Marketing PR Conferences | Small Business Marketing & Business Acceleration

5 Ways to Optimize the Business Value of Attending Conferences

Posted on 14. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, conference marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Are you optimizing your conference experience?

TopRank receives a lot of value from having me speak at conferences but you don’t have to be a speaker to realize a positive return from events. Small, large online or offline, there are numerous ways to optimize and maximize your return on conference involvment both in the short and long term.

If your company is considering whether to send you to events because of uncertain return or benefits, show them the following list.

In fact, if I were running a conference, I’d make sure these tips are shared with attendees, sponsors and speakers alike.

The first step in getting more value out of event attendance is to understand the “why”. What benefit that brings value to the business can you get from attending conferences, workshops, webinars and educational meet/tweetups? I like to say that I can “make money” at any conference. The reason why is that I am specifically aware of multiple ways to create value with events – beyond simply prospecting for new business. Here are 5 key benefits you can create from event participation and goals you can set for each:

1. Grow Your Network

There is no substitute for a quality network. It takes time to grow a personal network and if you’re advocating for your company, then community development is also ongoing. Attending events online and off are essential for productive networking that can result in a variety of valuable outcomes including:

Recruiting
Collecting competitive intelligence
Vendor and consultant sourcing
Partner sourcing
Prospecting for new customers.

When you attend events, set goals for the kinds of contacts you want to make. Go so far as to make a list of people you want to meet if they’re particularly important to your goals. Initiate new connections with qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates. At the same time, reinforce existing connections with contacts in your social networking pipeline. Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up. Follow on Twitter, connected on LinkedIn. Share useful tips, links and info that are relevant to your interactions with them. Give to get, but have a purpose and a goal for the connection.

Make sure you have goals and a purpose to your online and event networking. If you leave it to chance, you’re leaving a LOT of value on the table – for your competition.

2. Get Smarter. Repeat.

There are numerous benefits to attending conference sessions. The obvious is to hear smart speakers give presentations on important topics with useful tips. Sometimes speakers deliver on that promise and sometimes they don’t.

Don’t let bad conference content get in the way of getting smarter.

Pay attention to how the speaker gives their presentation and observe how the audience responds. You might think the information isn’t useful to you, but if the attendees are leaning forward, writing notes and holding up their phones and ipads to take pictures of the presentation slides, then the speaker is connecting.

You can benefit from understanding how the information is presented as much as from the actual tips. The format, sequence, design and presentation of information that connects is a model you can leverage for your own purposes: whether it’s speaking at a conference or event yourself or communicating and persuading people internally.

Planning your conference session attendance is essential. Think of how many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information presented. Will you take notes on an iPad, laptop or (gasp) on paper? Will you take photos or video (where allowed)? Do you know where to get a copy of the speakers’ presentations? Introduce yourself to speakers and ask them a key question on video so you can review later and share with your team.

When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes – it’s a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you’ll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes and you might miss out on the session entirely because rooms can fill up.

3. Curate and Create Content

Content Marketing is hotter than ever but sourcing content is probably one of the biggest challenges for companies getting into the content publishing realm. The good news is that events from Twitter chats to webinars to keynote presentations and breakout sessions all provide opportunities to capture, curate and even create content. Some examples include:

Liveblogging – Transcribe what the speakers say word for word. Listen for key quotes or pieces of information and make a “list post” around a specific topic. Pre-write an article about the session topic and fill in stats and quotes from the speakers.
Interviews – Reach out to speakers in advance and collect tips from their presentations as a way to help boost attendance to their session. Shoot video interviews of speakers or other smarties at the conference. Record podcast interviews with the same people. Capture single tips on video from a large number of people and compile into one video. Go to exhibitor booths and ask them for a 30 second pitch on video and compile them. Survey attendees on what they like best, tips they’ve heard, etc into a compilation video. With video, you might want to get sign-offs. Also, non-speakers may be reluctant.
Journal – Keep notes and write a summary of key points from the day and publish like a journal entry. Link to other bloggers that are publishing liveblog posts at the same event.
Curate – Use a tool like storify to curate the buzz of the conference. You don’t even need to be at the event to do this if a conference hashtag is used consistently.
Track Your Own Buzz – If you are speaking, make sure someone from your team is tracking mentions of you, your company and topic on social streams like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Monitor any liveblogging of your presentations as well. Give people an incentive to liveblog your sessions too. If anyone liveblogs one of my presentations, I will send them a copy of Optimize (for example). Curate those mentions into a roundup post on your company newsroom.

