Brand recognition in the twenty-first century is an uphill battle, but with a bit of forethought, any brand can position itself where the users are. The hardest part is engaging the users and getting their feedback. This is something that GE has managed to do successfully.
Using Reddit (one of the most difficult social media platforms for brand recognition) as its base, GE has managed to woo users to their side by providing high quality content consistently, so much so that their e-zine GE Reports is now considered as relevant and important as older publications in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field. But how exactly did GE manage to do this? How did they place themselves in such a great position compared to their peers? Their strategy is both admirable and inspiring, doing all the things content producers should be doing right.
A Big Secret: Knowing the Audience
When GE set off on the task of making its brand known for something, they first had to figure out the audience they were creating content for. GE is an engineering company at heart and the obvious audience for them would be engineers and other professionals in STEM fields.
The things that interest these types of readers are not what you would consider mainstream content. GE, being a leader in innovation, realized that their audience was made up of people who wanted to know what was going on in science and technology around them.
And so GE’s brand marketing strategy was born.
GE started producing a series of articles that recapped and encapsulated new discoveries in the field of science and technology in a way that was accessible, not only to STEM professionals, but to anyone who had an interest in new discoveries. What they discovered was that although a large percentage of their core audience were STEM professionals, there were as many readers that were laymen tuning into their content since it was so approachable. The key behind this easy entry was the type of writing that was involved to build these articles.
Human Interest Factor: 3 Methods GE Won At Doing
GE Reports doesn’t go the traditional route of science reporting. Rather, they focus on the individuals behind the discoveries. What motivated them? What made them decide to explore this particular field of interest? Dry science writing went out with the 80’s and more science and technology magazines were focusing on a different style of science writing: one that sees the inventors and researchers as people first. Human interest stories always get mileage, but combining it with technological breakthroughs was a master stroke of genius.
Channels of Interaction: Success With Email? Marketing a brand is about marketing its message and for a brand to become recognized, it needs to get its name out there. Paid channels of marketing isn’t usually a major factor for GE Reports. Most of its users know about it from Reddit or from Twitter, thanks to the massive following on the social media sites. Facebook also figures into its equation, but the surprise factor in GE Reports marketing strategy is its use of email subscriptions.GE knows email is old school, but they also know that their impact comes from personal interaction and bringing out the human side of a story. Email allows for far more interaction with an individual on a personal level and goes hand in hand with their article style. Email gives GE Reports personality and that is something a lot of brand marketing seems to lack these days.
Loyalty is a Major Seller. Recently, the thinking behind social media for large marketing companies is to sink a lot of money into a targeted ad campaign. This doesn’t win over an audience, but simply “rents” them. At the end of the campaign it’s unlikely that that same audience would care to purchase from that brand again. It relies heavily on gimmicks and the ability to go for a quick sell. GE’s strategy is the complete opposite. GE Reports focuses on building a community as opposed to simply renting an audience, something that can be very useful to GE in the long run.
Why Are Loyal Users Important?
Going back to the idea of understanding an audience, the more you interact with an audience is the more likely you are to understand them and the more able you are to spot content that would sit well with them. In addition to that, GE serves as a hub for the latest news and opinions on the cutting edge of science. By cultivating a community, they ensure that not only readers are able to get the information they want to read, but that media outlets are clued in to what is the “next big thing”. This makes them as much of an authority site as any other science and technology outlet that has been in existence for years, all because of their dedicated community that shares and adds to the rich tapestry that is their user base.
It’s not about Quantity, It’s About Quality. The thing that sets GE’s brand marketing strategy apart from those of their competitors (and indeed, anyone else in the field of brand marketing) is their dedication to the delivery of quality content. Good content is any entry that enriches the user in some way, either by teaching them something new, informing them of a development or giving them an opinion on something that is worth talking about. GE fulfils this demand admirably, consistently delivering content that appeals to its user base without compromising the usefulness of the content.
Isn’t Brand Marketing about Marketing?
Brand marketing isn’t simply about marketing, and that’s where a lot of brand marketers fall woefully short. GE goes about brand marketing via another more traditional route. They include their marketing into their content, but their content comes first and the marketing aspect comes after. The idea of a marketing blog should be to inform and enrich your readers before you start working on them as potential customers. This is another interesting point when it comes to user loyalty (as mentioned above). A user that is loyal to GE because of GE Reports is more likely to put money on a GE product than any other brand, simply because of the enrichment GE Reports brings to his or her life.
