Posted On July 2nd, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under 0
Content marketing, in my opinion, is the last pure form of marketing.
In a world that has become saturated with obnoxious and/or pretentious billboards, radio & TV spots and flashing web banners, the only way to really market to a potential customer is by creating great content,
The format is irrelevant; It could be a podcast, magazine, blog, infographic, mobile app, PDF whitepaper, video or anything else. The point is it is free content that offers value to customers, potential customers or colleagues so that they book mark it, comment, share, or post a link to it on their own websites.
It's also the form of marketing that levels the playing field, letting small companies compete with larger ones, due to the fact that it's not based off of who can spend the most on ads. Anyone can create content, it's just a matter of having the right idea, make it original and focused and execute it professionally.
If you make content at the centre of your web strategy, then it will branch out and affect every other part:
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Social engagement will increase because people are sharing and discussing your content.
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Organic search rankings will increase because people are sharing and discussing it.
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Your reputation will increase because people trust and value your content, making them more likely to subscribe to your content (i.e. sign up for an email newsletter, subscribe to a podcast etc.)
Quite a bit better than relying on an ad to accomplish the above goals, no?
I'd recommend an organization of any size to try out content marketing and see if it can work for you. If you already have a marketing budget, try reducing your print, radio, TV or web banner budget and moving some of the budget over towards getting a team to help brainstorm, curate and execute content. If you are really small, try dedicating your own time towards the same approach, although embracing your limitations. For example, if you're a great writer but don't have a clue about photography or video editing, than a video piece may not be the place to start unless you know someone who can help you execute.
Once your piece is created, share it. Of course there's the obvious Facebook and Twitter posts, but here are some other ideas to spread the word:
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Approach a blog or magazine with your content, but try to do it without being spammy. Many websites are looking for content to share, so this may be just what they need, but make sure to target the right type of website. For example, when I wrote the ExpressionEngine Client Guide, I approached other ExpressionEngine blogs and the official forum to let them know about the guide and most of them wrote a piece on it.
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If you already have an email newsletter that goes out every so often, include the content in your newsletter with a link back to the original post.
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If your blog is not well-read, try pitching your post to another blog with a higher readership. In almost every case, you will get your bio posted on the article with a link back to your site.
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You could try leaving a comment on another websites' blog, but be careful about how you link to your piece. Most blogs will strip out links in comments, or mark them as spam, so it's good to clearly explain why your content is relevant and post your link without the http:// so users have to copy the link and paste it in their URL bar.
These are just a few ideas to let content marketing work for you. Do you have any other ideas on how to get your content out there for people to read and share? Please leave it in the comments below.
Posted On June 23rd, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, Marketing, 2
It used to be that the average person thought of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a series of tricks that a professional expert used to trick Google into ranking their site above a competitors'.
And for the most part, that was true. There's the old definition of a SEO being either black hat, someone employing cheap nasty tricks that got huge results for the short term, and white hat, someone focusing on quality content and link building which takes longer but gets long-term results.
In 2011 Google made black hats pretty well redundant for good, and even some strategies that the quality SEO's utilized has become less relevant. Google has updated their search algorithms with something called "Panda" which takes into account ratings from real human beings visiting a website. More than ever, this means that Google's criteria for ranking a website is based off of the following:
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How trustworthy does the site feel?
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How easy is it to use and navigate?
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How engaging is the content?
What has become much less important are things like meta tags, headings and other technical tricks that were meant to assist Google's bots in indexing and caching the website.
The other big thing that affects SEO is social media. In the past, the amount of links to a website from a social network like Twitter or Facebook was not counted vary highly. However now social engagement is one of the most effective ways of showing Google that real humans care about a website.
So instead of a SEO strategy consisting of planning what keywords appear in title and meta tags, headings and anchor tags, it has become more imperative that the plan focuses on compelling, unique content, a well-designed interface and letting people know about it through a variety of social channels.
This is a change for the better, and will hopefully result in a better internet, where the #1 result for a keyword will be based off of the things we humans care about.
Posted On April 17th, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, 2
Email is 70% useless.
As someone unfortunately known in our office for writing 'Rackigrams', that is, pointed emails that are specifically designed to let someone know they're an a-hole, I have learned something:
Email should never be used to express anger when you want to preserve a relationship. It causes hurt feelings and needless drama, particularly because to the reader, you sound about 10 times angrier over email than in person (unless you're Steve Jobs apparently).
In an email, writing "I'm disappointed in your services" sounds to the reader like "I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOUR FACE, YOU S.O.B". Talking in person however, we use inflection in our voice and soften our language with things like "Sort of", "a little bit", "pretty bad". If you aren't worrying about severing the relationship, then great. Go to town.
Now in a lot of cases, email can be great. Particularly when you want to send a message that has multiple components, broken out in headings, in a numbered list, and you want to offer up this soliloquy with no interruptions, no counter-arguments, questions or even expressions of agreement that get in the way of communicated your multi-facteted point, and keeping a handy record of the exchange. Just be sure that you are overly polite to compensate for the lack of inflection.
If you need to tell someone they're an idiot, do it over the phone or in person. Yes, it may require working up some nerve. A bit of uncomfortableness. But it's worth it.
Two incidents over the past month involved someone sending a nasty email and me responding in a nasty manner. In a way the results were achieved, but at the expense of good relationships.
On the other hand, two other occasions involved me being upset or annoyed at someone and waiting until I could speak with them. One was a client who implied in an email that something was our fault when it had nothing to do with us. I wanted to blast him, but instead I waited, called him, and kindly explained it to him. Some words were exchanged, but overall the tone was friendly and professional. Our relationship is good and we both understand each others points.
The other occasion was just in the last week. A trusted colleague sent an email to me and some other team members that sounded apathetic, flippant and irresponsible. Everyone who read it was understandably pissed. I felt my fingers reaching for the keyboard, ready to carefully craft a world-famous Rackigram, but then I relented.
We had a meeting booked in a couple of days anyways so I waited until after the meeting to discuss the email. As it turns out, our colleague had written it quickly and used incorrect language to explain his position. When he explained in person it all made sense and was much more inline with his character. Crises averted, problem solved, everyone was happy.
I hate to think of how it would of turned out if I had emailed him.
Posted On March 11th, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Headspace News, 6
We officially have a new space and are moved in! This weekend, the desks and furniture came in, and we're ready to begin our first work-week in the new space. The studio space is located in the Hydrostone Market in Halifax, and we're already worried about our waistlines - there's so much good food, coffee and wine on this street. We'll post new pics once the team is fully inhabiting the space, but in the meantime, here are some quick shots after the furniture got moved in.
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