It’s also a crucial time of year for marketers to roll their sleeves up and make some tough decisions for 2012. They will be crunching numbers, and asking critical questions like “what’s worth our continued investment in 2012? What needs to be cut? How successful were we in 2011?” and “what can we be doing better?” It’s also a time that, if you have a successful online community, you’ll be patting yourself on the back. Here are a few reasons you’ll be thankful you built the site:
1) Your online community gives you a place to consolidate your incredible content marketing pieces into one stellar resource center.
Content marketing, along with social media, were the two big “buzz words” for 2011. Due to recent Google algorithm changes, the need for high-quality content is clear: Not only must marketers change their approach from keyword-driven to more meaningful, original content, but must also publish new content frequently in order to make the enviable high ranks of Google search results. So, white papers were written. Blog posts were published. Webinars held, Tweets sent, Case Studies researched and eBooks rolled out. Whew, that’s a lot of content. Now, where do you put it?
Your online community is the best place to integrate your multiple content marketing initiatives. Content can be categorized, organized, and tailored for different audiences. Plus, as opposed to dumping it all in your company website, by housing it on an industry or topic-specific community site, your content is viewed as more credible and educational rather than promotional, or a sales pitch.
2) You have a place to integrate all those social media initiatives your company “had to do” in 2011 in order to stay competitive.
Let me guess: You created at least one new social media account this year. Oh wow, 4? Well, aren’t you glad you have an online community to bring together all your fans in one easy-to digest platform? Content can be cross-shared, discussions can be open to all your fans, and you can distribute content across all your sites with ease, because it all resides in one integrated repository. With an online community at the “hub” of all your social activity, you own the conversations occurring about your company, and industry. And, you’re easily able to establish a consistent voice across the various sites, something that’s quite difficult to achieve with scattered sites across the web.
3) Your online community gives you a place to communicate with and build trust with your target audience- something that’s tough to achieve on your company website.
This year was truly the year of the consumer. People don’t want to hear from you – they want to find you. Inbound marketing efforts sky rocketed, and traditional outbound methods decreased. With an online community, you’re able to engage in direct conversations with your target audience. By posting content and resources they are interested in, and talking about, you’re able to jump into the conversation, offering real-time insight and establishing yourself as a credible thought leader. Plus, if there are questions or concerns about your products, you’re able to react to them immediately, which is an incredible customer retention skill. The more quality content you provide and open, honest dialogue you engage in with your audience, the more trustworthy you’ll become. And the more people trust you, the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.
Remember, though, that these conversations are tough to have on your company website. The automatic reaction from your audience may be to avoid interactions with you, to avoid a potential sales pitch before they’ve even gathered the information they seek. On an industry-specific online community, however, there’s less pressure: It’s just a couple of experts sharing ideas, answering questions and providing educational resources to help guide your customers along their decision-making process.
4) You have a lead capture and nurture center right at your fingertips
Lead generation and nurturing can take an extremely large amount of effort from your sales and marketing team. But, with your online community, you have links to high-quality resources for any stage of the sales life cycle. Passive site visitors? You’ll capture their information with the quality gated content on your community (however, make sure you balance what you offer for free, and what you gate). New prospects? Send them to your white papers to learn more about the current state of your industry. For more serious prospects, you have volumes of case studies to send them to demonstrate best practices and lessons learned. Regardless of what stage of interest your community visitor is at, there’s a content piece on your community that speaks to them .There’s a forum they can join, or poll they can take. There’s someone they can talk to if they have further questions. This is a powerful portal you have at your fingertips, and one your sales team should be leveraging just as much as your marketing team. Because your best customers, the ones who renew with you year after year, are the ones who’ve had the chance to make educated decisions and build a strong relationship with you at their own pace.
5) You’re beating your competitors- literally and figuratively.
Though extremely beneficial for businesses – for more reasons than I’ve even listed here – online communities are still a newer tool for marketers, especially in B2B. But, when done well, they are able to boost your company’s reputation and drive you up in organic search engine ranking. This places you ahead of your competitors who don’t have an online community in many ways: You’re educating their target audience, positioning yourself as the industry leader, owning top real estate on Google, and more.
What aspect of your online community are you most thankful for this week?
]]>Q: “Do you draw distinction between B2B and B2C marketing?"
A: Yes, absolutely. There’s a big difference in how the two types of brands manifest. For B2C, you can be very aspirational, whereas B2B is more focused on risk reduction, which is demonstrated by content and thought leadership.
Additionally, the kind of marketing you do for each type of sale is quite different. For B2C you typically have a shorter sales cycle, so you can be punchy, fun, and to-the-point. In B2B there’s usually longer sales cycles and very large, extensive decision-making processes to boot, so marketing must roll up their sleeves and be “in it for the long haul.” This means more lead nurturing, more resources, more content, and education and more patience.
In fact, lead management is overall a different beast for B2B marketing. It’s more important, for example, to properly score your leads to ensure you’re spending the right amount of time and effort on the right prospects. It also means that your sales team be equipped with the right resources to take those leads, nurture them, and build strong relationships with them; all marketing and sales challenges many B2C companies don’t need to worry about.
In short, for B2B sometimes the risks are greater, but so are the rewards. Miller states that B2B sales numbers are generally far higher than B2C, and can make or break a company’s survival. It can also be a huge investment for companies who may only look to spend in that area every few years or so. That’s why positioning your brand as an industry leader, year after year, is so crucial.
