Content Strategy Around Royal Wedding Works Wonders

Perhaps you’ve been reading about the differences between content strategy on the Internet as it pertains to advertising and more traditional methods. Much has been made of the differences between the two in that the interactive marketing that’s common online makes use of a more subtle approach where clients are asked to ‘partner’ the brand and campaign designs. The social media marketing and such is constantly looking for new ways to interact with prospects as well.

Still, the old saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ applies here and no one in the marketing game will let a stellar opportunity to attach a brand name to a special event go by—especially when that event is a Royal Wedding.

It's important to keep in mind there are different parameters on the Internet and although all the pundits are clamoring over each other to define what it means for business, there are some great concrete examples of how all the best content written on William and Kate is also being couched in exposure to brands the average consumer would have never seen before.

Shine is one the best examples of using the Royal Wedding to full marketing advantage. Yahoo’s women’s lifestyle spot is the largest of its kind on the Internet with 30 million visitors per month. Jessica Jensen is Vice President, Women's Lifestyle with Yahoo and when she saw the opportunity to marry Royal Wedding content with brands that deal primarily with women’s products the result has been a staggering effect on traffic and sales for affiliates.

Jensen’s content strategies here include the advertising as well as a virtual guest book that allows people to wish the couple a happy wedding. It’s a great idea and an outstanding way to get people smart enough to see this possibility interacting with the brands.

AOL turned to full time newsroom for quality. Marketers will need the same.

There’s no way a business today can stay on top without being abreast of all the latest developments when it comes to a content strategy. Sure, savvy business owners know by now they need social media and print collateral to have a well rounded approach, but it’s indispensable to understand that any house that doesn’t have a solid foundation sinks and that goes for any kind of marketing as well.

Consider a recent report that says AOL is becoming so content conscious that they’ve made moves to adopt a full time newsroom. The reason? This is just one of the companies that is placing its stock in content this year and that means they need to have the best writers possible in the stable. The search engine is now placing all its eggs in the SEO content basket so to speak and that means smaller businesses that need the Internet to get exposure for their goods and services need to follow suit.

The new move branded The AOL Way should inspire marketers to do the same so they will get the full effect from any content driven campaigns they decide on. It’s necessary for all those concerned in the e-commerce field to be aware of the fact that Google has recently changed their algorithms to reward only quality based content. That has implications for the manner of content you need to get the job done—namely getting the rankings as well as informing clients as a value added feature.

Factoring in the changes to what you’ll need in a business environment as far as content is concerned means hiring for both solid SEO knowledge and a solid background in writing. Long gone are the days where keyword stuffing and second rate writing were acceptable practices.

Cloud Based Options Are The Latest Innovation For SME

Innovation was the keyword that brought you business success and to the Internet where you can chase and find profits on a global scale. One of the best ways to stay abreast of what’s happening on the ever changing landscape of e-commerce is to make sure you keep an eye on big business and what they’re doing as far as the latest innovations go.

Amazon is by all accounts one of the leading retailers who have blazed trails as far as finding the way to make things work online but as recent articles show there’s always a case to be made for moving into largely uncharted waters carefully. It seems that this guru of online retail inadvertently stepped on a few toes when they set up their Cloud Player which they touted as a media playback and management system that could be accessed and worked from the Cloud.

Innovative yes, but perhaps a little more pre-planning might have gone into the idea as recent trade reports have some music industry types complaining that Amazon didn’t consult them first on the licenses needed to operate one of these cloud based storage and music players. Amazon of course has fired back saying that no special licenses are needed here…it’s all very reminiscent of Napster.

Still there’s no way that serious business can put blinders on when to comes to what the Cloud can do and it’s looking more and more like e-commerce will need to learn the ropes for any content strategy in the near future. More and more of the big players are getting involved and HP has recently announced a bunch of new solutions that will help companies transition their applications to the Cloud. There are benefits to this kind of forced transition as well and one of the bigger ones involves a more streamlined data center.

