This would explain the success Instagram has seen. In April of 2012, Instagram launched its app for Android. In less than one day, more than a million people downloaded the app, and in February 2013, less than three years after its launch, Instagram announced 100 million monthly users on all devices.

A business would have to be crazy not to take advantage of this opportunity, right? It would certainly explain the boom we’ve seen in brands hosting Instagram contests. I’m not a huge fan of the selfie phenomenon (more than 16 million photos have been tagged with #selfie — seriously),  but I see the opportunity it presents for brands to capitalize on.

Instagram and photo contests are genius. Social media contests allow brands to:

• make a personal connection with their customers;
• receive a ton of buzz and PR for the cost of giving away some merchandise, or in many instances, at no cost at all;
• build a loyal and engaged online community; and
• most importantly, drive sales.

So, do they work? I know I’ve started following a brand because I saw they were hosting a contest on Instagram, which later led to me buying a product from them. Have you?

Some businesses have had great success with Instagram campaigns, which they executed flawlessly.

T.J. Maxx

What’s better than showing off your fabulous new outfit? Bragging about the deal you got on it.

T.J. Maxx hosted a contest that encouraged its fans to “pick up a few amazing designer treasures for less on your next trip to T.J.Maxx, whip up a killer outfit, and Instagram or tweet your perfect spring look with the hashtag #MaxxStyle, and include the designer and price you paid for it.” Hello free advertising. They also allowed the option for participants to upload their photos directly to a campaign-specific tab on their Facebook page.

In addition to having their photo on the Facebook page, participants had the chance to win a $50 gift card each week ,or a $500 gift card each month if their “pic grabbed the attention of the public and T.J. Maxx’s official Style Scout fashion experts.”

Their secrets?

In addition to approximately $600 a month for gift cards and staff time (which is a very low-budget campaign), the company clearly invested some advertising budget with the popular fashion and lifestyle blog, Refinery29 — where our team at BlueGlass learned about this campaign. R29 posted an announcement with the tag “dedicated feature,” and you’ll notice the post is wrapped with T.J. Maxx banner ads. I’ve spotted T.J. Maxx’s Maxx Style in other sponsored posts on blogs such as Daily Disguise and Pop of Style, among others.

Those “Official T.J. Maxx Style Scouts” mentioned — well-known fashion bloggers, of course! Naturally, they’re going to share the contest and their involvement with their followers via blog posts and social media, and encourage them to participate. It’s a win-win-win situation. They also earned some press for the contest, including in New York Magazine.

T.J. Maxx knows their target audience — style-conscious women on a budget — and have found a way to not only reach them, but engage with them on a personal basis.

H&M, Refinery29, and Coachella

Talk about a branding trifecta. H&M partnered with Refinery29 for social media contests around Coachella in 2012 and 2013, and have seen success with both pre- and post-festival contests. Their 2013 contest was as simple as prompting followers to share photos of what they would wear to the festival, using the hashtag #HMCoachella on Instagram and Twitter, for the chance to win two passes. The contest judges were from Refinery29. Instagram alone hosted more than 2,750 submitted photos with the branded hashtag in less than a month.

 

 

According to a press release, National Architecture Week is a public awareness campaign from AIA dedicated to increasing attention to the role architects play as a force for positive change in our communities and to elevate the public’s appreciation of design. The intent of the contest was to showcase architects’ good designs and encourage architecture fans to share their thoughts and engage with like-minded professionals during the week. Within four days, more than 700 photos were uploaded to Instagram alone.

Their secrets?

They saw an opportunity to gain awareness of Architecture Week and tapped into a widely popular subject on Instagram. The hashtag #architecture has more than four million photos on Instagram. The organization recognized that their membership is very passionate about their careers and decided to use Instagram to bring them closer together. As “the voice of the architecture profession,” the organization saw a timely opportunity to create a bonding experience over a social network, while potentially gaining followers and awareness for the organization itself.

 

Even expert marketers make blunders from time to time. We’ve seen it happen, from tweets gone horribly wrong to Ashton Kutcher in brown face. No, really.

But sometimes content blunders are more subtle, and rather than leading to outrage, can simply lead to missed opportunities, and fewer customers. Next time you brainstorm a content strategy, keep your wits about you so the content you create is effective, and not ineffectual.