Q: “What Content Works Best for B2B vs. B2C Marketing?”
A: We mention how thought leadership, education and content are so important in B2B marketing efforts earlier in the presentation. Why? Because it’s harder to get someone passionate about a printer or router versus a consumer brand. It’s a different type of brand, which needs altered messages. Companies often see some of the fun things B2C companies are doing online, and want to replicate that in their B2B marketing efforts, with limited success. What your audience is really look for isn’t pizzazz or spunk (although having a little of that never hurts, right?) but stellar content. This means white papers that are written with your audience, not your bottom line, in mind. It means hosting educational webinars, and investing in long-term content efforts. Other successful content vehicles are company blogs, which have seen a significant rise in the past few years in popularity, and links to sales. By focusing on content quality, and in large numbers, your B2B company will be better positioned to meet those sales goals, nurture leads, and position yourself as an industry leader.
Connect with us and join the conversation: What are your experiences with differences between B2B and B2C marketing? Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
]]>Wait- before you shut down your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, just listen to the rest of the findings. Though perceived as a ‘silver bullet’ for online marketers who, let’s face it, love to experiment in the latest social spaces, this survey urges marketers not to ignore the #1 source of sales – your company website. Why? Because the company website it the “hub.”
Still, just as a wheel needs its spokes, so too does your company website need a variety of ways for visitors to get there (i.e. your social sites and online community).
Think back to the 3 pillars of online marketing: Your online community, social media sites and company website. Their voices need to all be in sync and have consistent messages in order to build trust with your target audience. What I think this survey shows is that not enough companies are finding that harmony between their multiple online sites, so when a visitor ultimately gets to the company website they are still uncertain as to what, if any, value you can provide to them.
Here’s some ways to make the most of your company website and ensure you’re maximizing on your lead potential WITHOUT ignoring your social sites.
1) Keep your social media sites and online community going. Yup. Don’t you dare shut them down. These are critical elements of your marketing mix, but are you using them effectively as a driver to your company website? Consider persuading your social friends and community followers to your company site is through promotions, free demos and trials, and other prominent calls to action to download a new educational resource. Make them prominent, engaging and unique, and make it clear to your visitors exactly what they’ll find when they make the transition from social site to company website.
Also, reach out to your social communities when you’ve added something new to your company website, like “check out our new ‘News’ page and tell us what you think!” or “Vote for Our New Company Website Color Scheme!.” By making the lines between your different sites blurry means that your customers won’t feel like they are entering a sales pitch or needing to commit to you when visiting your company site: It will just be a natural extension of their interactions with you online.
2) Make your company website social. Add a “Community” page to your company website that houses all your social information, like who’s sharing what content, who’s answering discussions, and who’s liking what. Allow your network to contribute to discussions, or post their own experiences with your products and services in an open forum. Again, social media isn’t the “end all be all” for your marketing, but it is certainly a medium many people are comfortable engaging with. So, bring those social interactions to your company website- the place where the most lead potential is, and surround it with your great content (see #3) or Calls to Action (see #1).
3) Grab your visitors’ attention (and information) with content. Any marketer knows that content is the key to building brand awareness, getting quality leads and high organic search engine ranking. Use your social sites to promote or provide “teasers” to your online content, but then ultimately drive those conversations and content pieces back to your company website. Start a forum for your most recent white paper, and post statistics from the piece directly on your social sites. This way, you’re giving site visitors exactly what they want; valuable information and answers to their questions with the ability to provide their own insights as well.
Also consider reaching out to your community for content ideas. Take a poll on what your next webinar topic should be, or invite others to be featured guest contributors. Make the content something that really matters to them and give them ‘skin in the game’, all huge engagement drivers.
4) Move from static to dynamic –and know what works: 80% of survey respondents indicated that their website wasn’t living up to its potential. By applying some of the same rules you impart on your social media sites to your company website, you may be able to avoid this problem. Social sites and online communities should not be static, and in this day and age, neither should your company website. Though it’s a “hub” it’s not and shouldn’t be unchanging: Make it compelling, interesting and dynamic; refreshing content, ads, calls to action and information frequently to keep visitors engaged and interested. Making your site more social and content-focused, and less about “you” is a great way to establish trust with your prospects, increasing their propensity to invest with you when they’re ready.
5) What you don’t know may kill you (ok, maybe not kill you- but limit your sales potential). The most important thing to focus on with your company website is making sure you’re measuring all these activities: Implement a way to capture visitor information and metrics (including how they got to your site, how long they stayed, and where they abandoned it) as a way to optimize your investments and know what you should put the most effort into. And remember, it’s not just a numbers game anymore. While the survey shows that 34% of respondents wanting quality versus high quantities of leads, consider what your company is really driving towards with these efforts. Are you looking for lots of traffic? Or maybe a smaller number of highly engaged individuals? Do you want people coming in from LinkedIn groups, or Google?
All roads lead to your company website, but there are many ways of getting there. Make the path easy for your target audience, make it interesting and scenic, and make it fun.
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What are some ways you’re integrating your multiple online channels? Are you struggling with the effectiveness of your company website, consider its potential value as a lead-generating machine?
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I had an interesting call with a client today who was in the process of reviewing their online community’s “health” 6 months after launch. I thought this was an interesting concept: I’m a strong proponent for constant site evaluations, audits and updates to keep content and design fresh, but a six-month “check up” was a concept I hadn’t considered before. But what does this evaluation entail? What tests need to be performed? How can you gauge which results are ‘healthier’ than others, and where your high-risk areas are?
