How To Promote an Unsexy Article (and boost shares 252.4%) | @contentmrktrapp

How To Promote an Unsexy Article (and boost shares 252.4%) | @contentmrktrapp

How To Promote an Unsexy Article (and boost shares 252.4%)

Have you ever heard it said you should spend 20% writing content and 80% promoting it?

When I first began blogging, I started by sharing with my friends and family on Facebook and sharing on Twitter.

Okay, that took two minutes.

…And I spent four hours writing the da’gum article.

I’m just a tad bit short. Even if I promote the article another 16 times on Twitter, still not there.

In this step-by-step, how-to guide, I want to show you a simple “hack” I learned using Content Marketer and Buzzsumo to gain an additional 509 shares to an article (note – I counted Twitter shares before the API death).

To make this a little more challenging, I’m going to show you how I did it with this article from the unsexy world of data.

Not exactly a topic most of us jump out of bed for. But I want to show you how this strategy is possible in any industry.

So here we go…

Start with great content

I realize if you’ve been in internet marketing circles for a while, you’ve probably heard this: “create great content.”

There’s a lot of truth to that. It’s a lot easier to push a boulder down a hill when you’ve already got momentum.

Influencers want to share great content. But connecting with the wrong influencer wastes your time and their time.

Why is connecting with the wrong influencers a huge waste of your time?

People follow influential personas because they are knowledgeable in their fields of expertise.

I might listen to what Donald Trump has to say about running a business, but I’m less inclined to listen to him when it comes to great hairstyles.

Leech off the success of other viral articles

I start by choosing 2-3 keywords. I’ll use these to search BuzzSumo for the most shared articles on their site.

If you aren’t focusing on certain keywords to rank in Google, the easiest thing to do is pick a few key words in the title.

So for our example, the title of the article is: “10 Industries That Are Changing Because of Data,” so the keywords I’ll use is “change data industries.”

Here’s what the results looked like after I sort by total Twitter shares (you’ll learn why I do this in a moment):

I go through the front page results and find 5 relevant articles. I can then click on each share button to see who is sharing the articles I care about.

Using a Buzzsumo pro account (which you can get a 14-day free trial if you like to try it out), I can download a list of influencers who shared the similar articles as a .csv. Or, you can write down each twitter handle and upload them to Content Marketer.

Personally, I like to focus just on influencers. Usually I find those with an average RT of 0.3 or higher to be worth reaching out to.

Pro tip: Save each .csv file as the name of the article to easily keep track of your work.

Often I take each relevant article and add them into the original article I am planning on promoting.

Why?

1. Since I found it helpful and relevant, so would any other readers.
2. This is a way to help the authors of the original articles.

Remember: if they wrote one article on the topic, chances are good they may write another one.

Including their article helps their SEO. While you cannot expect that if you do something nice to someone else, if it doesn’t take too long to help someone, why not do so?

I often apply Adam Grant’s 5 minute rule:

If you can help someone out in 5 minutes or less, consider helping them. - @AdamMGrantCLICK TO TWEET

Find a great article? Share it.

Come articles worth sharing with your audience? Include it in your next article.

Now you should have a few spreadsheets of influencers who shared similar articles to the one you are writing. Compile the lists into a master spreadsheet and delete duplicate entries.

Preparing to launch

This is where things start getting exciting! Upload each of your spreadsheets into Content Marketer by uploading a .csv.

While it matches the information, I’ll click “check on this later” and begin to uploading the other .csv files.

After Content Marketer finds all the emails, you may think your ready to begin your outreach.

Don’t touch the red button!

At least, not yet :).

It’s important to filter your results first. Otherwise, you may get flooded with spam flags, which will kill your future outreach opportunities.

First, I like to go through the emails and verify them using the free tools Rapportive + Get SideKick. With both of these platforms, all you need to do is create a new email and insert the email address.

Alternatively, you can see if their account is also associated with Google+ when hovering your mouse over their name. I’ve found this to be a great supplement to Rapportive, increasing the number of accurate emails I have by about 10%.