Mentioning “Social Media” Doesn’t Make Content Shareable

The power of social media is undeniable. People who discounted Twitter as a fad a few years ago no doubt had to eat their words as the social network celebrated its seventh anniversary. And no matter how many times Facebook changes its layout, its News Feed, or its privacy policy, it’s still the largest social network in the world with more than one billion users.

So it’s no surprise that marketers would want to capitalize on social media’s popularity and power to reach the masses. And it makes perfect sense to want to create content that people will be eager to share on one or all the social networks they belong to.

But here’s the thing — simply mentioning social media in your content doesn’t make it shareable.

You could write a hundred blog posts, articles, infographics, whatever, about how people use social media to do X, the evolution of social media, how social media has changed the marketing landscape, or how social media has affected social media. You could mention social media in every other sentence, or just in the title. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is — are you ready? — the quality of your content. I know, you’ve heard that one before, right? But I think some of us may have lost sight of what the quality part of quality content really means. It’s not just about correct grammar and spelling, although I’m a big believer in both. It’s writing things that people find interesting, surprising, infuriating, amusing, educational, or just fun. It’s making your readers feel something.

That is how you get people to share your content on Twitter, Facebook, and Digg (you know, when you can actually find it).

And have you heard this before too? Yes. I’ve even said it here before. But no matter how many times it’s repeated, there are still marketers out there trying to force sharing by tacking the words “social media” onto every piece of content they create. It may work a time or two, but readers will quickly get wise to the tactic, and then good luck getting anyone to take your content seriously.

Forget the shortcuts. Do the work. Create good content, and the shares will follow. Social media is important, but it’s not everything.

Targeting the Wrong Audience is Easy — And All Too Common

I’ve noticed a lot of advice posts will tell you that you should be doing something, but they don’t tell you how to do it. When people write about creating content, they tell you to gear your content toward your audience. Again, I’ve said the same thing myself. Sometimes you can learn how to do something by acknowledging what not to do. And when it comes to targeting your audience, what you don’t want to do is assign the wrong persona to your reader.

For example, say you’re creating content for a client who sells cars. Their goal, then, is to sell cars, and to get potential buyers interested in the cars they sell.

Before you begin creating that content, you must ask yourself, what does that potential buyer want to know?

If you don’t put yourself in the audience’s shoes, you run the risk of completely missing the mark with your content. The success of the client’s last social media campaign may be interesting to you as a marketer, and it’ll probably be interesting to other marketers, and maybe to other businesses who also sell cars and want to know how they can reach more people.

But to the potential car buyer? Not so much.

Think about it — when you’ve bought a car in the past, did you care about the car manufacturer’s latest ad campaign? Sure, a commercial might have gotten you into the dealership, but it was most likely because it mentioned things like mileage, features, and dealer incentives. Those are the things car buyers care about.

The number of people who saw an ad, or retweeted it, or shared it on Facebook is immaterial to the decision to buy a car. That doesn’t get you better mileage, a lower APR on your loan, or any kind of reduction in price.

So don’t create that content as a marketer — create it as a consumer. What helps you decide to buy a car, or whatever product or service your client provides? What’s important to you when making that decision? That’s what your content needs to cover. Leave the marketing case studies for your corporate blogs and conference presentations.

Creating Just Another Ad Can Backfire

Make no mistake — content marketing is a form of advertising. But content marketing is very different from traditional advertising, not only in format, but in engagement and results.

The biggest content marketing blunder you can make is to forget your medium and create just another ad.

Traditional marketing and advertising have always been a one-way street. Television commercials, newspapers ads, or mailbox circulars only allow for outbound communication, and there is no definitive way for businesses to gauge the success — or failure — of their campaigns.

I get a lot of those flyers in my mailbox. I gotta be honest with you, most of them end up in the recycling bin. And I don’t know about you, but when I do watch TV (which isn’t very often), I mute it during commercials because, for the most part, they’re just annoying.

Advertisers have no way of knowing these things. They keep airing commercials and sending out circulars, hoping that their end-of-year sales figures will make all that time and expense worthwhile.

A huge advantage to content marketing is the immediacy of it. Want to know how many people your content reached? Take a look at your analytics to see how many page views it got. Check your social metrics to see how many Likes/shares/tweets it garnered. Check your social media monitoring tools to count up the retweets. Read the comments people left on the piece (and don’t forget to respond to them). Then you can check all those things against your sales and revenue to calculate, or at least estimate, the return on your content marketing investment.

