What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing, as defined by Wikipedia and explained by Martin Shervington, is any marketing format that involved the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers.  We break down that question in this post about using content marketing on Google+ and how it can help anyone achieve the opportunity to create and build their own global network.

This 6 step guide can help you get started with sharing your content through “Authorship” (which connects your profile to the web) and about the process of Content Marketing in different cycles. 

• Listen - Learn the ability to listen to what applies to you and your content.
• Deciding on Themes and Topics - Using the listening process, you can decide what content will relate to your business. This process will also help you stay up on relevant themes and topics whether it be seasonal content, new trends, etc.
• Create Content - Once you have decided on your theme and/or topic, you need to create your content. You content can be created in any format (text, images, videos, infographics, hangouts on-air or PDF’s); your focus is not on the format but on your audience. 
•  Promote Content - Now that you have created your content, you then need to promote it.  Creating content but not sharing it is like opening a business but not telling anyone; let people know your content exists instead of letting it sit. You can share content via your Google+ profile or Plus page as well as other social platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble Upon, Pinterest, etc). 
• Measure and Evaluate - How do you measure your content marketing strategy’s performance? Some great focus points are:

a.       Key Metrics (such as the number of visits)

b.      Social shares or Google+ Circle shares and/or follows

c.       Sign up to your newsletter

d.      Enquires related to the content

e.      Sales conversions

Google Analytics is a great tool to directly measure engagement on a post; such as the amount of times people have “clicked on a link”.

• Re-Purpose - Give that same old dress some glitter! Don’t make the mistake of believing that just because your content is old it is not relevant, especially if it is great content. Google offers some great tools to allow re-purposing. Mr. Shervington gives a personal example of using old content from an on-air hangout into a ‘New’ video. Do key word research for your content objective in search, edit and/or add intros/outros to complete video and edit the video to target key words. Re-upload your video as private and add content into a blog post that only link holders can view. Lastly, share your link to a post on Google+. When ready, release it publicly as “New” video. You can also use the audio to create a podcast and add it to iTunes. This is a perfect example of “Re-Purposing” your same great content.  

There are plenty of ideas shared around the internet that give more tips on how to use Content Marketing to create more traffic to your website. The end result of our efforts is for Google + to become the platform that allows you to reach and build a relationship with people who matter. For tips on Content Marketing and more, keep up with the Tandem Blog! Until next time, Christina.

10 Tips to REALLY “Help a Reporter Out”

As an Agency, our team followers the best names in marketing, we also follow the small people that do not receive the credit they deserve. One of my favorites to follow is a *Henry. Henry is a link activist and a dedicated SEO analyst, he is constantly studying the latest tactics and best practices to help with a website’s link profile.

His latest newsletter gave a run-down of HARO, Help a Reporter Out, and where he sees flags in their system. The HARO Company is a paid subscription that give real-time media opportunities in a three tiered plan with subscriptions starting at $19/month and a basic plan that is free. HARO works by giving the subscriber publicity alerts that are powered by Vocus, an integrated marketing and PR software based in Maryland.

While there is some value in a HARO subscription for obtaining links, you have to be weary of the magnitude of crap sites that are distributed in the “3 Media Opportunities Emails a day”.  So here are 10 tips for HARO users:

1. Discretion

As with anything you do in life, be discrete and selective. Really look around sites before just deciding to post your information on them. Similar to a group of people, do you want people to see you associated with them? If you hang around dogs, you’re going to catch fleas… And no one likes a flea-infested website. 

2. Anonymity

Most of the “3 media opportunities delivered daily” are written anonymously; this is something that should cause a red flag. Good, rich, informative content will have a source, if there is no source, which means there is no reliability or assurance about the information you are reading. However, the HARO editors do claim to "vet each and every reporter source before they post to make sure that they meet an Alexa traffic ranking and that they actually write for the outlet they claim", a direct quote from Stacey Miller the Senior Social Media Manager at Vocus.  

3. Limitations

Do not limit yourself by restricting the content or topics you are willing to read opportunities on. Sometimes opportunity arises in the most surprising places, and the last thing you want is to miss it!

4. Time

All three of the subscription tiers for HARO include 3 opportunity emails a day, time is of the essence when reading news, so it is important to be timely about reading the notices upon receipt.

