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Here on the Movéo blog, July was focused entirely on how to best optimize search and social for your brand. From tackling search engine marketing to your best use of social data, we left no stone unturned when it comes to a marketer’s use of the two most powerful tools presented by the internet.
Meanwhile, we perused the web for helpful B2B marketing posts, and we’ve created a roundup to share the best ones with you.
The State of B2B Content Marketing 2013
This post is for the infographic lovers among you, and it provides an interesting look at a recent report on the way content marketing has the power to effect sales and what types of content deliver the greatest results.
Here Eric Wittlake explores a problem with which every marketer is familiar: measuring ROI is difficult. He argues that ROI measurement is always relative to a given company’s history and experience and offers advice on how to leverage appropriate expectations.
This post from Wordstream is particularly relevant to this month’s exploration of search and social. It offers an in-depth look at how PPC can work efficiently for B2B marketers. This information is crucial to approaching a B2B paid search campaign that will prove to be smart and successful.
What helpful posts have you found this month on the B2B blogs?
Photo credit: Kevin Shorter
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To wrap up this month’s discussion on using search and social to their maximum potential, today we will tackle what might be the most intimidating piece of the puzzle for any company: integrating search and social with your brand. It might sound simple enough, but as this year’s annual CMO study revealed, it is harder to reach the sweet spot than you might imagine. When companies dig deeper and begin to invest more in social media, it is important that planning is approached as an integral piece of the overall marketing strategy.
It is clear that the social media marketing spend is on the rise and is expected to drastically increase over the next five years, and as that happens, it is crucial that marketers discern how to best merge social media marketing with their brand goals. Because social is still relatively new, some companies are approaching it as if it exists separately from their standard marketing initiatives. Search and social, however, should not be kept isolated from a company’s marketing branch; instead, they should be ushered in as updated tactics to approach longstanding goals.
As greater investment in social media accumulates, companies should intentionally address search and social with the same goals, strategies and measurements that are being used to make decisions across the entire organization. If you lead a marketing department for a large company, be sure to include search and social staff members in the entire marketing planning process. Likewise, if you lead and execute as the entire marketing team at a small business, hold yourself to the same principles.
Making sure your social strategy is tied to your brand message and long-term goals from the beginning will result in more robust results, site visits and conversions. Even more importantly, the knowledge gained of your customer as it relates directly to your brand strategy will be invaluable to reaching goals and developing new ones for the future.
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Recently, more and more marketers are coming to the conclusion that sales are driven by the happy marriage of search and social. As we have explored on the blog this month, the most important factor to successfully using them in conjunction is the development of relevant, high quality content.
A recent survey conducted by the CMO Council and Netline confirmed this idea that B2B decision makers are driven by depth of content – specifically, digital content. The study implies that B2B executives have high expectations for the content that gets their attention, and that they have little patience for surface-level information. This makes the B2B marketer’s job more challenging, yes, but it also guarantees reward for those who master this art of targeted content curation.
Content is the driver of the search and social union, as we discussed in numerous posts this month. We hope the Get There tips have equipped you to better manage search and social yourself, if you work for a smaller company, or to effectively guide your teams specializing in both areas, if you manage a larger group.
Understanding the inner workings of SEO and SEM will help you maximize their potential for your company and use them together in a way that makes sense. Once you have mastered the art of the keyword and the search engine results page, you can tackle developing your brand message for the social continuum. Only then will your knowledge of search and social begin to create maximum impact for your brand. A streamlined message, developed strategically to lend itself to cross-platform social sharing, will be the fastest way to generate leads and most importantly, stimulate conversion.
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Facebook’s new Graph Search is the epitome of combining search and social for optimal benefit, the topic of this month’s discussion here on the blog. The targeting capabilities for marketers became more robust with this tool, and if you haven’t tried it yet, we recommend doing so. Targeting potential leads through social is becoming easier all the time.
