Influencers have Instagram accounts, YouTube channels, social sites, and blogs. They’ve spent time developing their communities and built their brands that make fellow travelers or wannabes want to follow them for their content—not just their words.
A LinkedIn company page is about your company rather than you, as an individual. Let’s optimize that page so it’s consistent with your brand and overall online presence and contributes to your Google authority.
Anyone who’s worked in print or electronic media—which is pretty much everyone these days–knows that finding good stockphoto images is a challenge. I find myself on a mission every week looking for authenticity–images that feature real people doing real stuff. I avoid those shots of insanely beautiful white people posing for the cameras. We’re a multiethnic community, so I also need images that reflect diversity as I enjoy my stunning free stock photo images!
Happily, we may be getting closer to sunsetting the uninspired stockphoto images we’re accessing now. Kudos to those who are taking stunning pictures 24/7 and sharing their work. Take a minute to thank them–each site provides the opportunity when you download your free stockphoto images.
These sites are a big step up from traditional stockphoto sites. Drawbacks? For one of my clients, I need to find blog and social images every week for a demographic that is laughingly underrepresented on these sites—those 40 and older! Also missing are business photos showing job variety. These sites also don’t have huge volumes of images. But key in your search word and see what happens. They’re well worth the effort–the images are beautiful.
Do you need help with your marketing? Contact Top of Mind of Mind Marketing @ 510.292.1843. We’re writers, strategists and internet marketing experts.
If one of your New Year goals is to begin or beef up your content marketing program, here are some tips.
Content is the backbone of the web and includes landing pages, blogs, whitepapers, eBooks and social media posts. Content is what generates organic SEO for your website. Questions surface about whether or not blogs are still important–remember that search-engine ranking starts with keywords—blogs remain the best way to populate your site with quality content.
Websites have become increasingly visual, and those with images perform better than those without. But think about mixing up visual content.
Videos have become very popular—especially among younger users. They also boost your SEO value. There are many DIY tools for creating your own videos, but the quality can be marginal. Think about what you want your ideal clients to be viewing. Videos can be:
YouTube and Facebook are the most popular channels for publishing video content. YouTube tends to do better with longer-form video.
Electronic books—eBooks–have become incredibly popular. They provide significant value by offering long-form topical discussion. Ebooks are typically PDF files and include a mix of text and images.
White papers are longer-form content used to convey data-driven insights or case studies. Like eBooks, white papers are also great lead magnets.
Using keywords correctly will help your content rank higher. Doing keyword research is an important part of every content marketing program. Use free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest.
Note that search engines are becoming smart and intuitive. They know the difference between natural keyword usage and keyword stuffing.
When writing blog posts, longer is usually better–2,000 words is good minimum target for your articles. You’re thinking “Nobody is ever going to read this!” Buzzsumo analyzed 100 million articles, and found that people are more likely to share longer articles. I believe you need at least 300+ words to rank well. Frontload your article, with the most important information in the first couple of paragraphs.
Need help developing your content marketing program? We’re writers and internet marketing specialists. Contact Top of Mind Marketing about your project.
Search has changed, which means it’s time to rethink the way we create content.
Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving to provide the best possible answers to searchers’ queries. If you search for “running shoes,” Google will now also serve up results for related words, such as “sneakers.” Google is now interpreting conversational queries as entire thoughts rather than individual keywords. An estimated 64% of searches are four words or more.
As a result of Google’s evolution and our subsequent behavior, websites need to be organized according to main topics. In the current model, we create individual blog posts that rank according to specific keywords. The result is disorganized, difficult for users to find the exact information they need. It also results in our own URLs competing against one another in search-engine rankings because we produce multiple blog posts on similar topics.
The first step in creating a pillar page is to stop thinking about your site in terms of just keywords. Start thinking about the topics you want to rank for first. Choose a topic that’s broad enough that it can generate more related blog posts that will serve as cluster content, but not so broad that you can’t cover the entire topic on a single pillar page.
Pillar pages help position your content so users can easily browse your website and consume your blog posts, videos and infographics. There’s a lot of clutter online, and it can confuse Google’s algorithms. Google loves a clean website experience with a thoughtful linking strategy that tells it exactly what each piece of content is about. Inbound marketing and sales expert HubSpot experienced an increase in their rankings when they used more internal links.
If you haven’t created personas, this is a great time to do it. Your personas will help identify the top interests and challenges of your audience, providing topics for pillar-page content.
I’m doing some reorganization of my own website to more closely follow the pillar-page concept, and I’m finding it helpful to create an organizational chart that maps out broad topics that are my pillar pages and the cluster topics that support them.
Your pillar page will gain Google authority through the quality inbound links from your subtopic content.
Need help rethinking your website content? Give me a call—let’s strategize about how we can make your content work for you.
The Super Bowl is over for another year. Enough of Tom Brady and the Patriots; this year we handed the Lombardi trophy over to the Philadelphia’s Eagles, the underrated underdog that never stopped winning. And now it’s over. Hundreds of players can begin to heal their bruised and battered bodies before another violent season starts again in the fall.
