Building Business Relationships
The focus of this article is on building business relationships.
This subject is an important one; after all, if we treasure our possessions, job, reputation, or authority more than our relationships, all of these aspects of our life will suffer.
I even advocate that the quality of our lives will be determined by the quality of our relationships.
Content Marketing StickinessI really like the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. I own both the book and the audio CD.
They go into detail about a framework that can be used to evaluate whether an idea is “sticky” or not.
Here are the six core parts of their framework:
This book is required reading if you create content to market your business. Here is a summary of the framework so that you can get an idea of how it can help verify your content ideas.
LinkedIn can be a valuable channel to help promote your online content. The significant aspect of this channel is that it is big (300+ million users) yet can still be specific (niche focused). This is what can make it a valuable content marketing channel. Let’s face it – we all need readers and to have the ability to have our niche-focused content read by our targeted niche is very valuable.
LinkedIn now allows members to publish (note it is permission based)!
You can think about LinkedIn as being the “facebook” for professionals. It is social media but with the starting point already being designed for and understood by professionals. This is not the “happening place” for teenagers or for people posting their vacation pics. This is the cool place for pros.
Today, companies use blogs in many creative ways. For many their blog is a key component of their online content marketing strategy.
This blog post will cover 5 simple tips to help you improve your blog.
Building a Powerful Link ProfileBack linking has become more difficult since Matt Cutts’s famous blog post on the use of guest posting to produce backlinks. He states in no uncertain terms that this is no longer acceptable. Therefore, this way of gaining backlinks is no longer effective.
Of course, this is due to the amount of abuse that guest blogging attracted. Many SEO experts were touting this way to generate links into your site. The resultant link profile did not look natural. It was not hard to figure out when most of the links came from blogs and even more obvious when they came from the comment section of blogs.
Here is some link building advice . . .
StorytellingThose who tell stories rule the world – Plato
Storytelling can improve the success of your project or your business initiative. A wonderful story can also promote your brand.
Many projects do not result in success because few take the time to develop a “storyline” to support the project or the initiative.
Also, I realize that many projects are not progressed because the idea is not worthy. However, this is a post about storytelling and the premise is that the idea is worthy but the story is lacking.
This is a post about how business storytelling created a successful result for multiple business parties.
SEO Tactics for SuccessEvery small business with an online presence has to deal with the issue of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Most, in my experience, need a bit of help understanding how good their competition is and what to do to gain position versus their competitors. There are seemingly endless articles on the subject. This can create a feeling of being overwhelmed. For many, the task of being found in search for keywords valuable to your business seems daunting and endless.
In truth, SEO is not rocket science. While it can be a complicated formula, there are very clear and effective ways to enhance your position in search. There are essential SEO tactics that are key to your success. They also provide the perfect foundation from which to build your SEO strategy and boost you above your competition.
Don’t let yourself become overwhelmed.
Educated yourself!
Online Marketing – There Is a High Cost to Blending InWhen it comes to marketing I see that many companies copy one another. Rather than trying to stand out they try to fit in. It is almost as if they are trying to blend in.
To be successful you need to understand your audience and then stand out from the crowd. There is a high cost to blending in.
My prior blog post (Content Marketing versus Advertising) stated that advertising has its place and helps your content marketing efforts. A clever ad attracts attention and gets someone to want to learn more.
A clever ad is retained longer.
Content Marketing or AdvertisingI teach classes on Content Marketing and I notice that people sometimes have a problem distinguishing between advertising and content marketing. I often explain that advertising and content marketing can work together. That advertising helps to make people aware and then if they want to dig in deeper then advertising can hand off to content marketing. Here is an examination of both advertising and content marketing.
Both have their place.