The 5-Step Process to Creating Remarkable Content

1.) Researching Your Content

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

— Albert Einstein

If you want to provide comprehensive, fresh, and unique content, you’re going to need to start with step 1: research.

Research typically entails gathering data for your post that you can present in a way that either generates new insight or compliments tactics that you are about to go over.

For instance, on my post covering how bloggers can use YouTube, I gave information on the growth of the YouTube userbase over the years.

In addition to this more “standard” form of research, I also sought out a variety of YouTube tactics from across the full spectrum of YouTube users, from large YouTube partners to companies using YouTube to even other blogger’s uses of the platform.

I did this research because although I had a fair amount of information to share about YouTube, I wanted to make sure I was covering things in a fresh perspective and that I was offering a complete picture for how to effectively use the platform.

Francisco himself offers us a great example of doing good “research” in his latest post on Facebook for WordPress.

I say “research” because I don’t want folks thinking that they have to dive into academic papers (like I sometimes do) or slog through a huge slew of boring statistical charts just to come up with new content.

Research simply means that you are taking the time out to be informed before posting.

In Francisco’s example, he gives a step by step analysis of all of the new features of the Facebook plugin for WordPress, goes over installation and even gives his final thoughts on its usefulness.

If you are going to create content that has massive amounts of utility (read: provides value), you must do your own due diligence to make sure the information you are about to publish is up to snuff.

2.) Positioning Your Content

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

— Dale Carnegie

While these may seem like some harsh words coming from Carnegie, it’s still a point that you very much need to keep in mind.

Despite the fact that we are discussing emotions, there is a lot of good science behind creating content that triggers interest and “goes viral”.

What your content really needs is what any good brand needs: a strong unique selling proposition.

The “purchase” you are trying to get people to make is their time.

What is it about your post that promises to leave a lasting impact on those who read it?

Fortunately, there are two resources you can use to help decide which emotional arousal you are after in potential readers.

The first set comes from Mark Hughes Buzz Marketing book.

Mark is known as the marketing guy for Half.com back in the day, and it notorious for pulling stunts like getting a town to rename themselves Half.com!

In his book, he defines the 6 buttons that you can push to generate interest in anything.

They are as follows:

Taboo

Unusual

Outrageous

Hilarious

Remarkable

Secrets

What’s interesting is that while Mark’s “buzzmarketing buttons” come from personal experience, new research has been found that coincides perfectly with these emotional triggers.

The paper is called “What Makes Online Content Go Viral?”, written by Jonah Berger and Katherin Milkman of the Wharton School of Business.

In their research, Berger and Milkman found that the kind of content that goes viral typically creates a form of high emotional arousal, with 6 key emotions being apart of that process.

The 6 emotions of high arousal are as follows (notice their overlap with the buzzmarketing buttons mentioned above):

Emotion of Awe

Emotion of Anger

Emotion of Surprise

Emotions of Anxiety & Fear

Emotion of Joy

Emotion of Lust

It’s like the 7 deadly sins, except it would be a sin if you didn’t use them to generate remarkable content!

So, when it comes time to position your content, keep these emotions of arousal and “buttons to push” in mind: just how are you going to make this information stay with people and encourage discussion?

3.) Defining Your Content’s Medium

Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.

— Walt Disney

So, you’ve got your research in hand, you know how you are going to invoke strong emotional arousal from your content, now you need to decide just how you are going to present this information.

Articles are great, we all know and love the classic blog post, made for easy reading and information consumption.

The thing is, articles aren’t the only medium (by far!) in your content marketing toolbelt.

Additionally, just because you are creating an article doesn’t mean that you can’t also include another medium of content (like this post did!)

Fact is, different types of content mediums will help you stand out when everybody else is “just” writing.

Where you might have normally created a quick 3-point blog post, why not create a YouTube video instead?

Using different mediums offers a number of specific advantages:

New mediums of content keep your content marketing efforts “fresh” for long time readers

Most media content encourages “stealing” (being shared) on other sites; nobody will tell you to copy and paste someone else’s article, but they would tell you that it’s okay to embed or share an infographic or a video

Creating a variety of content allows you to “be everywhere”; you won’t be able to reach a potentially massive audience on iTunes if you don’t dabble in any podcasting

You don’t have a lot to lose in structuring great content (even old content) into a shiny new coat, so what’s stopping you from trying new forms of media for your content marketing efforts?