B2B marketers should not assume a Facebook tool won’t apply to them. Graph Search has been heralded for its speed and ability to understand complex queries and provide relevant results – attributes perfectly suited to B2B needs.
For companies looking to discover and respond to their target customer’s pain points, Graph Search offers direct access to user commentary on any particular product, service or niche. The nature of the content is highly personal, including posts about customer feelings that exist only on Facebook. This allows marketers to cut to the chase when figuring out what consumers really want or need.
It is important to remember that Graph Search varies for each person using it, depending on his or her connections and various network privacy settings. Only posts listed as “public” or “visible to friends of friends” will show up in results. For that reason, it might be useful to have your whole department collectively join in the research. A small B2B company might have to consider employing a larger social media management company if it is comprised of only one marketing professional.
For the creative marketer, there are a variety of ways to use Graph Search for B2B. A search determining what hobbies your fans enjoy, for example, will tell you what company culture photos to post to make them feel engaged. It might seem disingenuous to some, but it works – and it allows you to easily give customers what they will, literally, “like.”
Have you tried Facebook’s Graph Search for your business? How did it work to your advantage?
(Image credit: Kelsen06)
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Mastering messaging for the social continuum is a challenge for every brand. The time and investment in building that strategy, however, is worth the effort. Social networks, as you know, offer marketers an unprecedented amount of user data. Linking your brand’s message to that data is the key to success in social media marketing.
Social insights provide detailed insight into consumer problems and desires. Some networks – Facebook, for example – provide information that some marketers believe is more personal than necessary for the B2B sector, but we don’t necessarily agree. Our own Kevin Randall points out in his piece “It’s a Fact: Strong Brands Drive B2B Markets” that brands matter in B2B, perhaps even more than B2C, because it’s a realm often considered dry for its numbers and complex product needs. To create balance, the emotional drivers become highly important. Put another way, companies behave like individuals, making purchases based on irrational impulse.
Facebook’s insights into personal interest are not a bad way to connect with B2B buyers. Their professional interests and responsibilities often find their way into their profiles, where they can be reached by savvy B2B marketing.
LinkedIn provides an exceptional opportunity for B2B companies to connect with industry professionals. As the leading platform for shared business interest, it allows marketers to reach sets and subsets of people based on a variety of factors related to their profession. Highly niched B2B companies can find easy access to their target by using LinkedIn strategically. We posted previously about the benefit of LinkedIn Groups as a means for building trust with customers by facilitating discussion relevant to your products or services, and it is worth assessing how to intentionally apply your social messaging to the network for optimal impact.
Twitter, another highly popular networking tool for professionals, offers help to marketers in the form of lookalike targeting. B2B marketers can use it to target Twitter users who have recently interacted with their brand’s competitors or companies that offer services that complement yours. Shaping your own brand’s messaging to attract the attention of users targeted by this type of outreach will help you utilize Twitter data to your advantage.
Social data is one of today’s most powerful marketing tools. Mastering it for B2B companies is challenging, but offers many rewards (read: conversions) in the end. Good luck!
Image credit: Discos Konfort
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Part 2 of optimizing your social messaging strategy focuses on one thing, and it might not be what you expect. It is simply impossible to succeed in social and search without paying careful attention to mobile.
We cannot emphasize enough how important it is for your site to be mobile-optimized. Mobile internet browsing has increased wildly just in the past few years, and it is sure to continue. Today’s fast-paced customers are just as likely to click a link related to your brand from their mobile device as they are from a desktop computer. It is now probable that they will discover your brand via social media on a mobile device — and that they will discover you in search results on a mobile device. Counting on desktop computers as your main source of web traffic is no longer reliable. This is just as true for B2B as it is for B2C companies; today’s business people are often on the go, and they’re usually working while they’re at it.
If you gain a lead on a handheld device, get the click-through you want, only to lose it forever because your site is not mobile-friendly, then all the work you have done to optimize search and social has been in vain.
