1. Pick a great hashtag – The hashtag ties your Twitter chat together. It should reflect the topic and be intuitive. Examples might be:  #poetry #crmchat or #seo411 – Here’s a list of over 150 chats, topics and the times they run at:  Twitter Chat Schedule.

2. Decide a format and schedule - Part of what makes a Twitter chat successful is that there is a consistent time that requires little reminder and also a format that’s easy to follow. There are a certain number of early adopters on Twitter that “get” how #chats work, but there are many, many more who don’t. They’ll see a sudden flurry of #chat handles in their friend’s Tweets and wonder what’s going on. Make it easy for the audience you’re after to join in and know when the next chat is happening. While there may be more, I’ve seen 2 formats standout.

• Free for all. This is where the chat is treated like a cocktail party and people start posting comments and questions and anyone that wants to, will reply. Its very much many to many and without the use of a tool like Tweetchat can be difficult to follow.

• Outside guests or experts.  If you start the chat, you’re the moderator. One of your duties if you choose the format of bringing in a guest is to find guests that your attendees respect and want to hear from. Prep the guest with how you run your chats in advance.  Use a template email or web page to communicate this. If your guest hasn’t participated in a chat before, they might need a little more guidance but once you’ve done one, the rest go pretty similarly.  Prep the guest with questions in advance so they have an idea of what the specific topic will be. This helps them provide better answers more efficiently.

Promote the guest and get the guest to promote the chat.  Tell the guest what your group responds well to and give examples if you can. This will provide some appreciated guidance for the guest and help give the group what they’re looking for.

3. Create a web page explaining your chat - While a Twitter @account for the chat is a good idea, it’s also a good idea to have a static web page somewhere that the Twitter account can link to. People should also be able to easily find the About #chat page through search engines, so get some other pages or chat members to link to it using the chat name. Explain what the purpose of the chat is, who the moderator(s) are, when the chat runs (including time zone), if the chats are archived and where, and make it easy for visitors to spread the good word about the chat by offering social sharing links/buttons.

This page can live on your blog, your web site or you can easily setup a page on posterous, wordpress or blogger.  If you want to explain more than what is reasonable on a Twitter page, a web page offers more room. A Blog, Facebook Fan page or LinkedIn group that explains the Twitter #chat can also be used and several #chats mentioned below do just that.

4. Recognize #chat participants -  Call out participants during the chat by retweeting interesting things they’ve posted. List all chat participants on the #chat web page. Offer a TweepML list of participants to make it easy for someone to follow everyone in one in a single click. You might also manage a Twitter list of past guests, another list for moderators and another list for most active participants. Possibly promote the Twitter list on services like Listorious. Besides ensuring quality questions, on-topic tweets and great guests, recognition is a powerful thing to do in order to grow a Twitter #chat group.

5. Archive the #chat - Saving the threads of discussion that occur during the chats can be very useful afterwards. This is especially true if you have a good guest and/or participants that come prepared. I like to have about 10-12 pre-written Tweets with links to useful resources prepared before the chat even starts. That way when people ask questions I can answer immediately. I’ve done this several times and it’s gone over pretty well. Look through the Twitter stream of the chat and archive the whole thing or just the most interesting threads into a web page. Archived Twitter chats are an excellent source of content for your blog. Over time, archived chats can be a very useful repository of information, attract links and create search traffic for your web site.

A few of my archived chats include:

• #socialmedia (SEO and Social Media)
• #blogchat (SEO for Blogs)
• AdWeekMedia Connect (Intersection of Search & Social Media)
• #twt20 (Search & Social Media)
• #MeasurePR (SEO and PR Measurement)

Now that I’ve shared a few tips that Twitter #chat editors or moderators should consider, here are some of the best marketing and PR #chats to check out:

