Content Marketing Archive

Some of you might know that one of my many Delightful hats is actually more of a crown.

A Majestic SEO crown.

For over a year now, I’ve been lucky enough to act as Brand Ambassador for Majestic here in the USA, and speak at conferences about their incredible “big data” toolset.

My remit is to help broaden the audience for the brand and get other digital marketers enthused about getting smart with link data and using it for more than just SEO (search engine optimization).

I’ve done a couple of presentations this year and a couple of blog posts too about how best to use what Majestic has to offer, and on Friday 6th December at 9.30am PST (5.30pm GMT) I’ll be delivering a webinar on how businesses can use their tools for influencer discovery, digital PR and competitive analysis.

If you’re interested in hearing some top tips, feel free to register for FREE below:

Beyond SEO – Loving Link Data for Social Media Digital PR and More

If you know anyone in PR or social media that you think might benefit from a talk like this, please share this post!

Starbucks have launched a cool new way to gift a friend a skinny latte via Tweet a Coffee.

This morning, I’d just sparked up my laptop and logged on Twitter to find a very clever surprise from my friend Kelley Myers.

Kelley, who is a friend and former colleague from Microsoft who now works in digital marketing at Starbucks, is jolly generous (as well as smart), so I clicked on the link and kaboom:

To set it up and Tweet a Coffee, you have to connect your Starbucks account with your Twitter account and Tweet.

That’s it! Genius?

Love how more people are getting creative with Twitter.

What will we see next? Tweet a Pizza? Tweet a Hug? Tweet a Beer?

Might have to put a bigger order in for some of those Twitter shares!

Oh…..and thanks Kelley!

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It’s been a while since the hiatus of all our book reviews, so when this came through from the Marketing Society Library, I couldn’t resist posing it here for posterity.

Ninder Takhar, Head of Marketing North East Asia, BT Global Services kindly describes the book thus:

“All in all, an inspiring read, and a good introduction to digital approaches and the broader digital market landscape.”

I’ll be speaking about the lessons learned from Pioneers of Digital at SearchLove San Diego in a few weeks, so listen out for the Tweets.

You can get a cop of the book for less than a dollar/pound on Kindle too!

Welcome to the first in what will be an unending stream of “Delightful Conversations” that I’m kicking off on our new YouTube Channel – Delightful Videos

The aim of the channel is to bring you frank and informative interviews with people I meet around the world who are wise (and willing) to share their solid knowledge on social media, digital PR, personal branding and entrepreneurship.

In this chat, I talk to the wonderfully smart Kristy Bolsinger from PwC just as she stepped off stage at SMX Advanced in Seattle a couple of weeks ago.

I asked her what makes a good social media strategy, how should brands be thinking about measurement and what social media metrics to track?

I also probed her for her thoughts on the future of social media and what the next big thing is going to be.

She gives some really good advice, especially about how to get away from the tactics and see social media as part of your overall business strategy and objectives.

Let me and @Kristy know what you think when you’ve watched the video, I’d love to get feedback on the format so I can tweak it.

Oh and you can subscribe here!

Now I may not be at Cannes Lions this year, but that’s not stopping me watching all the coverage pouring across the Atlantic from the Cote d’Azur.

I’m a little bummed I’m not there now, as this’ll be the third time I’ve narrowly missed seeing Jack Black in the flesh.

Next best thing is to watch this hilarious video interview with him backstage after a Yahoo! seminar.

Intertwined with the funnies is a serious message:

Don’t count on a video going viral when you’re creating it. Just do what you think will make people laugh and don’t try too hard.

“Keep it tight and trim the fat….keep it short because on the smaller screen you don’t want to go too long. I’ve found that 10 minutes is the optimal length of a nugget of entertainment.”

I remember the CDO of Dentsu saying similar things 4 years ago at Cannes. He said you have to have a good idea and it’s that that people pick up on aand want to share, the idea and how it makes them feel.

Or just be unexpected!

Nice work Yahoo! getting Jack to the south of France! You didn’t screw this one up!

It must have been like working on the proverbial second music album.

You’re a new kid on the block and your first attempt at making marketing history goes stratospheric – 10 million views on YouTube and counting!

Everyone wonders if your next release is going to top the first.

You’ve told a major magazine that it’s coming in weeks.

It gets delayed for months.

And then this happens…

Pretty funny huh? Maybe (I’m sorry Mike) not has funny as Number 1, but still UNEXPECTED!

Who expected botty wipes from these guys? Who expected nearly a million views in a little under a week either?