5. Spacing

There are two types of opportunities that you will receive from HARO: wide and narrow. Wide opportunities are good for building “mindshare”; that means traffic from making your business visible to those likely to visit your site at some point in time. This would be link exposure in related articles similar to your product/service. Narrow opportunities are more targeted towards your demographic and those searching for your product but many not know who you are. This is where you can see growth in lower conversion funnel opportunities such as social shares and traditional media newsletters.

6. Traditional SEO

Don’t just focus on the traditional SEO tactics, digital marketing is constantly changing to become more advance and serve a better purpose and more relevant search result. PageRank and other SEO trusted ranking metrics should not influence you to refuse participation in a potentially good space. Focus on the traffic and if sales could possibly come from it, search traffic is only one piece of the puzzle.

7. Investigate

Investigate where you are receiving the content, sometimes people have a bias because they are actually affiliated with a competitor or because they are an advocate of a group. Learn about the person who is giving you information before you decide they are a good or bad source. And don’t underestimate the ‘little guy’; you may think someone does not have a lot of followers on Twitter or Instagram, but could be VERY influential in your industry; the small fry may be the opportunity you have been looking for! “Pick battles big enough to matter, and small enough to win.”

8. Blogs

Bloggers can be very beneficial or extremely harmful depending on their audience. Again, do your research on the blogger before reaching out to them about any type of work or assistance. Be familiar with their work and see their metrics for posts and their quality of work.

9. Content

Google’s favorite food, color, number, sport, and word is content; fresh, unique, new, rich content. Any site you may find that has guest post or repetitive content, STAY AWAY! Google’s main focus is and will always be the best, most relevant search result for the customer query, there is a reason why that page in not listed. 

10. Quality over Quantity

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, so do not be greedy when doing any form of link building or SEO. Focus on Quality of work over Quantity. It is better to have 10 dedicated followers, than 1,000 that do not engage with your brand. And this can be applied anywhere on your site and in any industry, it is better to have less but better quality work, employees, products, blogs, content, and links than it is to have a million crappy anything.

You can see satisfied customers and published stories in outlets like Men's Health Magazine, Yahoo!Fiance and the Steve Harvey Show here. To learn more about SEO and the services that Tandem provides, please contact Joe at JLaratro@Tandem-Interactive.com. Have a great weekend! J

SFIMA Recap: Today's SEO Tomorrow - Social Search & Beyond

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Pubcon SFIMA Summit here in Fort Lauderdale. I am always excited for this event because it is such an overflow of information, and there's always tips and secrets that I can start implementing that very day. I learned many great things this time around, and my favorite session was by Mindy Weinstein (who was also a total joy to talk to after her session!), who spoke about “Today’s SEO Tomorrow: Social Search & Beyond.” As an SEO professional, is there anything more important than knowing how to not only exist in the present, but to survive (and thrive) in the future? I’d argue no.  This session helped delve into the current state of search and how to integrate social media to get your company (or clients) ready for the future.

I’d like to share a few of Mandy’s tips with you.

Recognize the impact of personalized search, and utilize it! This is where keyword research for your brand comes in handy.

Know how social media/social signals affect search rankings. Search is and will be increasingly driven by social. Consumers want companies they can trust! Comments, likes, shares, and votes are all valuable in determining your social credibility.

Use your social networks in the right way. Consumers are using social to find what they need. Twitter is great for providing conversational and quick feedback (check out Comcast and Delta on twitter for examples of this), Facebook is used for local and national brands, Google + gives you the maximum SEO benefits, and Instagram and Pinterest are image driven.

A quote I heard earlier in the day that I loved was, “Try to do everything, and you’ll be great at nothing.” Take this tidbit into your social media efforts and decide which networks are the best for you brand rather than diluting your presence across all of the networks.

But let’s backtrack for a second…

What are you sharing on social media? Content! You need to create content that your customers are looking for—help them solve problems, do competitor research and see what content they are creating, and push the awesome content you’ve got out across social media. Become a resource, don’t be a megaphone.

If you have any questions or would like help implementing some of these ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at Tandem!