GE’s Impact on the Population
So how do we know that GE is getting through to this mass of users that they claim are reading their posts? Although it may seem as though GE Reports is getting a lot of traffic, the numbers of subscriptions also measure up to scrutiny. GE sends out more than fifteen thousand emails to subscribers every time a new article is posted. As far as reach is concerned, that’s huge in terms of organic numbers. When you factor in how many of those people share, like and tweet those stories and the branching effect of social media relationships the reach is immense in scope.
The other way that GE can measure its population impact is from their newsworthiness. News agencies turn to GE Reports as an authoritative site on the news of the STEM world. By getting the leads from GE Reports, these sites can then go on to research and create their own content (yet another benefit of a community of loyal readers). By seeing their own stories covered in the mainstream STEM news, GE can safely say that it has quite an impact on the world today.
Through the middle of January, GE Reports was seeing three hundred thousand unique visitors. For any type of brand marketing site that is a huge number and although that represents a single month, GE has the potential to do it again, since they have done it before. Their power comes both from the way they build their content and the places they market it. Maybe email marketing isn’t such a thing of the past after all.
What Does GE Do That Others Don’t?
GE has forgotten about the old-style press release that so many larger brand marketing professionals stick to as the gospel. By avoiding this method of interaction with the audience, they are able to reach further and to capture a larger, more attentive readership. Their style of writing is different, more engaging than that of their competitors. The information they present is accurate and timely. All of these contribute to having a loyal readership with thousands of subscriptions and hundreds of thousands of readers on a monthly basis. Whatever they are doing, even though it’s not traditionally brand marketing, is certainly working for them, according to Contently.
4 Things that GE Does You Can Do, Too
If you’re looking to build a better brand marketing image then you should really consider how these have worked for GE so far:
Know your audience and write for them.
Create high quality content.
Don’t confine your marketing aims to social media, but rather branch out.
Build a loyal readership and user base to fall back on.
By building on their success and patterning yourself after them there is no way that you can fail to achieve the same sort of results. All it takes is dedication to the goal and the time to see it through.
How often do you stumble across low-quality written material with no real message or meaning while surfing the net? How long does it take you to dive in the pool of diverse web content to bring the most original and inspiring ideas back to the surface?
The truth is that the Internet is flooded with the worst kind of writing: uninspired, thrown-together, no-originality content. We’re talking about the really boring, trivial content that could only stimulate you to shut your computer and take a nap.
Boring, Trivial Content Is Your Brand’s Worst Enemy
Low-value content will never support your marketing goals for a number of reasons. First of all, today’s prospects are savvier than ever and know how to differentiate thought leaders from players who share the herd mentality and have nothing new of exciting to say about their company or their products. Secondly, they have a short attention span and a zero tolerance for writing that fails to answer and address their needs, questions and demands and only makes them waste time in front of their computer screen.
How do businesses entirely avoid this pitfall? How do they get creative with new stuff?
5 Ways to Kick Trivial and Boring Content Ideas to the Curb
If you’re striving to find the simplest answers to the questions I just asked, keep reading. I’m listing the 5 easiest ways to replace unremarkable concepts with written gems that will boost your readers’ interest and loyalty.
Write with Your Audience in Mind. The truth is that you don’t have to waste all your time trying to craft content pieces that are loaded with bells and whistles. Sometimes, the more you try to adorn your writing, the more you lose your focus and get farther away from the real substance of the message that you’re trying to convey. Therefore, as Hubspot points out, even when you’re working on educational content, you can upgrade your copy by making it respond to the questions and concerns of your audience. For instance, let’s assume that your services have been contracted by a company selling automotive supplies. By answering a very mundane question related to a popular topic, such as vehicle maintenance for example, you would actually be creating high-value content that would be assimilated with great interest by your targeted audience.