If the email was incorrect, usually you will find it using one of these permutations:

Fname@company.com

Lname@company.com

FnameLname@company.com

Fname.Lname@company.com

FinitialLname@company.com

If you need more direction, my guide on how to find the perfect email address should give you more direction.

Now that you’ve found the email, start creating your email outreach templates. Alternative, you can use the ones already created in Content Marketer.

There can be a lot that’s said here about the do’s and don’ts of influencer outreach. For now, here’s a simple list I use before sending out an email:

1. Give specific information what your email is about in the subject line.
2. At the same time, keep the header intriguing enough to open the email.
3. Include a simple explanation why you are emailing them.
4. Keep the email brief.
5. Provide only one clear call-to-action. The more you ask, the less likely you’ll get any of your requests.

When I first began with email outreach, I used Crystal Knows. Through its reminder system, Crystal provided me direction when my emails were not focused.

Need an email template? Try this:

Subject: NAME, thought you might be interested in this…

Hi NAME,

While doing research, I saw you recently shared [Title of similar article] on Twitter, one of my favorite articles on TOPIC.

First, thanks for sharing that! Second, would you be interested in taking a look at my article on TOPIC?

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

Launching in 3…2…1…

When I first sent out cold emails, I nearly wet myself. Okay, maybe a littleexaggeration.

But I realized that if I wanted to my articles in front of my audience, I needed to get out there and start promoting each piece.

I still get nervous when sending out emails, but each time I do so, it becomes easier than the time before. But I realize that in order to stand out from the crowd, I need to be willing to do what others won’t.

But the possibility of getting a 252.4% increase of shares (from 202 shares to 711), to me, it is well worth getting over the fear to sending out those emails.

http://blog.contentmarketer.io/how-to-promote-an-unsexy-article/

How to Partner With Social Media Influencers for the Holidays | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

How to Partner With Social Media Influencers for the Holidays | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

How to Partner With Social Media Influencers for the Holidays

by Sabrina Fenster

Sabrina is the Marketing Manager for The Shelf, an influencer marketing platform that enables brands and agencies to connect with the most relevant influencers. They currently serve businesses in the fashion, beauty, lifestyle, travel, food and family space. She's also the co-creator of fashion blog, StreetScoutMe.

Image via BigStockPhoto.com

If you’ve never dabbled in influencer marketing, it can be tricky to get started. Especially with the holidays in full swing, influencers are busier than ever. And when it comes to the rules of influencer marketing, they don’t really exist. Bloggers and social media influencers are essentially making them up as they go. This makes it difficult to gauge logistics like pricing and contracts. Fortunately, once you start communicating with various influencers, setting up becomes a lot easier.

But even though working with influencers isn’t the easiest marketing strategy, it is indeed one of the most effective. Given the returns it yields, it’s worth diving into (or at least dabbling in) influencer marketing—or as I like to call it, the “Wild West” of marketing.

Here are three types of social media influencers, and how you can partner up with them this holiday season.

Instagram Influencers

Who isn’t on Instagram these days? The majority of influencers have at least some kind of presence on Instagram because they want to take full advantage of where their readers live. They realize that many readers want the information, but they want it fast and in bite-size chunks. In this case, that’s why photos do most of the talking.

Instagram content is visually captivating and allows influencers to get creative with their photo styling. But it’s not just influencers: Everyday people are just as into the platform and are creating user-generated content (UGC) around the products they buy. Customers who view or engage with a piece of UGC featuring the brand’s products are more likely to purchase an item.

When it comes to UGC on Instagram, apparel has the most impact on purchases at 6.4x, followed by jewelry at 2.4x, footwear at 1.7x, beauty at 1.6x, and consumer electronics at 1.6x.

Courtesy of: The Shelf

Action Items:

• Ask your customers to share their holiday purchases with a branded hashtag you can track.
• Curate UGC from your customers or influencers on your website or social networks.
• Develop an ambassador program with Instagram influencers, and get them to share their holiday content. Curate the content on your website and link the posts up to product pages, so that customers can easily shop the products.