• #blogchat – Run by @mackcollier, #blogchat is a long running chat that covers all aspects of blogging on Sunday nights from 8-9pm Central.  View transcripts and other info here.
• #journchat – Run by @prsaraevans,  #journchat is another long running weekly conversation (Mon 7-10pm Central) between journalists, bloggers and PR people.
• #pr20chat – Moderated by @PRtini and @JGoldsborough, #pr20chat is a weekly conversation (Tues 8PM EST) that focuses on public relations 2.0 topics.
• #socialmedia – @Marc_Meyer & @JasonBreed moderate the #socialmedia chat, which of course, is all about social media and occurs Tuesdays at 12 pm Noon EST. Each episode is also tagged with a number, such as #sm1 #sm2 etc. View the live stream here.
• #commschat – @AdamVincenzini & @EmilyCagle run this UK-based Twitter ‘communications’ chat #commschat Monday nights, 8pm (UK time) on traditional / social media, PR, journalism, blogging. See the Blog and FB page.
• #measurepr – Run by @shonali, #measurepr covers measurement topics within the public relations and social media industries that kicked off on February 2, 2010, and is held bi-weekly on Tuesdays from that date, from 12-1 pm ET.
• #prstudchat – Run by @dbreakenridge & @valeriesimon, the monthly #PRStudChat (I thought “stud” meant “manly” not “student” the first time I saw it) provides a platform for conversation between Public Relations Students, Educators and Professionals. See more on WTH.
• #imcchat – Moderated by @bethharte & @abarcelos, #IMCChat is a chat for all of those interested in Integrated Marketing Communications and runs every Wednesday night at 8pm ET.

What are your favorite Twitter chats for Marketing and Public Relations topics? What advice do you have for running or participating in a successful Twitter chat?

Besides the tips above, there are great posts on how to run and participate in Twitter chats on Mashable, from Mack Collier and here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
5 Tips on Twitter Chats Plus 8 Marketing & PR Chats to Follow | http://www.toprankblog.com

The top digital marketing tactic for OMB readers in 2011 is Search Engine Optimization

Our poll this year provided 44 different answers to choose from ranging from display advertising to no holds barred spam. Over 200 readers took the poll and made their choices. While there are many signs of marketing budgets making a recovery, the vast majority of marketers are still focused on planning the most efficient and effective online marketing mix they can for the new year.

Hopefully the responses from our poll will be helpful in making those choices as budgets and strategies are planned for 2011.

The top responses in this year’s survey reflect a more holistic perspective that includes search, social media, advertising, content and email.  While social media marketing continues to get a lot of media attention and companies are investing more ($1.2 billion 2011, Forrester), search marketing (PPC and SEO) gets the lion’s share of digital marketing budgets ($20.7 billion 2011, Forrester).

A new entrant to the top 10 this year is content marketing which is a reflection of the increasing importance on providing more than just product/service features and benefits to customers in order to get them to buy. Content is the glue for the intersection of SEO and Social Media. Content is often the outcome of social interactions online and content can be shared and linked to, increasing it’s visibility within all kinds of search. I wouldn’t be surprised if Content Marketing jumped a few more spaces next year. According to the Junta42 Content Marketing Spending Report, 59% of marketers surveyed planned to increase content marketing spending in 2010.

Advertising through Pay per click and social media rated well, but not concomitant with budgets. That is more likely an indication of the topical focus of Online Marketing Blog which pays less attention to advertising than Search Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing and Online PR.

Keep in mind, the results of this single question poll are a reflection of our readers and with 232 responses, isn’t a significant sample size for making broad generalizations. It is however, useful insight for our readers to see what others are focusing on. Online Marketing Blog is rated well as a marketing blog and has a significant readership in the marketing community.

You can see the full set of responses and all 44 digital marketing tactics here.

Are Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking and Blogging your top digital marketing tactics for 2011? If not, what areas will you emphasize next year?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SEO Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com

A longtime fan of the Dead, David co-wrote the book with HubSpot co-founder and fellow deadhead, Brian Halligan to share the brilliant innovations the Dead brought to the business of marketing music and building an incredibly passionate community of brand enthusiasts.

While we were both speaking at the Vocus User’s conference in Washington D.C. last month, David took a few minutes with me to do the following video interview on his new book:

Here’s a summary of the book and the lessons we can all learn about marketing, social media principles and thinking outside the “rules” of business as usual:

“The Grateful Dead broke almost every rule in the music industry book. They encouraged their fans to record shows and trade tapes; they built a mailing list and sold concert tickets directly to fans; and they built their business model on live concerts, not album sales. By cultivating a dedicated, active community, collaborating with their audience to co-create the Deadhead lifestyle, and giving away “freemium” content, the Dead pioneered many social media and inbound marketing concepts successfully used by businesses across all industries today.”

The book can be ordered on Amazon.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Video: Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead | http://www.toprankblog.com

If a pre-existing relationship doesn’t already exist with a digital marketing agency it can be a challenge for companies to tell the difference between all the different consultants and agencies offering their services. Businesses use a variety of resources to find marketing consultants and when they do, there are several “signals” of credibility than can make the agency stand out over others.

As a “walk the talk” agency, here’s a list of such signals that TopRank is either implementing itself or for clients. It’s also an invitation to share which you feel are the most reliable or unreliable in the comments.

