Today’s Category: Miscellaneous

Five Ways to Inspire a Culture for Content Marketing

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” That’s a quote credible sources attribute to Peter Drucker. I’ve come to realize companies tend to fall into one of three culture camps: Those who believe in culture, those who don’t, and those who pay lip service to the concept. There’s a divide among these camps—a distance that […]

8 Disgusting Words to Avoid in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Word aversion is the feeling of discomfort or even disgust triggered in people by a certain word—not because it was used incorrectly, but because the sound of the word itself is displeasing. What can explain this phenomenon? Jason Riggle, a professor of linguistics at University of Chicago, believes it’s part instinct, part cultural […]

How Super Mario Would Market His Plumbing Business in 2013

While leaping bravely from pipe to pipe, narrowly escaping death in the jaws of a man-eating plant, Mario fights tirelessly to save his princess.  We are all too familiar with Mario’s personal life, but what about his work life? We know Mario and Luigi are plumbers by day, residential contractors in the Flatbush community […]

Google Sensors Are Data Mining I/O Attendees – And They Don’t Care

If you’re visiting the Google I/O developers conference this week, you’re a tiny part of a giant Google experiment to sniff out everything from your body heat to your breath. Google is even listening to your footfalls as part of its Data Sensing Lab I/O 2013. Think that’s a scary, Big-Brother invasion of privacy? […]

Monday’s Fresh Pressed: Content Creation

The Syrian Electronic Army struck again, this time attacking the tech blog and twitter accounts of the Financial Times. Rather than trying to spread an anti-American/pro-Assad message or cause chaos as they have in the past, they simply reported that “The Syrian Electronic Army was here.” We get it, they planted their flag, but what was the point?

The SEA first came to our attention when they hacked the Associated Press Twitter account last month with an announcement that there had been an explosion in the White House. Before people could confirm the hack, the Dow Jones fell 150 points. They also hacked the accounts of 48 Hours and 60 Minutes. From an average American’s perspective, a foreign activist group was using social media to create a state of panic in the USA. The SEA was at the forefront of our minds.

But then it seemed they lost their way. The AP attack was a one hit wonder, and no one really wanted to listen to the follow-up albums. Shortly after the original attack, the SEA set its sights on the E! account and tweeted that Justin Bieber came out as gay. Clearly someone needs to tell the Syrains that rumors of Justin Bieber’s sexuality surface every week, it’s hardly breaking news anymore. Furthermore, Beliebers are hardly household decision makers in our country. The CIA, FBI and National Guard don’t have contingency plans just in case the Biebs gets another haircut. Other than announcing that Bieber fans had been trolled (their word, not mine) they really didn’t seem to have any agenda behind the attack.

The unimpressive comeback album occurred last week when the SEA compromised the Twitter account of The Onion. We’re seeing a pattern here: Twitter account is hacked, organization is slightly inconvenienced, SEA takes credit. This attack posted anti-Israeli messages to the fans as one of the hackers (who goes by the moniker Th3 Pro) sent an email to the New York Times explaining why:

“Recently they have published an article that savages Syria and its current circumstances. This hurt the feelings of many Syrians who relied on it to tell the truth in a funny way…The Onion can do a much better job reporting the truth through its satire. Unfortunately even they seem to be biased.” -via NYT

We’ve seen foreign agencies actually take The Onion seriously before. Last year, a Chinese newspaper mistakenly believed America had voted Kim Jong Un the Sexiest Man Alive. Is it possible that the SEA faced the same problem?

With the recent attacks on the Financial Times, it looks as if the SEA is getting back on track by hacking actual news organizations, but their goals and messages are still ambiguous. Are they trying to raise awareness about their organization? Are they trying to strike fear in the hearts of western twitter users? Let me see their business plan and KPIs.

What do you think? Do you take the Syrian Electronic Army seriously?