Facebook to offer real time ad targeting

Turn around and there’s something new in the world of Internet advertising and these innovations are usually something business needs to pay attention to if they’re planning on putting together a comprehensive advertising package that works.

Now while every business can testify to the reams of spam and junk mail they get in their respective inboxes promising page one rankings in one month and the like, there’s good reason to pay attention to the innovations that come with names like Facebook attached. That’s why recent news about how the social media platform plans on targeting ads based on the information that’s available on wall posts and status updates is essential. It’s all part and parcel of the latest awareness on the part of Internet advertisers that they need to be working to match ads up with an individual’s personal preferences at that moment.

Those in the know will say that this is really nothing new since Facebook has been using the above mentioned to target ads for quite some time. However, there’s a big difference here and that lies in the fact information is now being matched with the relevant ads almost immediately. It’s the Holy Grail for an effective content strategy and proof that the forces that be won’t rest until social media is the mainstay of all successful content strategies.

Facebook outlined their philosophy concerning the new angles in a recent press release. In it they say they present a unique advertising possibility since users on the site share explicit interests with each other. Although the new product is only in the testing stages, it’s obvious business that wants to be sure to be on the cutting edge will include social media since it is clearly the tour de force of any content strategy.

New Study Ranks Email Marketing Ahead Of Social Media For Advertising Effectiveness

If you’ve been keeping score about what works where online advertising is concerned, it’s not hard to make a case for traditional techniques gaining a solid foothold as the Internet matures as a means of doing business. Here’s a case in point that might have even the most forward thinkers when it comes to social media looking back into the vault for some of the more tried and tested techniques.

A recent study that was championed by none other than Deloitte is saying their results point to the fact that older forms of internet advertising like email marketing have a better ROI than social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. In fact the number of Americans that have accessed a website using the information they get from an email rose from 61% to 66% in the test period. Consider the fact that social media totals were only 3% in the UK and 9% in the United States of the overall picture that still included newspapers and television pointing people to the web.

Does that mean the smart business owner will shy away from this new still avant guard method and put all their advertising money in an email marketing campaign with the residual going to blogs? Hardly, according to the experts.

Andrew Haughton, a strategy consultant at Deloitte, says that although social media might feel like the only way to go for advertising success on the Internet, the savvy business owner needs to remember that places like Twitter and Facebook are “an emerging business based on rapid and ongoing innovation.”

The short of it all is that business needs to proceed with social media but keep an eye to the proven anchors as well. Remember that the same study noted that search engines like Bing and Google still bring in the best numbers with 36% of respondents saying that vehicle is the preferred method they use to get from one site to another. 

Google Is Getting On The Mobile Application Bandwagon...You Should Too

One of the best litmus tests for deciding when the time is right to get involved with a new technology that will enhance your content strategy is when the big players in the IT world are jumping on the bandwagon. There’s a need for some timing here, because it’s important to get in on the latest aspect of any new content strategy at just the right moment and the bell has definitely rung for mobile applications as part of an advertising and even processing package.

All the information that tells the savvy business owner that they can’t do without the mobile applications is glaringly obvious in the new issue of ReadWriteMobile, one of the flash points for all the data that’s relevant about the symbiotic relationship between hand held technology and business. And this latest tidbit isn’t totally unexpected in the nature of the advancement or the people that are making it happen as Goggle has just announced an application that allows Android developers to sell products through their mobile applications which are in turn processed through Google checkout.

This is more than just another development in the wave after wave of mobile technology that will benefit Internet based business, and even though the current model will only support the sale of digital content, there’s no reason not to assume that the competition will refine the process. For now, the score stands this way.

Any forward thinking content strategy will need to get involved with mobile applications and the advertising contained therein since the ability to sell goods and services of all different descriptions is close behind. Although there’s been no definite word yet, the new application is scheduled for launch this week and e-business can’t afford to be left flatfooted here.

