Are Press Releases Still Relevant?

Once upon a time, the press release was a powerful tool that companies could use to spread their story to their customers, investors and potential employers. However, things have changed a lot since those days. Now companies can reach their audience through a variety of platforms: social media, blogs, webinars, and email newsletters etc. While these new platforms made press releases somewhat irrelevant, they continued to exist because of their inherent SEO value.

Press releases used to help sites rank high in search engines because they allowed companies to post links optimized with their most important keywords. These press release links often played a crucial role in determining a site's position in search results. Needless to say, online marketers sent out press releases whenever they got an opportunity.

However, they no longer carry that SEO value. In fact, recently Google described the keyword-rich press release links as link schemes. What this means is that the anchor texts in your press releases will no longer improve your site's performance in SERPs.

Worse still, if you have a habit of placing too many text links in your press releases, they might even hurt your rankings. The move has hurt the prospects of content factories that churn out press releases will the sole objective of creating 'unnatural' links. What about those folks who write press releases to actually distribute useful news? Well, this move could affect them as well.

Has Google killed press releases?

Well, not really. You can still produce a newsworthy press release devoid of buzzwords and clichés to deliver news to your target audience. You can also include Google-sanctioned hyperlinks in your press releases. But companies need to realize that there is very little they can accomplish with isolated press releases.

 

There are still several things that press releases cannot do. Unfortunately, some companies are yet to get the message.

A press release won't get you guaranteed coverage in influential media outlets. Of course, there are a few reporters who still like press releases for the well laid out information they provide. However, there is still nothing to assume that you will get actual coverage by sending a release to these folks. When their email inboxes get filled with irrelevant or even spammy news, editorial staffers won't be able to devote a lot of time to read wordy press releases.

In fact, sending a personalized email is even better, but it requires more efforts than a press release.

In the olden days, the audience for a press release was editors and reporters. But now this literature is read by nearly all people. However, there is no guarantee that your press release will get read just because you posted it somewhere. The way you optimize and distribute the press release is equally important. Here are a few things you need to consider:

You have to include all relevant hashtags in your press release and distribute it through relevant social media sites.

Put your keywords/ keyphrases in the heading and subheads. And most importantly, follow Google's guidelines about anchor text. You should also consider including pictures and images that make your press release more shareable.

Press releases are not much different from other platforms that companies use to spread their word. Just like other platforms, press releases, too, are evolving. It is true that they have lost much of their importance, but they might still be around for some more years.

Google’s New Ad Rank Algorithm to Benefit Advertisers who use Extensions

Recently, Google launched an update to its Adwords Ad Rank algorithm. The Ad Rank algorithm determines where your Adwords ads appear on SERPs and how much each click costs. There is nothing particularly alarming about this new update, but it can have a negative impact on Adwords advertisers who do not use ad extensions.

To make a long story short, Adwords advertisers who use ad extensions might see lower CPC and better ad placement as a result of this update. What if you don't use ad extensions? If that is the case, you had better start using them now. Or else, your Adwords campaign can be more costly and less effective.

Now Ad Rank takes into account the anticipated effect of your ad extensions and formats. Until now, the Ad Rank algorithm was only looking at your maximum CPC and Quality Score. But now your ad extensions and formats also play a significant role in determining where your ads appear on SERPs.

The new update also puts a great deal of emphasis on your bids and Quality Score because they determine whether your ads are eligible to display with extensions.

Extensions make your ads more useful and interactive. They allow the advertiser to display more information in different ways and make it easier for potential customers to connect to their brand. For example, location extensions allow you to display your business name, address, and phone number along with your URL and description lines. Call Extensions allow users to click directly on the phone number displayed in ad text from their mobile phone. This can be a great thing for local businesses. What's more, extensions improve your CTR.

So if you are already using extensions and formats, you have nothing to worry about, right? Well, not really. In this latest announcement, Google has revealed that the new and updated Ad Rank is based on 'expected impact from your ad extensions and formats'.