Think about how you can leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation. Set goals for how many content objects (blog posts, articles, videos, tweets, images) you’ll create each day. Organize what you will capture, with who and with what devices. Plan where you’ll publishing this content and when as well. For curation, compile presentations posted to Slideshare, interviews others have posted to YouTube and liveblog posts covering interesting sessions – then add your own commentary as the icing on the cake.

The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what’s happening in the industry.

4. Share the Smarts: Knowledge Transfer With Your Team

The explicit purpose of attending conferences is to hear industry experts share advice and insights into topics that your business can benefit from. Collecting actionable tips, statistics and other useful information form conferences to share with your team, clients and other groups in your organization can multiply the value of one person attending an event. If multiple people attend, the value can be even greater.

To make knowledge transfer from conference content work, it’s important to create a process for information capture, synthesis and distribution.

Capture: Target specific speakers and sessions. Write questions you want answered and if the presentations do not contain those answers then pursue subject matter expert speakers to ask them directly. Capture information in text, audio, video and image. No one ever comes back from an event thinking they took too many photos. Maybe the wrong photos, but not to many. Also, be aware of conference policies on video and image capture.
Synthesis: When you formulate questions, have specific applications for your business in mind. When you get the answers, filter the information in a way that will be practical and useful when it is shared – vs. all theoretical. Discuss the information and tips collected with fellow attendees to filter out what’s most useful.
Distribution: Have a plan for how you will present the useful tactics, insights, statistics and case studies with your co-workers, clients and other interested parties. You could write a report, you could create a presentation to give live or via webinar, you could compile video clips and images to narration. Individual tips could be saved on an internal knowledge base blog according to category. You could have a post-conference brown bag lunch discussion or a more formal presentation. There are many different options, but have them in mind before the conference to increase the likelihood they will actually happen and in an effective way.

Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining at a conference with the team back at the office can helps you focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of what’s being presented, instead of what you don’t like or the lacking presentation skills of the presenter.

5. Optimize the Marketing Value of Events

For nearly all events, I like to break things up into pre-event, during and after. You could actually further distinguish near-after and long-after as well as a recurring component if the event is held at regular intervals, like many are on an annual basis. Many conference speakers rely on the event to do the marketing. That’s a big fail.

Here are a few tips before, during and after the event to gain more attendees, more media coverage and post-event value:

Before the event:

Write headlines, descriptions, tags and make trackable short URLs
Pre-write tweets, updates and decide on a hashtag
Submit your session to event listing sites, create events on Facebook and LinkedIn
Create a contest or buzz around your presentation to inspire others to tell their networks
Issue an optimized press release
Schedule interviews with media attending the event and/or local media
Connect with other speakers in advance
Create a teaser for your presentation
Announce your event attendance through email and your social channels
When you meet people before your presentation, don’t be shy about sharing when you are speaking
Create a check-in notice on Foursquare inviting people to attend your session

During the event:

Create content the audience can participate with. I like to take photos of the audience and post to our Facebook page so they can tag themselves.
Use tweetable, shareable content in your presentation
Give something away to motivate desired behaviors like asking questions
Always include a report or fulfillment piece in your thank you page
Have someone on your team monitoring tweets and buzz during your presentation. Interact as appropriate

After the event:

Curate buzz about the presentation into a blog post and/or newsroom post
Follow up on questions asked and fulfillment deliverables
Connect with new contacts through appropriate social channels
Thank the conference for having you
If you were on a panel, thank the panelists and moderator
Thank any livebloggers that covered your session
Use media coverage from the event in your newsroom, corporate email and other communications
Follow up!!!!!

This should probably have been turned into an ebook on the topic, so congratulations on making it to the end of the post! Heck, maybe we will make it into an ebook and add a few forms, checklists and examples. In the meantime, share this list of tips with those in your organization that hold the purse strings for your event attendance. Try one or two of these tips for your next conference and share what you’ve done to get more value out of event attendance.

As always, if you like these tips, be sure to get your copy of Optimize for a deep dive into an integrated approach to optimizing your online marketing.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
5 Ways to Optimize the Business Value of Attending Conferences | http://www.toprankblog.com

Holistic Optimization Across the Sales Cycle: Optimize Speaking Events May & June

Posted on 10. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, conferences, content marketing optimization, Marketing PR Conferences, Presentations, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

sales cycle optimizastion

When you have a business that relies on attracting new business online the sheer volume of options can be confusing. Should offline advertising efforts transfer to online? Maybe email marketing? What about SEO or the hot topic, social media? So much focus is placed on tactics and channels, that a lot of misplaced digital marketing budget gets wasted or spent inefficiently.