Chances are this check-up might be happening with your leadership, who are also looking to see what the results of their investments are. Here are some ideas for mapping out this meeting and what prep-work you can do to make it a meaningful and productive undertaking for you and your bosses.
Preparing For Your Check Up
Before you enter a room with leadership, dig up all your documentation from the start of the online community development process. Why did you create one? What overall objectives did you set for the program, and what deadlines did you give yourself for certain activities? Arm yourself with this documentation to provide at the start of the meeting, and show your leadership in detail where you stand on specific accomplishments.
Examples:
Goal 1: Improve brand awareness: Compare your presence on major search engines from 6 months ago and today. Have you climbed in search engines? Are you showing up in News Alerts? Have you been mentioned in any blogs, industry sites, LinkedIn Groups or conferences? Bring in any and all documentation that shows how your brand name has been growing in the market place. Also, track the number of site visitors your online community has received. If it’s growing month-to-month, then more and more people are being exposed to your community (and your branding) as well.
Goal 2: Build a content portal to position our company as a thought leader: Here’s where numbers also count. Develop a matrix of all your online community articles by specific topics, and track how many readers viewed each piece. Then, compare this with how many people were viewing your press releases or other articles/content on your company website or anywhere else it was housed before the community. Also, again you can see the results of your activities with Google: Track your presence in search engines, type in your keywords and see how many of your pieces show up, and monitor your presence in News Alerts. These are all indicators of your status as a thought leader, and remember- the more content you develop, the more likely the status is to increase. By tracking which topics ‘trend’ over others, you’re also ensuring that you are creating and delivering the content that your audience seeks the most.
Goal 3: Generate Leads: This is trickier to monitor, but there are some ways you can bring some data to the table for this meeting. For one, on how many people downloaded your assets? How many site visitors have you had, and how many “converted” (tip: clarify internally what a conversion means and get consensus- for some companies it means downloaded a form for a trial, for others it means a signed contract). How many people signed-up to receive your eNewsletter, or participated in a discussion or survey/poll on your site? These prospects are all valuable and potential leads for your business because they’ve actively chosen to interact with you. Be sure you’re realistic with your lead generation expectations, too. After 6 months, if you have a long sales-cycle or are a B2B brand you may not have closed any leads yet directly from the community, and that’s OK. You’re building your brand and repository of content that will continue to nurture prospects, eventually getting them to enter their information for a free trial, Webinar, white paper or other gated piece.
In short, you’ll need the numbers to do the talking, which we’ll talk more about further along in this piece.
Now it’s meeting time: Here’s what your check-up should include:
Finally, where are things appearing on your page? Are you rotating this? Testing out which content and design placement works best for certain content pieces is an important part of your preventative care as you can avoid potentially detrimental activities that may weaken your SEO or your site visitor’s experience.
5) Report-Out Regularly: Don’t wait another 6 months to tell your leadership how the community is performing. Share a content piece that generated a lot of hits, or provide monthly reports on lead captures or conversions. Give a summary of the most popular discussions on the site, and even ask your leadership to participate! Make your community something the whole company is invested in, and working together to make succeed.
Finally, Keep Your Eye on the Ball
Make managing your online community a part of your daily routine. Though it doesn’t need to take up too much time, those valuable 20-30 minutes a day can make or break your site, if spent wisely. Look at your articles and see if there’s anything that needs to be covered for the week. See who’s talking about you, and conversed back with them. Post a picture, a video, or swap out an advertisement. By staying involved with your community you’ll be the first to know what’s working, or what needs to be changed.
Do you perform a community “Check Up”? What do you look to measure during these meetings? Connect with us and Join the conversation on any of our social sites. Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
I
In a recent article, every Online Community has a dark side, I outlined some general best practices to employ, with some tips on what to avoid when managing an online community. In addition to these fundamental online community-building principles, there are some design fundamentals that companies can easily implement to prevent their site from looking like a disaster-zone. Because let’s face it, content is great, but appearance is probably equally- if not more- important to site visitors.
1) What a Mess!
First of all, go to your online community and take a good, long look at it. Be honest. Is it a mess? Are there dead links, blank pages, off-centered ads or a hodge-podge of color, content and callouts?
Making sure your site is clean and easy to navigate is a critical and sometimes overlooked aspect of your online community. Why? Because while companies spend a great deal of time and effort making their corporate websites rock, online communities can sometimes be overlooked due to lack of resources or time.
But the fact is, your online community is a more powerful lead nurturing and thought leadership tool than your company website (if built correctly) and deserves your time and attention. If your audience comes to your site and it looks like a war zone, they’ll likely turn away and never look back. My advice? Take time every week to scan your site. Test links, look at the ads that are running, and lists of conversations and articles being shared. If something looks “off”, fix it immediately. These small kinks, if gone un-tended to, will turn into huge cracks in the foundation of your site overtime – and will be much more expensive and time consuming to fix in the future.
2) Do You Have a Billboard Complex?