• CEO, Executive and/or Company Blog – Blogs can be exceptionally effective at communicating an agency’s point of view and corporate personality. Company web sites tend to be dry and careful or conversely, full of hype. A well written and promoted blog can do absolutely amazing things for an agency’s reputation in an industry. I think it’s safe to say that TopRank’s  Online Marketing Blog is a good example of that.

• Social Media Footprint – The boon in social network usage by members of the search marketing community gives abundant opportunity to see another side of an online marketing agency. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn get most of the attention but there are niche networks and groups that may be smaller in numbers of members, but very rich in influence with buyers. Promoting unique knowledge through social media formats and networks can give important indications of an agency’s expertise in formats that can match the information consumption preferences of a variety of potential clients.

• Rock Star Employees & Thought Leaders –  The ability for motivated staff to share their perspectives easily through numerous publishing channels online creates attention to talent that in the past, would have been squandered. Rather than seeing these brandividuals as potential liabilities, agencies that embrace and encourage smart expression of expertise can gain a significant advantage. Empowered employees that work with strong leadership within the agency are a powerful force.

• Conference Speaking – Baring it all in front of an audience so to speak, can go both ways. If the speaker knows their subject matter and can entertain as well, speaking at conferences, regional events, on webinars and at Universities can be very productive. However, if the speaker does not present well or “know their stuff” things can go badly. Presenting “too much” secret sauce to impress potential customers can also fuel the competition, so there is a fine line between being a standout and being an competitive liability.

• Client Testimonials – Client success stories are often one of the first things that catches the eye when looking at different marketing consultants. Common mistakes include testimonials that are too enthusiastic or those that are benign but packed as if they’re something special. Most importantly, testimonials should reflect issues of interest to the target audience.

• Case Studies – With more complex situations, companies want to drill down into specifics of how a company does what it does. The changing nature of the search marketing industry means a continuous set of problem/solution exercises. Case studies present a picture of a company’s breadth and depth of ability to solve a variety of issues.

• Industry Awards – Getting recognized by a respected third party can mean a quick trip to the credibility club. However, such awards are only as meaningful as the credibility of the entities giving them out. There are an increasing number of awards in the digital marketing space and if an agency’s accolades are made up entirely of awards and nothing else, you’ll probably find them looking in a mirror before you see them in front of a computer.

• Being Quoted by the Media – Being cited as an authority on a particular topic in a high profile publication can transform an agency’s reputation and credibility overnight. Getting profiled with a photo on the cover of a regional print publication had amazing effects for TopRank but not nearly as much as getting mentioned in a very favorable light in The Economist or mentions online by sites like Mashable, ClickZ, Yahoo SEM Blog, Microsoft Advertising Blog, Seth Godin’s Blog, eMarketer, Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land.

• Web Site’s Design & Functionality – A web site still says a lot about a company. A properly designed and informative web site can foster a sense of authority and credibility. Increasingly, agencies are adding social features to their websites such as blogs or syndicating external feeds from social channels and curating that content for readers.

• Editorial Contributions to Industry Publications – Contributing articles to prominent online or print publications gives companies an opportunity to show their unique problem solving abilities and expertise. By association with the publication, the agency also gets a boost in the credibility department. We’ve done this more in the past with publications like MediaPost, iMedia Connection and American Express OPEN Forum.

• Advertising – One way of “buying your reputation” is to advertise in all the places your target audience looks for credible information. Creative advertising on and offline over a period of time can do wonders when implemented with a strong editorial and social media marketing program. This takes a crack creative team and a very healthy budget.

• Conference Sponsorships – Primary sponsorships of the Platinum, Gold and Silver sort at prominent industry conferences can put companies front and center of the most desirable audience: Companies looking for more information on the industry and vendor sourcing. This also takes a healthy budget and as such, gives the impression that the sponsoring agencies are also very healthy. Media sponsorships are another avenue for promotion with most going to prominent print publications and some online pubs. Rarely if ever, is an agency allowed to be a media sponsor unless their blog or newsletter is highly visible and relevant.

• Frontline Staff - Answering the phone, speaking to prospects in meetings, networking online and offline, front line staff behavior can have leave a big impression (good or bad) on potential clients. Account Management and Client Services staff that work with existing customers also have a big impact on word of mouth between clients and the other companies they might refer the agency’s services to.

