The Gong Blog

Topic: Video

Crystal Ball: Video trends to keep an eye on in 2018

As I write this, I have to question if you’ll even read anything after this sentence. At best, you may skim the subheads, seeing if there is anything that jumps out at you. But if not, I’ve lost you – maybe for good, most likely because you’ve got to read this and not just watch. Cisco projects that video traffic will account for 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021. Content consumers just aren’t reading anymore and marketers like us will have to…

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#AskJon: Is brand journalism only for big brands?

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…

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#AskJon: What is the difference between content marketing and brand journalism?

Marketers 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…

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#AskJon: How much does it cost to work with a PR firm?

So this is gonna be a bit self-serving, but I think it will be helpful to people who are considering working with a PR firm. We are just like any other professional services firm. We bill by the hour and we have hourly rates. So, the first way is, we bill you by the hour, with no limit. And, you hope that you’re getting a good value for that. And we know that we can bill as much as we need to over a period…

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#AskJon: What’s your stance on employee involvement on social media?

This is a really big thing for us and for our clients. And, what we say to our clients is, first of all, there needs to be an overarching strategy. And employees need to understand that they can’t go off willy-nilly and be tweeting or posting stuff on Facebook without going back to the main communications head and saying, “hey this is what I want to do,” and making sure it fits into the strategy. The second thing, and the most important thing, is use…

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#AskJon: What are some common mistakes people make when pitching the media?

So the first question is, “how do you pitch?” Are you emailing them, are you leaving phone messages, are you using social media? That usually sets you down a particular path. The first mistake people do when they do any of those is, they are too long-winded — they leave too-long messages, their emails are way too long and they wait too long to get to the point. Make sure in your first interaction with the media, whether it’s a subject line or the first…

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#AskJon: How do I look beyond the day-to-day of my marketing activities?

One of the things that’s very important is to look at your marketing or PR firm as a partner. And you get really down in the weeds on the day-in and day-out stuff with them. You have those daily calls, or monthly calls or meetings, and those are really designed to move the ball forward on an incremental basis. But, my suggestion is, meet with those firms twice a year, three times a year — block out three hours and really talk about the big…

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#AskJon: How do I develop a lead scoring system?

The first thing you need to understand is: what is lead scoring? Lead scoring is assigning points to interactions you have with the people that are in your email database. And, the best way to keep track of that, is to load your email database into a CRM system like HubSpot or Salesforce. Once you have that set up, you can assign a number of points to each interaction— like, every time they come back to one of your blog posts, or every time they…

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#AskJon: How can I make the business case for blogging to leadership? [VIDEO]

The 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…

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#AskJon: What should I know about working with a PR firm? [VIDEO]

The most important thing to know about working with a PR firm is that the world of PR and marketing, for the most part, is changing every day. And what you used to come to PR firms for, which is primarily media relations, internal communications and crisis communications, well you can still come to us for that, but you can come to us for a whole lot more. So content marketing, SEO/SEM, even the web — you can come to us for that. The most…

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#AskJon: I don’t know who my primary audience is. Where do I start?

You want to start marketing, but you know how to start. And, the first question, instead of asking what type of marketing you want to do, is to really ask who is your audience. And, the best way to find out who your audience is, is to talk to folks, both inside your organization and outside your organization, and then also existing customers. They’re going to be the ones that are going to give you the really good opportunities and give you the insights to…

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#AskJon: What do you make of the news that Facebook is pursuing original programming? [VIDEO]

So as a sports fan, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, because folks are very concerned about the future of ESPN given the fact that folks are leaving cable and satellite and going for over-the-top broadcasts. It’s natural that communities like Facebook, Twitter, I’m surprised LinkedIn hasn’t gotten involved yet, are getting into video in a number of different ways. But they have built communities. They have built in audiences, so it’s natural that content providers of all types, as well…

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