To bring some clarity to the myriad online marketing options available, I think it’s worth marketers taking a holistic approach that starts with an essential understanding of goals and customers. Who are your best customers? Who are your worst? What do your best customers care about? What are their pain points and goals? While you’re answering those key questions, think about how your solutions meet the needs of your target audience and what stories you can tell to bring align those interests to a common goal.

To be an effective online marketer in today’s fast changing environment, it’s important to understand the customer journey though the sales cycle. That empathy helps internet marketers adapt to any changes in consumer behaviors. Curiosity about technology and trends will help marketers become smarter regardless of what changes occur in the industry, with specific channels or applications.

If you want to learn more about how a more customer centric and content focused internet marketing approach could work for your business, please give us a call or come to one of the events listed below. Over the next month or so, I will be speaking at a number of events drilling down into the strategy and mechanics of such an approach. Of course, a great complement to these events would be the book that Joe Pulizzi says will, “help take your online and content marketing to the next level”.

May 16, 1:00 pm Central
Webinar: Optimize & Socialize for Better Content Marketing
Online Marketing Institute: Register Here (free)

The answer to better content marketing isn’t simply adding more content. Designing content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that inspires engagement and business outcomes enables brands to reach more people ready to buy, refer or share. This webinar will provide a framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing that attracts, engages and inspires community and sales.

Key Takeaways:

3 Key consumer trends that spell opportunity for Social SEO
A Framework for an optimized and socialized content marketing program
How to plan search and social content across the sales cycle
Essential KPIs and business outcomes for Social SEO and content marketing

May 23rd, 4:45 pm Pacific
Solo Presentation: Sales Cycle Optimization With Content, SEO & Social Media
Marketo Users Conference (Client), San Francisco: Register Here

While Google.com handles over 11 billion queries a month, competition for attention on the search and social web is at an all time high. There are over 65,743,590 blog posts published each month and more video is uploaded to YouTube in that time than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years. Content flows in every direction throughout a variety of platforms, formats and devices. The mass adoption of the social and mobile web has facilitated a revolution of information access, sharing and publishing.

Guiding customers on their journey through the sales cycle in that environment requires an integrated approach to content, optimization and social media marketing. Optimizing the sales funnel is essential to attract, engage and inspiring customers to buy and this presentation will provide attendees with a framework and tactics to develop their own Optimize and Socialize approach to sales cycle optimization.

June 1st, 8:00 am Central
Presentation: Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing
Social Media Club, Redwood Falls MN: Register Here (free copy of Optimize for all attendees!)

How can small businesses approach their online marketing to achieve better visibility where customers are looking and socializing online? This presentation on Optimize will provide attendees a framework for organizing their content marketing that leverages both search and social media to attract more customers, shorten sales cycles and retain existing customers. Some of the key presentation topics to be covered:

Major shifts in consumer search and social trends
Key opportunities to improve online marketing strategy and performance
How to integrate customer-centric SEO with social media and content marketing
Using this knowledge to attract, engage, and inspire more sales online

June 7th, 9:00 am Eastern
Track Keynote: Optimize and Socialize for Better Content Marketing
BlogWorld New Media & Expo, New York: Register Here

Search, social media and content marketing are converging, and consumers are using numerous ways to discover, consume and act on content. In this session, you’ll learn how to use content marketing best practices to design information that inspires audiences to share, buy and recommend your brand.

Key Points
1. Learn the framework for an optimize and socialize approach to content marketing
2. Understand the framework for optimizing across the customer lifecycle
3. Know the difference between KPIs and business outcomes for web and social measurement

June 8th, 9:00 am Eastern
Keynote: Attract & Engage More Customers With An Optimized State of Mind
Vocus Users Conference (Client), Baltimore: Register Here

The worlds of Marketing and Public Relations are converging and now, more than ever, communications professionals need to accelerate their internet marketing skill sets to create a competitive advantage. This presentation provides an integrated approach to using content for optimizing awareness, engagement and action.

June 11, 10:30 am & 3:30 pm
Enterprise SEO
Content Marketing Optimization
SES Toronto: Register Here

Enterprise SEO: This session will also include a proven model of organization for your enterprise-level SEO campaign as well as a summary of key metrics that you should be measuring to drive ongoing SEO strategy.

Content Marketing Optimization: Pandas and Penguins and Zebras Oh My! If your SEO is all about chasing tricks and shortcuts with content and links, then this session isn’t for you. If you are interested in building a competitive advantage focusing on customer centric content marketing that works with or without search engines, then make sure you have a front row seat.