YouTube Influencers

If you want to bring your products to life this holiday season, video is the way to go. And as luck would have it, vloggers are as influential as it gets when it comes to holiday purchases. (highlight to tweet)

From “Unboxing” videos to “Style Hauls” or even just everyday rants, their words are translating into dollars spent. Shopping-related content on YouTube is becoming an important part of the holiday research process. In fact, 80% of shoppers watched product reviews and ratings last holiday season. This isn’t so surprising when you consider that 80% of shoppers engage with a retailer or brand through digital channels before actually walking into a store and making a purchase.

Courtesy of: The Shelf

Action Items:

• Partner up with vloggers that have the eyeballs and ears of your target market.
• Aside from general campaign guidelines, give vloggers the freedom to be authentic in their videos. Their authenticity is what led them to vlogger stardom in the first place.
• Ask the vloggers to include an element of surprise, such as an “Unboxing” type video, where new products are revealed and gift ideas are presented in a fun way for their viewers.

Pinterest Influencers

We all tend to lean toward Instagram or YouTube when it comes to sharing visual content. But here’s the thing that many marketers are missing: When it comes to the breakdown of social media channels influencing holiday purchase decisions, Pinterest is leading the pack at 47.7%.

Not only is it easy for shoppers to curate gift ideas onto boards, but their favorite influencers can make it even easier by doing it for them. Great Pinterest content from influencers tends to go viral, which is extremely powerful. It leads to an increase in website traffic and many people often buy the suggested items. The holidays are a great time to curate those gift guides and wish lists, so what are you waiting for?

Courtesy of: The Shelf

Action Items:

• Find the Pinterest influencers in your industry that have serious followings. Their pins will spread faster than holiday cheer.
• Make it easy for your customers and influencers to share your content straight from your website by integrating the “Pin It” button, or even better, the hover button.
• Enlist a set of Pinterest influencers to pin products that link up to your website, where customers can shop directly.

While I’ve talked a lot about social media influencers, blogging is far from dead. In fact, social media is often just a great supporting channel for followers that don’t have a lot of time to read blog posts. For others, social media is simply the vehicle to discover the fresh blog content in the first place.

Check out the holiday marketing infographic below. It’s a gold mine of information on why each social media influencer is rocking the holidays and how you can start working with them pronto.

Courtesy of: The Shelf

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Does Your Content Marketing Pass the Mom Test?

Does Your Content Marketing Pass the Mom Test?

by Jay Baer

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and author of Youtility:

Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype. Jay is the founder of http://www.convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

Today, I had the honor of delivering a keynote address to more than 3,000 content marketers at the Content Marketing World 2015 event in Cleveland. For the first time in my long career as a speaker, I used no slides whatsoever. I just talked about where content marketing is going, and how content marketing professionals can continue to succeed….or fail to do so.

This is the text of my keynote:

Content Marketing World Keynote: Does Your Content Marketing Pass the Mom Test?

We are colleagues. We are peers. We are friends. We are content marketers, and we are at a fork in the road.

As I look out at the thousands gathered here this week to learn, to teach and to celebrate, I am struck by two contrasting observations:

First, it is remarkable how fast this industry has grown. Just a short time ago, we collectively were just a flicker, and now with the addition of the twin fuels of attention and resources, we are very much a roar!

But my second observation is that we don’t need any more content marketers.We have plenty, thank you very much. What we really need – if we are going to sustain this success and take a seat near the head of the table in modern business – is not “content marketers” who are looking to exploit angles and employ sure-fire systems.

What we need are people who have a passion for connections. Who understand that there is a point to all of this that transcends clicks and shares and views and downloads and lead gen. And that point – the mission of content – is this:

Content is the emotional and informational bridge between commerce and consumer.13

Building that bridge requires more than budget and an editorial calendar and analytics and a strategy. It requires people who care…no, it requires people who LOVE content and what it can do. Not what it can do for revenue and profits and the reduction of customer churn, although those are nice outcomes. But rather, we need people who love content because it helps a young mother pick the best pre-school, it helps a hospital administrator understand the benefit of a new endocrinology test, and it helps my Mom figure out what cruise line she wants to sail on in Alaska.