Here are two ways to unite social and mobile to avoid this mishap:
Tailor social messages to user devices
If your data tells you that most of your clicks come from mobile phones, make sure the format of your messaging is compatible. Likewise, if you seem to get visits from an extraordinary number of tablets, let that be your focus. Tablets are taking the place of laptops in many sectors, and it is important that marketers keep their strategy on the forefront of this transition. That means that text must be readable and concise and that the link provided must be pleasing to mobile users once they land. The internet is synonymous with instant gratification. If your website doesn’t provide an effective mobile experience, users will leave and go to a competitor’s website that does.
Create a mobile landing page
Mobile landing pages are the main answer to the increase of social media usage on mobile. Again, your text must be readable; a 13-14 pixel font design is recommended for pages that are mobile-friendly. This landing page will set you apart from the sites that are too small to read, making their brand seem inaccessible and unbending. A page that is planned for mobile will ensure accessibility to all featured content. Nothing makes a brand seem more antiquated or unappealing than a website with noticeably lowered functionality on mobile; however, this problem is very common. Make sure your mobile searchers have access to photos and videos, just as they would on a desktop.
Mobile optimization is the final step to success with search and social. Is your social messaging and online presence mobile-friendly? How did you get there?
Image credit: Erick Kirks
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On Monday, we discussed the importance of approaching brand messaging from a social continuum perspective. Given the number of social networks available for use, developing a successful strategy that encompasses all of them is nearly impossible. The social continuum gives us the means by to spread a brand’s message consistently through a variety of networks.
The first step is to be mentally open to and aware of all social networks on the whole. One is not separate from the next. Instead, imagine a seamless content strategy that is the same for each platform, even though the means of sharing may vary. When it is time to generate the content specifically per social network, do it in the most precise way possible based on the user data available in that platform. The goal remains the same: communicate your brand’s overarching message on each network in a way that is thematically congruent.
To make your content more shareable on social – and boosting its likelihood it will appear in search results — give the customers what they want. How best to do that? Listen in on their conversations.
Social listening is one of the primary tools for social success. It gives you the opportunity to find out what content is working and more importantly, respond to complaints to show customers you care. It is amazing how easily a rant can be transformed into praise after a personal social response from the company. It shows customers that you will go above and beyond to meet their needs. Best of all, it builds relationships. And those relationships are what give you brand advocates and in the end, increased sales.
To listen to customers’ social network conversations, use a tool like Hootsuite, Radian6 or Sprout Social. Look for your message keywords and your company or product names, and respond accordingly – be it personally or in shaping future content strategy. Set up Google Alerts to gain awareness of what people are saying about you in the blogosphere and on other consumer review sites. And finally, don’t forget to perform a good old-fashioned manual search from time to time; this can be especially helpful on Twitter and Google+.
Your Part 1 Action Steps
- Develop an overarching message strategy that can work on all social networks.
- Generate content specific to each network that remains consistent and true to the theme.
- Actively listen to what customers are saying on social; respond accordingly.
Good luck! See you Friday to discuss Part 2.
Image credit: Fady Habib
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Last Wednesday, we discussed how to better interact with leads using the many facets of search. Based on our recent exploration of search engine optimization, you have probably gained a deeper understanding of how popularity on social networks can enhance your online presence and rank in search results. In addition, social media offers an endless supply of user data that can be easily translated into consumer listening.
With the awareness that success in social media means increased leads via search engine results comes an undeniable desire to maximize the potential of social platforms. It can be daunting to use even one channel effectively, but to spread your brand’s message over several at once – utilizing each one’s strengths to your advantage – can seem nearly impossible.
While optimizing messages for each channel is indeed a challenge, it is possible with the right approach. The answer to this dilemma is a simple shift in thinking. Rather than focusing on perfecting each social network separately, it has become necessary for marketers to think in broader terms, shaping their goals for the social continuum.
The social continuum refers to the management of your messaging strategy across multiple platforms so that, depending on the user query, different messaging is employed based on a particular user’s needs. Essentially, this approach ensures that messaging remains consistent across all social channels.