It will be a busy 30 days but there’s been so much interest in a more integrated approach and with Optimize, that it’s been a real pleasure meeting and exchanging ideas with marketers looking for a more holistic perspective to marketing on the web. I hope to see you at one of these events. To get a tase of these types of presentations, take a look at this deck from the Fusion Marketing Experience conference that I presented last week in Antwerp. It’s currently featured on the home page of Slideshare.

For anyone that liveblogs these events, please be sure to email me the link to your post and I’ll send you a copy of Optimize. If you have one, I’ll send you one to give away to your readers. lee at toprank dot org

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Holistic Optimization Across the Sales Cycle: Optimize Speaking Events May & June | http://www.toprankblog.com

Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimized integrated online marketing The new book on internet marketing we’ve recently published, “Optimize“, has been very well received and I’ve been doing a number of interviews and speaking engagements (as you do) around it. One of the most common questions I hear concerns the challenges of implementing an integrated “optimized and socialized content marketing” approach within an organization.

This is a reasonable question, because while it makes sense that content, SEO and social media (as well as email, online PR and advertising) should work together, the challenge for many corporate marketers and communications professionals is how. That’s where a good approach and plan come in to play and Optimize is a blueprint for such a plan – in particular, when it comes to optimizing and socializing content. Here are a few key considerations for integrating these high impact online marketing tactics:

The challenge of optimized integration. When SEO is owned by marketing and public relations runs social media and content creation is shared across multiple departments, integration of those tactics across a company’s content efforts can be a challenge. What brings things together are:

Leadership support through common goals
Identification of how an integrated approach will help each individual group as well as the company overall
Training, process and tools/technology to enable integration of tactics

Find the low hanging fruit for an integration project and share the results upstream and horizontally. Make sure that as different departments work together to integrate Social, SEO and content (as well as other online marketing tactics where appropriate) that there is a feedback mechanism in place for those involved to see that they are having an impact. Even if it’s not specific to them, showing a trend line of how something like website traffic, or share of voice or leads and sales have improved during the time integration best practices are in place can be very motivating.

Make sense?

This week I’m in Belgium on my continued travels to spread the good word about an “Optimized State of Mind” and integrated online marketing. On May 3rd I’m giving a keynote presentation at Fusion Marketing Experience “Digital Marketing Integration: the Mix of Social, Search and Content“. Details on this keynote:

The sheer volume of content produced and shared by connected consumers is overwhelming. With independent search, social media and content marketing efforts, brands are hard pressed to find an effective model for integration.

The search and social web are reliant on content and it is through more effective content marketing that brands can cut through the noise to meaningful customer engagement and sales.

This keynote will outline key trends in the relationship between consumers and content by understanding Discovery, Consumption and Sharing preferences and how a content marketing strategy that integrates the best of SEO and Social Media can boost Digital Marketing effectiveness.

On May 4th I’ll be doing a workshop at Fusion Marketing to put those key integrated concepts into action: “Setting up a Winning Customer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy”. Details on this workshop:

Who are your customers? What do they care about? What content do you need to create in order to guide customers through the sales process from attention to purchase to advocacy? Get answers to these questions and more with a customer-centric content marketing strategy.

Improving content marketing isn’t about creating more content. It’s about content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that also inspires engagement and business outcomes. Effective content marketing helps brands reach more people ready to buy, refer and share. This workshop will provide the framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing to attract and engage customers across the buying cycle.

Granted, I’m looking forward to a weekend in Antwerp and Brugge but I’m also excited to give these strategic and tactical presentations that exemplify the key messages of Optimize. Since the vast majority of our readers are not in Belgium this week, please be sure to check out future speaking events in the right sidebar of this site.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimized integrated online marketing The new book on internet marketing we’ve recently published, “Optimize“, has been very well received and I’ve been doing a number of interviews and speaking engagements (as you do) around it. One of the most common questions I hear concerns the challenges of implementing an integrated “optimized and socialized content marketing” approach within an organization.

