Content Marketing and Analytics For 2015

CONTENT MARKETING AND ANALYTICS FOR 2015HOW TO TELL YOUR STORY AND HOW TO TELL IF IT’S WORKING

ABOUT ME, GEOFFREY BLOSAT

• RIT Graduate, 2014

• Degree in International Business, Co-Major in Marketing

• Certified in:

• Google Analytics

• HubSpot

• Hootsuite

HAVE YOU…

• Written a blog post and shared it for people to see?

• Run a social media campaign for a page drawing traffic back to a website?

• Created photos or videos to explain what an idea for you or a company is all about?

• Regularly put out related posts using social media like Snapchat, Instagram, etc?

WELL THEN YOU ARE…

•A CONTENT MARKETER!

WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING

• “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

• -Content Marketing Institute

GOOGLE LIKES GOOD CONTENT

• 2011: Google Update “Panda”

• Went after thin content, content farms, and other quality issues

• 2012: Google Update “Penguin”

• Went after spam updates, such as keyword stuffing

• Chart via Searchmetrics.com

• Shows what factors are most important for appearing high in search engines

TOP FACTORS

FACEBOOK LIKES GOOD CONTENT

• More engagement = more exposure

• Facebook publishes your posts to only a certain number of people who “like” your page. The more people engage with it (likes, comments, shares), the more people Facebook will broadcast it to.

HOW DO I CREATE GOOD CONTENT?

1. KNOW YOUR BRAND

• Ask yourself this:

• What do we do?

• What do we want to grow?

• Who is our target audience?

• What should our voice be?

• How should we allocate our resources?

2. HAVE A PLAN

• Create a content calendar

• Establish what you want content to center around

• Keep your eyes open for ideas

• Establish expectations early on

3. WHO CREATES WHAT?

• Who in your company creates the content?

• Who has ownership to website admin access or social media log-in access?

• Helps make communication and solving problems down the road easier

4. ASSESS, ADJUST, ACHIEVE

• Ask yourself:

• Have we been good with regular content?

• What does our audience like?

• How can we take this to the next level?

• Use analytics to see what creates the most engagement

• Adjust calendars to what your target audience wants

• Track results and see if they are going where you want them to go

GREAT! NOW WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL?

FACEBOOK

• Photos are still king. Create engaging photos that can be easily shareable.

• Native Facebook video makes it easier for people to view and share videos.

• Facebook PPC allows you to target a niche audience with ads.

TWITTER

• Top Network For Brand-to-Fan Engagement. Use tools like the new Twitter video and give your brand a personality.

• Directly uploading photos > sharing through FB/IG. Shows better engagement.

• Use hashtags to bring together fans of your brand. Make sure to have eyes on your official account so nothing inappropriate slips through.

LINKEDIN

• The top B2B Social Network. Use it to find the right people to talk to directly in an organization.

• When sharing content on LinkedIn, use your employees as advocates and have them share it to their networks. More engagement comes from that than by sharing on a page.

• LinkedIn Groups bring together a related audience. Share there to reach out to a niche market for high engagement.

YOUTUBE

• The king of video hosting. Despite FB and TW developing native video capabilities, YT is still owned by Google. Allows to easily index videos in search engines.

• Give fans reason to go past Facebook. Have subscriber-only content, embedded links in videos, and other subscriber perks.

GOOGLE+

• Dead social network? Google doesn’t think so. As mentioned earlier, Google +1s are very valuable for SEO purposes.

• Circles are still a valuable way to sort followers out into groups so you can reach out to specific audiences when crafting a message.

INSTAGRAM

• Big things coming for 2015 as hyped by Gary Vaynerchuk.

• It’s a stream of strictly photos and short videos, removing the clutter of other networks. With the new ad placement feature, it gets you focused in the eyes of target audience.

• When placing URLs, note: IG does not allow for direct hyperlinks in photo comments. Instead, use your BIO to place them and use photos for CTAs.

PINTEREST

• “75% of Pinterest users are on mobile. 86% are female. 49% are under 40. 66% are early adopters.” Huge potential for that market.

• Create engaging boards that are informative and will drive readers to visit your site and achieve a call to action (infographics for example).

SNAPCHAT

• Snapchat stories are the predominant way of reaching your audience. Give them the inside perspective. Pull them in by creating engaging stories that give a different perspective.

• Right now, it’s hard to track analytics with SC. Best way for now: create Snapchat-only custom URLs/coupons. Track their usage and their efficiency.

TUMBLR

• Wordpress + Facebook = Tumblr. A blogging platform which can be completely customizable and is easy to share photos and other content.

• Purchased by Yahoo for $1.1B.

• Memes, gifs, and funnies look to work on Tumblr. Companies use it as a “testing” ground for certain content, seeing if it works well and is shareable for other networks.

VINE

• Quick, snapshot videos that develop a story. Usage may decrease with the development of Twitter video.

• Creativity is key. Because videos are so short, message must be clear. Don’t push too much and give your audience a reason to keep watching.

NICHE APPS

• 2014/15: Huge boom for industry-focused apps (Untappd, Fancred, etc)

• These apps are predominatly consumer-driven. While there is no clear strategy for businesses on these, it doesn’t hurt to monitor and gather feedback.

EXCELLENT! NOW WHAT’S WORKING?

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

• Rise of analytics means companies want a bigger understanding of Google Analytics

• Use to see who is visiting, where they’re coming from, and where they’re visiting

AUDIENCE

AUDIENCE

• Lets you see who your users are as well as how long they were on your page.

• Sessions: Times someone visits your site

• Users: Unique visitors of your site

• Pageviews: Number of times a different page is visited

• Bounce Rate: 1-and-done. The percentage of times someone visits and leaves after one page.

ACQUISITION

ACQUISITION

• Lets you know where your audience is coming from

• Organic search: Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc

• Direct: Someone types your URL and goes to your site from there

• Referral: A recommendation from one website to another

• Social: Clicks thanks to social networks

• Email: Clicks thanks to emails

BEHAVIOR

BEHAVIOR

• Shows where your fans go when they are on your website

• Unique Pageviews: How many times a specific user has viewed a single page.

• Exit %: The percentage someone exits from a particular page

GOOGLE ADWORDS

• Google Ads are becoming more vital as they appear front and center in searches

• Use Google Adwords to not only build ads, but find effective keywords for SEO

KEYWORD PLANNER

• Allows you to see which combination of keywords will be the most effective for your SEO

• Search for related terms for your business

• Puts related terms together into groups

• Keywords are sorted by how many times they are searched per month as well as their level of competition. Terms with higher competition means it will be harder to show up for them in Google

KEYWORD PLANNER

FACEBOOK INSIGHT

• Facebook native analytics: most in-depth analytics tool for specific social network

• Allows you to analyze who your digital fan is and who to cater to

TWITTER ANALYTICS

• Open to public

• Track specific tweet results, engagement, and follower growth

CONNECT WITH ME

• Email: gblosat@gmail.com

• Twitter: @GeoffTBlosat

• LinkedIn: /in/GeoffTBlosat

• Website: http://geoffreyblosat.com/