Tag: content creation

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How non-profits can compete in today's digital age

For philanthropic and non-profit organizations, they are struggling. Funding is down and changing communication channels have made them increasingly irrelevant. However, in a recent op/ed in the Jewish Exponent, The Cline Group’s Josh Cline lays out several tips and suggestions for how to remain relevant.

Read the whole article here, but below are some highlights:

There is a crisis in the nonprofit world today as technological change and social media have become mainstream, and the financial crisis has wiped out the wealth of many organizations’ traditional donors.

Continued success requires new planning to reach key audiences. Proper planning pays off, especially when your large donors are spread too thin, and the digital divide means that the nonprofit may not have the knowledge to engage with the 20- to 45-year-old professional.

This is not your future challenge; this is today’s reality. While you may have a lofty history, a 25-year-old MBA is creating a new social startup with the cell phone because you are not reaching out or being relevant. To be successful today, you need to be where your audience is — or you will not be around tomorrow.

Instead of sending an e-mail or picking up the phone, people send messages on Facebook and post pictures on Twitter. When donating, it is done online or even with a cell phone. This is a fundamental shift in communication, yet too many Jewish organizations still see a static website as adequate.

What should organizations do to remain competitive? Here are a few tips:

  • Recognize the Seismic Shift in Communications. Print is dying, and content is moving to digital. The newspaper still exists; it has just moved from print to online.
  • Your Name Is Not Enough Anymore. Someone is creating a new social start-up that challenges your organization. Are you embracing it, or are threatened by it? The answer may determine whether you remain relevant.
  • Listen First. Successful organizations today listen to what their target audiences want — and then provide it.
  • Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse. Plan where you need to go in all core areas before implementing.
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5 Tips for Aspiring Digital Copywriters

The Cline Group is always looking for up-and-coming digital copywriters, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a new post on Mashable, 5 Tips for Aspiring Digital Copywriters. Ironically, the move to digital – and the growth of SEO, blogging, and content production – has actually made good writing all the more important.

What makes a good copywriter according to Mashable? How about:

1. WRITE!

Start writing! Whether a personal blog, volunteer to write for open source software and hardware (check out Sourceforge for a list of open, volunteer, positions), or develop a website.

According to Mashable:

“Being is a matter of doing. Runners run. Fighters fight. If you want to be a copywriter, do what a copywriter does,” advises Dylan Klymenko, junior copywriter at Mullen. “Concept ideas for this space you’re interested in. Write up scripts for video content and then shoot it, edit it and put it on YouTube (who knows? Maybe you can make being a viral celebrity your back-up career).”
“Or grab a buddy who knows code — concept and create a website that could win an FWA [Favourite Website Awards] award. The point is: don’t wait. No one is going to ask you to do it, and you don’t need anyone’s approval. Just jump right into the digital fray, get messy every single day and you’ll become through doing.”

2. Get Knowledge!

You need to know the product, your audience, and the space in which you are writing for. If you are writing about a non-profit, you need to know their audience, their field. Writing for a cancer research fund requires different specialized knowledge than selling an iPhone app. A software product? Do you know their material?

According to Mashable:

As far as knowing the product goes, George Tannenbaum, executive creative director at R/GA advises digital copywriters to “cultivate their curiosity.”

“Good writers know things. They find out interesting things out about products or services. Things that may be hidden on page 32 of a long brochure. Be curious about everything. Learn all you can about the product you’re working on. Go to the supermarket and talk to people who buy the product. Read the buff books. Use the product. Learn the language of the product,” says Tannenbaum.

3. Deal with Rejection

Nobody likes rejection, but we’ve all had to deal with it at one point or another. Particularly in a growing field, there are traditional types that may not understand the difference between print and digital copy. Don’t be afraid to challenge them, but at the end of the day, they may be the ones who control the paycheck.

4. Less is More

One of the most important tips in Strunk & White (you do know Strunk & White, right? You do want to be a writer) is to “Omit Needless Words.”

Did Strunk and Write understand writing for the web? Whether a computer screen, iPad, or mobile phone, scanning is preferred.

According to Mashable:

“‘Less is always more’ is good advice for pretty much any writing, but I think it’s particularly apposite when talking about digital copy,” says Lewis Raven, associate creative director at glue Isobar, an advertising agency specialising in digital creative work.

“It’s so, so easy for readers to get distracted online. If you make your point with precision and originality your reader will appreciate it. They might even follow your instruction to ‘click here’, ‘roll over’, or ‘buy now!’ Go on too long and they will be straight off to to watch skateboarding dogs on YouTube. I know I would be.”

