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Five Social Media Marketing Tricks for Halloween
This Halloween do you think social media will bring you tricks or treats? For some marketers, every day is Halloween when it comes to social media marketing. These marketers expect the bogeyman to be hiding behind every piece of consumer-generated content and assume their customers and the public only use Facebook and Twitter witchcraft to create bloodcurdling tricks. Yet the reality is that most of the social media conversation about your firm isn't scary. For your Halloween treat from TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, here are the top five tricks in my social media goodie bag you can easily integrate into your marketing efforts. 1. Shock Them with Killer HeadlinesGrab the attention of your business' witches and wizards to lure them into your social media content. Otherwise they'll take off on their broomstick. A magic headline casts a spell over your visitors and entices them to read on. According to Copyblogger's Brian Clark only one out of five visitors will read your content. It's a pretty scary statistic considering most of your time is spent creating the body of your content, not the headline. Since quality counts, a strong headline can tempt more readers in. Additionally it'll come as no shock that the more powerful your title, the more it encourages social sharing. 2. Thrill Them with Spine-Chilling ContentYour content doesn't stand a ghost of a chance if it doesn't deliver value to your readers. Even worse, it won't support your sales process because people don't like to troll through shadowy content. This means content that's a rehash of other information or recycled marketing promotions. Don't be frightened but 60% of consumers research online before they buy. So show some wizardry and create quality information your prospects desire and need. Want to enhance your content marketing's magical powers? Make it mobile friendly since 55% of smartphone owners use their device while shopping according to research by Chadwick Martin Bailey. If nothing else it'll give your competitors a fright since the shoppers may be checking your information in their store! 3. Scare up Some TreatsBewitch your customers and social media followers with a special deal. Forget the over-hyped Groupon and similar group coupon offers. These promotions can be very scary for small business since Rice University found that one-third of these offers were unprofitable. Instead create a targeted offer to entice social media followers to engage with your firm. Exact Target research found that roughly one out of four respondents followed a company (pdf) on Facebook to take advantage of a one-time offer. Beware– you need to keep these prospects engaged once you've lured them in or they'll just disappear with their discount never to be heard from again. 4. Spook Them Into Doing What You WantIncorporate a call-to-action into your social media. This old direct marketing trick is easy to overlook in social media yet it can reap significant returns. The secret is to make it contextually relevant to what you want your social media followers to do next and the specific environment or platform in which it appears. Remember persuading prospects to purchase isn't magic. Think baby steps that help move prospects towards your ultimate goal. Use appropriate colors and graphics to make your call-to-action stand out. While you're creating your call-to-action, don't forget to develop a targeted promotion code so you can track your results. 5. Offer Halloween Visitors CandyDecorate your content with social media icons to encourage social sharing. It's Halloween—who doesn't want to share their haul so they don't get sick? But don't scare your visitors by making them think, or work too much or they're off. You want to cast a spell over your visitors so they'll spread the word about you to their social media friends. Even though it's Halloween, don't creep your customers and the public out with a lot of me, me, me marketing-speak. Instead, pay-it-forward by offering some social media treats that yield real marketing benefits for your organization. Do you have any special social media tricks to share?
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Five Social Media Marketing Tricks for Halloween | http://www.toprankblog.com  Liveblogging Tips from #BlogChat
When Mack Collier asked me to join #BlogChat to talk about liveblogging in anticipation of the upcoming BlogWorld Los Angeles conference, I had no hesitation. Liveblogging has helped TopRank Online Marketing and myself personally achieve numerous business and marketing goals at a fraction of the cost and far more effectively than many traditional marketing, advertising and content creation tactics. Despite the practice being around for quite a long time, many people have no idea what liveblogging is. In fact, technology and tools have evolved to change much of what it means to liveblog events. It used to be that you’d sit in on a session, write notes into an article and file the story/blog post within 1/2 hours or so after the presentation ended. Now, liveblogging can take the form of live tweeting and then taking those tweets and compiling them into a post later or curating tweets through tools like Storify. During the #BlogChat focused on Liveblogging on Sunday night, Mack wanted to focus on two key questions. I’ve taken a stab at listing insights, advice, processes and suggestions for each. What are the Top 2-3 things you should know before you attempt to live-blog an event?Thanks Mack! Appreciate the opportunity & really looking forward to this. I have a lot more than 2 or 3 (fortunately and unfortunately) I’d like to split my 2-3 things answer into suggestions relevant to pre, during & post even liveblogging. This is by no means a comprehensive post about liveblogging – but a summary and elaboration of what came up during the #blogchat about it. Let’s get a handy link out there right away: 12 Live Blogging Tips for Better Event Content Creation Pre Event Live Blogging:
During Event Live Blogging:
Post Event Live Blogging:
What are the advantages to live-blogging an event versus simply doing a recap post once you get home?Real time isn’t a luxury, it’s expected at events. People are going to get the information from somewhere, why not from you? If you can consistently provide quality live blogging coverage, you’ll win many new friends: speakers, event, media, subscribers and maybe even prospective clients and employees. Live coverage meets a need for event attendees, speakers/brands (they view as news coverage) & those not attending However, there’s no rule that you can’t do some kind of real time coverage AND do a recap post once you get home. Liveblog coverage is treated as media coverage by many Public Relations departments and that means a link from company newsrooms. Live blogging events can take many forms and there are so many ways to gain value from it that there’s really no “right” or “wrong” way to do it. Like anything, if you set goals, make a plan to reach those goals, execute and evaluate the results to refine future efforts, you’ll undoubtedly discover what flavor of live blogging is right for you. More about press passes: Since 2005 I’ve been able to attend numerous events due to liveblogging. Initially, I was able to get “sponsored” to liveblog on a press pass. Once basic credentials were established, I was able to secure a press pass for several other events in exchange for pre-show promotion and liveblogging during the event. Then Matt McGowan agreed to have TopRank’s Online Marketing blog as the first blog-based media sponsor of the SES conference and we’ve been working with SES in this regard longer than any other blog. Media sponsorship agreements allow me to bring 1 -4 of my staff to each event to liveblog. These passes are not a given and must be earned through quality work. The agreements must be renewed each year. Today, I rarely ask for (or get) press passes because I speak at nearly all conferences I attend. However, we do still send staff to liveblog events as part of our media sponsorship agreements. Over nearly 6 years of liveblogging events, my team and I have benefitted from about 54 press passes. This was not a steady number over each year, as it has fluctuated like a bell curve. 2007 through 2009 were highlight years and the number of staff we send has decreased since. We do plan to increase again in 2012. I wanted to clarify this from the #blogchat thread, since the 50-60 press passes mentioned includes my team and I. Thanks again to Mack Collier for having me on #blogchat and also for everyone that participated. I was great to see friends like @copyblogger, @heidicohen, @ed & @rochelleveturis stop by Here are links to a few creative curation and recaps of the Live Blogging #blogchat:
Are you a conference live blogger and what are some of your live blogging tips?
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Liveblogging Tips from #BlogChat | http://www.toprankblog.com More Recent Articles | | ||
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