But the SuperBowl is so much more than a ballgame. This has been a year of political upheaval, so we expected advertisers to be sharing their not so subtle anti-Trump views throughout the game. We started out with an ad from Mass Mutual that had an overarching theme of people reaching out across demographics to help others, to create community. I thoroughly expected this to set the tone for the evening, but there were relatively few of these kinds of ads.
Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. teamed for a Dirty Dancing tribute to the new touchdown celebrations that emerged across the league this season. But there was another takeaway. It clearly illustrated the relationship between dancing and athletics. Don’t underestimate the strength and athleticism of dancers . The Giants had a miserable season. Odell suffered an early season-ending injury and Eli sat out at least one game. I’m looking for the Giants to stage a comeback next year.
Notable was the T-Mobile ad, featuring a lineup of adorable little cross-cultural babies. “Some people may see your differences and be threatened by them, but you are unstoppable. You’ll love who you want. Change starts now.” The ad created a Tweet storm from Trump supporters who promised to end service with T-Mobile. This was clearly not the way to MAGA. These people accused the T-Mobile folks of being SJWs–Social justice warriors.
Procter & Gamble, the company that’s not afraid to spend big on advertising, scored a win with their stealth campaign, starring David Harbour. Their four terrific commercials spaced across four quarters was easily the game’s best campaign. You have to hand it P&G—making laundry detergent fun and interesting ain’t easy.
It appears that Tom Brady, unlike the rest of us, hates to lose. He refused to shake hands with Nick Foles. Instead, he sulked on his way to the locker room. Definitely time to pass the mantle.
Do you need help developing and managing a marketing plan that will help you prepare for growth? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and marketing experts.
One year into the Trump administration and it feels like a lifetime. You’d think we’d be immune to it all, but we’re not. We’re shell-shocked. Crises followed by unspeakable tragedies. The assault on our democratic institutions is constant and aggressive. We’d never heard of fake news until Donald moved his ill-prepared advisers, family and hangers-on into the White House. Donald’s constant assault on highly regarded newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, calling them “failing” is his way of undermining our freedom of speech, a basic right guaranteed by our constitution.
Donald gets his news from Fox, Breitbart and other negligible institutions which have legitimized these “alternative facts”. So yes, fake news is a big problem. But the people who believe fake news are the same ones who believe everything they see in print. “I read it on the Internet”—so it must be true, right? Really, really wrong. They read the tabloids, the sleeze sheets at the checkout counters, and believe the headlines.
What’s most disturbing is the we’ve raised a generation of people who have lost the ability to think, to question, to differentiate between legitimate reporting and that which is pure fabrication. People should have a fundamental sense of media literacy. A recent study released by Stanford University researchers, showed that many people don’t.
The internet means that content lives forever; we now have the ability to validate the news we’re receiving. It’s up to each of us to be a critical thinker. To support free and independent journalism. Our founding fathers understood its importance to a system of healthy checks and balances, the fundamentals of democracy.
Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.
And the winner is . . . “Complicit”. Every year Dictionary.com identifies the one word that has impacted us the most. At Dictionary.com, the Word of the Year serves as a symbol of the year’s most meaningful events and lookup trends. Just as Time magazine names its person of the year–that individual who has most influenced the world’s news–the Word of the Year is that word that has popped up in the most conversations. Dictionary.com’s decision is data-based; they can track and review the number of searches over the course of the year.
Complicit means “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others; having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing.” Being, at some level, responsible for something . . . even if indirectly. Those who stay silent and do not speak out are also complicit; by not being against something, we are condoning it.
In a year that has been filled with an unprecedented level of political chaos, “complicit” is a word that has filled the headlines for a year. It began with the inauguration, and it steadily gained momentum. From Russian mafia to officials at the highest levels of government, the Trump administration seemed to be complicit with all of them.
The largest increase in lookups for complicit–up more than 11,000%–was on April 5, when Ivanka Trump tried to redefine complicit. CBS’ Gayle King asked her about the accusations that she and her husband, Jared Kushner, were complicit in the actions of her father. Her response: “If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I’m complicit.”
It’s important to note that complicit is not one of those words that can have both positive and negative connotations, depending on your orientation. There’s nothing positive about this word. Being complicit is negative. It means that a person is involved with someone or something that’s wrong. Politics aside, whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, the meaning of complicit cannot be construed subjectively. Ivanka Trump went on to cap off her own personal definition of complicit with “I don’t know what it means to be complicit.”
For years we’ve been learning about climate change and how we’ve damaged our environment. We all have worked to decrease our footprints, determined to become better stewards of the environment. Companies began rethinking their business models, communities incenting their citizens for embracing clean energy. Solar power and windmills became more affordable and the technology improved. Yet Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, and his EPA chief has been complicit in his refusal to acknowledge that humans play a primary role in climate change. Information on climate change was removed from the government’s website this year. If only it were that easy. Removing it from a website won’t make it go away.
During the past year we have seen the extreme weather conditions that have brought widespread destruction that climate change can wreak. Terms like climate change, global warming, and carbon dioxide all showed up trending searches this year.