Efficient Businesses Will Keep Their Heads in the Cloud

Of course one of the biggest reasons that businesses migrate to the Internet is the fact that, all things considered, plying your wares on the Web is by far the most cost efficient way to get the message out on goods and services globally.

It seems that almost everyday the move toward “bigger”, “faster”, “better” and “more efficient” gains momentum on the web and a good content strategy needs to take into consideration the foundation that the entire apparatus will rest on. Here we’re talking about servers, databases and all of those other technical things that allow businesses to spider web their messages across the globe or even just up and down the block.

The stats speak for themselves as far as the cloud is concerned. A survey from Egnyte states that 52% of small businesses are planning to use more collaborative software this year and that’s only one of the many indications that things are moving toward the Cloud.

Even Google is getting in on the act and trying to entice businesses to see things their way by announcing the advent of Cloud Print that allows for the business person on the go to print documents and emails from the mobile device they happen to be using at the time.

All of this is about much more than just making sure that the height of technology is on your side; it’s about making sure you’ve got the most efficient way of doing business on the Internet. These types of shared resources will be the next wave and more than likely one of the bigger waves to hit e-commerce since wireless connections. You don’t want to miss out and this time having your head in the clouds is actually the preferred way of doing business.

Consider Some Factors to Get the Most from Social Media

When you’ve finally taken the plunge and decided to use social media as a focal point for your content strategy endeavors, there’s a necessary learning curve that can help you to get the most from Facebook or Twitter or any of the other options that you want to use.

Even though these are the most modern methods to get your message out to as many prospects as possible, there are still a few more traditional advertising values that you’ll need to incorporate so that the whole package works. More to the point, the old adage ‘timing is everything’ applies here and you’ll want to hit the mark just right with either blog posts or tweets to get maximum effect.

Think carefully about the time that you want to publish the tweets or posts that you use. For example, tweeting during rush hour when you’re looking at impressing a mature audience might not be a good idea. Take some time to consider the frame of mind of the intended audience. Businesses have the ability here - with the plethora of mobile applications - to target an audience more often than ever before.  But it’s all about choosing you times carefully.

Finally, businesses also need to keep in mind another one of those traditional principles, even though they are dealing in the latest technology.  It’s important to look UP for the answer to the cheapest way to get the most from a server and that specifically means you need to look towards the cloud. Shared resources are always cheaper and when you add in the fact they are now even being touted as a viable alternative to the physical data center, smart businesses need to keep their eyes on the efficiency these present.    

A Few Tips for Steering a Content Strategy

With all the choices available in today's Internet advertising world, it's easy to see how a content strategy could get away from even the most careful marketing personnel. There are several things you should keep in mind when you're shopping for someone to help you with any kind of content strategy, and first and foremost is a sense of collaboration.

It’s important to keep in mind that nothing of any real value is accomplished on the Internet without a back-and-forth that grows and expands over time. It's important that the right professionals are making decisions concerning content strategy. For example, a web designer can do a great job putting together a site but might not have the right background to decide on whether blogging or video marketing is best for you. Make sure you get the experts that understand all the nuances whether you’re looking for SEO or social media.

It's important to keep in mind the best B2B sites have a host of interesting tidbits, articles and useful information that your client base will likely share, but you need to keep in mind the proper sourcing is an integral part of getting the links that are important to search engine optimization. Having social media sharing buttons on content pages is a great way to encourage this kind of leapfrogging since links increase page ranking.

It's also important to make sure you take full advantage of the other experts in the field. Having guest writers link back to their own site from yours is a useful bridge as far as search engine optimization is concerned. Remember too that where social media is concerned, while search engine optimization might not be the holy grail that will get you success with this set of techniques , a new list of nefarious deeds where Twitter and Facebook are concerned are taking the place of black hat SEO. For example, a large number of ‘likes’ but little engagement is a tip off to someone scamming the system.