“Remember, if people want to, there are lots of places they can go to read really good, long copy. It might be a newspaper or a favorite blog,” continues Raven. “It almost definitely won’t be a brand website.”

Eloise Smith, creative director at Euro RSCG London takes the less-is-more-online wisdom a step further by suggesting that people read copy differently online than they do offline, so advises “writing visually” as something to take into consideration when writing for the web.

“Online users view text rather than read it,” says Smith. “They scan, skim and scroll. Normally at high speed. Online text behaves differently from print – it’s clickable, scrollable, copyable and searchable. So part of a digital copywriter’s job is to visually guide the user through text.”

5. Write Well.

Not everyone can write but facility with the written word is essential in business and marketing.

“The principles of good writing remain the same, whatever sort of copywriter you are. Cliched metaphors, misplaced apostrophes and unnecessary jargon are just as depressing online as offline. Writing in a way your audience relates to is key to any good writing. If that means writing in a familiar, conversational manner and using the word ‘awesome’ a lot, so be it. Ultimately, to be a successful digital copywriter, you need to be a good copywriter in the first place,” concludes Smith.”

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The Brand of Me – Or How Journalism Is Changing

I frequently say that digital media and digital marketing is not about the tool. It’s not about Twitter or Facebook or YouTube. It’s about the fact that communication — and how people get their information — are changing.

People don’t get their information from the daily newspaper, get their local paper — if you’re lucky and live in a big city you get the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times or Chicago Tribune — or go out to the local store and purchase a newspaper and read whatever’s in their paper. Rarely pay attention to who the journalist is that wrote the piece. Or are lucky to read papers like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal with an amazing array of editorial writers.

In today’s digital age, people don’t look for news. News comes at them and to them — at an amazing, rapid rate. Millions of people are getting their news from links on Twitter – whether retweets or posts from their friends or network, celebrities like Ashton Kutcher with 4.8 million followers, corporate accounts, or news sites like CNN with over 3 million followers. Twitter is a news source.

People find out about what’s happening in the because they see a link posted on Facebook or Twitter. A recent study by some Korean researchers argued that Twitter is less like a social network and more like a news source; Twitter is the new CNN.

This was also discussed at Israel’s Com.Vention, the country’s largest annual Internet convention. At one of the sessions, with Robert Scoble, and several high tech executives, about digital content creation, it was mentioned by one of the speakers that today, because we get our information at us — and not dependent on any media outlet — journalists are dependent on their own personal brand. Instead of getting our news from a print newspaper, we read journalist’s — people who have credibility and write quality, regardless of what degree they have or what outlets they write —  blogs – whose links we found on Twitter or were shared on Facebook.

I apologize that the sound is not very good, as I took this video from my cell phone. Start at 2:00 in particular, where it talks about how journalism and content consumption and creation is changing, and especially at 3:00 where the speaker talks about the “Brand of Me.”

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How much time do you spend on inbound marketing?

As mentioned in the previous blog post about inbound marketing, one of the core tasks of inbound marketing is content creation.

The central component of inbound marketing is content creation. This could mean anything from writing a blog post, having posts and conversation on Twitter or another microblogging service, interacting on groups and pages on Facebook, or creating and administering a page on Facebook. Perhaps it’s creating a video cast or podcast. Content creation can be further narrowed down into two more categories:

  • Tasks that are initial and time-consuming but not ongoing. Examples might include creating a custom landing page, writing SEO metadata for your website and doing keyword research for your static pages. Writing static page web copy is another example. These tasks take a long time but then they stop. It may be a full time job for a month, but when you’re done, the time commitment lessens –  though it’s not totally over.
  • Community management – Writing frequent blog posts, responding to comments, commenting on other’s blogs, interacting and engaging with the twitterati, update your Facebook status, comment on linked in groups, etc.

Another important concern is data analysis. Sure, you have written copy for your website and have metadata. Yes, your Facebook page has a beautiful landing tab with conversion form. The design work is done. But is it doing its job? Are you doing A/B testing to test the effectiveness of your landing page? Are you using your analytics tools to track conversions? Are there new searches and keywords to consider optimizing for? A few hours a week need to be devoted to analyzing and constantly tweaking your content. Perhaps your website still says © 2005 – or worse. Have you updated this?

One of the core content hubs is a blog. A recent post by HubSpot on the fast evolution of SEO makes essential point both about the SEO and lead-generation benefits of blogging and on the time commitment that content creation takes.