What do these Ad Rank changes mean?

Ad extensions play a significant role in determining the price you pay per click and where your ads show up. Of course, Google wants advertisers to make use of all available extensions because they can improve CTR. Better Click Through Rates (CTR) means more ad revenue for Google. In the near future, Google may also automatically serve extensions that seem to be the most beneficial. That means advertisers will not have to worry about choosing the right combination of extensions. Besides serving extensions that match the context, Google says it will show the highest performing extensions and formats.

Since your Ad Rank determines whether your ad is shown with extensions, you will have to increase your bids and Quality Score for extensions to appear.

If your ad extensions are highly relevant, you might see higher CTR and lower CPCs in your account. On the other hand, if your ads are not eligible to display with extensions, you might see a drop in CTR. This can affect your Quality score and increase your costs. For the time being, this update only affects search ads appearing on Google Search.

Why Newsfeed Marketing Rocks

Marketers like us have learned some long lasting lessons from traditional methods of advertising. Things like structuring the content around long-term campaigns. Advertising taglines like “I’m Lovin’ it,” and “A Diamond is Forever,” were all well planned marketing endeavors designed to be splashed across different media for a long term increase in product sales.

Today’s scenario is different. With the increasing role of social media and everyone wanting instant online gratification, the old school of advertising cannot survive.

Of course, long term ad campaigns do have their importance, but not at all times and in all places. When we’re looking to produce interesting content for social platforms, we cannot spend weeks and months. This is because online people are an impatient lot. Simply put, customers are not content in waiting for content.

Newsfeed Marketing

It’s time to bid adieu to traditional campaigns and welcome "Newsfeed Marketing." This kind of marketing involves creating branded content in real time and putting it on your customers’ social newsfeeds.

We marketers think a lot about strategies and techniques of implementation, but often don’t manage to create shareable and relevant online content. We need to do rather than think. So instead of thinking whether it’s a beautiful day outside, post a fabulous picture of a park on Facebook. Tweet the picture!

Since there are enough resources handy, we can easily jump on to the latest trends and keep pace with the super-fast speed of pop-culture. By posting images relevant to current events, it becomes easy to drive fan engagement since you’re making a contribution towards something bigger.

Real Time Branded Content

Here are some easy ways to get started with branded content in real time:

·         Seek inspiration from Twitter’s trending topics.

·         Stay updated with the latest events by following news sites like Imgur and Reddit.

·         RSS readers like Feedly can help you keep a watch on the latest news and stories.

As marketers, we need to understand that the definition of “great” content is constantly changing in our world which is driven by newsfeeds. Content that’s likely to rule is real-time, culturally-relevant, and visual. What works today may not work tomorrow. So each day, we must try to work towards content that puts our brand in focus. Then customers relate to the content and the brand gets humanized.

Though real-time marketing may never replace traditional campaigns completely, it’s becoming quite clear that it’s an important component of all marketing mixes. Brands are required to be aware of and in sync with happenings all over at all times.

There’s better engagement when there’s plenty of your content in people’s newsfeeds. Everyone likes to share something that makes them look positive. So if they share a funny photo, their followers will think they’re funny. Similarly, sharing inspirational quotes makes them look sensitive and motivated.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that your stuff has a better chance of being shared by your customers if they consider it relevant and newsworthy. As marketers, we must make it our primary job to contribute as much as we can to all those information exchanges that are already happening online.

How to Create and Implement User-Centric SEO with Searcher Personas

In the early days of SEO, keywords were everything. SEO experts used to ask webmasters to stuff keywords into their articles. That strategy used to work too.

But Google made significant changes to its ranking algorithm in the last few years. SEO strategies that used to work until a few years ago no longer produce the same results. Worse still, many of them have started producing exactly opposite results.