SFIMA Pubcon Keynote: The Key to Amazon's Empire

Last Thursday was the SFIMA / Pubcon Annual Summit at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. With 18 sessions, 2 keynotes and over 30 of Digital Marketing's best internet gurus it comes to no surprise there was only a 1% no-show rate for the 200 marketers that registered for the event. 

The morning keynote was presented by Jeffrey Eisenberg, Co-founder of FutureNow Inc. and author of 'Call-to-Action' and 'Waiting for your cat to bark?', about the '4 Pillars of Amazon's Success'. His one hour keynote was extremely informative, given Amazon is very secretive about their business strategies. 

The 4 Pillars of Success are as followed:

1. Customer Centricity
2. Continuous Optimization 
3. Culture of Innovation 
4. Corporate Agility

First is Customer Centricity. "80% of Company's believe they are customer centric; 8% of their customers would agree".  Amazon has focused their company on giving the consumer exactly what they want - better customer centric service with lower priced items. 

Amazon offer Continuous Optimization. They focus on 4 key points for their optimization objectives:

• Selection
• Price
• Availablility
• Experience

This continuous effort from Amazon has shown that 2/3 of their web purchases are returning visitors; and not only are they returning, but they visit Amazon 3x more and spend (on average) 3x-5x more than new customers. 

Apple is not the only business to be successful in the Culture of Innovation. When analyzing the data of Amazon's reports they look at the data not as a "here it is" but rather a "here is what it could be". Amazon has also created the next generation CEO with the title of the "Customer Experience Officer". With making the head of the company's focus on the customer experience, Amazon is taking customer service to a whole new level. 

Corporate Agility is the ability for a business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in the corporate world. Amazon has uses different software to help with their agility opportunities. One software that is used is for Amazon's pay-per-click marketing campaign is DataPop. DataPop has allowed Amazon to create high-performing, customized, relevant ads that have in-turn doubled Amazon's PPC conversion rate and lower their cost per lead. Through DataPop's dynamic keyword ad strategies, Amazon is able to provide more relevant and targeted ads that result in a better customer experience and more sales. 

BloomReach is a software used to help Amazon's Organic ratings on all search engines. BloomReach's data driven technology has allowed Amazon to deliver relevant content that has optimized the customer's experience across multiple channels. Neiman Marcus released statistics after using BloomReach for SEO purposes and confirmed a 31% increase in organic reach! 

The SFIMA / Pubcon Summit was a great one day conference that targeted all areas of digital marketing. If you were not able to attend the conference, Pubcon Las Vegas is from October 6 - 9, 2014 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. If you are interested in attending please contact Joe Laratro for an exclusive coupon code. We hope to see you there! 

Step Inside AdWords Recap

The 'pumped up' Inside AdWords livestream was earlier today. Jerry Dischler, Vice President of Product Management, lead the livestream through the next wave of advertising efforts from Google and the new betas advertisers should be eager to get their hands on.

The livestream was broken down into 3 major points:

• Innovated Ads
• Insightful Reporting
• Intelligent Tools

Innovated Ads was focused mostly on the importance of applications and how to successful engage your audience to lead towards app-based conversions. "Apps are a solution to the users initial problem", said Dischler. 

The friction within the problem and solution is that 60% of apps that are developed have never been installed. Google's recommendations were to use app-keyword suggestions and use PPC ads to help with the awareness of the app and its purpose that will lead to the download, engagement, and ultimately conversion. 

Insightful Reporting concentrated on the Estimated Total Conversion launch last year and the tools that are still betas being developed by Google. The Estimated Total Conversions allow you to estimate total conversions across multiple channels: Desktop, Mobile and Phone. 

But the main topic touched on was the exclusive betas being tested to select companies that give the ability to  integrate online marketing efforts with offline results. Two companies exposed to the beta were Shutterfly and Express Clothing. Google's three main focuses in the development of this multi-channel conversion integrator are:

1. Consumer Value
2. Maintaining the Consumer's Privacy
3. Actual Measurable Results

This beta has a lot of potential to show a more accurate ROI if Google can fulfill those three focuses. Most people believe that a beta test serves only the purpose of ensure the quality of the product before launching; however that is not the case. Although Google want to ensure there are no 'bugs' in launching this new tool, they are using this opportunity to significantly improve the marketing of this product and to look ahead to future tools/betas. I can only imagine how eager marketers are to get their hands on this beta upon being available to the public. 