• Existance or Lack Thereof, of Embarrasing Employee or Executive Photos/Videos Online – If you’ve been to industry conferences, especially search marketing or blogging related events, then you know that attendees are “packing”. Packing smart phones that is, equipped with cameras, livestreaming video, Twitter and Facebook. Why some companies actually promote irreverent behavior of employees, I don’t really know. In fact, some agencies might even take seemingly blase photos and make them seem somewhat irreverent in the name of “humor”. Without context, such images can be as damaging to a brand as if they were true.

• Client List – You are who you associate with. Big brand clients brings a whole other set of challenges and opportunities. But seeing those big names often gives lesser known brand prospects a certain kind of warm fuzzy feeling, “If this agency made it through the vendor sourcing process with a Fortune 50 company, then they’re probably of the right caliber for my $500m company.”

• Search Engine Visibility on Competitive Industry Terms – I can’t tell you how many times companies have said, “We found you on Google by searching for (insert industry term here) and we figured if you can do it for yourself, you can probably do it for us.” I know, I know. There’s so much wrong with that kind of ranking logic these days, but it’s a fact of life in the search biz. Search engine visibility is a form of public relations and showing up for relevant, broad terms (as well as your niche specialties) makes your brand name (if your Title tags are written properly) associated with those terms.

• Brand – Message, Identity, Logo – There’s a lot that goes into creating a brand. I like the definition: “A brand is a promise kept”. Each interaction between a prospective company and something that communicates information about the agency is an opportunity to make a brand promise. Repeat interactions provide the opportunity to keep that promise. Thoughtful messaging and a well designed logo also convey important messages that evoke feelings which can either build or detract from credibility.

• Press Releases – Sending out non-news press releases, “We just moved to a new building” or “We launched a new web site design”, is worse than not sending any press releases at all. But sending out press releases to wire services and directly to cultivated lists of relevant industry publications sends signals of your credibility. And with clever pitching, they might even get you some press coverage.

• Research Published – In the same way that faculty at Universities gain prominence and reputation by publishing research in professional journals, companies that have the insight and resources to conduct real research and publish their findings create very strong signals of credibility. It is not only the execution of such research that makes it an effective “signal” though. The intelligent promotion of these learnings is as much or more important.

• Industry Association Involvement – Investing in the future of the overall industry through association involvement can give the impression that a company has a higher level commitment than those that are not involved. Being involved with setting industry standards, guidelines and even training programs can set an agency apart and give an indication of their expertise.

• The Agency’s Offices – While many internet marketing agencies operate virtually, most maintain physical offices. Depending on the manner in which the agency pitches potential clients, those offices can give an impression of the agency’s style, personality and health.

• Word on the Street, Buzz, Word of Mouth – First and foremost, doing good work is the cornerstone of building positive word of mouth. At the same time, successfully engaging the tactics on this list will build positive buzz, but the longevity of that buzz is only sustainable if the agency has something significant in it’s ability to deliver results, to back it up. There is such a thing as over-marketing and people are smart enough to realize that one company can’t do everything. Making it easy for clients to pass on the good news or making sure testimonials are properly promoted can extend a company’s reach with nominal marketing investment.

• Being Included on Industry “Lists” of Top Agencies – No matter how you slice and dice it, getting included on a list sends a signal. Lists are inherently controversial because getting included means others are excluded. If you know how to create and promote the right signals, like doing great work for clients and letting the world know about it, getting on the kinds of lists that build credibility is pretty straightforward. Leaving it to chance and expecting inclusion based purely on merit is flat out naive.

If you have experience hiring outside marketing expertise, especially online marketing services, what signals of credibility carry the most weight? What signals have you found to be unreliable? Please share in the comments below or join the conversation on Facebook.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Is Your Online Marketing Agency a Dud? 23 Signals of Credibility | http://www.toprankblog.com

The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into an iPhone or other smartphone. Also, there are a number of apps to make it fairly easy.

The downside is that even though typing is easier on a much larger screen, typing on a screen vs. a tactile keyboard still takes some getting used to, even if you’re an iPhone owner. I also found some issues with copy/paste and for web based tools, anything that uses Flash is a no-go.

Here are several tips and tools that you can use to become productive more quickly when blogging using an iPad. Each icon links to the app store and this post was written entirely on an iPad.

WordPress App – The free app for WordPress is handy and is of course a very limited version of the web based version. The advantage of using the app is a simplified view and larger editing area. Basic functions like create, edit and delete of pages, comments and posts is available. If the limited nature of the app doesn’t work for you, the web based version works well too, albeit with smaller text and work area.

Bonus tip: Another handy blogging tool for iPad is BlogPress, which now supports updating Twitter & Facebook as well as upload & embedding of YouTube videos.

