Your Content Isn’t as Influential as You Think It Is

Content marketers like to think we are important. We've changed the face of modern marketing, haven’t we? We create the content that drives awareness, builds relationships with prospects, and helps move them along their path to purchase.

Well, according to a study of marketing technology buyers by Walker Sands, we have a lot less influence than we might think. Let’s start at the top.

What New in Marketing Technology?

Where do buyers learn about new marketing technology? The top answers in the study are peers and colleagues (30%), news publications and blogs (20%), and search engines (13%). In a study like this, marketers should be looking for the term "vendor" in the answers. That’s how their marketing shows up. Not only is it not at the top of this list, but it’s not anywhere on the list.

Way at the bottom of the list are sales reps. Wait, you mean buyers are still finding out about new solutions from sales reps, and not marketers? Maybe there’s something to this whole relationship building thing after all.

Nothing created by us content marketers is credited with helping buyers discover new technology. But if you look closely at the top answers, there may be more to it than you think.

All three of the top answers are influenced by content created, published, and shared by content marketers to varying degrees. This means your content is not connecting directly with buyers above the level of awareness. Remember, though, that content marketing is not about your products or solutions, but about providing value to prospects in solving their business problems. If your content is truly serving that function, you would not expect it to show up as a source for new marketing technology.

Research Equals Awareness

The next phase of the buyer’s path is the research phase. This is when they know that they need a marketing technology solution, and they are actively looking for information. According to the survey, 29% of marketing technology buyers say that all vendor content (including the website, blog, reports, and white papers) are very influential in their research. An additional 60% say that this same content is somewhat influential in this phase. (By the way, peer recommendations led this list too, with 63% of buyers saying they were very influential.)

From a content marketing perspective, let’s focus on a few points. First, don’t get hung up on the fact that both the company website and the company blog were lumped into the same category. Use that to your advantage, and make sure there are clear connections between appropriate sections of the blog and the website.

This phase really is the heart of content marketing. This is when you are driving awareness and earning trust by providing educational content. The research phase is where awareness happens. (highlight to tweet) While the buyers may have heard of your company, this is when they start to understand your approach not just to marketing, but to prospects and customers in general.

Since all the sources of vendor content have the same influence at this stage, why not look at them as equal partners? The products details—what are often called feeds and speeds—are still important as buyers look to understand what your are offering. But the more general content on your blog and in ebooks and white papers are the things that form the bonds of the relationship.

Time to Buy

Finally, the study looked at what sources were most influential in making a purchase decision. It is no surprise that your content does not provide much at this point in the process. Only 5% of MarTech buyers choose blogs in this stage. Again, if you are doing your job as a content marketer, this is not surprising. Corporate blog posts are not about products. They should not be influencing the final purchase decision.

But note that 36% cite the website as most influential. This is another indication that strong connections should exist between your content marketing efforts and your product pages on the website.

As an example, we have three different connection points to link our blog posts, product pages, and resources about marketing automation. In addition to having a call to action to a single relevant resource guide, like our lead scoring guide, our blog posts also have a link to our marketing automation resource page that offers a huge variety of content.

The educational resources also appear on our product pages, so prospects can learn about the topic as they explore our offerings. We are able to track all of their activity in this process. This is one way that we support multi-step paths directed by customers, rather than pre-defined journeys.

And what was the most influential in the buying stage? Product demos. No matter how much trust you build and how strong of a relationship you create with the buyer through a variety of content, the product still has to serve their needs.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Your Content Isn’t as Influential as You Think It Is

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14 Tips to Generate More Leads, Conversions and Sales Using Twitter




Twitter is an amazing platform to not only build community and brand awareness but also to generate leads and increase sales! Yes, smart and social savvy marketers know how to generate sales using Twitter.

However, to do this you must understand that Twitter is not designed as a spamming platform. You can't just hop on Twitter and start spamming urls to your website, blog or sales page.

Instead, you need to design and implement a well thought out and tested conversion funnel that helps you organically attract, inspire and engage your ideal customer. You need to inspire them to pay attention to you in a way that builds trust, nurtures relationships and helps you convert the business to the desired state over time.

Learning how to increase conversions and sales using Twitter requires both art and science. There are many features within the walls of Twitter than can help you convert more sales. You can tap into the power of Twitter ads, Twitter cards, Twitter lists and more.