Just don’t forget that in between all those metrics and formulae are the most essential part of your content marketing campaign: people.

If you want people to click your links, like your content, and buy your stuff, then you’d better be giving them some good content. Throw a traditional ad at them, and the comments you get will likely be less than complimentary.

And there’s the key. You want to build good will with your audience by giving them something of value, something they want to share. Try posting an ad on your Facebook wall, and watch the negative comments pile up. Your audience may share it, but it will probably be to point out how obtuse you are, or how you’re just trying to make a buck off them. Despite what you may have heard, bad publicity is just that — bad. Don’t create an online reputation management problem for yourself when you can just as easily create content people can use or will like, and earn their business organically.

Like many things, a lot of content marketing really comes down to common sense. But sometimes, we get so caught up in trying to do so many things, we can lose sight of the simplicity of what works.

And the simplest tactic of all, before you read hundreds of blog posts, spend a lot of money on research, and delve into complex analytics is to ask your audience what they want. The information is there for the taking. You just have to be willing to listen.

In just a few steps, you can create three different types of drop down lists in less than eight minutes:

• A simple drop down menu
• A combo box (Stay with me, it’s not as scary as it sounds.)
• A more advanced drop down list

Drop Down List with Data Validation

This technique is really best used when you need to enter in the data from a preset list of entries. For example, it’s possible to write a month in several ways: January, Jan, 1/2013, etc.

Before making your drop down, you need a reference list. I like to use a second sheet, then just hide that second tab later. I’ve seen other people put the reference list on the same tab, but I find that if you insert any columns or rows near that list, it can mess up the referencing.

After making a separate list of months (A4, A15), name the range. To do this, simply select your list and type a name in the dialogue box next to the formula bar.

After naming the range of cells, go back to the first sheet and select the list of values you want in the drop down list. Under the Data tab, find Data Validation. Select the option List, and then enter the source. This would be the range named months.

Annnd there you have it! All the months in a drop down list.

Form Control Combo Box Drop Down List

Skip to this in the video? (2:35)

Form Control drop down lists are more customizable than simple data validation. These boxes give you the option of overlaying a drop down box anywhere in the document. This form control will output the option selected in the box to any particular cell. You can also change the size of the box and the number of options viewable when selecting from the dropdown. (A quality not found in data validation.)

Before being able to work with Form Controls, you must activate the Developer tab. (We fancy, huh?) To do this, right-click on the Excel toolbar—also called the Ribbon—and select Customize the Ribbon. Locate the Developer option on the right hand list of Main Tabs. Select OK, and you’re good to go.

Next, you can move on to adding a Form Control Box. You do this by going to the Developer tab and selecting Insert > Form Controls > Combo Box. Make sure you don’t select the ActiveX Control Combo Box. We’ll get to that craziness later.

When you select the Combo Box, you will be given the option to drag out a box on your spreadsheet. I recommend making your Combo Box slightly larger than the cell you want to place it over. After placing the Combo Box, right-click on the box and select Format Control.

Pro Tip: Turning the Gridlines on before placing your box will help keep it looking proportionate to the other cells. Just remember to turn them back off!

Now we get to the really fun part. First, navigate to the Control tab in the Format Object box. Then, select your input range. Mosey on over to the cell link and select the cell that you placed your Combo Box over. This will allow you to output the source behind your Combo Box. So let’s say I were to select Google as the option in my box. Then the Combo Box would output the word, Google, in whatever cell I chose. Pretty cool.

Lastly, select the option Drop down lines, and change it to ten instead of the default, eight. This will allow you to see all the data validation options in one drop down without having to scroll. Alright! Now you are officially ready to move on the biggest of dogs, ActiveX controls.

ActiveX Control Combo Box

Skip to this in the video? (4:25)

ActiveX combo boxes are the most advanced drop down option in Excel. You not only have all the other advantages of data validation and Form Controls (custom size and change the number of options viewable). But you also have the option to change the color of the combo box and format the text. This can really add some pizazz to your spreadsheet.

You’re going to start this combo box similarly to how you started the simple data validation. This time you are going to name the Source range on Sheet 2. To do this, select the range (A19,A28) and then go into the dialogue box next to the formula bar and type in a name. (Keep in mind you can’t use any spaces or special characters when naming a range.)