Let Social Networking Websites Be Your Guide. When it comes to crafting interesting content, social media platforms are your number one ally and one of the most amazing sources of inspiration that you could ever ask for. Just think about it: social networking websites represent the natural habitat of thought leaders and influencers who are constantly recruiting faithful virtual ambassadors. This is the place where companies go from small and obscure to big and successful in record time. Need another reason to poke around Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn? In this case, think about the fact that these websites are the major platforms where quality, relevant and original content can instantly become a viral sensation. Some of the freshest stories shared through these channels can inspire your writing and help you stay far away from boring, trivial content.
Use the Best Tools to Get Inspired. Sometimes, the most trivial concepts are born out of excessive boredom, apathy and a dangerous lack of inspiration and motivation. What can you do when you’ve struggling to overcome a case of writer’s block? Should you still be praying for inspiration after your fifth cup of coffee? Here’s a simpler alternative that can help you put pen to paper and let those clever words flow smoothly: use a wide range of free and almost free online tools designed to inspire your new content pieces. Content Marketing Institute has recently published a long list of such aids that can take your writing to a whole new level. Options such as Ahrefs Content Explorer tool, Topsy, Hubspot Blog Topic Generator or Ubersuggest are the best choices that you should explore to come up with exciting topics for your blog and avoid uninspiring ideas that could only make your readers yawn or raise an eyebrow while bouncing off your page.
Plan Ahead. Last minute decisions and successful content creation shouldn’t be a part of the same sentence for a very simple and logical reason: as a goal-oriented small business owner, you should know how, when and how often you should satisfy your readers’ cravings for premium content. In other words, proper planning and a smart, well-balanced editorial calendar are everyday essentials that can tighten the bond with your audience, while also optimizing your content flow. These two key elements will also help you avoid the tension, confusion and sense of powerlessness that could make you resort to cheap, yawn-inspiring content, which you may be tempted to use as time-fillers to give your audience something to chew on while you’re working on a new recipe for content success. There are several prominent content strategy tools, such as keyword research for example, that could offer you the expert insight you may require to start and follow a detailed editorial calendar that would ultimately enable you to achieve a rich online presence and a deeper connection with your content-hungry audience. Don’t forget that brainstorming with new staff members could offer you the finest food for thought that you could ever dream about adding to your content menu. Ask your client manager to attend these sessions to find out what kind of topics they would like to add to your editorial calendar. After dealing with clients all day, client managers are the team members who usually come up with the most spectacular content ideas that have what it takes to please and stimulate writers, readers and clients at the same time. At the end of the day, it becomes obvious that good old teamwork will never go out of fashion, especially when it comes to organizing brainstorming sessions revolving around creative concepts that can be rewritten and reinterpreted in countless ways.
Employ Expert Writers. At some point, you may realize that your limited amounts of time and energy represent real obstacles standing in the way of your content creation efforts. In this case, what’s the simplest way to avoid generic, overdone, extremely boring or trivial concepts that will never do your company any favors? If your goal is to get rid of most of the burden of coming up with unique, awesome content, consider hiring a team of expert writers.
Trivial Content Is Perfectly Preventable
Whether you choose to use the finest online tools to boost your creativity, conduct brainstorming sessions or create and follow a strict editorial calendar, you should know that all these strategies can help you avoid damages associated with poorly materialized, dull or trivial ideas. If you’re already at the bottom of the sea of trivial content and don’t know how to swim, do keep in mind that professional content creators can put the wow factor into your marketing messages while crafting a unique story around your brand and feeding your readers’ ever-growing appetite for captivating writing that actually serves both aesthetic and practical purposes. Photo credit: g-stockstudio / iStock
Hashtags are an incredible part of social media. They are what connects people during incredible or tragic moments, bringing the entire world together on social media. They provide excellent opportunities for discussion and are excellent for businesses. However, you might be wondering just how to use them, and use them correctly, on Twitter and Instagram.
Let’s take a look at hashtags that will help you create an excellent Twitter or Instagram campaign.
Crash Course: How Does A Hashtag Work?
Hashtags are becoming vital to any social media campaign, but many people still might not know just what a hashtag is. Here is a quick rundown and reminder: a hashtag is a word or phrase used on social media that follows the pound or number sign (#). This helps to tie posts together with others and makes it easier for clients and readers to browse through the hashtag to find relevant information. This is a great way to index and categorize posts to make it easier for those with an interest in the specific keyword. For example, if you are selling artisanal coffee and want people who aren’t following to see your posts, you can use a hashtag such as #artisanalcoffee or a keyword that you use more often on your site. This will help connect you, and broaden your reach.