This is a reasonable question, because while it makes sense that content, SEO and social media (as well as email, online PR and advertising) should work together, the challenge for many corporate marketers and communications professionals is how. That’s where a good approach and plan come in to play and Optimize is a blueprint for such a plan – in particular, when it comes to optimizing and socializing content. Here are a few key considerations for integrating these high impact online marketing tactics:

The challenge of optimized integration. When SEO is owned by marketing and public relations runs social media and content creation is shared across multiple departments, integration of those tactics across a company’s content efforts can be a challenge. What brings things together are:

Leadership support through common goals
Identification of how an integrated approach will help each individual group as well as the company overall
Training, process and tools/technology to enable integration of tactics

Find the low hanging fruit for an integration project and share the results upstream and horizontally. Make sure that as different departments work together to integrate Social, SEO and content (as well as other online marketing tactics where appropriate) that there is a feedback mechanism in place for those involved to see that they are having an impact. Even if it’s not specific to them, showing a trend line of how something like website traffic, or share of voice or leads and sales have improved during the time integration best practices are in place can be very motivating.

Make sense?

This week I’m in Belgium on my continued travels to spread the good word about an “Optimized State of Mind” and integrated online marketing. On May 3rd I’m giving a keynote presentation at Fusion Marketing Experience “Digital Marketing Integration: the Mix of Social, Search and Content“. Details on this keynote:

The sheer volume of content produced and shared by connected consumers is overwhelming. With independent search, social media and content marketing efforts, brands are hard pressed to find an effective model for integration.

The search and social web are reliant on content and it is through more effective content marketing that brands can cut through the noise to meaningful customer engagement and sales.

This keynote will outline key trends in the relationship between consumers and content by understanding Discovery, Consumption and Sharing preferences and how a content marketing strategy that integrates the best of SEO and Social Media can boost Digital Marketing effectiveness.

On May 4th I’ll be doing a workshop at Fusion Marketing to put those key integrated concepts into action: “Setting up a Winning Customer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy”. Details on this workshop:

Who are your customers? What do they care about? What content do you need to create in order to guide customers through the sales process from attention to purchase to advocacy? Get answers to these questions and more with a customer-centric content marketing strategy.

Improving content marketing isn’t about creating more content. It’s about content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that also inspires engagement and business outcomes. Effective content marketing helps brands reach more people ready to buy, refer and share. This workshop will provide the framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing to attract and engage customers across the buying cycle.

Granted, I’m looking forward to a weekend in Antwerp and Brugge but I’m also excited to give these strategic and tactical presentations that exemplify the key messages of Optimize. Since the vast majority of our readers are not in Belgium this week, please be sure to check out future speaking events in the right sidebar of this site.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Top UK Internet Marketing Blogs 2012

Posted on 12. Apr, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, uk blogs, UK Marketing Blogs

UK Internet Marketing Blogs Last year we ran a poll to identify the top Internet Marketing blogs in the UK which ended up getting a little spicy. There were over 3,000 votes cast (both human and bot) plus a ton of lively discussion (60+ comments). Many long time online marketing folks know of our famous BIGLIST of SEO blogs and so there was a lot of awareness and interest in getting on the UK list.

A lot has changed in the past year so I think it’s worth revisiting that list.

Blogs continue to represent highly effective content hubs for integrated SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing programs for all kinds of companies and industries, not just internet marketing. I’ve traveled to the UK many times and between my discussions with practitioners at conferences and the clients TopRank has in London, it’s clear that while there are many amazingly talented internet marketers in the UK, many companies are not as progressive in their approach.

Blogs are a great way to draw attention to solving that disparity and I’d like to draw attention to these useful internet marketing blogs covering everything from SEO to Social to Analytics to the intersection with other marketing channels.

Here’s that list of 35 UK internet marketing blogs below, organized alphabetically, for your consideration and comment.

Are these still the top blogs on digital marketing topics for the UK? What would you add? Which would you take out? This post is also an open invite for the authors of these blogs to do a review of Optimize.

I will be in the UK again next week 4/18 at the ionSearch conference in Leeds, which has a great line up of speakers ranging from Matt Bush of Google to Kevin Gibbons of SEOptimise to Ralph Tegtmeier of, well, if you have to ask it’s better that maybe you don’t know

Dave Snyder from the U.S. will be there as well as Andy Atkins Kruger from WebCertain in York. There will be plenty of folks from Blueclaw Media, who is running the conference there as well.

At ionSearch I’ll be talking about the evolution of SEO in the form of Optimize (of course). I’d like to invite bloggers in the UK that are attending to do a review of Optimize. We’ll feature any reviews on our book site with links and all. To do review of Optimize, just contact us at mail at optimizebook dot come for details.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Top UK Internet Marketing Blogs 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

How To Run A Winning Online Contest – #PRSADIConf

Posted on 04. Apr, 2012 by Jolina Pettice in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, user-generated content

Sandra Fathi - PRSA Digital Impact Conference If you flip through your TV channel guide, it’s hard not to notice the number of contest-based shows. Whether people are competing to be the next music icon, lose weight or play games using household products the common theme is competition and a chance to win big.