Dragon Dictation – One very handy workaround awkward typing on the iPad is to use speech to text. I had pretty low expectations of Dragon speech to text software but it’s pretty easy to use. You just speak into the microphone on the iPad and then copy the text from Dragon software over into WordPress or wherever it is that you’re blogging with. There might be a few small edits to make, but I found it to be pretty efficient and pretty accurate. Speech to text saves a lot of time and it’s something you can do when typing isn’t convenient. In fact, most of this post was done with Dragon.

PhotoPad & Built-In Screen Capture – With many blog posts, I capture images as screen grabs and then do some editing to customize for a particular blog post. iPhones and iPads can easily take a picture of whatever is displayed on your screen by holding down the top and bottom buttons at the same time. The image is automatically stored to your images folder.

Then I use the free PhotoPad app to open the image and do basic editing. Upload the image using WordPress and you’re all set. Editing options are very limited and I would love to get other recommendations.

Disqus Pro App – We use Disqus to manage comments on Online Marketing Blog, so moderation duties can be handled in part with this app that is made for iPhone, but usable on the iPad.

Echofon Pro – What good is writing a great blog post (or dictating one as in our case here) if no one knows you’ve published it? That’s where tools for Twitter and/or Facebook come in. I use Echofon for my Tweeting activities on my iPhone 4 and the iPad. In regards to blog promotion, it’s a quick way to share links to your best posts. There is a Tweetdeck app for iPad too, but I’ve had little luck getting it to work.

Analytics App – If you need a quick fix for top level web stats for your blog and you use Google Analytics, then this app comes in handy. Like the other apps on this list, it’s limited, but can offer you info on the go.

Will the iPad server as a replacement device for blogging over the laptop?  For now I would say no. The limited features of the iPad apps over their web counterparts means too much switching back and forth between app and browser. However, I do see the iPad providing more convenient access to blogging than a cell phone. If you’re like me and manage a large number of draft posts at any given time, being able to finish off a post in between watching streaming movies on Netflix or HuluPro can add a slice of productivity to an otherwise all-entertainment device.

There are many other apps for iPad and if you have found some that are particularly useful for blogging, please share in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
6 Tools For Better Blogging With An iPad | http://www.toprankblog.com

Even if PR departments and organizations are digitally savvy, there are a good number of reasons (7 in fact) to incorporate search engine optimization into their processes:

Reach Journalists where they’re looking - There are many formal studies as well as our own outreach to the media that have illustrated the changing behavior of journalists, analysts and reporters to use search to do their job of research and reporting the news.  Optimizing news content and digital assets presents a significant opportunity to “be” where journalists are looking.

Search extends reach of PR & communications - The content produced by Public Relations departments is of value to many audiences outside of the media.  Employees, potential employees, investors, partners, customers and even prospective customers are influenced by news content.  Whether it’s a press release or an announcement through video, optimizing what can be searched extends the reach of PR and communications efforts far beyond traditional news distribution channels.

Increase unsolicited media placements – TopRank Online Marketing and many other web sites that optimize and promote news content receive unsolicited mentions from industry news sites, blogs, online and offline publications. Optimizing news content for discovery by search can have an amplifying effect on traditional media relations outreach efforts. When a journalist receives a compelling pitch via email, the natural instinct is to go to Google an search the topic. When your content shows prominently in the search results it can be a one-two punch to capture interest and show credibility.

Bypass media channels: direct to consumer – Increasing numbers of companies are taking to heart, the notion of “brand as publisher” and creating their own content strategies for news. Large companies have owned TV stations, radio stations, newspapers and other publishing channels for as long as they have existed. Why should online media be any different? Optimized content can be searched for and found by anyone: Including consumers or companies researching products and services to buy.

Optimized PR facilitates marketing goals – News content is often syndicated and stories re-published. When links are included, they can serve as a link building effort that directly affects marketing objectives through direct traffic to the company site and increase search visibility due to the influence of links.

Protect your brand & online reputation - As many brands have discovered, it takes just a few upset bloggers with time on their hands and savvy connections to bring unwanted attention to negative and dissenting views.  Companies that publish content can ensure some of that content is optimized for brand terms, products, company names and any other brand asset they wish to protect in the search results.

For the most part, one domain name can only display up to 2 search results for a single query. That means content that lives outside of the main corporate web site, such as press releases hosted indefinitely by wire services like PRWeb, can serve to occupy additional search results for your brand name.  Don’t wait until someone creates a yourbrandsucks.com web site that ranks #1 for your brand name to start working on your search results reputation. Be proactive about optimizing content on and especially, off the corporate web site for brand names.