Content helps people make better decisions, save time, and improve their lives.Creating content is an honor, and it’s an opportunity.3 It’s an opportunity for you, it’s an opportunity for me, it’s an opportunity for all of us, and I hope you agree….it’s an opportunity worthy of passion.

So What?

You might be sitting there thinking, who cares? I have a ton of things to get done today, this week, this month, and this quarter. It doesn’t matter if me–or the people on my team–think about content marketing as marketing or as a larger calling. Why do I care if I–or the people on my team–have passion for content, as long as the job gets done.

Here’s why you should care, jaded content professional:

Competition commoditizes competency.

Look around you. More and more and more and more and more smart people are practicing the craft of content. They are getting better every day. And dozens and hundreds and thousands of blogs (including this one), podcasts (including mine), and conferences (like this one) are teaching everyone the same tricks and best practices.

If you have access to the same information and ideas that your competition does, and you play that out over a period of time, what happens? Almost everyone ends up in the same, narrow band of expertise.

Competition commoditizes competency.

This happens in every professional service, always. Look at laser eye surgery. When it first came out, only a few opthamologists knew how, and had the equipment.  They were Gods! Now, you can get Lasik while waiting for a burger at Five Guys. Prices have gone down too, because differentiation has faded away.

This is where we’re headed, my friends. And when competition commoditizes competency, what becomes the differentiating factor? What separates the great from the good? What is the difference maker?

People. And Passion.

Right now, we’re still riding the wave. But the wave will crest. I can see it coming, and you probably sense it too. Everything you do and everything you know can and will be copied by your competition. It’s just a matter of time. But they can’t duplicate, they cannot steal if you fundamentally care more than they do.About content, and about content’s role to improve the lives of real people.

So I ask you a simple question, an existential question really:

Do you love content enough? Are you making content, or are you making a difference?6 (highlight to tweet)

And the same way every person older than 14 eventually falls out of love with Adam Sandler, it also easy to fall out of love with content and content creation.

The State of Content Marketing

I interviewed dozens of content professionals when I was prepping this talk. And what I found, when they told me about their day-to-day existence, was not an environment conducive to passion, but rather a growing set of circumstances–many outside of their control–that conspire to wring the joy and wonder out of the content process.

Here’s what I heard: Say yes if any of these are familiar to you:

• Daily pressure to make more content
• Daily pressure to justify content expenditures
• Not enough people on your team to get all the content created and keep quality high
• Executives that don’t understand the role of content as a connector
• Turf battles between sales and content, or customer service and content

I say yes, too. I see it every day, personally. At my consulting firm, Convince & Convert, we work with companies to help solve these problems, and the one thing I’ve learned is if you love content enough, if you have a passion for it, don’t give up. Don’t get beaten down by the people–in your organization and beyond–who are trying to turn content into a machine.

But it’s easy to slip. It happens to me too, all the time. It’s easy to get caught up in the maelstrom and math of content marketing and lose sight of its role as a bridge between commerce and consumer–a bridge that people should actually WANT to cross.

So I created a simple filter to determine when I’m slipping. When my focus is shifting from the passion and the people to the procedures and the profits. I use this filter for our clients too, and now I give it to all of you.

The Mom Test

Me and Mom, a long time ago.

I call it, The Mom Test.

The Mom Test works because for nearly all of us, our Mom not only loves us unconditionally, but also is unafraid to tell us the truth.

When I was in high school, I was the junior class President. At my school, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona the junior class officers were in charge of putting on the prom. So my friends and I worked for months and months and months to put together a nice event. And on the night of the prom, we cut loose. After all that buildup, we just went for it. My Mom was an english teacher at the school, and a chaperone at the prom. The next morning at breakfast I asked her, “Mom. Did you see me out there dancing? I was dancing all night!” She said, “Yes, I saw you.” And I asked “I’m pretty good right? I can really move.” And she said, “Jay….I’m pretty sure that dancing just isn’t your thing.”

