Content Marketing Trends For 2015

The Internet has been an evolutionary tool for user content since the start and especially since the social networking takeover of 2002. Since then, companies have worked hard to create a welcoming online presence for both everyday followers and its clientele.

Follow examples of Fortune 500 companies that make it a point of adding social media and online marketing content into their yearly budget. Why do the big companies care about online marketing? People don’t simply experience a company from an image splashed on the page of a magazine, a billboard, or hear a name or slogan on the radio on the way to work. A company’s reach and exposure frequency is strongly related to its social media and content marketing strategy.

Follow these online strategies to ensure a positive effect for your company’s content marketing and social media strategies:

Content Creation

Storytelling is a tool that has been used to influence and educate for centuries. This is how people pass on information and facts from one to the other overtime. Nothing should change for online content.

There is a need for good journalists, editors, and broadcasters in every business sector since most business graduates today lack grammar rules and writing techniques. This is so important to connect the consumer to a product or service. Consumers want to know what a product or service can do for them. The best way to do this is to create an image or relationship in the consumer’s mind. The artists of gab are best to do this as they sculpt the perfect persona of goodwill for a particular product or service that consumer will appreciate moving him or her along in the buying process.

Keep It Brief

Don’t be so vague not enough information is given, but don’t run on endlessly your viewers lose interest quickly. Keep in mind that most people are pressed for time. Keep it short and sweet with enough information alleviating further questions. Cut the clutter and leave the knowledge behind.

Bring Your Work(s) To Life

Use infographics, animations, images, and other call-to-action elements to pull the reader in for that “wow” effect. Link your image(s) to a website or blog. Not only will this boost impressions, it will give the viewer more information and let your viewer wander online.

Keywords Count

Basically, SEO focuses on the technical elements you are specifically searching for, whereas content marketing will drive the search rankings. Prior to the social media takeover in 2002, social media and content marketing were one in the same. Presently however, social media is the social interaction online and content marketing is the literal verbal or visible substance used to market the company, like the information you see on a company’s website.

Be consistent in your articles. As you write, use the same words throughout your article to boost the relevancy of that article, in turn boosting your article’s ranking in Google’s search. For example, if your article is covering how to roast the perfect turkey, use the words “roast”, “turkey”, and “Thanksgiving” or “holidays” consistently in your article so when someone searches “how to roast a turkey” in Google, your article will have a better chance of being discovered by the person searching the web for that how-to article.

Keep Your Viewers/Readers In Mind

Remember whom you are writing to. Be mindful of your language and the information you cover in your articles. Some things might be better left unsaid depending who might be offended by what you say. If there is potential for damage, just leave that part out.

This is a new era for marketing and its strategists giving even the smallest players a chance at the big win in the game of business takeover. New ways for businesses to grow are being discovered allowing an equal playing field for all businesses at any profit level. The making for a stable and elongated online presence is at the disposal of the company. Make your marketing content count!

Getting What You Want In Business

Have you ever wondered how people get to those higher-up positions in a company? They seem so confident and sure of themselves but all they did was use a few strategy techniques to get what they want in life. These few simple tricks that go unnoticed can help in life, your relationships, and especially your career. In my experience, attitude and how you handle or approach a situation is everything! There are only a few things to keep in mind.

Be kind. Burning bridges never gets you anywhere. And once it’s burned, good luck putting it back together.

Be different. Don’t be afraid to go about a situation in an unorthodox manner. Why? Without stepping outside appropriate behavior pertaining to language and politeness, find a way to differentiate yourself. There are over seven billion people in the world today. Imagine that you are competing with every single person … why should someone choose you? Figure out why you are special, and don’t think you aren’t! If you lack in one area you excel in another. We can’t be great at everything, but figure out what your highlights are.

Speak your mind but don’t overstep your boundaries. This goes a long way in the business realm. Let’s take a typical marketing scenario for instance. Your boss and you are creating a marketing strategy targeting young architect students right out of school. Your boss thinks you should socially post to LinkedIn as it is a professional network. However, you believe that the best social network for this target market is Facebook and Twitter, as those are the networks your audience spends most of his or her time on. What do you do? Simply voice your opinion, explain why, and if your boss does not see the light after your justification there is nothing you can do but bite your tongue. Who knows, your boss might change his or her mind later on. Either way, your insightful voice won’t go unnoticed.

Ask permission, subtly, if you ask at all. Let your hunger for power guide you and not overrule and destroy you. If you show your boss why something works better than what he or she is suggesting, rather than simply stating what needs to be done, it will illustrate your point more clearly. Better to show the zebra where the watering hole is rather than tell him which way to go.

Show some control. The second you let your emotions run wild you have lost. The less you care the more someone else will. This isn’t to say not to care, but you don’t have to wear your heart on your sleeve for all to see. Play the game. A predator waits for the right time to pounce instead of rushing into a losing battle.

Everything you do in life should be approached from a standoff point. This will allow time to think how to handle a situation before acting out drastically, resulting in detriment. Like everything else, these simply tactics take practice, but anyone can accomplish what they want if handled properly. Make a plan, ponder the execution, and then when ready, go for the gold! We believe in you! 

Adaptive Design Means A Website With High Usability

Websites today are all about ‘authority’. A site’s authority can be measured in many ways; from traffic analytics to third party indices to social media approval to organic rank to conversions, aka sales. Ultimately, the value of an organization’s site is measured by its stakeholders’ performance expectations. It’s the site’s authority on the web, however, that gets you there.

Whether it’s known to them or not, companies considering rebuilding their corporate site are likely dealing with authority issues. Low authority on the web can be caused by many factors such as aging infrastructure, site architecture, usability issues, content issues or all of the above. It all boils down to providing a good quality user experience. 

Delivering A High Quality User Experience

The first step in delivering a quality user experience is knowing your audience. This means we must not only attract our target audiences, but we must retain them on our site. If your target audience visits your site and there’s no spark, there’s no retention. And if there’s no retention then your goals and the expectations of your stakeholders will not be met. If there is one thing we know about most audience, it’s that they love attractive visuals. Engaging these audiences through stunning creative is the key.

Beautiful creative, however, is only part of a quality UI design. The design must also provide a fantastic experience across multiple devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions. This is where Adaptive Design concepts should be applied. If you don’t have a mobile-optimized version of your web site then this is not only a problem from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective as stated by Google (i.e., lower organic rank), but it can result in usability issues on mobile devices such as small tablet devices and smartphones. These usability issues generally result in higher bounce rates and less time on site for mobile visitors. Higher bounce rates also contribute to lower authority.

Solving These Issues With Adaptive Design

Adaptive Design seeks to dynamically adjust you web site’s page content based on the size of the screen or the type of device visitors are using. This methodology results in a smooth user experience regardless of the device being used, plus it adheres to Google’s best practices for high organic rank in mobile searches.

Combining a great user experience with superior functionality is the golden ticket when it comes to achieving authority with your web design. And Adaptive Design is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.