In 2017, allegations of sexual assault were made against a growing number of powerful men, resulting in the resignation and firing of people across multiple industries. Film executive Harvey Weinstein emerged as a longtime predator after numerous women stepped up to tell their stories of sexual assault that lasted for decades. Even worse—his complicit staff covered up for him, often arranging his sexual shenanigans. Weinstein’s downfall inspired other assault survivors to come forward with their own stories.
Dictionary.com has used its platform to make a data-driven political statement. But the bigger message may be something we’ve always known, that words have the power to shape dialog and the way we interpret events.
Having trouble harnessing the power of words for your business? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.
I’ve always loved newspapers, and it stems from childhood. My family always got the daily newspaper and we shared it among the five of us. We could count on my mom to completely trash it. She never put the sections back together, so we had to reconstruct it before we could properly read it. I promised myself that when I was on my own, I’d buy my own paper and be the first one to touch its crisp, pristine pages.
Like most newspaper devotees, there’s something ceremonious about this. I read the sections in a certain order, beginning with the sports page; when I’ve finished I feel better able to understand my place in the world.
Sadly, with the rise of digital, we’ve seen newspapers around the country steadily going out of business, and many think the industry is dead. Not so fast. Even as Donald Trump continues to harangue journalists and label excellent, iconic publications like the New York Times and Washington Post fake news, their circulations have risen. What’s happening may be a backlash to Trump, but thoughtful people still want to know what’s going on in the world, and they know they’re not going to comprehensive information from FOX.
Those newspapers that have survived are adapting and filling a need. They’re finding new ways to reach their audiences. Publishers are taking digital strategies and applying to them to their print operations.
Hearst Newspapers has acquired dozens of newspapers since 2016. A big part of their strategy is staying local, placing an emphasis on regional excellence. Hearst started as a family newspaper, and it has stayed true to these roots, even as the chain has grown to a huge, diverse media company extending to 150 countries, generating $10B in revenue.
Combine the newspaper with a digital offering, creating free and premium websites. An example: San Francisco has sfgate.com and sfchronicle.com.
The SF Gate is fast and buzzy, run by a separate digital editorial team while the Chronicle is run by the core newsroom. By freeing up those sites to be more competitive editorially and more savvy on sharable content. The traffic has grown from 20 to a whopping 60% reach through this strategy.
Hearst has more than 4,000 employees across the country, publishing 22 dailies and 64 weeklies, but they’re committed to building products. Example: In San Antonio, Hearst started an effort called Spurs Nation. Neither a website nor magazine, it’s a whole platform, with a print product and a local Sunday TV show and digital video. The Spurs actually ended up working with Spurs Nation.
Hearst is investing big in data, because they want to know as much about their users as possible. Understanding their market means that they can continue to offer the right kind of content at the right times. Fundamental business intelligence is critical.
You have to have something worth paying for. Breaking news might be one function; deeper analytical journalism another. There’s room for both. People are still reading. They’re curious and want to stay informed. There is still a need for information beyond the 140-character sound bite.
Hearst is driving its own success through creative use of digital tools and social media, plenty of metrics and good old-fashioned reporting. We’ve come full circle. The delivery of news is really what newspapers are all about.
Are you ready to outsource your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.
Are business cards on the verge of extinction? I’ve been at a few recent events or in situations where I hand someone my business card and they tell me that their company has just gone paperless. What? Note that it is generally a company that makes this kind of decision, not an individual consultant or solopreneur.
What happens to them after they’re exchanged is anyone’s guess. If you’re like most of my clients when I ask what they do with the contacts they make, they pull open a desk drawer and stare at a huge collection of dated cards. A better course of action, of course, is to be discriminating. Get cards from those people who are good potential connections. Add these people to your contact management system and newsletter list, connect with them on social media and schedule a coffee date with those whom you want to see again. Follow up with these people and build strategic relationships.
Of course, one reason business cards are disappearing from both our wallets and radar is our reliance on social platforms. Do we really need business cards when we can quickly pull out our smartphones and instantly follow one another on LinkedIn? Maybe a business card really is superfluous.
All of a sudden, the ritual of sharing cards has been aborted. That act of shaking hands, making eye contact and exchanging cards has lost some of its impact. It’s not that you were dying to get another business card, but that business card, like your website or any other piece of collateral, says a lot about you.
An attractive, well-designed business card reinforces your personal brand, helps make a favorable first impression and sets you apart. Many people these days are finding ways to individualize their cards without making them—they’re using the backs to include a quote, they’re adding graphics. Terrific logos go a long way towards personalizing your card. More important, if you’re sharing it with someone with whom you genuinely want to follow up, that card has important contact information that they can reference, and you never want to make it hard for someone to get in touch with you.
Ultimately, business cards are still useful at keeping you fresh in the minds of the recipient. For those who really do like to take those cards home and follow up with their new connections, an important opportunity to connect has just been lost.
I gave up on print collateral long ago. It’s expensive and quickly dated. When people ask me if I have a brochure, I have no problem telling them that I’ve gone paperless and direct them to my website. That’s a trend that many small businesses and consultants embrace. But I’m for hanging on to your business card. It helps create connections.
Are you ready to outsource your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.
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