Internet Marketing Strategy

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Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of January 28, 2012… 

• Social Media Trends With Benefits in 2012 (Marketing Profs)
• Blogging, feedback and improving  (Internet Marketing)
• StumbleUpon: 10 Tips and Tricks for Power Users (Mashable!)
• Social Survival for Bloggers: a Peek from the Inside(ProBlogger)
• The Power of Slow Thinking(Brass Tack Thinking)
• Consumers Want Online Video Ads No More Than 15 Seconds Long (Mashable!)
• Don’t Waste Time Looking at Web Data Until You Do This (Search Engine Guide)
• How to Write Irresistible Blog Intros(ProBlogger)
• 9 Best Practices for Social Networking in the Workplace (Mashable!)
• Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers: The Idea in Practice(Harvard Business Review)
• Why Social Media Needs to Get More Personal(Mashable!)
• Everything Marketers Need to Measure and Prove Content ROI (HubSpot)
• Is Your Site Mobile Friendly? Google Can Tell You (SmallBizTrends)
• 9 Ways to Dramatically Reduce Email Unsubscribe Rates (HubSpot)
• 3 Signs Your Facebook Marketing Needs To Get Serious(All Facebook)
• Customers Do Care About Data Collection (Social Harbor)
• The Ultimate Checklist for Integrated Marketing(HubSpot)
• How To Deliver Exceptional Client Service (Smashing Magazine)
• 10 Ways Multi-blog Authors Can Stay Creative and Generate Great Posts (ProBlogger)
• Measure Your Social Media ROI with Google Analytics Part 1: Campaign Tagging(eMagine)
• 31 Fluffy Buzzwords Marketers Overuse and Abuse (HubSpot)
• 7 Key Tips for Leveraging Big Data (Mashable!)
• 2 Different Tales of Blog Growth(ProBlogger)
• Increasing Conversions by Referring Consumers Elsewhere (Practical eCommerce)
• 10 Clever Ways Your Email Signature Can Support Your Marketing(HubSpot)

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

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“What was ‘the tipping point’ for your blog?”

This question is one that I’m regularly asked in interviews, and it is one that is challenging to answer. The assumption behind the question is that there is often some kind of event that pushes a blog into the limelight. The reality is that it’s not always this way.

Let me illustrate this by telling the stories of my two main blogs—ProBlogger and Digital Photography School.

ProBlogger’s tipping point: dramatic growth

Here on ProBlogger, the only real tipping point-type event that I can identify is when I mentioned in an interview I did on another blog that I was earning six figures a year from my blogging. Back then (it was 2005), nobody was making money from blogs (or if they were, they weren’t talking about it) so it was news that quickly got passed around.

It was picked up by quite a few other bloggers but also went viral on Slashdot, which was the closest thing that there was to social bookmarking back then.

While I didn’t really consider that there would be much effect from saying I was a six figure blogger in that interview, the impact was pretty significant (in terms of traffic but, more importantly, in terms of profile/brand) for a few reasons:

• The statement was somewhat controversial (the idea of monetizing the “pure” medium of blogging was something that some were dead against) and that caused some buzz. But being the first to announce I was a full-time blogger also created a desire for others to do likewise.
• The idea of blogging for money was sown in the minds of many. As I was not only making a living from blogging, but also writing about that journey here on ProBlogger, I guess there was some credibility built from that statement.
• Coining of the term “ProBlogger”—again being first and having a site called ProBlogger meant that people started to talk about making money from blogs as being a pro blogger, which just grew the site even more. – 2 Different Tales of Blog Growth by Darren Rowse

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New social media service Path promises to bring your true friends (not just acquaintances) together in a much more personal way. However, neither Path, nor Facebook, nor Google+ have fully comprehended that personal circles vary by context, and that context changes rapidly and infinitely.  

In the end, while services like Path get us closer to “personal,” they are still very much “broadcast” versions of social media. Ultimately, new services will arise that will allow the user to easily and naturally build relationships, physically meet and communicate with one’s rapidly morphing groups of true friends.        