When you consider how different LinkedIn is from Twitter is from Facebook, the concept of social continuum strategy might be intimidating. Don’t worry – we plan to help. For the rest of the week, we will share our guidelines for streamlining your social messaging strategy.
Soon, your brand’s cross-channel message will be unified, increasing your appearance in search results. The effort to master social plus search is worth it — your new leads will prove it.
Image credit: Doug Belshaw
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We hope you have enjoyed Movéo’s recent exploration of search marketing. Understanding the differences between SEO and SEM, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Neither method works as effectively without the other, and paired together wisely, they unquestionably offer great success.
To sum up the past two weeks, here is a brief summary of our best SEO and SEM tips:
Share your keywords
The secret to using SEO and SEM in tandem is utilizing keywords effectively. SEO campaigns are a good way to explore what keywords bring you traffic and social referrals. Those keywords might work very well in your next SEM campaign. SEM keywords will show you what words actually lead to conversion, which can influence SEO assets and content strategy.
Quality content drives everything
One of the biggest commonalities between SEO and SEM is content. Investing in quality content strategy and development will help both types of campaigns work successfully. This includes keyword optimization but extends to blog content, website page copy, social messaging and ad content, to name a few. Making copy smart, relevant and original influences SEO and social success but also directly impacts SEM costs and rank. In theory, increasing your quality rating with Google both lowers the cost of your SEM campaign and generates more leads through search page results.
Analyze the data
Google Analytics offers a comprehensive way to track content as it relates to social media and website traffic, but there are countless other software platforms that can help, too. They are accessible to any budget and provide data in various ways to be understood by various people. Marketers simply must analyze their data to achieve optimal results with SEO and SEM. The possibilities of relating traffic and conversion to content-driven search campaigns are nearly endless.
For more information, take a look at our past posts on SEO 101 and SEM 101. We believe search marketing is truly for everyone.
(Image credit: Mohammed Alami)
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Aligning with Get There’s B2B sales cycle discussion in May, Crain’s released a study earlier this year that showed cycles are longer than they used to be. Today’s potential customers usually do not contact a brand until they are more than halfway through the sales cycle. Because of this trend, B2B marketers are feeling more pressure than ever to appear in relevant search results and to track engagement from start to finish.
Understanding how a lead goes from awareness to consideration to purchase tells the marketer exactly where to invest their time and money. Since the first step is awareness, we want to help you understand how to appear in the search results that will get you the leads you want.
Google Authorship Program
The B2B marketer concerned with lead generation can benefit greatly from Google’s Authorship Program, which helps them combine social sharing with thought leadership to garner online interest. An authorship initiative helps cultivate name recognition in search results, provides a new stream of communication through personal Google+ connections, and helps brands rank more prominently through authored posts that have gotten positive attention on social networks. Establishing this feeling of personal connection with leads is the best way to keep them engaged. This ongoing collection of articles on Google Authorship is a helpful resource to stay updated on Google’s frequent changes.
Utilize Data to Optimize Content and Social
Showing up in relevant search results is much easier to negotiate thanks to data reporting. Careful analysis of your social networks will help you strengthen your weaknesses, show up more often and engage leads through every channel. Keyword and content performance monitoring allow you to optimize both SEO and SEM elements for a sustainable future through search results. Google Analytics still provides the most detailed tracking of page traffic as it is linked to keyword campaigns and content strategies. Study that tracking and find ways to develop it, making it work further to your advantage.
Marketing Automation
Some marketers might consider marketing automation an easy way out or something that, if possible, they should avoid. In fact, the opposite is true. Software designed to automate repetitive tasks is a marketer’s best friend. The marketer can outline specific criteria and outcomes that are organized and filtered by a program that, in the end, provides the most efficient possible method of execution. Marketo offers its readers extensive research and support on the topic that we encourage you to explore.
These are only a few ways to better interact with leads in their search results. Happy marketing!
(Image credit: Sacha Chua)