What is the most important thing an SMB can do to improve organic traffic?

A Blog. Period.

Write content, have others write content and make it engaging and relevant, then the links will come. I Can’t even begin to tell you the potential here, if you are willing to engage for a few hours a week.

What’s the point? Content creation takes TIME!

The amount of time required in content creation is often underestimated. Yet, inbound marketing practioners say that the amount of time (remember, this is a general rule – it could take less or more time depending on your specific task) is at least two hours daily.

Chris Brogan writes (“How much time should I spend on social media?”) that “2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST efforts.” Matt Dickman of Fleishman-Hillard agrees (“The two hour minimum“) with Chris Brogan. He set the “two hour minimum per day” rule.

Two hours a day? Just to go update Facebook and go on Twitter and do all this unimportant social media stuff is TWO HOURS A DAY? Really? What do you do with the two hours? Chris Brogan and Matt Dickman divide it up differently but the core is: listen, listen some more, interact, engage!

This is how Chris Brogan divides up his time:

  • 1/4 for Listening – Start your day by listening and finding what the world is saying about you, your competitor, your marketplace, etc. Need help with listening? See grow bigger ears. In this space, I also count reading (reading other people’s blogs and other online materials).
  • 1/2 for Commenting/Communicating – Spend time commenting and replying back to people on the various channels where they reach you. If that’s Twitter, email, or wherever you hang out, fine. In the commenting timeframe, I also include sharing. Be sure to tweet links to great articles, use StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook share, and all the other various tools that help people find the good stuff. In Google reader, a simple SHIFT-S gives an article a whole lot of new potential fans. In here, I might also add the act of linking in and connecting with people on various networks.
  • 1/4 for Creating – Your efforts in content creation are every bit as important as your connectivity and communication. This might include blogging, making video or audio, creating email newsletters, and anything else you’re building to contribute something to the space. It might be posting those event photos in Flickr and on Facebook. Whatever it is, creating content of some kind should take up 1/4 of your social media efforts, as this is the way you get found. Search engines thrive on new content. Humans seek out new material. The more you can be helpful, the better your opportunities.

Dickard divides his time up similarly.

Listen – Check your feed reader, check your Google alerts, monitor Tweetdeck, do a Twitter search (unless you’ve added them into your reader), check Technorati (you never know), look at your commenting service (co.Comment/Backtype/etc.) to see who has replied to you. This isn’t a one-time thing, set a schedule through the day and check back for 5 minutes.

Engage – Monitor those conversations through the day and reply as close to realtime as you can. Overnight delays are common and (I think) accepted in most cases. During the workday, however, you can make more impact by replying within 2-4 hours. If you have a blog, write a post or at least brainstorm new ideas based on what you’re seeing.

Discover – Another part of the day should spawn from the listening and engagement phases. You should constantly look for new blogs, people on Twitter to follow, new relevant posts to comment on, etc.

How long do you spend on your inbound marketing tasks? How do you divide them up?

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Inbound Marketing – It's Not Just Social

What is digital marketing? Is it just social media marketing? NO! When looking at marketing today, a better way to look at things is to look at the old way of doing things — outbound marketing — and compare that with the new way: inbound marketing.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is NOT social media. Social media is one component of Inbound Marketing

How does inbound marketing differ from outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing is “traditional, old-style” marketing. It is:

  • Flyers
  • Sales calls (cold calling — you know, those annoying sales calls that always come at dinnertime!)
  • Junk mail
  • Anything that is directed out at you, that you didn’t seek out

Inbound marketing is about getting found by customers. It includes:

  • Creating videos that customers want to see
  • Writing blog posts and maintaining a blog that talks about subjects that people want to see, subscribe to, read, and interact and engage with
  • Participating in the conversation about your brand and its principals on microblogging and social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
  • Creating useful content that people want to read and engage with

There are three key components of inbound marketing. They are:

  • Content: This is the substance of any inbound marketing campaign
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This makes it easier for your potential customers to find your content. Today, content isn’t king but rather optimized content is king.
  • Social Media: Amplifies content

As you can see, social media’s sole purpose is to amplify and promote the optimized content that is being created in the first two components. Most of an inbound marketing campaign’s time should be spent on content creation and not sending content via social media. We will shortly post on how much time is required on a daily basis for anyone who wants to engage in inbound marketing.

According to HubSpot, “When your content is distributed across and discussed on networks of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic and nuanced, and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site”