Demonstrate more value from PR & Communications - As budgets are cut in Marketing and Public Relations departments, PR needs to do a much better job of showing value. Despite giving SEO workshops and seminars for PR professionals for hundreds of Media Relations, Communications and PR practitioners over the past 3-4 years, most PR firms don’t incorporate SEO.

Those that do, can demonstrate more effective Pull PR results, but can also demonstrate the direct and indirect effect on marketing, customer service, recruiting and investor relations by the search traffic earned through optimized news content.

I’ll be discussing these and many other aspects of how companies can enhance their marketing efforts through optimized Public Relations at the Vocus User’s Conference in Washington D.C. today. Actually, I’ll be attending the event today to see Brian Solis and many others. I will be giving my presentation on Friday morning, right after David Meerman Scott does one of his famous keynotes.

At the same time, TopRank’s Adam Singer is in Toronto, for the Search Engine Strategies conference. He’s presenting on a similar topic that also includes a substantial consideration of social media along with search engine optimization and digital PR.

If you’re attending either event, please be sure to connect with Adam or I afterwards.  If you’re liveblogging either event and these sessions in particular, be sure to let us know so we can link to your post in our roundup.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
7 Benefits of Partnering SEO & PR | http://www.toprankblog.com

From the days of talking new features as a super user with founder David McInnis to our current role as search and social media consultants, the focus on innovation and serving customers has always been a mutual focus. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Vocus Product Manager for PRWeb, Jiyan Wei, Director of Online Marketing, Meg Walker and Vocus CMO Bill Wagner as well as other members of the Vocus team and they’ve been working very hard to make an array of substantial changes to the PRWeb platform to better serve customers.

PRWeb innovated the entire idea of the optimized press release and was in use by hundreds if not thousands of SEOs long before any other wire service thought to start following their lead and offer SEO friendly features. Now PRWeb has launched a new design, site architecture, press release templates and resource center that provides even greater Search Engine Optimization and Social Media exposure benefits.

Here’s a quick video tour of the all new PRWeb that’s worth a look:

More SEO & Social “Built Into” the Template - The press release template that PRWeb uses to publish press releases offers critical opportunities for customer discovery, consumption and sharing. That means making it easier for readers to find press releases by baking in more search engine friendly features, providing more room for media such as images and video, offering social sharing options and optimizing code for faster loading pages.

Centralized News – In particular, the move away from showing over 100 press releases on the PRWeb home page to a dedicated news center with specific industry category pages will allow even more entry points via search and give customer press releases even more exposure, especially in the long term. With over 500,000 pages, implementing SEO friendly design and architecture changes to a site like PRWeb is no small feat. Structuring the news center according to industry categories creates more of a news destination vs. a repository of press releases. Better design and content organization provides a better user experience and will attract more links.

More How To Online Marketing Resources - Another major enhancement for the new PRWeb site is the resource center with a growing collection of useful how to tips, articles, videos, webinars and white papers for everything from press release writing tips to general online marketing topics. Seeing examples of press releases organized by specific industry gives marketers useful insight for making their use of press releases successful.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
3 Things You Should Know About the New PRWeb | http://www.toprankblog.com

Whatever the reason for starting a blog, long time content creation with B2B blogs requires creativity, social participation and a smart feedback loop. Here are a few specific ways to generate content ideas for business to business blogs:

Editorial Calendar - Smart B2B bloggers treat their blogging effort as an editorial endeavor. Publishers of newspapers, magazines and other news media operate, in part, based on a calendar of topics. For business bloggers, this means creating scheduled blog posts according to topics that support the intersection of customer interests and the value the company can provide to those customers.  If a company sells red widgets then the editorial calendar will schedule blog content around the needs of customers that buy red widgets.  For example:

• Widget reviews
• Tips on buying widgets
• 100 uses of widgets
• Widget industry news
• Interviews with authorities on widgets
• Liveblogging widget conferences, webinars, podcasts
• Lists of widget facts, statistics and resources
• Archived widget Twitter chats
• Widget book reviews
• Weekly widget Q/A
• Widget surveys
• Widget industry event calendar
• And so on

The editorial calendar can schedule ongoing post formats as well, such as Widget Reviews on Tuesdays and Widget Tips on Thursdays so that content can be created in advance and scheduled to post. This allows a other days for spontaneous, reactive and on-demand content outlined in the next few tips.