The most successful online communities are industry-related, because they position your company as a though leader without scaring away prospects with overly-promotional messages. Again, if people want to learn about you, they’ll visit your company website. Audiences flock to online communities to learn about a topic; content you’re fortunate to host on your site. Many companies use sign-ups, promotions and calls to action on online communities to generate leads from the site, which is a great idea. But, do so in a balanced way. If your community looks like a branded micro-site, people will turn away pretty quickly. If you subtly inject your thought leadership and offer opportunities for your audience to learn more in a non-promotional way, you’ll establish trust in them much faster, eventually leading to sales. Remember, the site isn’t a billboard. Billboards are ugly.
3) Information Overload, Anyone?
Your company probably creates some great content: Articles, product demos, white papers, and more. Chances are, it all lives on your company website, so naturally it should all go on your online community –right?
Using your online community as a resource, content and ad repository for everything that’s on your company site isn’t a great idea- though the online community should be an extension of your company website, it shouldn’t be a replica. Think strategically about what you want your online community to achieve, and give your audience, and build your site around that specific purpose (for most companies, it’s education). This is what makes your online community different than your company website. If people wanted to read all your white papers, they’d go to your website. If they wanted to learn about the latest industry news, or discuss how certain products and services work with others in their industry, they’ll go to your online community (and tell their friends to, as well).
4) Poisonous Conversations
Online communities need a social element to avoid being “all about you” but beware the discussions that can do your company more damage than good. A disgruntled customer, or misinformed visitor who’s able to “run free” on your site and comment all over the place will result in your site appearing unprofessional, unmanaged and in a state of disarray.
Though your content shouldn’t be “all about you” it should be very clear that you DO manage all site activity to keep it a professional, “safe” place for visitors. Set clear community guidelines from the get-go, and consider having visitors register before they’re able to leave comments. Then, enable alerts on your site so that each time a comment or discussion is posted, you’re the first to know.
This doesn’t mean you should remove all negative comments on your site. You can’t and shouldn’t control that. But what you can do is start conversations that prompt constructive feedback. Start a post like “What is 1 thing you would improve about X” (related to your products or services) and be sure to immediately follow-up directly with customers who express dissatisfaction.
Just like boarding up your house to avoid being pummeled by hurricanes is a great preventive measure, there are certain actions, like the ones listed above, that can help you avoid an online community disaster. What are some of your warning signs or things to avoid on an online community?
]]>And so, although it pains me to write this, here are some of the dark sides of online community-building:
A. Building an Online Community Before You’re Ready
Doing anything before you’re ready, or fully equipped, is generally a discouraged practice. The opposite of “analysis paralysis” this “rush to act because everyone has an online community” can actually be detrimental to companies looking to build their site. Without a carefully-contrive strategy that’s been vetted by leadership and all relevant internal parties, your community won’t have the foundation or nutrients to grow. Does your leadership love social media? Are they focused on your content marketing efforts? Is it all about the leads? And most importantly, who is going to support this community on an ongoing basis? Without getting these questions answered, a community might be dead in the water before it’s even live, causing you to lose credibility and stalling your progress in the online marketing space (also making you fall behind competitors).
To get ready, a company must be very honest with what its goals are for the community, and what its internal appetite is to invest time and money into the site. There’s a big different between a pilot community effort and full-blown launch, so don’t waste a lot of time or resources if you don’t need to. A “quick win” (i.e. quick rise in rankings, or certain number of leads) might be all you need for your company to determine how and why they should proceed with further online community developments.
B. “Set-it-and-Forget-it”
Communities don’t build themselves, and they don’t manage themselves. If you build an amazing site and do nothing with it, you could potentially do serious damage to your brand. People will visit the site, see stale content (or no content) or an outdated design, and come to their own conclusions about the validity of your offerings. This ties back into Point A, in that you should know what your goals for the community are (and get alignment on them) before taking time to develop the site. When developing your site, be realistic about how much time and effort you’re going to spend on the site. Do you have an internal design team to keep your site looking fresh and SEO-friendly? Do you have enough content on your community to keep readers engaged? Are you active enough in social media to integrate those capabilities in your site? For these and many additional reasons, many companies choose to outsource their online community building and management activities to an outside firm, or certain elements of them. It’s a lot of work, and it needs to be done right in order to get the desired impact.
C. Information Overload – and Inconsistency
You spend a lot of time building your company brand and reputation, but what many companies don’t realize is that in a short amount of time, a poorly-built or managed online community can take it all away. For one, your site shouldn’t duplicate your company website (see Point D for reasons why) or a place to just store all your content marketing pieces haphazardly. This is where strategy comes in, and where you need to determine what kinds of content will be best for your community audience and then test which pieces have the highest impact. Giving them what they crave (perhaps a “how-to-manual” or video) rather than your own marketing pieces will build the credibility of your site – and your company – positing you as an industry leader rather than overbearing salesperson. Although many companies use a community for lead generation, be careful to balance what you “gate” (i.e. require people to sign-up for viewing) with what you offer in good will to your audience. The more valuable information they absorb on their own, first, the more likely they’ll be to trust giving you their information in the future.
It’s also important that your branding and messages be consistent across all your marketing campaigns, including your online community. If your corporate website is serious and stuffy, but online community uses a wildly different color-scheme, tone of voice or style, you might confuse your audience about what your company really is. Be thoughtful in what you want your online community to look like, and include, and follow through with it week in and week out. This extra attention to detail will make a huge difference in how credible and trustworthy your community is perceived to be.
D. All About You
It’s so tempting to talk about yourself (isn’t’ that what I’ve been doing this entire blog post?) But an online community can’t be all about your company. This is one of the things most companies struggle with when managing their sites. You want it to be a well-branded, promotional site but you know that it needs to be educational, and encourage collaboration. So how do you achieve that?