Algorithmic updates aren’t the only problem webmasters face these days. Google has made all organic searches secure so the keyword data is not readily available. And with the launch of Hummingbird, Google has become much better at understanding conversational search queries. Keyword search volume data too is hard to find now.

The message Google wants to send out is clear: move away from keywords and focus your attention on the user for whom you are creating content and products.

What does this user-centric approach mean for SEO? And how are webmasters supposed to put this concept into practice?

If you run an online business, it is easy to get distracted by the SERPs and ignore the real reason you are building your products or services: the customer. It is the customer who searches for your products and hence they should be the foundation of your online and offline marketing efforts including your SEO strategy.

Developing a user-centric SEO strategy is relatively easy. You just need to develop searcher personas. What are searcher personas? Understanding the needs of each and every customer is not possible. Instead, SEOs must work with the objective of grouping together target customers who have the same needs. You can call each group a persona.

To create a persona, you will need to use information gathered from user polls, market search, keyword search volumes etc. 

Know Your Target Customer

The first thing you need to do is to identify your target audience. Ask yourself who your target customer is. Are you trying to attract people belonging to a particular age group? Any business owner should be able to answer that question.

Once you have identified your target group, the next step is to understand their problems. What are they searching for? Determine the search queries that they use to find your business. You can use these queries as your keywords/ key phrases.

You may focus on any one type of persona. This approach works best when you operate in a small niche. Or you can target 3-5 personas. If you create multiple personas, find a title for each one of them. Now try to find out as much as possible about these personas. You can use your own knowledge and assumptions.   You can also use information gathered from your keyword research. Finding the right data is probably the toughest part, but it is very important.

By creating a searcher persona, marketers can accurately define their target customer. It helps them understand how customers are searching for their products/services. And this knowledge will help them improve their rate of conversion.

Keyword research is still important, but now SEOs have to focus on searcher personas as well. Once you have built the personas, you need to develop and execute the marketing strategies that deal with their unique needs. Remember that these personas are the real people you are trying to market your products to.

Statistics to Consider for Your Social Media Strategy

We were pretty surprised looking at some of the social media statistics for 2013. If you’re handling the social media aspect of your business, you might find it useful to know about them.

Here are some stats that will probably make you revise your social media approach:

Demographics

Twitter’s fastest growing demographic is aged between 55 and 64 years. There has been a growth of 79% since the year 2012. On Google+ and Facebook, it’s the 45-54 year bracket that has grown the fastest. This group has increased 46% for Facebook and 56% for Google+.

This goes against the common line of thinking that social media is predominantly used by teenagers. So you need to have a sound social strategy if your target demographics are these age brackets. Give special consideration to older users when using social media on these three platforms.

Facebook Mobile Users

Facebook has 189 million users who are "mobile only". In addition, mobile usage is responsible for generating 30% of Facebook’s total ad revenue. This is 7% over the figures at the end of 2012.

Before posting your content, it’s worthwhile to consider how it will display on mobile devices and tablets. Ensure that the process of sharing on social media via mobile is straightforward.

YouTube Users

As far as U.S. adults aged between 18 and 34 go, YouTube has a wider reach than all cable networks. So with them, TV is certainly not the best way to reach out. Of course, a single video might not have a wider reach than cable networks. But it definitely makes sense to use a platform which has such a huge user base.

If your social strategy doesn’t include videos, it’s time to include some right away. We suggest you make a start using simple 5 to 7 minute videos introducing your team and describing your company’s activities.

LinkedIn Members

LinkedIn has two new members joining in every second. This platform offers lots of information and conversations to professionals looking to connect within their industries. It includes groups, blogs, job listings and more.

It’s worthwhile to pay attention to LinkedIn, especially if you’re interested in roping in new users. If you make your community or group an information-rich and newbie-friendly setup, you can reap maximum benefits with the growing user base.

Though LinkedIn’s user base is increasing fast, its active users are fewer than most other big social networks. This means that you might not get as good responses with participatory content like contests and polls, as you would on Twitter and Facebook.