4.) Creating Your Content

“The best writing is rewriting.”

— E.B.White

Finally we get to start actually creating some content! 

Content creation is obviously a topic in itself, and addressing the entire range of subtleties within crafting content is outside of the scope of this post.

However, if you follow the previous 3 steps outlined in this post, actually writing your content will seem like much less of a burden.

Gone are the days of having 8 tabs open, trying to read and write content at the same time, and procrastinating in between.

I like to add a little extra focus to my regiment by using the following 3 tools:

Readability

FocusBooster app + The Pomodoro Technique

ZenWriter

Here’s the deal with these…

Readability is perfect for when you are going over in-depth content from one of your sources in order to incorporate the information into your own post.

I use this often when I’m reading research and opinion articles from the Harvard Business Review, because I find their body font to be an eyesore, and, more importantly, I can get distracted easily when I’m on a normal web page.

The Readability app eliminates this problem by creating a temporary page where the content is laid out in a plain format with large, adjustable typography.

This eliminates my “clicky clicky” desire to click off of the article I’m reading, and helps me consume information faster in order to create my own posts.

When it comes down to writing in a distraction free environment (and staying focused during the process), I like the tag team of FocusBooster and ZenWriter.

The FocusBooster live version is an online timer that follows the pattern set in the Pomodoro Technique, which emphasizes a 30-minute schedule consisting of 25 minutes of work and a 5 minute break, which may help you to stay focused on longer projects (it does for me).

While writing, I tend to use the program ZenWriter, mostly because I have the same problem I mentioned above when in my WordPress dashboard: I want to go everywhere else on the web but my writing screen as a method of procrastination.

ZenWriter helps eliminate this problem (for me at least) by being a full screen writing program that has beautiful typography and even offers some “zen-like” customization including ambient sound and type-writer effects.

You can also use the free variants WriteRoom (for Mac) and DarkRoom (for PC) if you’d like.

5.) Promoting Your Content

Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.

— Milan Kundera

Okay, your post is published, time to share it on your social networks, add it to Buffer a few times, and call it a day, right?

Wrong.

Fact is, you could be doing a lot more in promoting your supposedly excellent content than hitting the tweet button and hoping for the best.

I mean, if you REALLY believe the content that you just created is worthy to be seen and shared (and if you don’t, go ahead and hit that ‘Move to Trash’ button…), you shouldn’t be sitting around waiting for good luck to happen, you should go out and get an audience for your content.

How?

One of the great things about creating content in different types of media (especially visual content) is that this “being everywhere” approach often promotes your content for you: videos get discovered on YouTube, podcasts get downloaded on iTunes, etc.

Outside of that, you need to look for folks who might enjoy the content that you just created.

The key here is to not saturate the same two blogger’s inboxes over and over with your new content.

A quick fix for that problem is to head to AllTop and to find related blogs in your niche.

You can also use the more obvious source in Google to find related blogs in your niche, and then write the authors a very personal email about content that you created that they may enjoy.

You often don’t even have to link to the content in the first email, just ask them if they are interested.

Original Post

Agencia365 Marketing Online.

5 Blogging Tips That Work!

#1: Leverage the power of “versus”

As consumers, we love to compare. In fact, we compare companies, products and “stuff” like crazy just to make sure we know we are making a sound buying decision and choosing the best product or service to fit our needs.

For example, because my company sells fiberglass pools, we are constantly explaining to our customers the differences among fiberglass, concrete and vinyl liner in-ground pools. For years, we kept getting these comparison questions on the phone or face to face from customers, so we knew it only made sense to blog about these subjects when we started this process of content marketing in 2009. In fact, the first comparison/versus article we ever wrote was entitled, “Fiberglass Pools vs. Vinyl Liner Pools vs. Concrete Pools: An Honest Comparison.”

This one article led to tons of search traffic for my company, but it also opened the floodgates to so many other blogging possibilities and subjects.

After this article was written, I was able to see just how powerful the post was, as it ranked #1 on Google for many important keyword phrases, including:

Fiberglass vs. vinyl liner pools

Fiberglass vs. concrete pools

Concrete pools vs. vinyl liner pools

And many others

When I saw how quickly this article had captured so many long-tail keyword phrases (phrases of three or more words that have less search competition) in Google search engine rankings, I knew it would only make sense to continue with these comparison-based articles on the blog.