However, what many marketers do not understand is that what you do off of Twitter is as important, if not more important as what you do on Twitter. Having an integrated, social and digital platform that is ready for the social savvy and mobile customer is a requirement, not an option for brands looking to generate leads and sales using Twitter. If your blog, website, content and engagement strategies suck, your conversions on Twitter will be the same.

Take a listen to episode 202 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 14 tips and strategies to increase sales and conversions using Twitter. Included are 14 ideas you can implement TODAY to help you increase the ROI of the time and resource you invest in Twitter.

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

• 14 strategies and tactics to generate leads, increase sales and conversions using Twitter


• How to tap into features such as Twitter advertising, Twitter cards, Twitter lists to increase sales


• Using Twitter, blog content and other social media posts for A/B testing to increase conversions


• Leverage Twitter analytics for optimized results


• Using web analytics such as Google Analytics to optimize conversions and sales


• How to use Twitter to learn more about your audience and ideal customer


• Importance of a good content strategy and plan to increase sales


• Avoiding spammy tactics to ensure positive brand perception

Supporting Resources:

• Audience Analysis Worksheet (worksheet to help you prioritize your niche)


• Welcome to the Inspiration Age (episode 170)


• Twitter Persona Worksheet (worksheet to help you develop your Twitter Persona)


• Twitter Pinned Tweet: How and Why to Use it For Business


• You are Not Your Logo: Marketing Branding Strategy in a Nutshell


• Increase Conversions by Keeping Your Digital and Social Media Promises


• How to Use Twitter Video to Inspire & Connect with Your Audience


• Twitter Automation Strategies


• How to Maximize Business Results with Twitter Marketing (episode 174)


• 8 Twitter Tips to Maximize Time and ROI of Twitter


• Twitter in a Nutshell


• Twitter Lists in a Nutshell


• 7 Metrics to Measure Value of Your Content in the Inspiration Age (episode 172)

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media – Building Your Media Foundation

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

•  iTunes


• Stitcher


• SoundCloud

       

Related Stories

• Twitter Pinned Tweet – How and Why You Should Use it for Business


• To Automate or Not to Automate? Twitter Automation Tools and Tips to Zoom Your Tweets


• Are You Making These Top 10 Content Marketing Mistakes & Sabotaging Your Results?

 

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Univision Expands Market Reach with The Onion Acquisition

Politics: Palin Endorses Trump

Just when you thought Donald Trump could not receive greater media attention, an endorsement from someone who often dominated the 2008 election airwaves has now turned up the volume for the Donald even more.

Keenly observed in the Washington Post on Tuesday, "Palin and Trump conspired together to try to break the Internet." The media publication used our data to highlight Trump’s total media mentions throughout the day:

As seen above, there was a major spike that came after the Palin endorsement, just after 12 PM PST. In all, there were more than 251,000 media mentions of Trump on Twitter after the endorsement Tuesday, and nearly half (114,000) mentioned the Palin endorsement.

This is even further exemplified in Donald Trump's Word Cloud from January 19…

…where Sarah Palin appears to be at the center of all Donald Trump conversation that day.

What does this mean for Donald Trump?

Regardless of whether you are a fan or not, an endorsement from Palin will not hurt Trump's resonance in the press — just as the primaries kick off in Iowa next month.

Entertainment: The Onion Acquired by Univision

The world's favorite source for satirical news may have a name change in store — La Cebolla, anyone?

Univision Communications Inc., the parent company of the nation's leading Spanish-language broadcast channel, has acquired a controlling stake in The Onion.  The purchase was made because:

“Comedy is playing an expanding role in our culture as a vehicle for audiences to explore, debate and understand the important ideas of our time…It has also proven to be an incredibly engaging format for millennial audiences and is expected to play a key part in the 2016 presidential election process via our robust content offerings in Spanish and English.”

As seemingly disparate media outlets, the news is dominating headlines among the Hispanic media market.

Two of the most popular tweets on the Univision investment are in Spanish, with the top coming from CNN en Español:

And the majority of Top Authors tweeting about the purchase are communicating in Spanish:

While many Hispanic media outlets are reporting on this power play by Univision, the acquisition is also exposing The Onion to a potentially promising market. According to the latest U.S. Census, 65 percent of the 52 million Hispanics living in the country are between the ages of 18 to 34, an age range very similar to The Onion‘s current fan base. Overall, both parties seem to be gearing up for success with this partnership.

Events: Food Gets Fancy in San Francisco

Each January, the food industry puts on the largest marketplace devoted exclusively to specialty foods and beverages on the West Coast with the annual Winter Fancy Foods Show.