When users visit Myspace, they can choose between the classic version or the new version. The once-great social network has continuously reinvented itself to draw users back. Now it’s trying to court music lovers, with no success. If they had any option to choose from, owners Justin Timberlake and Specific Media would probably opt to go back to 2005. Remember 2005? When Drop it Like It’s Hot topped the charts and Myspace was sold for $580 million? Ah the good old days, everything was so simple back then. Now it’s barely worth the 2011 selling price of  $35 million. Which option would you select? Let us know below!

Each Friday we send out a weekly newsletter that features an exclusive article that can’t be found on the blog. Here’s the article that was featured two weeks ago:

7 Reasons Why eBooks Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Writing an eBook can seem daunting if you’ve never done one before. If you’re uncertain about whether it’s worth the effort, keep reading. No matter what your budget is or what industry you’re in, consider an eBook when developing your marketing plan.

Did you miss anything on the blog last week? We also recap the best-of CopyPressed from the week before:

Data Visualization How-To: Comparative Bubble Charts

This week during an infographic critique we were brainstorming ways to make a certain data set more effective and clear. We decided that a comparative bubble chart would be an effective method as it would allow a reader to easily [...]

What to Learn From Bad Guest Post Pitches Like These

Blogger outreach generally involves connecting to sites in order to develop mutually beneficial relationships by contributing content. In order to start developing the relationship, there first has to be initial contact, mostly done through pitch emails. While connecting to bloggers [...]

We wrap up the newsletter with the most recent Fresh Pressed which has a round-up of what’s interesting and relevant to content marketing on the web.

To receive more awesome content through your inbox each Friday, sign up below.

Today’s Category: Conversion

Keep An Inifinite Memory for your Metrics

Often, you want to look at your metrics over a longer time period than usual in order to identify long-term trends. This is especially true if your metrics are “jagged” and move around a lot. You have two choices: You could use a larger time period. If you usually watch daily metrics, switch to […]

Marketing Analytics: Now that Marketers can Collect Data, Interpretation is the Top Challenge

Technology is fantastic. But, it’s not magic.Marketing analytics can be extremely powerful. However, just like any other tool or technology, it takes hard (and smart) work to turn data into knowledge.So, in the MarketingSherpa 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report (sponsored by Paramore), we asked marketers … Q: What were your organization’s most frustrating challenges […]

People Are More Likely to Survive a Plane Crash Than Click a Banner Ad [Infographic]

Best. Statistic. Ever. Makes me feel better about flying, but sorry for those designing banner ads. They say that a kitten dies every time someone uses a bullet point in a presentation, so I shudder to think what’s going to happen the next time someone clicks on a banner. Banner ads. The ugly stepchild […]

3 Reasons Batman is Better Than Superman and How it Can Improve Your Conversion Rates

As a died-in-the-wool geek, I stand ever ready to defend my personal preferences in superheroes as if they were objective facts with religious importance for all people. In that vein, allow me to explain why Batman is better than Superman, and how putting this knowledge to work could increase your leads and sales. The […]

Tomorrow’s Fresh Pressed: Miscellaneous

Words. They’re so… 2012. We live in a world where 140 characters is too many characters. We want video. We want pictures. We want Gifs.

Google+ has taken note of that and adapted its platform to be more photo friendly. First, it ditched the lengthy column and divided its main feed into two rows. Now the eye bounces down the page stopping at memes and baby animal pictures. The layout looks almost identical to Facebook’s timeline, except that it has been applied to both the general feed and the profiles.

Google explained the changes in a blog post yesterday, and also went into detail about their hangouts updates and photo editing additions. The social network now has an increased emphasis on pictures, which means it has a decreased emphasis on links. It’s the perfect example of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Take my homepage for example:

Even though I use Google+ for work and try to fill my stream with content marketing articles, my eye immediately goes to the fluffy kitten walking along the fence. Whether or not you’re a cat lover, yours probably does too.

The thumbnail in the article written by Rebecca Kelley isn’t enough to draw the eye when placed right next to the kitten. Even if she used a thumbnail of a designer cupcake or bakery window, the user would still be drawn to the larger image.