Why Should You Use Hashtags?
I briefly stated a benefit of hashtags in my example above. You need hashtags because they help direct people to your posts if they are not within your network. Let’s say you are a company that sells your product worldwide; you may have a few local customers, but how can you connect with someone in England, Australia, or America? Simple answer: hashtags. In addition to broadening your range and reaching out to more customers, you can also use hashtags as a way to engage with your clients, potential clients, and industry leaders. In fact, researchers find that tweets that utilize hashtags get two times the amount of engagement as a regular, non-hashtag tweet; interesting! The biggest thing about social media is being social, and you can do just that with hashtags directed at being social. I am going to take a more in depth look at this to show you just how you can correctly use your hashtags, especially when it comes to Twitter and Instagram.
Companies That Should Be Using Twitter or Instagram
Twitter is a great social channel for many businesses to use because it can connect you with a broader range of individuals. It can also provide you with the chance to host online chats, which I will discuss later. Twitter is a great social channel for small businesses and is also a great tool that B2Bs can use. Now, when it comes to Instagram, it is important to sit down and think about what your company does. If you don’t have much visually driven content and don’t focus on it too much, then Instagram is not for you. However, if you do have visually driven content or product, Instagram is perfect. If you are looking for some tips on how to use Instagram for your business, Social Media Examiner gives some excellent points to guide you in the right direction!
How To Correctly Hashtag Your Content on Instagram and Twitter
Now that I’ve taken you on a crash course reminder on hashtags, their importance, and if you should use Twitter and Instagram, I am going to help you learn how to use them. Remember, when it comes to social media and hashtags, you will need to tweak and grow to find the best ones for you. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can correctly, and awesomely use hashtags.
Use Weekly AMAs or Hashtag Chats. Many businesses use something known as an AMA or an Ask Me Anything. Ask Me Anything is a really popular concept for many celebrities and users on Reddit, but it is slowly catching on for many businesses on other social channels. Most of the time, a business will adapt it into a chat instead of using AMA, but the concept is the same and helps develop communication and dialogue. A great example of a business chat is that of SEMRush’s #semrushchat that they hold to talk about various concepts. They discuss various questions with their readers and followers and then post the discussions on their blog. This is a great way to answer some of the common and current buzzing questions clients have while also creating excellent blog material.
Create Unique Hashtags. This is a perfect way to get your posts to stand out while directing people to your accounts and site. You will need to use trendy hashtags that will get noticed, but throwing in a unique hashtag created by you will help put all of your posts in an easy to find spot. It can also help when people start discussing things with you, using that hashtag instead. This will direct more people to the discussion, and eventually direct people to your Twitter account, or website. In addition, a unique hashtag can also help you keep your business related photos in one spot on Instagram, giving people the chance to see all photos you’ve posted throughout your whole Instagram usage.
Follow Specific Hashtags to See More Discussion. When you are using Twitter, it is a good idea to make sure you follow specific hashtags to see discussions and anything your clients might be talking about. This is especially necessary if you create your own hashtag to get people involved in discussions. It won’t work if you don’t keep tabs on it to talk with clients. The best way to follow specific hashtags is to utilize social media tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, or others that allow you to create columns for certain keywords and phrases.
Utilize Trending Hashtags for Easy Advertising. No matter if you are on Twitter or Instagram, using trending hashtags for advertising is a great method. Most of the time, popular hashtags are to promote something but are always asking for others to engage. For example, on April 12th, Game of Thrones was promoting the show’s 5th season starting up. The way last season ended showed one of the three dragons still flying around the countryside, causing trouble for the people and Dany. Game of Thrones’official Twitter used this as a great way to advertise with #CatchDrogon, encouraging people to share gifs, images, or come up with clever tweets to catch the dragon. This was a great idea, and many fans participated. What made it even funnier was when businesses such as Arby’s joined in. This was a great way to advertise Arby’s by using a very popular hashtag. You can do something similar whether it is for a TV show, movie or just a random trending hashtag.