For one, take a step back and listen to your audience. Visit other sites they’re going to, and join their LinkedIn groups. You’ll see the information that they post and like to share- so focus on that on your online community.
Think of your online community as just one pillar in your online marketing strategy, supplemented by your social media sites and corporate website. Combined, the three create a powerful marketing engine, driving your profitability and brand awareness. But, each piece of the strategy must have different goals and objectives, and when it comes down to it, your corporate website should be the place that’s “all about you.” Other sites, like your Facebook account or online community, should host a healthy balance of company and consumer voices, with more weight on the latter. Again, this is why many companies build a site through a third party or media site- because thought leadership and objectivity is key in getting an audience to trust you – and it takes time.
Connect with us and join the conversation: What are some of the downsides of building an online community that weren’t covered in this article? Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
When you’re thinking about developing an online community for your business, you should probably ask yourself the same questions: What are we capable of doing in-house, and what should we outsource? Here are a couple of ideas.
1) Outsource the Most Labor-Intensive Aspects (or “Busy Work”)
Building an online community isn’t easy. It takes SEO, design, content marketing and branding expertise, to say the least – things you frankly might not have time to research day-in and day-out. That’s why working with an outside community-building firm might be best when building your online community because they will know the very latest search algorithm changes, design tactics and best practices from working on other successful sites and can quickly implement that into your site without taking attention away from your other responsibilities.
For example: Do you have time to rotate ads every few months? Create content every week for the site? Monitor discussions, integrate with social media AND make sure it’s SEO-friendly to get you ranked at the top of search engines? (I’m tired just thinking about it). So, by choosing which elements you realistically can manage and outsourcing the rest is a great way to ensure your community will be successful.
Because the fact is, many online communities fail. Lack of credible content, management, time, or stale design are some of the many factors that can contribute to this- so working with experts is a great way to avoid this. Someone who can create content for you, ads for you, design updates for you – giving you time to work on the other important projects on your plate.
2) Communicate Your Strategy and Make Topic Contributions
Determining what your online community strategy should be is something to be done in-house, but this doesn’t mean you can’t ask the experts for advice. For example, if you communicate your goals and objectives, an outside company can help you identify specific steps should take to reach those goals. Secondly, make contributions with your thought leadership. No one knows your products and services better than you, but what an outside company can do is take those ideas and concepts and work with you on ways to demonstrate your thought leadership through various online community elements based on their experiences. For example, they might know that for “X” audience, “Y” type of video works best, or that a White Paper promotion or discount codes should be balanced with industry related information (to avoid the site being “all about you”).
If you’re working with an outside designer or editor, for example, take the time to speak with them weekly. Show them new brand campaigns you’re working on that can be integrated with the site, or have them interview you for article ideas. If you don’ t have time to write down all the amazing ideas you have in your head, at least take a ½ hour to express them so your editor can do it for you.
3) You’re the Host – So Management is Up to You
No matter what expertise a community developer can bring you, only you know what types of discussions, topics, “Friends” and activities you want socialized on your community. That’s why it’s important for community owners to keep certain elements of community management for themselves. For example, approving comments on a community is key, because it also gives you the opportunity to spend a few moments responding to the comment, make the community have a “personality’- which your audience will love. People are more likely to comment on an article or start a discussion if they believe they are speaking to a “real person”. This also helps you “weed out” any inappropriate messages that just aren’t right for your company, or don’t jive with your style, with is hard for any outside firm to know.
By keeping up with social activity, you’re also getting a good handle on any leads, and the growth of your network. Each person becomes a connection, and someone you can nurture and reach out to as a member of your community. Because when it comes down to it, a community-building company can give you all the tools you need to succeed…heck they’ll even build you the house and get people to visit…but it’s your job to welcome people, keep them engaged, and bridge connections with them once they’ve arrived.
Connect with Us and Join the Conversation: What do you outsource with your online community- and what do you keep in-house?
That’s right. Dell, Aflac, SAP, Whole Foods and Cisco were some of just a few companies who spoke about their experiences developing, deploying and measuring effective social media campaigns. And the more case studies I heard, the further I realized how similar companies of all sizes are when dealing with online marketing and social media, as the questions echoed what we at TMC hear from our clients regularly: What works best? How do you measure results? How do you get your C-suite to buy-in?
Here are some lessons I learned
1) Figure out your strategy and figure out a way to measure it
Most companies have social media accounts, but the biggest takeaway from this week’s Summit for me was that the most successful campaigns were ones that started out with a clearly defined and measurable purpose. For the WWE, it was to get a community of all their fans to go to an open forum and “like”, “dislike”, comment, post pictures and be truly passionate “fans” of their wrestling stars (who also Tweet across dozens of accounts. Yes, the wrestlers tweet.) But for Marriott, their approach is quite different as they host a closed community for certain members of a status club and use that as a way to keep that group of customers engaged. All the companies who had a clearly defined objective were clear that the vision needed to be vetted with leadership and approved so when results or ROI were requested, everyone was clear on just how successful the campaign was.
By establishing up-front what the objective of the community was, the easier it was to deploy those initiatives and know what to measure. Was number of “likes” and “fans” for the WWE important? Yes. But, for Whole Foods social media is more than likes and friends- their objective is to have a number of fans who are interactive and contribute to the site, even if in smaller quantities.