So if you want people to get involved, consider platforms with better active user statistics. Passive content such as slide decks and blog posts are ideal for LinkedIn.

Social Media Presence

Social media is more predominant now than ever before. It appears to be more than a fad or passing phase. It’s growing as a habit and various new platforms are coming up. It makes sound sense to invest time and efforts in social media strategies considering these stats.

Is a Google+ Presence Important for Your Company?

In recent years, experts in social media have often debated the role of Google+ among other predominant platforms. Some are of the opinion that it’s a platform that’s doing well with a steady growth; others feel that it’s not in the league of other popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

With the little data available, we are unable to paint a clear picture. One study touted Google+ as the second most-deployed social network in the world. Many recent studies related to social media usage do not even mention Google+. A marketing research center reporting on social media adoption of Fortune 500 companies showed that a mere 35% of large companies had a Google+ account, as compared to 70% with Facebook accounts and 77% being on Twitter.

If you’re mulling about whether or not your company should consider Google+, remember an important thing: Google+ is one of Google’s products. So when you’re deciding whether to have a Google+ presence for your enterprise, there are some implications you need to take into account.

SEO

Google applies indexes to Google+ content just like it does for all web pages. So Google+ content contributes towards your SEO ranking in totality. Also with Google+ posts, your content becomes more searchable and it features higher up in search results. In addition, it will be seen in the search results for longer periods than posts on other social platforms.

Google+ Hashtags

According to a recent announcement from Google, Google+ hashtags are now available through a Google search. For example, if you’re looking for some social media tips, Googling for “#socialmediatips,” will show you the regular search results and something more. At the right of the page, you’ll now be able to view posts on Google+ which include the hashtag #socialmediatips.

Now this is significant because of two reasons. Firstly, the right corner of every Google search web page is an area which is quite seriously sought-after. Secondly, it’s not necessary that all users looking for specific hashtags have Google+ accounts themselves. Even if they do, they might not necessarily be members of your Google+ group.

When you’re posting content on Google+, you’re able to reach your own Google+ followers as well as reach out to people outside the network in a systematic and impactful manner. An important thing you need to ensure is that your posts are tagged with popular SEO terms which are relevant to you.

YouTube Comments

Recently, Google announced that Google+ would soon power YouTube comments. If your business has a weighted presence on the YouTube platform, you will not be able to continue in full strength for very much longer if you don’t get on to Google+.

Once you’ve ascertained the proportions of your audience on Google+, with the resources you possess for support of the platform, and the other factors mentioned above, you may decide that the launch of a Google+ page for your company is not worthwhile. This is fine. But don’t make the mistake of writing it off completely. If eventually Google decides to make Google+ integrated with all its products, it’s in your own interest to keep a watch on the repercussions.

How B2B Social Can Become a Tool for Lead Generation

Marketers dream of arriving at a magical formula that can help them get the lowest possible CPL (cost per lead) and the highest conversion rates. They try to leverage social and technology in optimal ways for this. We’ve found the scene is much the same when it comes to B2B.

Here are some tips on B2B lead generation from experts:

Working on User Experience

A corporate website can serve as an important instrument for lead generation. Your audience needs to be served with interesting information that it can use right away. Introduce it to all that’s possible and show how to go about it. Use leading-edge technology and web designs to create a great user experience. More importantly, ensure that your site always remains mobile friendly.

The Twitter environment is such that the volume and speed of information can be leveraged for tremendous lead generation. It sometimes proves a challenge too because with around 6,000 tweets per second, what you say gets buried in a very short while.  

Facilitating Sharing

A notable tip for nurturing leads is the use of pop-unders instead of commonly used pop-ups. While your prospective customers are filling a form, you can serve them with targeted content they need on another mini site in a window behind.