Create a List of Hashtags to Use for Your Strategy. Before you start a hashtag campaign, you might find it helpful to sit down and brainstorm a few ideas. This will help you focus on the keywords you want to use for Twitter and Instagram while also helping you keep a list of all the hashtags you think can work for your business. Do some research into your top keywords and also take some time to look at Twitter and Instagram to see which hashtags are trending, not just in your industry, but overall. You never know when you’ll be met with an excellent opportunity to advertise your business in a clever way.
Top Trending Hashtags of 2015, So Far
Using trendy keywords is a great way to get your posts out there to a wider audience that might not look at your industry keywords. Let’s look at some of the trendiest hashtags so far! #StarWars. This is the year of Star Wars. There will be a new movie, new game, and tons of new merchandise everywhere. During April 2015, the franchise held a convention called Star Wars Celebration. The convention worked with Twitter and anytime someone used a specific hashtag for Star Wars, new, little Emojis would pop up. It was pretty fun! #Sports. Whether it be #baseball, #basketball, #football or the #StanelyCup, sports take over the trendy hashtags each year. These hashtags are great to get in on with your promotional material, especially if you make it sports related. #Coachella. Coachella, the music festival of the hipsters, was in full swing in April, making it a trendy hashtag for everyone to use. It was used to highlight the festival, create advertisements using the hashtag, or even for a great discussion on issues such as cultural appropriation. The #Coachella tag and all of its subsequent ones had some intriguing aspects and discussions.
Everybody, Do the Hashtag Shuffle
Now that you know a bit more about hashtags for Twitter and Instagram, you should start doing the little dance known as the hashtag shuffle. Get to using them, and creating some excellent individual hashtags for your business. If you need help with social media or need keyword research to know the top ones to use for your website and social campaigns, then look no further. Express Writers is here to help with Twitter and other social media platforms, as well as providing excellent keyword research services. Which of these tips do you think will work the best for you and your business? Photo credit: PrismaIllustration / iStock
The digital age has introduced a number of advancements in the realm of communication. Never before in the history of mankind have people been able to connect so freely and easily to other people with similar interests.
However, this increased level of connectivity comes with a cost. Human beings’ ability to empathize with others and to make real, emotional connections tend to be compromised when they interact over a digital platform.
Even though they can speak to another person miles away, face to face contact has a certain “human element” that digital connectivity lacks.
In this brave, new world, is it harder to connect with customers?
The Rise of the Internet
In the late eighties and early nineties, when desktop computers were still novelties and connections between them were limited to dial-up speeds at best, human interaction was still the default method of communication. Phones provided means of communication over large distances and allowed for a certain level of abstraction between the callers, but the voices was still an organic way for the users to connect. All that changed when the Internet spread all over the world.
By granting access to applications like instant messaging and chat rooms, the Internet provided a means of escape that was completely new. It allowed one to create a persona completely out of whole cloth that may or may not represent who you are as a person. With these abilities came the increased cynicism and doubt that would naturally follow when the only thing you know about a person is based on what that person tells you. This doubt is what makes communication in the digital age so difficult.
Making a Connection
The primary aim of marketing content is to create a connection between you and the buyer. This connection may vary depending on the audience and what approach you have towards developing it. On the whole, your content should reflect what you want your buyer to think about your product. What the buyer thinks is of the utmost importance, because it is what will inform his or her final decision on a purchase.
In the twenty-first century, making a connection is a lot more difficult because of the attitudes that have been developed through the years of the Internet’s dominance in the realm of communication. People are no longer as trusting as they used to be. In addition to this, the vast amounts of quick information coupled with high-speed connections have reduced the average user’s attention span. It’s one thing to try to make a connection with a potential buyer that already doesn’t trust you, but having to do so in a fraction of a minute seems like a Sisyphean task.
The Development of New Storytelling Techniques
Traditional storytelling was how marketers used to connect to their potential buyers in the past. By presenting a story that followed the arc of a hero, ending in a climax and sudden realization of the truth, pre-digital age marketers were able to grasp the attention of their clientele and have them relate to the story from an onlooker’s perspective. This traditional type of story arc has been thrown out the window in recent years because the audience doesn’t have time to empathize with people other than themselves. And so, to deal with this shift in priorities, we made the potential buyer the protagonist.