With the changes, marketers should rethink how they post links to Google+ and consider pairing it with their Pinterest strategy. Primarily, they should reconsider stock photo use. We’re all guilty of tossing in a last minute stock photo to break up paragraphs, but taking a few extra minutes to carefully select a captivating picture can help when sharing the article on social channels.

Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram all make it easy to direct links to a webpage through a captivating photo, it only makes sense for Google+ to follow suit.

Google+ is also trying to streamline the process of taking, editing and uploading photos. It has four different tools that are meant to turn even the worst point-and-clicker into a star photographer. Google+ will automatically store your photos, highlight them to increase their quality, bring the best ones to the forefront and even create a perfect photo by taking the best elements from many different ones. They want Google+ to be a place for photo sharing.

All of these changes are happening for two reasons. First, the Internet has shifted its popularity to photo and video. Don’t tell me what you’re doing, show me. Second, as more Google Glass prototypes start wandering about the globe, users will be snapping photos and video with (literally) a blink of an eye. The two products go together like peas and carrots, it’s only a matter of getting the general public to actually use them.

All of the changes that Google+ has made so far have mimicked other social networks. The design is akin to Facebook, the photo emphasis matches Pinterest and Instagram. Only time will tell if stitching together other networks will create an Internet success or a social flop.

Recent SEO chatter is fixated around when Google will drop the hammer on guest blogging. Such speculation is a testament to the spam community’s adeptness at transforming respectable attention tactics into fetishized terminology. Monday, The Spam Oracle added fuel to the fire by doling out vague predictions for this summer’s “Penguin 2.0.”

If the following snippets from Matt’s video send a shiver up your spine, now might be a good time to hit the panic button.

We’ll be looking at some efforts to be a little bit stronger on our enforcement as far as advertorials that violate our quality guidelines. Now there’s nothing wrong inherently with advertorials or native advertising, but they should not flow PageRank and there should be clear and conspicuous disclosure so that users realize that something is paid, not organic or editorial.

… these changes might have a little bit more of an impact in those kinds of areas that are a little more contested by various spammers and that sort of thing.

We’re also looking at some ways to go upstream to deny the value to link spammers–some people who spam links in various ways.

… people who are link spamming or doing various black hat spam would be less likely to show up I think by the end of the summer.

If you’ve been hanging out on a lot of black hat forums and trading different types of spamming package tips and that sort of stuff then it might be a more eventful summer for you.

In other words, if you’re posting on sites under suspicion of selling dofollow links or you’re a card carrying, Black-Hatter, this update’s for you. The rest of you Gray-Hatters have a bit more time (more on this later.)

What black hat tactics attract Google’s attention?

The Belly of the Black-Hatter Community

At great risk to my computer, I ventured deep into the belly of a black hat forum to gather insights on Black-Hatter machinations and sub-culture.

DISCLAIMER: The following views, tactics, and opinions belong solely to Black-Hatters (otherwise known as “Very, Very Bad Humans”) and do not reflect the views, values, and opinions of CopyPress nor anyone affiliated with CopyPress.

NOTE: The identity of Black-Hatters has been omitted for their protection (Black-Hatters also have children to feed).

Web 2.0 link wheels (automated, social profile linking) and link spam software (i.e. GSA) are standard Black-Hatter tools. The “private blog network” referenced by the second Black-Hatter refers to clandestine networks of blogs maintained for the sole purpose of manipulating Google rankings.

SAPE is a network of blogs utilized by gangs of Black-Hatters. Much debate exists amongst Black-Hatters as to if Google can detect this network.

Poor grammar is stereotypically associated with Black-Hatter dialect. While Black-Hatter activists cry “hatter profiling,” Google agents continue to target this dialect in spam cases.

This is considered a form of Black-Hatter humor. Their obsession with Google’s algorithm has spawned a subset of humans fixated on numbers and equations.

As in normal society, disagreement is common in the black hat community. The responding Black-Hatter states a compelling case for guest blogging that is difficult to contest.