Plus, as a speaker from Adobe pointed out, the CEO might not care about how many tweets or “likes” you have. They want to know what all these activities are doing for the bottom line – and the sooner you figure out what your goal is, the sooner you can measure.
2) Use communities to serve your customers better
The TurboTax approach for social media is a great one. Get retired CPA’s engaged online and have them answer customer questions during tax season. This not only saves money on the company’s side in reducing how many people need to be hired during that busy time, but also creates an open community of people with a common interest. Whole Foods has a corporate Facebook page, but encourages each individual location to have sites, run promotions and get involved in their local community charities and events. Using social media to actually generate leads and sales is quite difficult to achieve and even measure, but using social media for customer engagement and retention is a lot easier. Answer customer questions online and ask them how satisfied they are. Take polls, give them exclusive offers and make them feel valued and important to your company. This creates a tribe of loyal followers which is one of the most important things a company can have.
3) Nurture your community of followers
We all know what Lead Nurturing is: Take your leads and instead of bombarding them with sales pitches, slowly over time engage with them, feed them relevant information and nurture their needs until you’ve formed a trustworthy bond with them. Communities and social sites also must be nurtured to grow over time and take collaboration, openness (too much monitoring or cutting off conversations restricts people from doing what’s in their nature: discussing openly). Nurture your groups by asking them questions, giving them special deals (Aflac ran a great campaign that was a competition asking people to submit videos explaining what Aflac was- which was extremely successful) and give them relevant content that will make them interested in what you’re going to share with them next.
One of the best quotes I heard during the summit was “track, listen and learn what your customers and prospects want – and give it to them.” A simple formula that any company, big or small, B2B and B2C can use and be successful with.
What are your biggest challenges with social media? What are some ways you’re overcoming them?
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In fact, according to a recent TMCnet poll, 45.1% of attendees during a recent Content Marketing Webinar expressed that “Producing Engaging Content” was their top Content Marketing challenge.
The need to create a high volume of quality content is a top concern for most marketers for 3 main reasons: SEO, Thought Leadership, and Lead Generation. With an Online Community you can potentially achieve these 3 goals, but it needs to be done right.
If You’re Not Appearing in Search Engine Results…You’re In Trouble
According to a recent Telligent survey, 90% of people making buying decisions online, with many using open forums, social media sites and Online Communities to gather information, read reviews, talk to other consumers and even speak directly with the companies themselves. Of course, most searches start with search engines, which means that your company needs to find a way to be at the top of the results list. Of course, there’s the option to invest in pay-per-click ads, but recent research shows that organic search engine ranking (i.e. what comes up in the list when you search for the dog carrier) seems to resonate as a more authentic and credible source than the ones that show up as a search-click ad (research also shows that these click ads can experience high click-fraud and low click-through rates).
You know you need to appear in search engine results. But how do you get there? That’s where the content comes in. Your content needs to be created in high volumes, be developed in an SEO-friendly way, and most importantly linked-to, shared, linked to some more, and bookmarked. The search engines love this, and the more your content gets shared, the more you will be viewed as a credible source of information and the higher your rankings will climb.
A few caveats though. The content needs to be good. In the recent Google algorithm changes many companies learned the hard way that black-hat SEO tricks not only stopped working, but got them penalized pretty harshly. So, the content follow a pretty strict criteria (for ways to develop great content, check out Content Marketing expert Joe Pulizzi’s recent Webinar - founder of Content Marketing World - for best practices).
And, the more content you create, the more likely it’s going to get picked up and shared. All those re-tweets, links to your articles, and forwarding of links matters, and the more content you create, the more chances you’ll have to have those links and forwards occur.
Thought Leadership
Now that you’re in the top 10 of search engine results, you want to be the industry leader too. This means creating not only high volumes of content, but really educational, informative content. Here’s where Online Communities can be really advantageous for companies, because not only do they integrate all your content into one place, but can (and should) have information about your entire industry. By housing industry information on your site in addition to your own content, your company branding and messaging will surround the news people are seeking, over time positioning you as the industry leader.
Thought leadership is hard to achieve though. It means really building trust with your audience, and engaging with them. Allow for open discussions on your site. Allow people to download educational information for free. Provide reasons for them to come back like promotions, free Webinars, and more. This takes time and, again, lots of content, but the results are instrumental for your company’s success.
Lead Generation
Ok, so you’re appearing organically, and people are coming to your Online Community for the great education you’re giving them. Now, how do you actually start to use this to generate profit? First, you can choose to gate some of your content, but be wary; go back to the “Thought Leadership” section and re-read. You need a reputation as a though-leader to get people to trust you- and those people who do trust you are much more likely to be quality leads. By gating every element on your site, you may not necessarily achieve this goal, so think critically about each asset on your site and what the goal is before blocking users from viewing it and sharing it. Now, events (online and in-person) are a great way to generate leads, as are newsletters. These are ways that people can come to your Online Community, check out your great content, and sign up to stay connected with you. These are the people you want on your Community, and the people you want to be engaging with to continue to build your reputation and, back to SEO, keep your content shared.
Quality…Quantity…It All Matters
It makes sense why creating enough content is such a top concern for marketers: because it really matters and can boost your business exponentially if done well. Online Communities seem like the easiest, most integrated way of achieving this solution, and partnering with a third party can be beneficial too because you get that objectivity and perception of being a thought leader – which is sometimes really hard to achieve when distributing content yourself.
