Content Marketing Techniques: You Need to be Smart to Win!

Posted on July 20, 2023August 31, 2023 by Sunny Kumar

We all know that technology develops seemingly at the speed of light, leaving those behind that don’t stay with the times. Of course, the same holds true for effective link-building and content marketing strategies on the internet.

Recently, Matt Cutts of google declared that guest posting, one of the most popular forms of network building on the web, is essentially dead due to overuse and bad quality content. He says the new age of content marketing will largely center on social media and high quality content posts that really grasp the attention of the reader.

While guest posting most assuredly is not dead, but rather evolving, in moments like these it’s worth reflecting on potentially diversifying your avenues for online marketing.

What Went Wrong with Guest Posting?

Guest posting is different from “regular” blogging in that bloggers post their articles and information on other websites or blogs with links back to their own content, in this way expanding their networks and hopefully increasing traffic to their own website. Guest blogging has been one of the easiest ways to advertise a website or blog and has been used by digital marketing agencies and SEO suppliers for a while.

The problem with guest posting is that many people have abused it to spam websites with very low quality content simply to get clicks through to their website. This has resulted in an abundance of bogus and repeated posts that do little to help the internet community at large.

Cutts’ announcement that guest posting is essentially dead worries so many people because it implies that the Google algorithm ,which can have a huge effect on the success of a website, will frown upon guest posting in future updates to its ranking formula. For many bloggers, guest posting has been their main source of self-advertisement. If guest posting is no longer welcome on the web, how can you promote your website?

Make Sure You Only Post High Quality and Interesting Content

Despite some interpreting Cutts’ words in an extreme way, he did not intend to say that all guest posting is dead. What he intended is to discourage the thousands of spammy posts we see on the web every day. High quality guest posts are, of course, still great ways to enlarge your network and share your opinion or information.

You can still generate links to your personal blog or website through guest posting, just make sure you are saying something unique that is actually useful for your audience. High quality guest posting is far from dead!

Social Media is the Way of the Future

In the spirit of diversification, however, it’s always good to take a look at alternative marketing methods. Cutts and many analysts agree that, in addition to high quality guest posting, social media is really the best way for link-building and content marketing. Social media has soared in popularity in the last decade or so, with millions of people connected to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram every day.

You can easily establish a presence on these networks for free, take advantage of the secondary networks of your existing contacts, and quickly see your message and links to your website spread around the internet like wildfire. Social media agencies and online marketing agencies are great resources for advice if you would like to try out these lead generation forms of content marketing.

A great tip for content marketing techniques is simply to make your posts as informative and interesting as possible. Take advantage of the rising popularity of infographics or create a useful guide to something that people need. This will allow your links to be accessed through a variety of indirect sources and show your audience that you are here to actually help them out, not simply to increase traffic to your page.

What are you waiting for? Expand your network with high quality content that grabs the attention of your readers. Create an online presence through social media. Get your website out there! Just call us on 01962 605 000 today.

The 9 Rules of Social Media engagement (Part I)

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Sunny Kumar

Turn your audience into advocates, and promote as naturally as breathing

Social media can either be the biggest waste of your energy and time, or one of the most rewarding experiences. And all of this depends on how you approach it. Here are some of our learnings from years of social engagement which we hope will help you set off on the right footing.

1. Be brand-centric, with serious business objectives

Whenever you are communicating online, you must be doing this through the lens of your company or the brand that you’re attempting to promote. By that I don’t mean you need to be robotic or engage solely in corporate speak, but simply that when you are developing your social media strategy, you need to be thinking about the messages you want to convey and, naturally enough, you want to think about what you are trying to achieve here.

Is it to drive traffic and leads to your website? Or is it to increase your profile and influence and to promote your brand to a wider audience? Or is it to counter some negative PR and address a reputational threat to your business?

All of these scenarios will result in very different approaches so this part of the planning stage needs to be thought through very carefully.

2. What does your audience want? Why not try listening?

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.”
Wilson Mizner

Another important factor (which should be one of your first considerations) is your target audience. What do you know of them? What are their broad demographic characteristics, their likes and dislikes, their motivations, their influencers, peers and adversaries.

So before you start to engage them, you better know more about them. And what better way than to spend some time listening to them? Online: within the channels you are planning on engaging with them in!

Consider organising a social management dashboard to gather all of your social media threads in the one place, like Hootsuite or Sprout Social. That way you can set up search filters on each channel (particularly useful for the fast moving channels like twitter which is akin to a stream of consciousness – or unconsciousness sometimes!).

Once you know what your target audience is looking for, and you understand a little of how you communicate with this audience appropriately, this will give you confidence when you start to engage with them.

3. The rule of thirds: revolutionise your social thinking

Most business owners treat social media like a loud hailer – one way and repetitive. This is the perfect strategy to alienate your customers and advocates. How you communicate is almost as important as what you communicate.

You need to be guided by the rule of thirds:

A third of your communication should be about sharing – offering advice and help and tips, industry news etc from experts and influencers

A third of your communication should be conversing and interacting with others. So it’s about listening first and responding. It should also be possible to promote your brand/service if an opportunity presents itself but this should not be overt in any way. It needs to be subtle.
And a third of your communication can be active promotion of your brand or service. This doesn’t mean a free for all. The more fitting the promotion is (tonally, subject matter, useful and informative) the more likely your audience is likely to be persuaded by what you are saying.

Which leads me to the next point:

4. Talk like… well, conversationally, as if you’re a real bona-fide person

Dialogue and conversations work best when they’re natural and free flowing yet many people engaging in social media forget to be sociable and sound like a robot.

So, be natural and treat your audience for what they are individuals and a human! Not a radical thought but an important one.

Be real…

In the next blog we’ll take a look at the the remaining 5 factors from this series. Thanks for reading.

6 Key Digital Marketing Trends for 2012

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Sunny Kumar

Happy New Year from all at Ergo Digital. 2011 was quite eventful for us: from speaking at Wembley Stadium, to launching many successful websites, to sending more emails than ever before (for our clients, of course)… it’s been a year of growth.

As we look ahead, we’ve spotted six things that anyone involved in digital marketing should take note of… here goes: Continue reading “6 Key Digital Marketing Trends for 2012”