Under the Developer tab, select Insert > ActiveX Controls > Combo Box. Selecting Design Mode allows you to edit ActiveX controls. Without it selected, you cannot right click on or edit your combo box.

With Design Mode selected, right click on the combo box you just drew and select Properties. A very intimidating dialog box will appear. But stay with me on this one—it’s easier than it looks. First, locate the option ListFillRange and type in the name of the range. Then go to LinkedCell and type in the cell you want the output to go to.

You also have the ability to change the number of options viewed. Under ListRows, input the number of options you would like to see. I love ActiveX Controls because of all the formatting options. You can change the text color, typeface, and size for the drop down options. You can’t use these options with form controls or data validation.

When in Design Mode, right click on the ActiveX Combo box and select Properties. Then select BackColor to change the background color of the combo box. Then select ForeColor to change the color of the text.

Next, you can change the typeface and the size of your combo box’s text. Select the FontColor box and click on the ellipsis to open the text dialogue box. Once you’re finished formatting, select OK.

Now turn off Design Mode, and there you have it! You have now mastered three different types of Data Validation. I hope you find this helpful. Feel free to experiment with these options and figure out which one works best for you.

Bonus: Download this template and feel free to duplicate. Have questions? Leave them in the comments below!

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Our world moves fast. There seems to be a never ending quest to keep up with everything happening online today. And that’s before factoring in all of the communication that happens in one day alone! So how can you get more done each day with less time and more going on than ever before? What are some of the tools that can help you to maximize your productivity each day?

This was the question that I posed to some of my colleagues at BlueGlass. We have a vast array of personalities and thinkers, so not everyone can use the same tools to keep their lives in order. From these conversations, I have compiled a list of some of our favorite apps, programs and Chrome extensions that help us do our jobs better (or more efficiently) each day.

Email Organization and Tracking

Boomerang (Gmail)

One of the biggest challenges in the business world is keeping track of the hundreds of emails that fill an inbox each day. Whether you’re responding to the sender to ensure your message was understood, or reminding yourself to take another look at a task, email is an important part of the day. Boomerang is an extension that  many BlueGlassers use (and love). It is as easy as setting a reminder with a specific date and time to return the email to your inbox. If you plan to follow up with someone in 30 days, set your reminder for that day. It really is that simple — and incredibly effective.

Boomerang is also great if you want to send an email in the future. For example, if your  lead asked you to follow up with them in two months, you can schedule an email to send two months out. Do you have a weekly report to send when you are going to be out of town? Schedule it to be sent on the day and time of your choosing.

Cost: Free for the first 10 messages. $14.99 per month for Unlimited Message Credits

Tout

This user-friendly email management tool allows an individual to verify whether emails are being opened, and tracks the location of those opened emails in real-time. The Gmail extension also allows users to check the status of links clicked, schedule emails for specific dates and times, and save templates for frequently used emails.

Since a big part of everyone’s day involves email, it is important to make sure each effort is fully maximized. If we notice a pattern of emails not being opened, we are able to take a step back and fully assess which methods are — and are not — working. As a result, messages are tailored accordingly, and open and reply rates increase. This essential tool has allowed our team to make the most of email and concentrate on other aspects of work to be most productive.

Cost: 5 emails and 3 email templates per day are free; $30 a month will get you unlimited use of their service

Snooze

Holli Pickford, our Business Development and Event Coordinator for BlueGlass UK, uses this tool to remind herself about tasks and important emails she needs to revisit. When she is in the middle of a task and can’t stop to read a new email, she takes a quick look. Rather than having it disappear into her ‘read’ emails, she just hits the snooze button and receives a notification to remind her about it at the time and day of her choice.It helps her do a better job and fulfill every deliverable, because no email or task slips through the cracks.

Cost: Free

ActiveInbox

If you are looking for an app that provides maximum productivity and minimal distractions, look no further. ActiveInbox enables you to turn emails into tasks, organize emails and projects, review tasks at a later time, and that’s only the beginning. There are quite a few time-saving features. You are able to back up and sync preferences, set deadlines on email, and even review by that deadline. It is pretty amazing!

Cost: Free for basic or $25.95 a year for ActiveInbox Plus

Industry News and Information

Flipboard

This tool was recommended by a few members of our Outreach Team. Their favorite part of Flipboard is that it synchronizes their individual social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) with blogs, news sites, and general topics they are interested in. Everyday, it gives them “top news” they can scroll through quickly when busy at work. Not only does it help them learn the most popular headlines of the day, but they can also tweet any story they want with the simple click of a button.