As you can see from the image below, the results thus far have been profound. In fact, just try searching any of the “versus” keyword phrases you see above and you’ll be able to verify how my pool company is on the first page of Google almost every time, usually with the ranking of #1.

Here are some of the top "versus" articles of my company website. Try searching the keyword phrases of each in Google and notice the results.

Keep in mind though these types of “versus” comparison-based articles aren’t just for getting the attention of Google and the search engines. In the article that compared fiberglass, vinyl and concrete swimming pools, the comparisons were truly unbiased and honest. I didn’t make fiberglass out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I talked about its pros and cons compared to the other types of pools in a very open manner.

And it was because of this (and all of the other comparison articles I wrote) that the blog soon became “the consumer voice” of the in-ground pool industry. People knew they could go there for honest and accurate information, and as a natural byproduct, our customers in Virginia and Maryland felt like they were dealing with the thought leaders of the entire industry.

So look for ways to compare the products and services you sell versus the products and services of others in your field. Give factual information about each. The opportunities here are almost endless and the amount of content ideas that can come from this one subject could very well give you dozens or even hundreds of blog post possibilities.

#2: People want the best, now give it to them

Think about all of the times you’ve asked the question,

“What is the best way to…?” or

“What is the best type of…?”

When it comes to researching and making a buying decision, we love to know the “best.”

There is also a very good chance the prospects and customers in your industry are online searching these types of phrases, which is why you should look for opportunities to utilize the word “best” in your content.

For example, as someone who writes about business blogging all the time, I decided to write an article on my marketing blog entitled “50 Qualities of the Best Business Blogs in the World.” Within two days of writing that post, it was ranked on the first page of Google for the phrase “Best Business Blogs,” which has generated significant traffic to the site since it was published. Furthermore, it’s these types of articles that will build your reputation as an expert in your field.

Within 48 hours of writing this post, it was ranked on the first page of Google for a very important keyword phrase—"best business blogs."

#3: Focus on problems

Let’s pretend for a second you’re going to buy a pool and you decide to meet with a fiberglass pool builder and a concrete pool builder. Assuming you meet with the concrete pool builder and you tell him that you’re also considering fiberglass, what do you think he would say about the merits of fiberglass?

If you guessed he would likely start telling you about all the “problems” and “issues” of fiberglass pools, you’re right.

In most cases, when consumers are left to debate the merits of the two pools (or anything else, for that matter), where do you think they’re going to go to find out the truth and get an “expert” opinion?

The answer, of course, is the Internet. And in this case, they’ll likely go to Google (or any other search engine) and type in something like, “fiberglass pool problems” or “What are the problems with a fiberglass pool?”

If you're willing to address negative phrases like "problems" in your blog and company content, consumers will be impressed with your transparency and your brand will greatly benefit.

Knowing that people were constantly typing this phrase into the search engines, instead of being an ostrich and burying our heads in the sand, we decided to write an article on the entitled  ”Top 5 Fiberglass Pool Problems and Solutions.”

Immediately, the article shot up to #1 on Google for the phrase “fiberglass pool problems.” But not only that, because consumers saw how open and honest our company was about the product we sold, the article also generated many, many leads, as shown in the image below, and has been read over 100,000 times in the last two years.

Here are the highest-converting keyword phrases of my swimming pool website. Notice how well the phrase "fiberglass pool problem(s)" has done for lead generation. In fact, this one article has made our company over $500k in sales, as many of those leads eventually became customers.

#4: Reveal pricing

A few weeks back, I wrote an article on 5 reasons your content marketing must address price, in which I discussed the merits of addressing the subject of pricing on company websites. So as to not repeat that whole post, the premise behind being more open about this subject comes down to these factors:

Pricing questions are the first ones consumers tend to ask, whether it’s to Google or an actual person. So if pricing is that important to a potential customer, then we need to figure out ways to address the subject in our content or risk the chance of our web visitors looking elsewhere for the information they seek.

Because the pricing/cost subject is so critical and a popular search term in every industry, if you address this subject you’ve now put yourself in the position to possibly rank for those keywords in search and experience the huge numbers of visitors that come with it.

Be more open about pricing to set yourself apart from your competitors and garner respect from consumers who appreciate your willingness to address their questions.

Here are the top 15 pages (in terms of views) for my swimming pool website over the last two years. Of these top 15, 5 are cost/price-related. These are also some of the highest-converting pages of the site as well.