Your Mom is unafraid to tell you the truth, and if your Mom–who loves you unconditionally–STILL doesn’t like something, NOBODY else will like it either.

If you’re unsure about a program, a tactic, an idea, just pause for a second and think, “Does this pass the mom test?”

All of us who are making content are sometimes in violation of the Mom Test. The content pros I interviewed for this keynote talked about things related to the daily pressure of content volume like:

• Check-box checking, just creating content because it was on a spreadsheet to be created.
• Creating content that they know is low quality, just to get it off their plate.
• They talked about creating content that clearly serves the need of the company, without thinking about the need of the customers.

And let me just say something about that: If you’re crafting a description of your products and services, with photos of them, and bullets points of features and benefits, you haven’t created a piece of content marketing, you’ve created a brochure.

That doesn’t pass the Mom test. You know it and I know it.

When I was in middle school, my bicycle got a flat tire, plus the inner tube came off of the rim. I went out to the garage and labored mightily to fix it. But, as an avid indoorsman even then, I’m pretty sure I made it worse. I asked my Mom, “Hey Mom, I tried to fix my bike tire, but I’m not sure I can get it.” She said, “Jay…I’m pretty sure fixing stuff just isn’t your thing.”

And to throw a little salt in the wound, she had my little brother–who was 3 years younger than me, he was 9–she had him fix it. (Which of course he did in about 10 minutes.)

The pros I talked to told me stories about pressure to generate more leads, and to create content that’s too pushy.

• Putting every stitch of decent content behind a registration form, even though forms are, by definition, the enemy of spread.
• They talked about content–even in big companies–that is starting to feel like what you see from get rich quick information marketers, with aggressive landing pages and  ‘buy now” “limited time offer” messaging.
• They talked about content that is strictly promotional. Content that isn’t a Youtility in any way, shape, or form. It’s not useful, it’s just an ad, in a different format.

That doesn’t pass the Mom test. You know it and I know it.

The Mom Test…of Passion

Once you understand the Mom test it’s easy to apply it, and it’s easy to know when you’re off course. I want you to start using the Mom test for your day-to-day content decision-making. It works for me, and I think it will work for you. We can always do better. Hopefully the Mom test will help you do just that.

But remember, Competition commoditizes competency. Passion is the differentiator, more so than any tactic. It will set you apart. Don’t let your internal politics and the business side of content dim the light in your eyes and the fire in your belly.3 Because once it goes, my friends, it’s very tough to get it back.

Dogs can smell fear, but Moms? They can sense passion. They should know you pretty well. After all, you LIVED INSIDE OF THEM.

If you don’t have a burning desire to do this, if you don’t care enough about content, if you’re not in love with what you do, and with the people whose lives you touch every day, then your lack of passion doesn’t pass the Mom test, and you know it.

A few years ago, my tire-fixing brother passed away from a heart attack at the age of 40. I had the unenviable honor of delivering his eulogy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But on the way home afterwards, my Mom turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Jay. I think giving speeches, and telling people how you think and how you feel. I think THAT’s your thing. You have a passion for it.”

See? Moms always know.

Let’s never forget how fortunate we are. We are literally changing business–forever–every day, in real-time. In how companies communicate, and in how customers research and purchase just about everything, content is having a transformative impact. To be a part of that, even just a little, is a privilege.

Baseball players say they are happy they get to play a game for a living. We get to tell stories for a living! We get to interview customers, and make infographics that people look at, and record podcasts that people actually listen to. In a world where everyone who is on Facebook is creating content every time they change their status, we are actually getting PAID to do this.

And I think that’s worthy of passion.

I’m Jay Baer and I Thank YOU for having a passion for content. And thank you for being part of this wonderful event.

http://app.mhb.io/e/c4es/1