Experts strongly recommend pre-populating social sharing forms using suitable baits on different channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Using Twitter

For generating leads using Twitter, the principles to keep in mind are as follows:

·         At acquisition stage, try to keep it as real as possible. Present yourself in such a way that you appear as a celebrity brand without appearing vain. Your content should not appear less interesting because of overexposure. Include as much information as required. 

·         At the nurturing stage, plan how you’re going to move people from inactivity to activity. Instead of your own preferences, think about what people like. They’ll click only when they like something. You need to think about the touch points in the near future.

·         A tweet has a life span of about 18 minutes. For increased lead generation, carefully watch the audience and make adjustments according to what works during this time.

Crafting Lead Generation Cards on Twitter

·         Content must not be merely titles and headlines. It must include valuable information for those who do not know about you.

·         Users need to know an email will follow so that they check for it even if it lands up in the junk.

·         Try to keep the text simple. Consider creation of multiple images of all assets you wish to promote.

·         Encourage people to take immediate action with things like download now and sign up now. Ensure that people can access your content right away because this is not Twitter’s responsibility.

User Experience is Important

For each asset that’s downloaded, it’s a good idea to send across an automated email a few days later mentioning that users can get some additional related data points for free.

Focus on Lead Generation more than Social.

Studies showed that the use of Twitter cards as a lead acquisition tool resulted in a 996% rise in acquired leads with a 500% decrease in CPL. As against other tools, Twitter cards do not require people to click out. This resulted in a three-fold increase in ROI as compared to LinkedIn or Facebook. Importantly, followers must not be your only targets - move outside and find relevant discussions and hashtags.

How Can YouTube Analytics Help You Get More Viewers?

YouTube has the potential to put your product in front of millions of prospective customers, but you need to play your cards right. You cannot run a successful YouTube marketing campaign if you do not have enough information about the people who watch your videos. In this post we will show you how you can get a better understanding of your viewers with YouTube Analytics.

Promoting your YouTube videos and YouTube channel takes a great deal of time and effort. You might need to spend some money as well. However, things get better once you have a dedicated following. So the key is to get your first few videos noticed. Once you have built an audience and acquired some subscribers, your focus must be on retaining them and attracting more.

Why do you need to use YouTube Analytics?

By carefully analyzing your YouTube Analytics data, you can get a better understanding of the promotion strategies that work. The YouTube Analytics is a free, online tool that you can access after setting up a YouTube channel. This tool allows you to find out information about people who watch your videos. You can also take advantage of more powerful tracking tools offered by third parties or online advertising services. Some of these tools are free.

The data you get from YouTube Analytics allows you to improve your videos so that you can get more subscribers. Since this free tool is constantly upgraded, you don’t have to worry about its usefulness. The YouTube Analytics allow you to quickly watch who your audience is, where they are from, and how they interact with your content. You will also get to know if viewers exit your videos before they are over.

How do you get started?

The first thing you need to do is to create a YouTube channel and post at least one video. Once you have your channel up and running, you can access YouTube Analytics. Sign in to your YouTube account and click on the ‘Video Manager’ button. Now select the ‘Analytics’ tab.

The first thing you will notice is the ‘Analytics Overview Report’. In the Analytics Overview Report, you can find information about people who visited your YouTube channel in the last 30 days. The top 10 videos that attracted the most number of views are also displayed. The Overview Report also allows you to find out how people found your videos.

Use this information to determine how effective your ads and other promotion techniques are. You can also download this data in a spreadsheet format. To find out more information about particular videos, click on the ‘Content’ tab located near the top of the ‘Analytics Overview’ page. The ‘Geography’ tab lying to the right of the ‘Content’ tab allows you to find out where your viewers are coming from.

Under the ‘Overview’ tab, you can find several menu commands. By clicking on these commands, you can view additional data and reports. Since these reports contain a wealth of information, you cannot ignore them if you are a serious YouTube marketer. If you don’t have enough time to analyze these reports, you can also consider hiring a company operating in this field.