This year, over 1,500 established corporations, independent artisans and other culinary entrepreneurs exhibited to a sold-out crowd of 18,000 attendees during the three day event.

What was discussed most during all of this Fancy Food talk?

Trends.

As seen in our Winter Fancy Food Show Hashtag Cloud, #trends were front and center:

Based on what was revealed, the show appears to determine all of the up-and-coming food trends for the year — and from the looks of it, we can expect to no surprise much #glutenfree, #grassfed and #bonebroth fare on the table in 2016.

Business: NAIAS, Week 2 Recap

It has been another exciting week at the North American International Auto Show, with over 22,000 media mentions of #NAIAS coming in since Monday:

Who's been driving the majority of conversation among automakers from Detroit this week?

It is a tight race between Nissan and Ford each holding 14% of the Share of Voice among auto manufacturers throughout the week.

However, with stories like the debut of the Lexus LC 500 and President Barack Obama sitting in a Chevy Bolt during his tour of the auto show, each manufacturer saw unique spikes in mentions throughout the week:

Subscribe now to get the full This Week in Realtime Media delivered directly to your inbox. See you next week!

       

Univision Expands Market Reach with The Onion Acquisition

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3 Soon-to-be-Everywhere Social Media Trends You Can Profit on in 2016

What is the next big wave of social media?

Maybe it's Peach—or another hot new social network. Maybe it's a strategy like posting times or text faces. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

It's really hard to say!

(And yet here I am saying it.)

To ride the wave of the next big thing in social media, it often takes a lot of trial-and-error, a good deal of trendspotting, and some courage to try new things. I've spent some time reading up on what's to come for social media and I'd love to get your thoughts on three new trends that might be monumental.

3 Soon-to-Be-Everywhere Social Media Trends for 2016 from Buffer

1. Social shopping

You can buy stuff straight from your News Feed!

E-commerce has felt a bit like a missing piece from the social media feeds. Sure, you can tweet/post/Snap about a product that you're selling, yet your potential customers must still leave the social network they're on to visit your site in order to complete the purchase.

Previously:

Social --> your site --> $$

Soon:

Social = $$

This is already in the works in some moderate ways, on sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.

Pinterest has a "Buy It" option on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, where you can buy Pinned products directly from Pinterest. Available products have a blue "Buy It" button next to the standard red "Pin It" button.

Here's a preview of how the process works:

Facebook has been testing a Buy button for well over a year now and has been slowly rolling it out to more and more users. Like with Pinterest, Facebook's option allows shoppers to buy products without ever leaving Facebook.

And you might be familiar with Domino's pizza emoji tweet?

Yep, Twitter shopping is a thing, too. In addition to the pizza emoji, Twitter has a buy button that users can access to buy and sell directly from the Twitter stream. Here's an example of the experience with a Warby Parker set of sunglasses.

Buying and selling on social media feels like it may be on the verge of something big.

And whatever solution falls into place here could go a long way toward solving one of the Big Mysteries of social media marketing:

How can I accurately measure my social media ROI?

For some time now, one of the biggest challenges for social media marketers has been assigning dollars-and-cents results to efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

And though this new frontier of social shopping and e-commerce might be only part of the return on investment (there's still the lead gen and funnel parts that are important to consider), it's one of the biggest steps toward tying a direct, monetary result to one's social media marketing.

If purchases take place on social media, ROI becomes clearer, social media's position in the marketplace improves, and we all win—buyers and sellers.

Ways you can profit on this:

• Join the Pinterest waitlist or use "Buy It" straight away today if you're on a platform like Shopify


• Check your Facebook page and ads center to see if you have the "Buy" option turned on for your call-to-action buttons


• Check Twitter's list of partners to see if you've already got access via a service like Gumroad or Stripe perhaps


• For Instagram, you can look into services like Penny, which let shoppers buy straight from Instagram with hashtag #sold

2. Social media at work

One of my favorite topics to write on (and one that I probably didn't have a really great answer to) is the split between who you are on social media inside of work and outside of work.

Well, moving forward, that might not be an obstacle any more!

Facebook at Work, announced last year, seeks to carve out a work-specific social media zone for coworkers to communicate with one another.

Like this TechCrunch headline stated: Facebook at Work lets businesses create their own social networks.

LinkedIn is interested in similar work-style social media, and like a lot of other Facebook features, it's possible that this one will trickle out to a whole host of other networks, too.

Even apps like Slack and Hipchat have helped add distinction to the work/life split, making it easy to converse with teammates in a medium that doesn't dip into personal life.