TV producers are smart and continue to find success from audiences who like to compete and love to win.

This same idea can be leveraged in online marketing to get a community excited, find new audiences and keep your brand top of mind.

At the PRSA Digital Impact Conference Sandra Fathi, president and founder of Affect and Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta guided the audience through the process to create a winning online contest.

Here are some reasons they shared that companies decide to run a promotion.
1. Generate leads and sales
2. Drive traffic online and offline
3. Increase brand equity
4. Engage and delight customers
5. Grow fan base, generate opt-ins and subscribers
6. Gain user data and insight
7. Collect consumer generated content

The 2 common types of promotions include Sweepstakes (chance-based promotion) & Contest (skill-based promotion).

When conducting a sweepstakes keep the call to action clear and the forms easy to fill out.

For contests, there may be a public voting or closed judging or a combination of both. In this method be sure that the criteria for winning is clearly articulated and readily available.

In either model, consider rewarding participants with coupons, discounts or smaller prizes to reward their time and effort, if even they don’t win the grand prize.

Promotional Law Basics
Running promotions involves adhering to laws and the guidelines of individual channels.

Promotion containing all 3 (prize, chance and consideration) is deemed an illegal lottery. Either eliminate chance or consideration.

Facebook promotion guidelines include the following Don’ts:

administer a promotion directly on your Page or use Facebook features as an entry or voting mechanism
automatically enter someone for Liking, posting a photo or comment
use a like button for voting
use Facebook channels to notify winners

For Twitter, the 140 character limit can make disclosure of material and policy items challenging. Make sure to host the information on your website and link to it often.

Planning Your Promotion
As with any marketing campaign, it’s important to align with business objectives before launching a contest. Documenting your intended outcomes will ensure that the promotion developed is designed to achieve these goals.

As goals are outlined, identify the KPI’s as well. KPIs may include an increase in social community, visitors to a website and/or additional actions from the visitors on-site.

Important planning questions to consider including scoping out time and resources available, setting clear and realistic goals, knowing what your audience wants and creating understandable rules and regulations.

Choosing Your Promotion Type
As you evaluate promotion types, consider it on a scale of low to high in terms of customer engagement and barrier to entry.

The lower the barrier to entry (sweepstakes) the more people who will likely sign up. As you move toward photo and video promotions the barrier to entry increases, but so to does engagement.

Tips for A Successful Promotion
Plan Ahead
One of the biggest reaons promotions fail is due to lack of planing. Create a marketing plan for the contest as you would with any other campaign including key actions, milestones and measurement.

Don’t Over Complicate
Favor execution over concept. The best idea if not well executed will go nowhere.

Leverage Partners
Marketing partners or sponsors can expand the reach of your promotion and help offset costs with marketing and/or prizes.

Tips to Build Buzz
1. Make it easy to share
2. Post regularly on Facebook (used ‘pinned post’ to keep it visible)
3. Leverage other social networks
4. Promote on your website
5. Email existing customers
6. Enlist sponsors to cross promote
7. Identify influentials to help

Promoting Your Promotion
1. Build and budget for effective marketing (pre and post) including PR, marketing, social media, on-site/in-store and point of sale

2. Leverage existing and new company assets to achieve KPIs through your own database, databases of sponsors. Enlist the help of others who also have a large audience, such as influentials. If you have built them into the promotion, all the better.

3. Stack the deck and seed entries
Encourage people to enter so that there are examples of what an entry can/should look like.

4. Plan for contingencies if the contest isn’t going to plan
This may include budgeting for additional costs, but also plan for public take-over and how you will respond and act.

Selecting a Technology Partner or Platform
Here are items to consider when selecting a partner or platform.

Custom vs Standard Build
Expertise vs Experiment
Social Media Tie-Ins
Budgetary Constraints
Time-To-Market
Internal Resources

A case study – New York Intern Project
Sandra’s agency launched a contest to hire a summer intern. However, true goals of the contest were generating awareness for the agency, drive PR and increase social media engagement.

In addition, it was a proof of concept to see if they could run a successful contest and gain valuable insights.

And hopefully find a great intern.

A public vote was used to narrow down contestants to the top 6. Then the top 3 were flown to New York for interviews and challenges. From there, judges picked the winner.

Celebrity judges who were also relevant to the space, such as Guy Kawasaki, were chosen to lend credibility, build in promotional mechanisms and have objective judging.

