The Importance of Content in Internet Success

We had some great discussion surrounding the effectiveness of the Internet Marketing Success equation yesterday. There was one comment in which I wanted to discuss further because I feel it is extremely important.

Mike Seidle of IndyAssociates left a comment about content being involved in the Internet Marketing success equation.

Kyle, last I looked, content is pretty important. Of all the items you listed:

(data + software + skills + network)/time

Nothing has more effect on your denominator than does the creation of content. It’s time consuming, expensive and usually ignored at the price of things that are more fun – like software and network building.

I replied to him with:

@Mike In my opinion Content is involved in DATA. You need the content first and then the software and the skills.

I wanted to expound  upon the notion of content being involved in the 5 Steps to Marketing Success.

Content is involved as a subset of Data and Skills. Data could mean a variety of things depending on the strategy and tools you are using to reach internet marketing success. We will speak in terms of blogging. In blogging the Data you are gathering is two fold.

1. You are gathering data and information to write posts and gain more insight into certain topics.

2.  You are using tools like Google Analytics to measure traffic and visits.

The skills subset of the equation is also two fold:

1. The skills you gain over life through reading, learning, and experiencing are what give you the ability to write content. I am obsessed with social media. I immerse myself in it on a daily basis (data) and because of this, I have the ability to write content.

2. Skills also have to do with your ability to use the SOFTWARE and tools necessary to take the data and skills and apply them to an Internet marketing strategy.

The learning curve for skills, data, and software can be wide but there are always professionals out there that can help you with the process.

Read some blogs. Develop your skills. Use the free software. Strategize and Destroy the competition.

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5 Steps to Internet Marketing Success Not Four

I was reading Lorraine Ball’s blog over at Roundpeg.biz and she has a post called Four Steps to Internet Marketing Success which piggy backs off of a Hubspot post called 4 Components of a Successful Internet Marketing Strategy.

In the post they both talk about the concept of:
Data + Software + Skills + Network = Internet Marketing Success

The formula makes sense. You need all four components to realize marketing success. I couldn’t figure out how the time involvement fit into the equation. Time is THE most valuable asset to a marketer, small business owner, or entrepreneur when it comes to social media marketing.

In the Hubspot post it talk about time in the skills category but that didn’t make much sense to me. Skills and time are not related in my opinion. You can have all the skills in the world but if you do not make the time to use the data, tools, skills, and software… the 4 components are kind of a mute point.

A new equation could look something like this:

The new equation takes in the time aspect of social media and internet marketing success. You need to divide time evenly over the four tools of success. Time is the crucial element in this equation without time you have nothing.

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The Original Marketing: Word of Mouth: Then and Now

Why do we waste marketing money on things other than Experiential Marketing? Why is social media marketing being constantly ignored? I decided to hit up a video blog this time around. Enjoy.

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Email and Blogs: Ideas for Great Content

I was searching for some good concepts to write about tonight and I stumbled across Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware’s post about Blog Content ideas. He talks about using your sent and read email in your inbox as ideas for great content. Here is his example of a great content starter from a recent email he sent to a prospective client:

Trust that I’m going to hound you on this forever.  It’s for your own good    Data driven search marketing is the perfect compliment to email.   90% of all marketing dollars are spent on acquisition marketing…a place that email has limited value.   Search is the only acquisition strategy that is still growing in this environment and Compendium is the only software designed to legitimately target organic search on a  scale comparable to PPC.

You will be thanking me

I am always looking for ways to find great content to write about online. Let’s be honest with ourselves, we cannot thing up original content 24/7. Well.. unless you are Chris Brogan or Douglas Karr.

Other than using Google Alerts and Google Reader to start sifting through the massive amount of content on the web. I suggest using Chris’ idea and finding compelling content you have already written.

Imagine that. You have a wealth of information and content being created every day by your own fingertips!

Social Equity Is More Important than Financial Equity

I was surfing through some Gary Vaynerchuk videos and stumbled across this post from March 28, 2008: Legacy Is Greater Than Currency.

The video basically breaks down Gary’s thought on Financial decisions compared to legacy and social decisions. I have been debating internally about the concept of personal branding in the social media marketing realm and this video hits it right on the nose.

As an entrepreneur (and I think I speak for most) a legacy concept is much more important than the financial return a business may bring you. Let’s face it… the first five years of owning a company is pretty much scraping, unless you are a Mark Z, the creator of Facebook.

In the world of social media it is far more important to put emphasis on building your personal brand and personal equity than putting cash in your pocket. This has a lot to do with how you use social media. If you are a business owner and you are using social media as a marketing tool you CANNOT… let me repeat.

YOU CANNOT

Treat your friends and followers as financial equity. You will be eaten alive. I am saying this more towards the people who use Twitter Auto-Response or just write a blog for financial gain. Become a part of the community. Give back to the community. Join the race and enjoy the race.

In the end, you will find that will bring much more to your life than a new Infiniti or a Mercedes.

I am in business because I love what I do. I love everything about social media marketing and branding. If that means I need to make $20,000 a year for five years to truly build a company that helps people do what they love…

Sign me up.. over and over again.

Because in the end you will see far greater return in the long run both personally and professionally.

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Dear Levi 501: Thanks for Making Me Vomit

I am a huge fan of advertising. I follow advertising. I watch and read about advertising. The art of advertising is something that will never get old to me.

So, I am sitting on my couch watching Family Guy last night and this Levi 501 commercial comes on. I already have an idea that the commercial is completely sex charged. What I find is something a little beyond the lines of sex charged.

Please watch the commercial below.

Okay. I’m not really offended by the “sex sells” mantra of clothing advertising because it is pretty prevalent. This does not mean I agree with it, as much as I am just used to it.

This commercial is completely ridiculous for a number of reasons but most of all…

THE CHARACTERS/ACTORS LOOK PREPUBESCENT.

And for everyone that does not know what prepubescent means… We can safely say between the ages of 13 and 15.

Are you serious? Are you seriously coming out with an ad that shows two young (looking) individuals about to romp but SURPRISE they are actually just jumping off the side of a railing into the water…. surprise. What a GREAT joke!

Needless to say I threw up on myself.

If there were two older looking individuals I would have just been weirded out but this is absolutely ridiculous. I would have at least kept my food in my stomach.

Viral Marketing is last year. Enter Echo and Reverberate Marketing.

Boris Veldhujzen van Zanten from the Next Web has a great post called Forget Viral Marketing. It Is All About Reverberating Marketing! . I completely agree with his choice of HATING the term viral marketing. I have never been able to fully stomach the term “viral.” I understand the concept of spreading but Boris hits it right on the head when he says:

I never liked the term Viral Marketing. It just sounds like bad karma. Viruses are associated with diseases and death. Do you want to associate your product or service with that?

It also sounds too easy. All these marketeers being asked for, or offering, a quick ‘Viral Campaign’ by clients. That is like asking for a quick number one music hit or a quick successful start-up. Wishing for it doesn’t make it so.

He proposes to use the phrase Reverberate Marketing instead of Viral Marketing. I like the concept of Reverberation as an echo… spreading from individual to individual. You could also use the term Echo Marketing.

Echo and Reverberate Marketing has a lot to do with social media marketing. Whether you are a small business or corporate entity, we all strive to create a story that will be repeated (over and over again). Social media marketing is the one platform that allows for echo and viral marketing to happen.

How do you utilize social media to spread a story? How do you use blogging, facebook, linkedin, and Twitter to communicate with potential and current clients?

Do you Echo?

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