Preparing for Penguin 3.0

While Penguin 2.0 will focus primarily on Black-Hatter link-building tactics and paid “editorial”  links, Google will continue to gather and analyze data to complete its sweep of link-building rackets. Some of this data is voluntarily provided by you (see my previous disavow link tool post).

If you’re worried how future Penguin updates (AKA: Penguin 3.0) will affect your guest blogging tactics, you’re doing it wrong. The primary goal of guest blogging isn’t link acquisition—its branding and attention.

I agree with Neil Patel. Future updates will focus on nullifying guest articles displaying the following characteristics:

1. Guest posts authored by writers that won’t socially promote their own posts and/or posts only promoted by an army of bots
2. Low quality, valueless posts
3. Posts that exist on sites linking out to everyone and their black sheep uncle (spammer)
4. A trail of posts from one author that consistently link back to one site

I’d like to add a few more:

5. Posts that consistently force keyword-rich, anchor-text into author bios
6. A trail of guest posts published ONLY on sites that meet narrowly-defined metrics (e.g. PR, Alexa)

Bottom line: Create useful and shareable content. Promote it naturally and responsibly with intent to drive attention, not just links.

What are your thoughts? Is my assessment on the money? Or, do I need to get my head checked?

Sometimes the hardest thing for businesses to do is to discover the right keywords or terminology their target audience uses for marketing purposes. If you try to target audiences with industry buzzwords you will most likely miss the audiences completely. You have to reach people on their level. So how do you get started researching? I am going to show you some free ways to gather data.

Online Reviews

Online reviews are full of valuable data for marketers. Many people leave detailed and informative reviews about products and services. As a marketer you can dig into the reviews of products or similar services and discover not just the terminology they use, but also the things that matter the most to the people writing reviews. Additionally, with user profiles you can gather some basic demographics of the people using the products or services you are researching.

The beauty of this information is it not only helps you determine which words and phrases to use, but it also gives you a lot of ideas to use in content marketing strategies. For example:

• What do people want?
• What upset them?
• What were they looking for?
• What was their overall experience?
• Do they plan on using a different product or service?

Many reviewers compare products or services in their reviews, so I recommend you go to the compared product or service page and read what the reviewers are saying there. Get as many content marketing ideas and terminology data that you can and then use it.

Social Media Discussions

People sure do like to talk and ask questions on social. Well, that information is very available for you to watch and gather data from. If your competitors don’t have a strong social presence, find someone that offers the same product or service that does. Watch them and how they interact with their audience. What words do they, and the audience, use? Also watch for complaints that come from customers. What upsets them? What could you avoid? What mistakes do you see being made that you could write about or perhaps create tutorial about?

Social media offers a lot free data for you. You take this data and compare it to the other data you collected. The odds of you choosing topics and terminology your audiences use is much better.

Topsy

Topsy.com allows you to see links, Tweets, photos, views, experts and things trending based on a keywords or a specific URL. The beauty of this tool is that you can search a topic/keyword and see links to where this particular thing is being discussed. You can gather a lot of information from what people have written or said.

You can also enter a specific URL and, again, view conversations about it. What is being said and who is saying it? Read the comments and Tweets. Look at what people are saying and gather as much data and terminology that you can.

Fresh Web Explorer

The Fresh Web Explorer  by SEOMoz allows you to search by terms or by name the name of a person or business and see what has been said about them very recently.  I recommend you explore the links that are provided by the tool and see what the page itself is about. Then read the comments made on the page.

These comments are full of great info for you to use.

Use Google’s Tools Next

Take the terminology you have gathered and enter it into Google Trends and Google AdWords Tools. Look and see how many searches have been done in regards to that term and related terms. Those related terms are great data for you as well. I use these tools as indicators  but don’t depend on them completely. I think the best data is found in the options I explained above, but I do think reviewing these tools helps with the diagnostic process. I would then move on to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics offers a massive amount of data. If you have a lot of data accumulated from your “terminology research” and you start looking through your analytics you will be able to see what you have done correctly and which terms or topics that you have missed out on. Use this data to create content marketing strategies that will make sense to your target audiences.