Search Marketing Keywords – As a blog develops a body of work published to the web and the business incorporates a mix of marketing and PR tactics to drive traffic to the blog, the web analytics in place to measure visitor activity will reveal many useful content opportunities.  The low hanging fruit here is referring keywords. Whether the blog is optimized for a set number of keywords or not, any kind of crawlable content that has quality links to it will achieve some level of visibility within search engines. Watching the keywords that send traffic to a business blog can be insightful and help inform what customers are interested in. Keyword referring information can be analyzed across different time intervals, entry/exit pages, goal pages and conversions to determine weighting of importance and potential impact on blog goals.

Social Media Keywords - I’ve been promoting the idea of social media keyword research for over a year at conferences, in my presentations and in various blog posts. Monitoring real-time news for editorial opportunity is something public relations professionals have been doing for years. With search engines’ improved ability to crawl, index or syndicate and then publish real time streams of information from the social web, there exist numerous opportunities to monitor and tap into content ideas.

In the way that media placements and prominent advertising drive search traffic, so do social conversations. Monitoring trending keyword topics from social participation such as blogging, comments, Q/A sites, tags, Tweets, status updates and similar sources can reveal opportunities to create content on a BtoB blog. If customers are talking about a particular topic that intersects well with your company’s products/services on social media sites with increasing frequency, then it makes sense to leverage a blog to publish and syndicate via RSS what they’re looking for.

Offer contrarian views, concrete research or more compelling points of view and you can capture readers that are researching.  Social media monitoring tools are the most likely way to capture what social keywords are trending, but I have yet to find a service that does this well and none that interact with search keyword research tools. At least not yet.

Repurpose Content – The social web for the most part, has a short memory.  That does not mean you should re-publish content from 2 years ago in a “Blast from the Past” format. But it does mean that you can revisit topics that were previously well received to update them for today’s business environment or simply to update information. We’ve covered re-purposing content a number of times and here are a few specific tips:

• Turn Powerpoint decks into articles/blog posts
• Use email interview Q/A with journalists that didn’t get published
• Break up a long article you’ve had published into a series
• Rewrite press releases in a conversational or blog post format
• Aggregate specific tips on a topic from numerous old posts

Exposing Your Thought Leaders – Doing interviews with industry thought leaders is a great way to create interesting content and tap into their audiences f0r exposure.  What’s also important is to connect with and interview internal thought leaders, whether they are business leaders that the PR department is pitching to the media or product managers and engineers. Interviews with these busy people can be done via phone and then transcribed into text. This makes it easy for the interviewee and also provides both audio and text versions of content. Questions can be keyword optimized and responses can inter-link using anchor text to support your SEO efforts.

Bonus! Content Curation - A fast emerging area of content marketing, especially in the B2B space is the notion of content curation. We interviewed 10 content marketing industry thought leaders on this topic recently that give insightful definitions as well as where curation and creation fit within an online marketing mix.  Syndicating content from other topical sources into a central location can help companies create a destination of value to readers where they can go to get industry news.  Some software systems can manage all of this like our client Curata or you can construct this type of site using RSS and RSS to HTML tools like CaRP.

What creative ways have you found to keep the content creation machine alive with your business blog? Have you found success in repurposing content or sourcing ideas from keyword referring data? Have you tried real-time content sourcing through social keyword monitoring?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Smarter Ways to Get Content Ideas for B2B Blogs | http://www.toprankblog.com

The point is, with telephone game advice on SEO or any other topic, the message gets diluted. Fresh content apparently means different things to different people and the version I continue to hear from SEO “experts” (agency, independent and in-house) is that search engines like websites that change their content often. The logic is that changing content on a page will attract search engine crawlers more frequently and somehow improve search visibility for the page.

Room for clarification. Changing a home page or news page with updates is good for website visitors because it gives them something new (hopefully) with each visit. Updating of content such as news links that allow search engine crawlers to follow those links to new content is also a plus. Refining on-page keyword optimization as needed is a best practice as well. But changing the text on a page for the sake of change, thinking that such a modification will improve search engine visibility, is a great example of the SEO telephone game.

The real opportunity with “fresh” content concerns adding new content (new pages) on a regular basis. Adding new pages  provides a number of benefits:  Each new web page added to the website creates a new entry point and a new destination for links from other websites.  Creating topically specific pages with text, images, video or other media provide a better user experience and  gives other websites interesting content to link to.  Of course a quantity of quality links from other relevant websites increases direct traffic and can positively influence search engine visibility, sending even more qualified visitors.

There are many budding search marketers out there and since there aren’t any singular sources of great SEO training, much of the information distribution occurs through a sort of telephone game. Website owners must make the effort to know the difference through their own testing and if it makes sense, engaging an experienced and reputable search engine optimization consulting firm.