How Humans Interact

To fully understand how structured broadcast and personal social models differ, we need to look at real life. First and foremost, people segment friends and groups based on a specific context. To put it simply, there are people we are very close with, people we may have never heard of, but who seem “safe,” then there are thousands of groups in-between. And that context only changes more over time. Even though it sounds confusing, we build and segment groups because the action has been hard-wired into our brains.  - Why Social Media Needs to Get More Personal by Patrick Moorhead

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I gave a talk last week at The Roeper School here in the Detroit area about some concerns and dangers parents should be aware of when your child uses social media.  Here’s the presentation:

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Did you know that I like to have sex on roller coasters? Yes, there’s nothing that does it for me more than wondering if my partner will puke at the point of, um, no return. Okay I’m fibbing. I can’t even imagine how difficult big dipper hanky panky would be, but I got you listening, didn’t I?

While I was being a little devious, and you’re now going to be a tiny bit disappointed that I’m not going to talk about my fetish for fairground frolics, I’ve demonstrated two things:

• A strong hook in the introductory paragraph of your post is crucial to grab the reader’s interest.
• Your hook should be linked to what you’re actually writing about, otherwise the reader will feel like they’ve been duped once they continue.

But then, seeing as the title already told you what this post was going to be about, I can be excused. You knew I wasn’t going to be talking about my fictional amusement park passions, so I haven’t hoodwinked you after all!

But I did gain attention.

First impressions…

They count, don’t they? Unlike networking events or dinner parties, where we may be forced to stay making small-talk with a person we’ve decided we don’t like, when we’re reading blogs, we have a choice. And we don’t have to stick around. Once you’ve got your title, you have to think carefully about the all-important first impression that will follow.

So how do you write a winning intro that will make your reader read on? – How to Write Irresistible Blog Intros by Andrea Wren

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Zombie accounts at Reddit are increasingly frustrating content creators on the internet. A “zombie” account is an account that appears to be active to the user, but to nobody else, usually as a punishment for that user submitting his or her own content.

The user submits, and he sees his or her submission. S/he comments, and sees the comment. S/he thinks s/he has an active account, and can go on for months thinking s/he does. But nobody else reads that person’s submissions or comments, and his or her up-votes are generally nullified by automated system down-votes.

No social bookmarking is so cruel as Reddit. I mean, this is downright mean. And no site is so easy to cross, because self-promotion (submitting your own blog post) is frowned upon in almost every way. I’ll bet that the zombie accounts at Reddit outnumber the real accounts by a gazillion to one. Okay, perhaps that’s just a bit of an exaggeration…

So what is a blogger, video maker, infographics publisher or other content creator to do if we wish to legitimately spread the word about a blog post? How are we to know where we can submit our own content and where it will just get us banned? Let this post be your guide. – Social Survival for Bloggers: a Peek from the Inside by David Leonhardt

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Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of January 22, 2012… 

• Maximizing Your Brand Presence on Google+ (Marketing Profs)
• 4 Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead of the Curve in 2012 (Mashable!)
• Users Not Customers Will Wake You Up to the Future of Doing Business (Small Biz Trends)
• 31 Unexpected Perks of Blogging You’ll Never Want to Give Up (ProBlogger)
• Content Marketing 101: Get the balance right(Internet Marketing)
• 10 Taboo Topics to Take Off Your Social Media Account (HubSpot)
• 87% Of Connected Consumers Prefer Websites & Mobile Sites Over Apps (ReadWriteWeb)
• 7 Types of Email Addresses to Delete From Your List NOW! (HubSpot)
• Study: Why Do People Use Facebook? (ReadWriteWeb)
•  8 Ways to Leverage Social Media Beyond Social Networks  (HubSpot)
• What Are Your Biggest Social Media Pain Points? (Social Fresh)
• Twitter Enhanced Profile Pages: Brands Share Wins & Tips (Search Engine Watch)
• Designing The Well-Tempered Web (Smashing Magazine)
• How to Use Email to Transform Leads Into Sales (HubSpot)
• 8 Tell-Tale Signs You Do (Or Don’t) Need Marketing Automation (HubSpot)
• 30 Thought-Pro voking Lead Nurturing Stats You Can’t Ignore (HubSpot)
• Want to Avoid Getting Banned on Social Media? Learn the Rules (Mashable!)
• How To Use Ego For The Good Of Marketing (Social Fresh)
• 7 Terrific Ways to Use Social Media for Instant Feedback(HubSpot)
• Why You Need Better Content, Not Just More Content(Marketing Trenches)
• Pageviews are Good. Pagereads are Better. (ProBlogger)
• 5 Ways Blogging Is Better than Social Networking (Practical eCommerce)
• Five Tips for Attaining Editorial Excellence (Marketing Profs)
• How to Share Content More Efficiently by Integrating Google Reader and Buffer(Social Media Explorer)