The short answer to that question is no. Small brands and small organizations can be really good brand journalists, but you do have to ask yourself a couple of questions. Number one, do you have the time? Number two, do you have the content? And number three, do you have the manpower? It is a step beyond blogging or driving traffic to a website, or your website. It’s more creating an ongoing relationship with people and your potential customers to talk about brand and what…
Read MoreMarketers throw around phrases like brand journalism and content marketing almost interchangeably these days, but there is a definite difference between the two of them. Content marketing was born more in the b2b space, and it’s more about folks and companies giving out information, primarily custom information, like white papers or reports or offers. And those are designed to drive you to a landing page ask you to give them custom information about yourself, like email addresses and your job title. And, in exchange, you…
Read MoreThe value of the blog question. That’s something we get asked every day. Everybody is so fixated on their websites and their web copy, and that’s important, but remember, at the end of the day, the website is static. What a blog allows you to do is change your content on a regular basis, and then promote it as a way to get people to come to your website. So, the most important thing about the blog is not to be shy about sharing information…
Read MoreAmazon, Hulu, Netflix and now … Facebook. Yes, the news is out that Facebook is the latest to solicit Hollywood and other sources for original “TV” programming for the binge-watching crowd. This should not shock anyone. Video, both live and entertainment, is the future for all these platforms as they battle to become what the TV networks were to Americans in the late 20th century. While the over-the-top (OTT) providers like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and others lead with programming first to generate community, the social channels…
Read MoreSo we’ve been talking a lot about this at the Hodges Partnership, because we’re doing a lot of content, at various different levels, for clients. And one of the things that we see that stops up the content drain, so to speak, is the quest for perfection. So, I’m not saying that quality and quantity should be at odds. I’m not saying just pump it out for the sake of pumping it out. But, if you’re trying to be too perfect with your content, odds…
Read MoreProduct launches are the stuff marketing campaign dreams are made of. There are your typical campaign tactics—advertising, media relations and maybe even a tour du jour, as we like to call it at Hodges, where you take your product on the road for a series of launch events. But for a recent product launch, our client wanted to take a more educational, behind-the-scenes approach, one that leveraged the advantage of an owned platform to push out messaging. Tridium, a B2B IoT software technology company, was…
Read MoreSo, hooray, you’re starting to get emails in your email database, right? You have posted premium content behind a gate, you ask for names and email addresses, you’re so excited. So, of course, the first thing you’re going to do is send them an email and ask them for something. Wrong. What you really want to do is put together an entire strategy of once you get that email address what are you going to do after that. Can you put together a series of…
Read MoreMy affinity for live, streaming videos of baby animals began in 2013. It was a big year for babies. Bao Bao the Giant Panda debuted at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Lana, a cheetah at Richmond Metro Zoo, had a litter of five cubs. These live cams helped generate an awareness for the populations of these endangered species (and the zoos that care for them). Fast-forward to 2017 and the latest live-streamed animal phenomenon is April the Giraffe, the 15-year-old leggy lady at Animal…
Read MoreMillennials apparently have the same attention span as a…ooh, look at this cute video of cats dinging bells to get a treat! Adweek talked a bit about the longevity of live video viewing, and it looks like it’s here to stay – for now. In the article, Adweek mentions that Facebook users are 10x more likely to comment on a live video than on a static one. Not only is video important, but live in-the-moment video is what people are drawn to. I’m currently waiting…
Read MoreOwning a blog is one of the best ways a business can jump start its inbound marketing campaign—if it’s a good one. Brands that publish 15 or more posts a month see about 3.5 times more traffic than companies who choose not to, and it’s safe to say that with an increase in traffic often comes an increase in leads. It’s true. B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4 times as many leads than those that blogged only 4-5 times…
Read MoreAre you one of the 91% of businesses on social media? Probably so. Here’s an important question you may not have asked yourself: Should you make your employees part of your social comms strategy? There’s a good chance you’re thinking a definitive “no.” But there are two trends that may make you reconsider your answer. Employees don’t know what’s going on in the company In the early days of social media, most businesses took a strong anti-employee participation stance with their social strategy. The problem…
Read MoreYour current content program is working when it is generating the traffic or the leads that you set it out to do from the beginning. So, if your goal was more traffic to your website, or to certain pages on your website like your blog, and you’re seeing an increase in traffic, then it’s working. If your goal was to drive traffic to a specific offer, like a white paper, that people would download in exchange for names and email addresses, and that’s working, then…
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