Campaign results included a 5-fold increase in Facebook Like, 96 entries and over 14,000 votes. In addition, media coverage was gained in several outlets including CNNMoney.

Contests can hold great opportunity to get a community excited, create content and engage with your brand. While the true end goal may not be giving away a prize, but rather to capture data or drive awareness, a contest can be a great mechanism.

If you are looking to run contests consider your resources and intended outcomes. Then determine whether one, large promotion or a series of smaller promotions is most likely to serve your goals. In addition, think about your existing online marketing efforts and what type of contest will fit in best with the channels and communities you have created.

Have you run an online contest? If so, what did you find worked well or not so well?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
How To Run A Winning Online Contest – #PRSADIConf | http://www.toprankblog.com

BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital Impact Conference Keynote

Posted on 03. Apr, 2012 by Jolina Pettice in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, social media marketing

PRSA Digital Impact Conference - Keynote Can BFF’s lead to more effective marketing?

That’s the topic of discussion for the PRSA Digital Impact Conference opening keynote featuring Caryn Marooney, vice president of technology communications for Facebook.

Before going to Facebook, Caryn explained that she ran an agency, however she talks about having felt like a mechanical bunny always chasing something and not catching it.

Why? Everything is constantly changing. And we as PR and Marketing Pros have to be ok with that. What’s remains constant is what remains important.

3 important things we need to remember:

1. What audiences are we trying to reach
2. What are our goals
3. What tools can we use to reach our goals

As we think about audience, that of Facebook is expansive and exponential which is why it can be so effective in terms of online marketing.

There are more than 845 million people on Facebook and more than 100 billion friend connections.

On average more than 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook each day. In addition, users generate an average of 2.7 billion likes and comments per day.

The ability to share a message with a few and have it reach the many has never been so available. As marketers we have to start thinking about exponential reach. If we share content that’s valuable or unique or solves a problem and make it easy to share, there are no limits.

Whether your community is 30, 300 or 3,000 may not matter. What matters is that it’s the right people who are interested and want more of what you have – whether information, products or services.

To help you find the perfect blend of community members, Caryn next talks about tools.

Let’s think about it this way, the tools to help yourself and the tools to help your brand.
First, we start with the tools for you (and me).

What is not new with timeline:

There is no new information in timeline, just a new format
No changes in privacy settings

Caryn suggests spending time on the Activity Log, which includes all information you have shared on Facebook. You can highlight/remove items from your timeline via the activity log.

What’s new:

Can add high-res images
When you add location or check-in, it pre-populates a map which you can drill into and find the information/photos you shared while in those locations

Even at the personal level, we need to keep audiences in mind. Who are you trying to communicate with and with what message?

A couple newer features include:

Spring Cleaning
When you activate the tool, it takes you through your list of friends (note – requires over 300 friends for this to be available). The tool will make suggestions based on those who you have not been interacting with on a regular basis.

If you leave them ‘checked’, they will be moved to acquaintances and less of their information will populate in your news feed.

Subscribe
Anyone can turn on subscribe, via account settings.
Once you activate this feature, anyone can subscribe to your posts.

Want to know what works for journalists?

Commentary on current events – 3x as many likes and 2x as many shares
Reader shout-outs
Behind the scene images

Interest Lists
This feature brings interests to your newsfeed.
If you subscribe to an interest list, it allows that information (i.e. tech news) to come into your news feed. Use this tool to keep up-to-date on topic areas you are interested in, provided directly to you.

Brands
Brand pages were recently transitioned to the timeline feature as well.

A couple quick tips:
1. Star – if you star an image on the timeline, it will be positioned as a double-wide image spanning the whole page.
2. Pin – use this feature to ensure content stays at the top of the page and won’t move down when new content is added. This content will stay ‘pinned’ for a week or until something new is pinned.
3. Friends Window – allows users to see a brand page through the lens of their friends. This means brands are instantly personalized.
4. Message – allows users to directly message with a brand.
5. Admin Panel – quick and easy access to happenings on the page.

Caryn suggests checking out the Hunger Games brand page for a great example of leveraging the timeline feature and apps.

If You Weren't Afraid Image - PRSA Digital Impact Conference She wraps up by reminding us that we are in an incredible time which allows us to do things we never thought of, specifically through tools. Signs are posted all around Facebook asking this question, ‘What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?’.

And with that we wrap up with Q&A.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the Facebook atmosphere?
A: I have this moment every day where the ambition and excitement can be overwhelming, but that itself is very exciting.

Q: Do you expect that your list of preferred developers is going to change?
A: No, we work with so many different developers and they are all up-to-speed on the changes. I don’t think it takes a different skill set, so we don’t expect it to change – but maybe to grow.