Connect with Us and Join the Conversation: What are some challenges you are having with content marketing initiatives? How are you resolving them?
During TMC’s interactive breakfast session in Las Vegas this week, we had the opportunity to share with, and learn from, participants across many industries as we discussed online marketing trends, best practices, social media insights and much more. In a packed room that contained an audience of varying marketing objectives and budgets, the conversation eventually turned to what seemed to really resonate with each attendee regardless of size: How do I create high-quality content that boosts SEO, gets shared virally and positions my company as a thought leader?
As passionate as TMCnet is about creating powerful Online Communities, we know that the foundation for a successful site lies in having high-quality content that is objective, non-biased, engaging and – yes – even controversial. Why? Because, as the session participants discussed, the more thought-provoking and original an article, the more likely it is to be shared virally and commented on.
Who’s Doing What?
A resounding majority of session participants were focused on creating multimedia content for their marketing and communications purposes, which isn't that surprising; recent studies show that an overwhelming majority of B2B decision makers participate in wikis, social media sites, videos and blogs. What does this mean? It means that marketers have to be everywhere their customers are online, which explains why Online Communities are becoming more popular as places for marketers to integrate their content pieces and share them across multiple online channels quickly and efficiently.
Which brings us to a very interesting question raised during the breakfast: Does Online Content have to be entirely educational and informative, and focused on your products and services?
Can’t We Have a Little Fun?
Yes!
As most of the bloggers in the room concurred, adding a personal voice to your online content not only helps boost the success of your site, but also helps increase your search engine rankings. This is because your audience wants to read, and share with their friends and colleagues, content that has passion in it, and no matter how passionate your company is about your products and services – it’s OK to have other passions as well. Passions about the city your company is based in, for example – or your local teams. Passions about a certain charity… even passions about cooking! So, incorporating those elements into your content will help your audience view you as a humans, not robotic content-creators, and trust you as a brand.
The most Important Lesson for Online Community Sponsors
The most important lesson we learned from the session was to be yourself when incorporating content on your Online Community, and balance your need to impress search engines with the need to engage your readers. If your company has an interesting team-building activity going on- incorporate that into your social networking sites; that’s what they are there for- right? To help people see the human aspect of your company, and start viewing you as someone who’s willing to partner with your site visitors, learn from them and provide them with meaningful, interesting, innovative and interesting content and make them part of your team.
What are some ways you’re having fun with your online content or marketing efforts? Join the Online Community-building conversation online discuss further.
** A Special Thank You Goes Out to All Session Participants!**
How do you write “SEO-friendly” content? To find out, I turned to the experts here at TMCnet, who had the following tips and best practices to share based on their experience building Online Communities:
1) Make it Meaningful
Scott Bouchard, Web Director of TMCnet suggests that when writing content, keep it original, stating: “Even if it isn’t a breaking story, put your spin on whatever you are covering.” If the piece is unique and demonstrates your company’s insight or opinion, chances are it will be viewed as more credible by search engines. Bouchard also recommends brief, targeted and engaging titles for content that will grab interest while also making it clear what the article is about. Finally, Bouchard recommends linking with care, meaning that links are important but must be relevant and balanced, much like how references are used in research papers as supporting documentation or for further reading.
2) Call Out Your Keyword
TMCnet Web Editor Stefanie Mosca suggested that content be focused on, and heavily promote, a certain keyword. We all know that keywords help you get ranked on search engines and are a great way to reach your target audience who is going online to look for information about your term. Mosca recommends getting the keyword incorporated early-on in the content piece and incorporating it throughout, but with balance. And, going back to Bouchard’s comment on linking, be sure to link your piece back to articles or sites that also include your keyword term.
3) Check, Double Check then Check Again
Similar to how you should audit an Online Community periodically, so too should you constantly check your links, your spelling and your grammar. These things, like they did in grade school, matter in how well your piece gets “Graded” on SEO-friendliness.
4) Stay “In the Know”
Even though you may have mastered these tips, one thing to realize is that the rules are always changing, as Stefania Viscusi, Assignment Desk Editor tells us the “one thing that’s stuck with me the 5 years I’ve been here is that the rules never stay the same.” Keeping up with the latest techniques and “black hat” versus “white hat” SEO practices is the first step to ensuring you are writing SEO-friendly content that gets you ranked on major search engines.
These are just a few of many tips, of course. What are your favorite practices for ensuring your content is SEO-friendly? Comment here or find us on Twitter (@ConnectinCloud). To learn more about the best ways to use Content on an Online Community, check out our upcoming Webinar.Led by Adam Sherk of Define Media Group, the session covered a few SEO tips I found relevant for not only company websites, but Online Communities as well. Here are a few highlights:
Site Auditing
Site auditing should be standard practice for website and Online Community owners, and what I would argue to be one of the top things you should invest in if you don’t have the resources in-house to manage it (interestingly, for the large session size, almost no participants had dedicated SEO experts managing their company website for them). Auditing means that you’re looking at your content, design, click performance, keyword visibility and action items to ensure that every single piece is optimized and that the site is fresh and engaging (see “Keeping Content Fresh” for some tips on maintaining fresh content). This is even more important if you have an Online Community, as the purpose of these sites is to promote exactly that – Community – and without new, interesting content, readers won’t feel compelled to return to your site or discuss and share the content on your site, negatively affecting your SEO.