Focus on the terms you have seen and use the ideas you have collected for future articles, blogs, videos, infographics, images, case studies or white papers that will meet the needs of your audience.

Today’s Category: Curation

12 Most Magnetic Ways to Curate Awesome Content

A community manager needs to stay organized. It is the only way to stay on top of our PR, marketing, and outreach responsibilities. One of the most difficult aspects is finding the great content to share when there isn’t a marketing message going through the pipes. That, for me, is the real interesting bit […]

Businesses Are Ignoring Google+, But Is that Wise?

Trying to build a competitor to Facebook is no easy task. Google took the challenge on a few years ago with Google+ and a lot has changed since. Google+ has been receiving a lot of press in the news lately for recent successes and impressive numbers. But in one of the most important areas […]

How Writers Can Use Pinterest

Recently I had the pleasure of being the guest on #PinChat to talk Pinterest for authors and bloggers with Kelly Lieberman, we talked about how writers and bloggers can use Pinterest. I contributed to APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur — How to Publish a Book, with a section called How to Pin your Way to Success […]

Marketo’s Jason Miller On Facebook For B2B: Why So Serious?

We caught up with Jason Miller, Marketo’s social media strategist, at the Marketo Summit Conference to talk Facebook business-to-business marketing and spill his best tips to drive leads. Yu: Jason, think fast – name five purple things. Miller: Barney, Grimace, crayons, eggplant, and Jon Miller’s shoes. Yu: Awesome. How important is a sense of humor […]

Tomorrow’s Fresh Pressed: Conversion

What’s the point of ranking highly on Google if it’s the results are all negative? Mild-mannered Joe Smith would be thrilled to make the front page, but not for such queries as “Joe Smith hates puppies” or “Joe Smith white supremacist.” A German court found Google guilty of defamation as a result of incorrect autocorrect answers.

According to the BBC, the case was won by a doctor who sued Google when his name’s autocomplete results included “fraud” and “scientology,” two words that incorrectly cast him in a bad light. As a result of the case, Google must take down untrue statements when they become aware of them.

This may sound similar to what Google Glass faced last week, when users realized their swear words were getting blocked out in text messages. Is Google headed towards a cone of censorship where they omit “no-no words” or any negative review whatsoever? In short, no. The two stories are apples and oranges: Glass was a preemptive strike similar to the one used when Android was new, while this case mandates that the victims must prove the falsehood of the search results.

So what does this mean for mild-mannered Joe Smith? He can approach Google, prove his love of dogs and racial equality and have the results taken down, but if he’s been convicted of hate crimes and animal cruelty, the search results remain. Similarly, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad can’t ask to have “conflict” and “chemical weapons” removed from the results and BP can’t ask to have “oil spill” deleted. The basis of defamation is that the statements are completely untrue.

How is Google handling the news? It stands by its search results. The autocomplete fills in the questions that people are asking the most. It doesn’t randomly start assigning negative connotations and adjectives to dethrone businesses. The emphasis on the case is that the accused will have to prove that there is zero truth to the results. The danger isn’t Google starting to censor its results, it’s people playing the system to clean up their SEO.

Bettina Wulff, Germany’s former First Lady, is currently trying to get “escort” and “prostitute” off of her search results. Google gave her the same answer they used for the court hearing: the autocomplete results reflect what other people are already searching for. While it might not be worth it for small businesses to go to court against the search engine, it could definitely help celebrities who are plagued by tabloid rumors. A false rumor about porn or drug abuse can follow someone’s search results for years.

While the results apply exclusively to Google.de (Germany’s search results) there are similar battles with Google happening across the globe. In Japan, a man is suing Google for linking his name to crimes he never committed, which he claims led to his termination. He blames Google for his inability to find a new job.

On the one hand, no one wants negative results attached to their name, but on the other, it’s hard to definitively prove that anything bad that happens to someone is directly correlated to his or her autocorrects.

Do you think these people have valid points that Google is ruining their lives, or do their arguments hold as much weight as saying McDonalds makes people fat because they sell greasy food?