The final topic was Intelligent Tools. AdWords has really been pushing new tools for measuring our data accurately (which will make my job easier!) and two of these tools recently launched are the Bulk Actions and the Automatic Bidding Option. When making mass changes for large clients, most advanced marketers would use AdWords Editor (again, to just make our lives a little simpler); Google has now given the Bulk Actions option on the AdWords interface to allow for larger changes across the account. This allows you to make location changes and other large scale changes on the interface opposed to using Editor. 

The Automatic Bidding option is a very convenient tool that allows the marketer use a programmed goal strategy (opposed to manual CPC) marketing and let's Google AdWords do the heavy lifting. By telling Google your campaigns main focus is: 1) ROA, 2) CPA, or 3) Clicks , Google can use your performance history to create a marketing strategy focused on your objective. 

The final two tools are tools that are still being developed but that I personally am very excited about. Tool one is the Enhanced Reporting and tool two is Drafts & Experiments. As a NeuroMarketer there is nothing I love more than the ability to test my campaigns. When I first entered the field of marketing, one of my professors told me that "a tester's work is never done". 

When you believe that you have optimized your campaigns structure as much as humanly possible, you haven't! You can always run A/B test on ads and landing pages. Although Google isn't THAT advanced (yet!) they are working on a tool that will let you test different bidding strategies and other options within the AdWords interface that will compare your previous performance with your new metrics... Pretty Cool!

Overall, Jerry Dischler did a great job presenting the statistics that Google generated from advertisers and the new betas marketers have to look forward to. As always, Tandem keeps up with the latest Google updates in PPC, SEO, and Neuromarketing :) Until next time! 

The SEO Mosh Pit - Pubcon NOLA 2014

Brett Tabke put a last minute panel together called the SEO mosh pit. It was filled with the senior (in terms of age and duration in the industry) search engine optimizers at the conference. One of Bruce Clay's writers, Virginia Nussey, did a very good job blogging the sessions. You can read her capturing of the details here: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/pubcon-liveblog-seo-moshpit-qa-with-the-seo-old-school/

Be Careful Not to Double Count Call Conversions in Adwords

Adwords Phone Call Conversion Tracking is Trickier than You Think

Our Google Team came out to Tandem Interactive's office in February to spend some time reviewing performance, forecasting for Q2, and reviewing the latest and greatest features of Adwords. We always cover pain points. I was ready for this because I have has issues with the phone call tracking as conversions since it launched back in October of 2013. The numbers do not match. Why not? They really did not know either, so we spent an hour together digging in until we found it.

What is the answer? It is simple. Right now, only “mobile click to call” calls count in the conversion column if they meet the conversion requirements (we set it for calls longer than 60 seconds). If you want to see the “manually dialed calls”, then you have to turn on the column in the campaign view for phone call conversions.

This does not sound like a big deal, but it is really confusing why mobile devices show in the conversion report as “calls from ads”. That report does not count manual dials, even though they are also “call from ads”. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the conversion report only displays "many per click" conversions. The regular campaign reports (and normal counting) reflect "1 per click" conversions.

These are the settings for the conversion tracking. We are using one for mobile tracking and another for non-mobile.

So what is the proper way to count conversions at the moment?

Option 1: Just add the phone call conversions to regular conversions column and that will count mobile and manually dialed together.

Option 2: Segment "mobile click to call" conversions from the conversions column. Subtract them from the conversions and add to phone conversions total. This can be done by looking at the conversion report mentioned above, or by adding "segment by device" to the campaign reporting and do it manually.

Option 3: Remove the conversion tracking and just keep the call tracking separate. This is a double edge sword if you are using conversion optimizer. We have a specific account where counting the mobile click to calls is causing a problem, but we do not want that call conversion data being kept from Google's conversion optimizer formula either.

In the most simple of reports, be careful not to double count call conversions in Adwords. Since the regular conversions can count the mobile click to calls, if you just add all calls to that number as conversions, you will be double counting the mobile click to calls!

This reporting / conversion counting has to get better from Google. The current division of the phone call conversions is not intuitive.