What this did was create a connection between the audience and the product that was more tangible. It allowed the user to feel, to sense and to anticipate the product, so much so that it encouraged the user to buy it. It is because of the advances in technology that we have been able to do something like this.
Immersing a potential customer in your product is a lot easier when you have the processing power of a computer at your disposal. In this way, the digital age has made it possible to connect to users on a whole different level.
How Do We Deal with Information Overload?
In Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World” the society that he presents was faced with the problem of having too much information thrown at them. In the modern world, we have the same problem.
Developing a connection is important in getting past all the noise and making a genuine link to your audience.
Because of the impersonal nature of the Internet, making connections in this way raises your importance and therefore the importance of your message. Good content capitalizes on this and develops loyalty through continued interaction. This loyalty is how we can break out of the necessity of short-burst information that is likely to get lost in the surrounding clutter.
The keyword is easy. Make things easy for your consumer. Make sure your site is mobile friendly. Make sure people can sign up easily—in less than 10 steps. Make sure your blog is easy to get to and easy to read on all screens. Making things like these easily accessible to your customer in these simple ways can make huge differences in your potential buyer feeling overloaded or happy with your content. And, cultivating ongoing customer loyalty makes it easier to connect with customers and the digital age makes it simple to build customer loyalty.
How to Connect with Customers: Keys to Communication
As much as it has been said before, the way to connect with customers digitally is to understand their motivations. When you figure out what makes your potential buyers tick, you can leverage that to access their emotions and connect with them directly. Although the Internet has made it difficult to develop a connection through traditional methods, it has forced us as marketing professionals to find new and innovative ways to deal with this.
Social media, blogging, video ads and infographics provide us with ammunition that we can use to make that all-important breach in the impenetrable fortress that is the user’s emotional cache.
How we utilize these tools directly affects the success of our overall campaign and how well we are able to influence the customer’s final buying decision. Developing content that is riveting and engaging is important to making that connection. Create good content and you will reap the rewards of massive amounts of traffic.
Finally: Bridging The Gap
Developing content on your own can be difficult. Hiring a content production company gives you the opportunity to experience professionally produced content. Good content is the first step in making an emotional connection in the digital age to your audience. With a professionally developed content marketing strategy you can connect with the audience you want. Developing a proper rapport with your audience is a challenge you can overcome with the right content.
It’s set to affect the web on a larger scale than most of the other updates Google has made. And we’re already 24 hours into the Mobilegeddon. (At least the aftermath isn’t leaving the web broken and smoking.)
A year ago, Marketing Land reported that 60% of Internet users were on mobile. Today, this is even more true—and Google is finally forcing all website owners to clue in on the fact that they need to market to this audience on smaller screens. It’s actually for the benefit of all website owners. But those who don’t comply will get a penalty.
The Great Content Roundup, Week 10: What’s Happening Post Google’s Mobilegeddon?
BusinessInsider says the update is going to impact content marketing in general. “Google is always about content is king (content relevancy). But now, they are also telling us that user experience is just as crucial. What if people come to your site and can’t read it, on their mobile device?” –to paraphrase the CEO of Duda. Actually, that’s good thinking there, Google.
SEMRush took a very insightful look this week at Why Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update Isn’t The End of the World. This piece explores the top sites on the web and how mobile-friendly they are for users, as well as an insider’s chart into the top 100 websites with highest traffic and how they’re currently faring in terms of being mobile friendly. Also, they give you 10 tools to check mobile friendliness.
On 4/21, CNN posted 5 Fast Facts About Google’s Mobilegeddon. This recaps exactly what is going on with the mobile update in a simple list. Good to know if you didn’t already.
My guest blog on SearchEngineJournal, How To Write For Google’s Mobile Algorithm Update, recaps how you can create content that is easy for your visitors to read and, later, convert from. I take a look at creating shorter main page paragraphs, cutting down headline length, and content in general paired with mobile viewers. This is an easy takeaway list as we live on into the era of the Mobilegeddon.
USAToday published an attention-grabbing piece on why Mobilegeddon could be bad news for 40% of the web. I was shocked. There are so many sites out there that are not yet mobile, this included major restaurant chains, fashion exclusive Versace…and other big names. They will probably get with it very soon. Also: TechCrunch found that 44% of the Fortune 500 companies failed the mobile friendly test. Wow!