This new, explicit distinction between work social media and personal social media could represent a huge shift in how social networks are used. It's quite early days with things (Facebook at Work is starting its slow roll out, available on mobile currently). Guessing at some of the effects here, you could see changes to:

• Ideal posting time: If the typical high-engagement window of 9-to-5 is spent with 9-to-5ers hanging out on their own private networks, optimal timing might shift.


• Message content: Instead of reaching folks at work and play, now a brand's updates might be targeted toward one or the other


• Ad types: Will it be possible to get a message into a "work" network?

A lot remains to be seen here, but the early signs of work-centric social networks feels like too big a trend to miss.

Ways you can profit on this:

• Stay tuned into Facebook's updates on the subject so you're first in the door. (Facebook publishes lots of great updates to its Business blog.)


• Start honing your messages to different types of people and different times of day: Custom audiences and ads provide a good playground for tests

3. Messaging & chat apps

How to reach people who aren't checking their feeds

When we go on our semi-annual Buffer retreats, we all stay in touch with one another not on social media but on messaging platforms: WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.

Is the same true for the ways you communicate with your nearby friends and family?

This seems to be a growing trend for a lot of the back-and-forth convos that take place. If social media is seen as a broadcast medium, messaging apps feel a bit more conversational. 

And it's possible that these two reasons might be why. With messaging apps, there's:

1. No algorithm.


2. No ads.

Algorithms and ads have come to define social media more and more. Messaging apps are the complete opposite. For instance, on Snapchat (not quite a messaging app per se but disruptive enough in this sense), a user will choose to view a branded story and give it their full attention, whereas on Facebook the algorithm decides which posts the user might see.

So with people choosing a way around ads and algorithms, how does your content stand a chance of being seen?

This one definitely calls for some outside-the-box thinking. We're currently spinning our brains with this one at Buffer and taking inspiration from folks who are charting new territories here already.

The WhatsApp newsletter

Alex Laughlin of the National Journal came up with a pretty neat experiment last year: She uses WhatsApp to send a daily newsletter to a group of subscribers.

The setup for the list is pretty simple. Here're Alex's instructions:

• Download WhatsApp


• Save this number in your contacts as Lunch Links: 706–604–5805.


• Send “Lunch Links” a message on WhatsApp asking to be added to the newsletter.

Essentially, people would opt in with a phone number rather than an email, and they'd get the newsletter messages straight away as chats. It's a super interesting concept! And I quite liked this as the motivation for exploring this type of network:

If my fifteen-year-old sister’s social networking use is any indication, organizations should be hopping on these chat technologies — and quickly.

The Everlane Facebook messages

Online clothing retailer Everlane is one of the first to explore Facebook Messenger as a way to engage with customers and perform those standard e-commerce support roles with order confirmations, updates, shipping info, etc.

Customers can chat directly with Everlane support reps for any questions—even adding more items to an order.

(Here's a bit more from Facebook's announcement about their Messenger platforms).

The new wave of Slack, chat, and notifications

And then there's all the many different ways to get a message into things like desktop notifications or a Slack chat room (the next frontier!). Here're just a few options:

• Roost – Let folks turn on desktop notifications for your blog's content


• Slackbots and integrations: This neat list on Product Hunt features things like a Slack bookmarklet for sharing links, plus lots of other cool marketing ideas

Ways you can profit on all this:

• Give people more than one way to hear from you: Offer subscription via text, Messenger, and more


• Survey your audience to find out what new technologies they're using most, then adjust your strategies accordingly


• Not sure what some of these apps are? Give them a go yourself so it's easier to empathize with how your customers might experience your brand

Bonus: A few extra social media trends

I originally researched more than 20 new trends that social media folks thought might be big this year. The three above are the ones that seemed really promising, and a bunch of these below were simply too intriguing not to mention. They are:

1. Emoji responses


2. 360 video


3. Livestreaming


4. Social media customer service


5. "Everything platforms"

I've added all these to a new story on Buffer's Medium collection.

Click to read more detail on any of these. (And feel free to follow us on Medium if you happen to hang out there some. We post cool stuff!)

Over to you

What trends are you keeping your eye on this year?

What do you see coming for social media?

I'd love the chance to learn from you with any thoughts you have on these items or any that I might have missed! It'd be awesome to connect in the comments or on Twitter.

The post 3 Soon-to-be-Everywhere Social Media Trends You Can Profit on in 2016 appeared first on Social.

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