In summary, it’s interesting to get insight into how Facebook (and someone from the inside) views the opportunities that exist within the channel. And how they push themselves to make changes, even if at first they might get push back from the community.

Like it or not Facebook (and other social channels) will continue to evolve. Our job is to identify opportunities with our audiences in mind. If we deliver what they need and want, we’ll ultimately be closer to reaching our goals.

Connect with TopRank Online Marketing on Facebook to find more information on the intersection of Search, Social and Online PR.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital Impact Conference Keynote | http://www.toprankblog.com

Digital Convergence: Marketing & Public Relations #PRSADIConf

Posted on 02. Apr, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, PR Conferences, public relations, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimize prsa digital impact

Since 2004 or so when I started this blog, I’ve been promoting the convergence of SEO and public relations, especially through press release optimization. Shortly after, that focus has shifted to emphasize the intersection of search, social and content. In fact, here’s a post from 2006 on social media, SEO & PR.

Winds of Change. If you work in the Public Relations world, you’ve undoubtedly observed significant changes both in the news media business and the relationship between PR, intermediary news organizations and consumers. Information preferences have changed, technology and media have changed and the business of news and corporate communications have changed.

44% of Americans own a smart phone and 51% use them for news. 18% of Americans own a tablet device and 56% use tablets for news consumption. 23% use multiple devices to consume news content. The shift from print to digital goes beyond the desktop to other devices and it’s essential for PR and Communications professionals to understand how target audiences discover and consume news content.

Yin & Yang of Marketing & PR. Marketing goals are influenced by PR and media relations activities. PR objetives are increasingly achieved through online marketing activities. The trend with business leaders expecting marketing and PR outcomes as a result of their investments in content is growing. Across the US, heck all over the world, light bulbs are popping with the realization that siloed marketing and PR no longer works.

Crash or Catapult. Whether it’s an evolution or worlds colliding depends on how organizations understand and prepare themselves strategically and tactically for the fundamental shifts that drive communications, influence, behaviors and marketing/PR outcomes.

Digital Convergence at Digital Impact. At the PRSA Digital Impact conference in New York this week, brands (Facebook, IBM, Google, Dell) and top practitioners are converging to create a perfect storm of insights into the essential answers PR and communications professionals need to know to evolve themselves and their organizations in this always connected digital age.

Optimize State of Mind. For my part, I’ll be covering the role of content, search and social (as I do) and how PR/Communications can leverage a marketing-centric understanding of audiences to create optimized and socialized content that facilitates both PR and Marketing objectives.

Here’s an outline of what I’ll be presenting on Monday April 2nd at 2:30pm EST:

Convergence: PR, Marketing
Customer Optimization Trilogy: Discover, Consume, Act
Content Marketing Framework & Best Practices
Know your audience segments
Search keywords, social topics
Optimized editorial, socialized promotion
Social networks for engagement
Optimize your story: share, buy, recommend
Essential measurement for optimized and socialized content

First Sighting of Optimize! It turns out that PRSA Digital Impact 2012 will be the first event where I will have hard cover copies of my new book, Optimize. This is exciting to me because of my PR and SEO roots and having worked with the PRSA as a consultant for quite a few years. I’ll be presenting on Monday 4/2 at 2:30pm and if you’d like an opportunity to win one of the very first, signed copies of Optimize, then make sure you’re there. And bring a few friends too!

It’s Kind of a Big Deal. Optimize has been the culmination of my 15 years in the online marketing business and being a “walk the talk” practitioner, working on our own online marketing and with many of our clients. Optimize provides a 30,000 foot view of why and then does a fast, deep dive into a framework and specific tactics that PR and Marketing professionals can use to improve the reach and engagement of their content the same day. Smart folks like Joe Pulizzi, Chris Brogan, Ann Handley, Jay Baer, John Jantsch, Michael Stelzner and digital leaders at Ford, Microsoft, Vocus, Radian6 and Walmart have endorsed Optimize.

Begin your journey to optimized digital convergence. If things work out, I’ll have some books available for a book signing on Tuesday. In case it doesn’t, be at the 2:30pm Content Marketing & PR session where I’ll give a preview, a few free copies to the best questions and a free SEO Audit Guide for everyone as a thank you for attending.

The digital version of Optimize (i.e. Kindle) is available right now. The hard cover version will be out April 17th through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other online book sellers.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Digital Convergence: Marketing & Public Relations #PRSADIConf | http://www.toprankblog.com