And WHO expected a name like One Wipe Charlies?

You see Michael Dubin is all about being UNEXPECTED and quite rightly so.

In a crowded market like men’s personal stuff, you need to stand out, be agile and, dare I say, delightful.

His “unexpected” mantra can be applied to any market, especially when you’re looking to shine head and shoulders above your competition using social and digital media. You just need to be creative and not give your audience something, “they could have written themselves.”

You often only get one shot. A split second to draw people in and keep them engaged as your carefully thought out brand idea unravels before their eyes and captures and holds their attention long enough for them to want (no NEED) to share your content.

This is what Michael Dubin and his Dollar Shave Club empire do so well and I hope books will be written about them in years to come! (There’s an idea!)

They’ve also helped me find a use for Klout! I got pinged last week with a perk that meant I could watch the video again and then get sent a free trial pack of the butt wipes. Thank you Joe Fernandez!

If you’re looking to get ahead of your competitors, remember it’s not the technology that will propel you into the lead, it’s the idea.

Don’t let myths about stuff going viral because of YouTube or Twitter or Facebook distract you from focusing on the big idea.

If you do, you might just get left………behind!

A couple of weeks ago I presented on a panel called “Nobody Clicks on Boring!” at Pubcon in New Orleans.

On stage with me were the fabulous Krista Neher and Jeff Cohen, who gave rousing talks on what I frankly thought was one of the best session titles I’ve ever seen!

Ever since I started my own consultancy nearly 8 months ago, I made myself a promise that I would try and learn new skills every day.

Just because my new job was to advise and help others understand social media, digital PR and get the most from their personal brands, it didn’t mean I knew everything, and I should see this as an opportunity to keep up-to-date with all the latest tools and trends.

That might seem an obvious discipline to stick too, but in my 13 years in online marketing I have met many people willing to take money from others who were not as current as they might have been.

My mantra has always been to be as transparent as possible, and if I don’t know something, admit it and go and learn whatever it was I needed to know.

Life’s a Long Path of Learning

What has helped me keep learning is taking on clients from which I’ll learn in spades as well as help them improve in the areas they hire me to.

John Gagnon from Bing Ads last week published a post outlining a bunch of PPC and SEO Tools for Excel. He’s been speaking about these Excel tools and how to use Excel to distil oodles of data and present it in an actionable way at conferences for a while now.

Finally getting it all down on his ClickZ column, it’s a fantastic resource for anyone who knows they should be using Excel in new and smarter ways.

The other piece of content marketing I’ll be pouring over this week is on Majestic SEO’s blog: Webinar Recording: 7 Secrets To Getting More Quality Links

This is a free webinar from Ken McGaffin and Garrett French who talk about how to be smart with link building and get wholesome links to your site that the search engines will sit up and pay attention to.

A few months ago I gave some insight about how you might use Majestic SEO for link building and influencer outreach, Ken and Garrett’s webinar goes into lots more detail and offers some really smart tips.

So there you are. It’s not even 9.30am on a Monday morning and I already have my learning cut out for me for the week.

How about you? Seen anything recently that you want to help educate our readers with?

Comment below and share this post with your ideas.

The work I get to do with Majestic SEO never ceases amaze me (among many other things) because of the good luck I get whenever I’m on their booth at many of the digital conferences I attend with them around the world.

A couple of weeks ago, it just happened that our booth at SMX West was smack bang next to Market Motive’s where the fabulous Jennifer Cario (nee Laycock) was signing copies of her new book: Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day

Not one to pass up an opportunity, and always on the look out for tips to pass onto my clients and followers, I asked Jennifer if she could spare a few minutes chatting to me about the book, what tips she had for businesses when it comes to their Pinterest marketing, where Pinterest marketing should fit into the overall social media mix, and how marketers should be thinking about copyright and trademark issues so they don’t get into a sticky mess with their pinning.

I know from my experience with clients – I also pin Delightful social media insight and digital PR research when I can – that Pinterest can be a wonderful resource and source of traffic for websites, but that, even though we keep hearing it’s a must “have” social channel, many businesses are still a little in the dark as to how to leverage it well enough to justify the time spent.

Jennifer gave some great, no-nonsense answers to all those questions, so if you are in any doubt as to whether your Pinterest marketing strategy is heading in the right direction, take a peek at the video above and follow Jennifer on Twitter for all her Pinterest goodness.

Thanks,

Mel

P.S. If you think Jennifer’s Pinterest tips and advice are worth sharing, why don’t you share this post and let all your followers in on the information!