Note: Just as we discussed in the previous article, addressing the pricing/cost subject doesn’t mean you necessarily give specifics. It may just include ranges or an explanation of the factors that dictate what a customer ultimately spends on your product or service.

With respect to your blog and business, a good idea when it comes to price is to write a cost-related article for every product or service that you sell. For some businesses, this means dozens if not hundreds of content opportunities, which will in turn continue to aggregate more search visitors and traffic to your site for months and years to come.

#5: Break news

If you truly want to be known as the voice of your industry, the subject of real-time breaking news can have an incredible impact on your company’s brand and authority.

Popular speaker and author David Meerman Scott has put a new name to this action: “Newsjacking.” He further says:

Whenever there is a hot story in the news, there is an opportunity to create and publish original content that the media will find and will get you coverage.

Newsjacking can be by writing a blog post, doing a YouTube video, creating an infographic, or even publishing a book on Kindle.

I’ve seen cases of “newsjacking” in all industries, but I’ll just mention one of my own here. About two years ago, a major fiberglass pool manufacturer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The day it happened, a few people who were familiar with my blog emailed me the news, at which point I immediately ran a story on the event. Not only did that article bring a record amount of traffic and attention to my blog that day, but it also still ranks for major keywords as well, which means continued traffic and leads to my website.

If big news breaks in your industry, act fast and discuss the event on your blog. The results can have a lasting impact on your business.

So if you have a blog, keep your ear to the ground and listen for opportunities to present breaking news to the public. By doing this, peers and consumers alike will see you as a leader in your field, which will ultimately increase your chances of getting more business.

See Original Article

Agencia 365 been doing this in Argentina since 2008.

Social Media: build relationships through questions

1) Don’t forget to ask questions that expand your conversations with your friends, fans and followers.

2) Use open ended questions that show a sincere interest in your connections.

3) Show interest in what your connections do by asking about THEM.

4) After asking the questions, listen and respond.

5) Take action on others responses by sharing their content, website and information.

If effective social media marketing is about relationships and I believe it is, then taking the time to ask your community questions when they engage with you is imperative. Questions are the most overlooked opportunity to build relationships and reciprocate appreciation. Listening to what people are saying in response to your questions will guide you to the next steps of your social media relationship with them. Pay attention to how they are saying what they are saying, not just the content of their response.

Even the simplest questions can be highly effective. Some I often use with sincerity are:

1) So what exactly do you do (first name)?  I truly want to know. Just asking and understanding, often results in being able to refer them to someone that needs what they do, or my own need being fulfilled in their product or services.

2) How’s it going? Seems simple, but sometimes it is simple enough to getting to know someone much better.

Simple but effective to opening up a conversation. The key is sincerity though. Don’t ask if you really don’t care. There is nothing worse than someone asking about you and then disappearing right away and never responding. This says you are not sincere!

The proper formula for effective social media marketing in Argentina is Agencia365

Social Media: 8 tips for Promotions

#1: Running a Facebook Promotion Requires an App

Much has been written about the Facebook Promotional Guidelines and how to run a compliant promotion. The guidelines have evolved, but the most important requirement remains the same: any promotion (i.e., something where a consumer enters for a chance to win a prize) on Facebook must be handled through an app.

If you know what you’re doing, you could develop your own Facebook app, but you might prefer to personalize an “off-the-shelf” app by a variety of companies such as North Social, Wildfire or Strutta.

Some are inexpensive and no-frills, while others provide a more robust set of features and options to connect you with your customers and personalize the experience.

If you choose a third-party app provider, choose a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer so you can feel confident you’re in compliance with Facebook’s platform policies.

Look for developers and platforms that display this badge with the Apps qualification.

#2: Twitter Promotions Must Provide Rules Disclosure

Any contest or sweepstakes must provide participants with terms and conditions of entry and Twitter is no exception. With only 140 characters to work with, this becomes one of the bigger challenges of running a Twitter-based promotion.

The easiest way to address this is to host the rules on a separate web page and include a short link when tweeting about the contest. Alternatively you can host a landing page with all of the contest details and requirements and direct traffic to that page, rather than having the interaction take place within the Twitter stream.

For larger-scale promotions, you may wish to utilize a third-party service such as CMP.LY to ensure compliance.

In this example, the CMP.LY service is used to provide a short URL linking to the terms of the promotion whenever it is shared on Twitter.