So when you hear webmasters or marketers talk about the need to update existing content, understand that the opportunity to have the most impact on serving customer and search engines is through scheduling the creation, optimization and promotion of new content (text, image, video, rich media), not just changing text on a page to somehow “fool” search engines into thinking your web pages are fresh.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SEO Basics: Telephone Game & the Fresh vs. New Content Debate | http://www.toprankblog.com

How hot, and how much of an opportunity? Recent reports from comScore, consistently say more than 80% of the total U.S. Internet audience views online video in a given month. YouTube’s fact sheet states every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to the network and 2 billion videos are being watched per day.

All this popularity has of course been driving a trend with marketers: the desire to create video as part of their digital marketing mix. Except sadly, it’s almost never approached strategically.

Agency-side marketing/PR/digital pros: how many times have you had a client approach you after creating a web video and said “hey, we made this video, now make it go viral!”

Client-side marketing professionals: how many of you have had a CMO suddenly discover web video, only to enthusiastically push the team to concept something “because our competitors are doing it.”

Due to these mistakes (and many others) most companies get web video dead wrong. Their content is too advertorial, there is a lack of genuine reason anyone would want to watch it, let alone pass it on. It doesn’t pass the all important “so what” test of web content and feels contrived or lacks creativity. And these are actually just surface level problems, it goes deeper than that.

The real question you need to ask yourself is why am I making web video? What marketing problem does it answer, and how does it answer it? How does it feed digital marketing KPI/objective metrics? Am I doing it because I read an article about it in AdAge or because it’s an elegant way to express my brand’s story to the world?

“Let’s make something viral” vs. let’s create an ongoing dialogue

By now, most companies understand blogging. And everyone knows you’d never create just one (even great) blog post and be done with it. No matter how popular that post was, just one blog post is not likely to provide long term value for your brand. You need to continue creating posts over time until you have a large opt-in audience that’s consistently spreading your content organically. Consider the fact that a web video is not too different than a blog post. Successful text and video are both content formats that can be passed on socially, and successful archetypes of each share similar qualities.

Yet, the business world seems to place web video up on a pedestal as if it’s some magic animal that plays by different rules merely because it’s video. The rules are not all that different, and apply for both formats of content for it to spread socially. Creating one video that catches on may be nice, but this does not take advantage of the larger opportunity the web affords: to build up an audience of true fans who genuinely want to follow your every word carefully.

Poorly conceptualized content has no chance

Short of advertising and interrupting users, there’s not much you can do to create awareness for a poorly conceptualized video lacking the proper hooks. On the web, advertising is content – there is no captive audience and viewers can and will ignore your promotions if your videos aren’t worthwhile. It has to be interesting, relevant and sticky if it has any chance of getting passed on. And with a firehose of content being uploaded to to the web, most web video is likely to be lost in perpetual obscurity, perhaps given some life from search engines.

Unless you’re a massive brand with deep pockets that can work with a high-paid creative team to concept some remarkable content, you’re likely better off using video as you would any other social content. In other words: use it to connect with your audiences in a genuine, meaningful way that follows your larger content strategy.

The best part about treating video as you would any other digital content, is just like text: if you produce lots of it and experiment, you can begin to discover video content archetypes that work for you. Then, and only then, can you start to get agile with your video content production and iteratively get better until you can consistently create stuff that catches on.

With that said…you still need a community

Web video by itself is tactical. If you’re serious about influencing the social web you still need a community that’s interested in receiving all types of your content being published in a channel agnostic fashion. Simply put, you need to build up a group who has affinity for your brand, its team members and ideas. Without this you’re not feeding something larger. Even if you have a popular video with hundreds of thousands or millions of views, what’s the point if you’re not continuing the dialogue over time and nurturing those relationships?

Conclusion

Ignoring the “viral video” bug many have been bitten by, web video is an opportunity for your brand and should likely be a part of your content marketing mix. But think critically about how it plays into your larger content strategy, and understand your reason for being with creating digital content in the first place.

Placing web video on a pedestal, as if it’s so different from any other digital content, is the wrong approach. It has to be just as sharp, creative and relevant as your text-based content. Perhaps more so since we can’t just scan a video and get the gist of it. And just like your written content you will need to build an audience before you can have consistent success.

For long term results, experiment and play around with presentation, formatting and ideas. Work to discover what it is your audiences react to and ensure that video is created in a way that benefits your larger social and SEO programs.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Thinking Critically About Web Video | http://www.toprankblog.com