Site Triage
After your audit comes decision-making time. What are you going to improve on your site? Few companies have the time or resources to completely overhaul a Community once the potential flaws or gaps are identified, so Sherk presented a three-category “triage” system where companies should determine what their highest, medium and lowest priority “Action Items” are. What’s High Priority? Problems with your redirects, duplicate content, error reports and URL structure are a few examples. Things like internal linking, SEO style guides, image optimization and social might take a “Medium” level of urgency, and so on. Every company is unique, though, and we often find that since every Online Community sponsor has different objectives for their site, they have different priorities during a site enhancement as well. We encourage anyone who manages an Online Community to think through the site’s original objectives in the audit process to make sure they are being met, but also be flexible to incorporate changes based on new company directions or initiatives.
Making Content a Priority
Sherk concluded the session with a subject I feel very passionate about: Content should be a top priority on your website and Online Community. We’ve written about this subject numerous times, so I won’t duplicate myself too much here (For articles on optimizing content, read “I have the Content…now what?” or “The Need for Quality Content is Clear”) but I strongly feel that without a strong CMS and high-quality SEO-friendly content, that no matter how much time and effort you put into an Online Community, chances are that it won’t be as successful as it can be. Things like duplicate content, dead links, overly salesy-language or unstructured-content can be detrimental to an Online Community. And once the content is up, audit and track and measure and audit again. Always be looking to make improvements, incorporate new ideas and refresh the site to keep visitors coming back for more.
“End Scene”
Sherk spoke of the need for “Good Exits” on a site. This is a great concept for Online Communities; make sure the reader leaves the site with something valuable or interesting that will make them want to come back again. A “thank you for visiting” pop-up, perhaps? Coupon? Really solid research? The possibilities are vast.
Tell us what you think. Performed site triage? Have a Community that works well? Know a great example of a “Good Exit”? Let us know!
Follow us on twitter @ConnectinCloud or email us!
To learn more about maintaining content on an Online Community, join us for our upcoming educational Webinar “Using Credible Content to Promote Thought Leadership and Drive Sales”
Some people think that an Online Community needs luck to be successful; that if you follow the steps to build one and cross your fingers, it will rank highly and receive thousands of followers immediately. A recent study called “The Social Break Up” found, however, that luck has nothing to do with the success of such a site. The study, conducted with over 1,500 Twitter and Facebook users, found that “internet users who unsubscribe, unfan, or unfollow brands on social networks do so because of irrelevant, too-frequent or boring marketing messages.”
The study also points to what makes Online Communities “work” well; Communities need specialized, targeted content that visitors can actually use and learn from. By neglecting to nurture your Online Community in the right ways or by “overcrowding it”, it’s likely that the site will fail to attract visitors and ranking.
Online Communities, like social networking sites, should also not be used primarily for marketing or advertising messages. The study showed that “41% unsubscribe or un-follow a brand because their newsfeed is overcrowded by blatant marketing overtures.” Building trust with your Community audience is key (as discussed in our recent Podcast, “No One Buys Without Trust”) and consumers are getting pickier about how and where they receive marketing messages. A social site or Online Community that positions itself as an informational resource on a specific topic is not the place to promote a brand too overtly.
You can cross your fingers all you want, but getting your Online Community ranked is going to take more than that. Lucky for you there are ways you can learn how to build a Successful Online Community, like attending educational Online Community- building Webinars or reading Case Studies to learn best practices and tips. To learn more about what makes an Online Community successful, you can also contact us.
Top O’ the Rankings to Ya!
Anna Ritchie
Product Manager, Online Communities
So you tweet, Facebook, blog, and write articles. You create pages and groups and blog a little more. You have all the content you could ever need.
Now what?
You need content curation- or a way to pull all your content together into one, cohesive environment. This is also something you probably know, as tools for content Curation are becoming increasingly popular. In a recent article, “Content Curation: Shaping and Influencing your Social Reputation”, Rich Karpinski provides a brief overview of some of these popular Content Curation tools. According to Karpinski, these tools allow you to “express thought leadership, juice SEO rankings, streamline content marketing efforts and even attract and nurture leads.” That’s a tall order for some of these tools, which can certainly act as content-management systems, but sometimes stop there without providing a lot of interactive opportunities, innovation or visual appeal.
Managing a content-curation tool can also be a time-consuming and budget-eating endeavor that can sometimes distract from other important company initiatives. And, these tools don’t create they curate, meaning that you still need to spend time creating new content to supplement what’s being pulled from other resources.
Online Communities can serve as content curation tools if developed and deployed correctly, and if you partner with a third-party company you can receive a few additional perks that you won’t get with a standard content-curation tool.
First, you’ll have the ability to leverage best practices in content sharing, social media integration, thought leadership and branding so you can have a site that actually integrates your different marketing initiatives successfully, with little time or effort actually required by you. Plus, if you partner with third-party with expert writers who actually create content for you, you will further build the credibility of your site by adding original outside content and objectivity- both huge factors in building trust with your audience. This allows you to be viewed as a thought-leader and positions your Community as a comprehensive resource, rather than another advertising vehicle that holds your re-purposed marketing messages.
Most importantly, however, is that you won’t lose the personal touch that matters more and more these days, as content turns to clutter and audiences seek for the most trustworthy sources. Unfortunately, tools alone cannot add that connection. Communities can.