#3: Beware of the Lottery

No, I’m not worried about you blowing your paycheck on Powerball. But lotteries are the domain of the government and you want to ensure your promotion isn’t deemed an illegal lottery.

Any promotion that contains the following three elements is considered a lottery: prize, element of chance in winner selection and consideration (cash payment, purchase requirement or extensive effort required to enter).

Since you wouldn’t have much of a promotion without a prize, you must eliminate either chance or consideration (or best of all, both) to steer clear of potential legal concerns.

Tips to Build Buzz

Once you’ve dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s on the legal and policy side, it’s time to think about how to drive traffic and build momentum for your promotion.

#4: Make it Easy for Users to Share

This is the most important tip when it comes to marketing. Much of the value in a social promotion comes from the increased ease for participants to share your promotion through their social graph.

One of the reasons contests such as “Retweet to Win” are so popular is the nearly frictionless sharing. If you’re using an app on Facebook to encourage viral sharing, ensure that the sharing options are easy and intuitive.

However, it’s also important to be aware that over-sharing can lead to the perception of spam, so it’s important to strike the right balance.

Note: It’s against Facebook policy to directly reward a user for sharing. You may use Facebook apps to reward referrals, but be careful not to directly incentivize sharing.

Integrated share tools make it easy for contest participants to share if they want to.

#5: Regularly Promote Your Contest

Contest organizers will often schedule a bunch of communications when a promotion launches, then fail to maintain communication throughout the campaign.

Be sure to share key milestones and events (e.g., contest round ending, finalists being selected, just reached 100 or 10,000 entries).

If you’re running a user-generated content promotion, it’s also a great opportunity to share content (e.g., popular or unique entries) that will drive greater engagement.

When posting about your promotion on Facebook, be sure to utilize the pinned post feature to keep the post visible at the top of the timeline.

And don’t forget to utilize all of your social channels—it’s OK to promote your Facebook contest on Twitter and Google+.

In this example, a compelling image is used to draw attention and a direct link to the contest app is provided.

#6: Amplify Your Message Through Partners

Tap into the power of partner marketing by including sponsors and providing them with exposure in exchange for cross-promotion.

Also be sure to identify influencers (journalists, bloggers, etc.) whom you can reach out to and share news about your promotion.

If you’re running a contest with a judging component to evaluate entries, you may want to invite influencers to be a part of the judging panel. Attaching their name to your contest adds credibility and gives them a good reason to talk about it!

PR firm Affect tapped influential people in the PR and marketing world to serve as judges and help them find the ultimate summer intern.

Tips for Contests Featuring User-Generated Content

I am a big believer in the power of user-generated content promotions, but having been involved with many over the past five years, there are a couple of key lessons I’ve learned.

#7: Prime the Pump

Any time you’re asking users to submit content into a promotion, it’s a good idea to seed the contest with a few submissions.

These can be sample entries that you create which are not eligible to win or submissions from participants who have been encouraged to enter early.

In this contest run by Social Media Examiner's own Mike Stelzner, Mike provided his own sample entry to help inspire participants.

The key is to have some entries right away to break the ice and provide others with inspiration for their own submission.

#8: Think Twice Before Relying Solely on the Court of Public Opinion

Contests featuring user-generated content often incorporate a component of public voting. This is something I would encourage because it drives greater virality, with participants naturally incentivized to share their entries and voters taking an active role in the outcome.

However, if your contest is decided 100% by public voting, you need to be prepared to relinquish control of the outcome to those individuals with the largest social networks and/or those using vote-swapping and other tricks to try to game the system.

The most popular contest model among our clients uses a round of voting to narrow the field of entries down to a predetermined number of finalists, and a panel of judges then decides the winner.

By employing a set of predefined judging criteria, the client is able to retain some discretion over who is named the winner(s) while still generating a lot of voting and sharing activity up front.

Another option is to use judging criteria to select finalists and then open it to voting. Regardless of your preferred contest model, ensure that your platform of choice is well-equipped to handle voting and the potential challenges that come along with it.

Hire a Social Media Agency to run it for you.

Social Media : Whom? What? and When? Tools

Whom your audience listens to?

Klout topic pages.

What Content Do They Want?

Run a survey on your site with a widget like KISSinsights and ask your audience which smaller social sites they like to visit.

When your audience is most socially active?

Check Tweriod.

Importancia del Customer service

The Inbound Marketing Explosion.