow.

Tips for Off-Site Optimization

In contrast to on-page, create a template or best-practice list for off-site optimization.

Marking Your Content up With Microdata

Create an in-depth guide on how to mark up content using microdata.

Best Practices for Content Architecture

Make a best-practice guide on how to configure pages and site navigation to be optimal for search.

Top Free SEO Tools

People love free stuff. Make a numbered list of the top free SEO tools that can be downloaded online.

Top Paid SEO Tools

People don’t like paid things as much, but they are still pretty useful. If you have had a good experience using paid SEO tools, use those in your ebook. Otherwise, talk to others in your industry about paid tools that they have liked.

Influential SEO Industry Leaders to Follow and Learn From

Compile a list of influential members of the SEO community to follow. Include what they do, organizations they are a part of and a complete profile on each one.

How to Create Siloed Content

Create a guide on how to create siloed content.

An Ultimate SEO Audit Checklist

Create an ebook containing the ultimate SEO audit check list.

Checklist for Interacting With SEO Clients

Create a checklist for people to use when meeting with clients. What questions should they ask? What do they need to know before taking the client on?

Twitter

Using Twitter to Promote a Business

Provide tips on how to use Twitter to promote a business online.

How Twitter Is Different From Other Social Networks

Talk about how Twitter is different (in a good way) from all the other social networks out there.

Apps That can Help Enhance Twitter for Business

Talk about the top apps that can be used for Twitter, like Tweetdeck.

The Best Books on Using Twitter for Business

There are tons of good books out there on how to use Twitter for business. Read them or read about them and then do a comparison post or take excerpts from books.

How to Engage a Following on Twitter

Provide tips on how to engage your following on Twitter.

How to Grow a Following on Twitter

Provide tips on how to grow your following on Twitter.

Video

How to Use Video to Promote a Business

Make a comprehensive list on how to promote a business using videos online.

Free Video Editing Programs

Create a top-10 or top-20 list of free video editing software programs that can be found on the web.

How to Make Excellent Videos

Give tips on how to make high-quality videos. This could include editing tips or pointers on where to find people to film and edit videos for you.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Videos

Talk about strategies for using social media to promote your videos.

The Top Video Sharing Websites

Everyone knows about YouTube, but what about other video sharing sites? Talk about different video sharing sites.

Video Hosting Software Platforms for Your Website

There are a variety of new video sharing software platforms available on the market. Talk about which ones are best for your site and how they can be better than video sharing websites.

Tips for Making Viral Videos

Provide guidance for the “secret sauce” that makes videos go viral.

When you come up with inbound marketing offer, try and use your clients and customers to mold your content. The offers you create should be heavily influenced by the goals they want to accomplish and/or pain they may be feeling.

Do you have any inbound marketing offers that you want to share? Let us know in the comments below!

How to Set Up a Facebook Page

Shawn Manaher

6th January, 2014

Content Management

With more than a billion users globally, Facebook is arguably the king of social media platforms right now. Many businesses have taken advantage of the cheap and easy exposure the platform provides. If you are new to the social phenomenon, this post is all about how to set up a Facebook page for your business.

Step 1: Personal Profile

In order to setup a Facebook page for your business, you need a personal profile. Business pages can’t float around out there on their own; they must be administered by a personal profile. If you already have an account, you can use that. If you don’t have one, or don’t want to use your personal account, you can set up a new account by visiting www.facebook.com and filling out the basic fields on the home page.

Step 2: Start your Business Page

Once you have a personal profile and you’re logged in, visit facebook.com/pages/create. At this stage, you will choose the type of page you want to create. Read the selections carefully. You can undo things to a certain extent, but once your page is created, it becomes very difficult to go back and change things.

Notice that you have 6 choices. If you are a regular business with a physical location, most of the choices are obviously not for you. It can get confusing, though, when you see “Company, Organization or Institution” and “Local Business or Place.”

These two account types are very similar, so if you end up picking one over the other, there may not be much buyer’s remorse for you. If you are a small local business, choose the “local business” option. If you work for a large company or organization, choose the “company, org, inst” option. The bonus with the local business option is that you get to enter address information. Most local businesses owned by sole proprietors benefit from having address and other contact info out there on Facebook. Big companies do, too, but to a lesser extent. Especially if they are not retail locations.

Step 3: Enter Basic Information

If you chose the “company” option, you just pick a category and type your business name. If you choose the “local business” or “place” option, you have some extra basic information to enter. Put it all in and click “get started.”

Step 4: Add More Information

In the next step, you’ll be prompted to enter some “about us” information, a profile image and other basic info. It is important that you add as much information as possible because this will all appear on your business page profile. For example, links to your website, your business address and phone number will all be available to your prospects.

After you get through the basic information, you’re done! You will be taken to the admin area of your business page. From there, you can invite people in your network to like the page, write your first post or add more images and milestones to your timeline.

Do you have any tips for first-timers setting up their Facebook business page? Let us know by commenting below.

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