It’s great because it helps the team share important stories via Twitter while crunched for time at work, and allows them to stay up-to-date with talking points for reporters and bloggers. It even serves as a valuable aid in ideation or brainstorming.

Cost: Free

Pocket

Pocket allows me to save articles and blog posts I’m interested in, and read them at a later date. Rather than just favoriting tweets I never read anyway, I just file the articles in my Pocket. I use the Chrome browser extension, so all I have to do is click on the icon in my toolbar to save it for reading later. If you have a large number of articles in your queue, no worries — the search feature is incredibly user-friendly and easy to use.

One of the best parts of Pocket is that all of the ads that filled up the original site are absent. There are fewer distractions, minimizing read time. There is also a mobile app, so you can queue up articles during the workday to read later that night or during your commute home (assuming, of course, that you are a passenger and not a driver).

Cost: Free

Pinboard 

Shannon Byrne, our Marketing Coordinator, uses Pinboard to keep track of stories that will help with research for blog posts, guests articles, or any content we produce. She also uses Pinboard for personal stuff like recipes, health and wellness stories, concert stuff (she is a self-proclaimed music junkie), etc. She tags stories with categories so she can easily revisit them later. It also serves as a great alternative to a search engine — you can search a topic and browse other user’s pins. Most importantly, she uses it for collaboration with fellow members of the Marketing Team, frequently browsing colleague’s pins for ideas and information.

Cost: $10.04 (one-time fee)

Email this Page (by Google)

The quick click of a button can be an incredibly valuable tool when there is a lot to be done, and for our CMO Chris Winfield, this is a common occurrence. Email this page is an extension that is added directly to your toolbar. If you have a webpage you want to share, highlight it and click the mailbox icon. This will cause the portion of the article you are interested in to be emailed  through your default email client. It is simple, effective, and incredibly convenient.

Cost: Free

Task Management

Wunderlist

Wunderlist is an amazing tool to manage everything on your plate. It is a really great to-do list that allows you to create separate lists, add notes, set priority and deadline dates, share with team members, and more. It syncs across all devices for free, and also has a desktop version. You can set recurring tasks so that nothing is ever missed or forgotten. Our Strategy Team finds this app great for on-the-fly action items.

Cost: Free 

Remember the Milk 

This is another task management application that is very simple. You can set your task with a specific due date or as a recurring task with tags, time estimates, and more. I like this application because it helps keep my day organized. Each morning, I write a to-do list of items I need to accomplish. This extension sits on the same screen as my email, so I am able to sift through recent email and create my to-do list. I can also check items off as soon as I send something or receive an email that helps me accomplish my tasks. This tool is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play store, so everything you need to accomplish is right at your fingertips.

Cost: Free for everything I use it for; there’s an option to upgrade to a PRO account for $25 a year (but I really don’t think it is necessary)

Midnight Inbox

This full GTD (Getting Things Done) system works as a an app for the desktop, the iPad, and the iPhone, and was highly recommended by our Strategy Team. Its feature set is quite extensive, and the app handles workflow from start to finish. This isn’t used by our team quite as regularly, but when there are big projects, it helps to prioritize action items and make sure all information is available throughout the process.

Cost: Ipad – $9.99, iPhone – $4.99, Midnight Inbox Classic – Free, Midnight Inbox version 2.0 – $19.99

Astrid Tasks

The interface is user-friendly and clutter free. Alex Coffey, our Intern, loves this app to track everything she has going on across all of our departments — which is A LOT! She uses it to track tasks and increase overall productivity while eliminating the stress of forgetting what needs to be done next. Astrid makes it easy to ask for help, delegate and share lists requiring feedback.

Cost: Free

Any.Do

Amy Do, one of our Account Managers who always uses both a notebook and an excel spreadsheet for her to-do list, thinks Any.Do is a life saver — and not just because it looks a lot like her name! Any.Do is available as both a Chrome extension and an iOS app; it syncs your to-do list with reminders to keep on task. The best feature is being able to turn your emails into tasks with an Any.Do “What’s Next” task button. The email is even saved in the to-do list so you don’t have to search for it. Amazing!

Cost: Free

Notes and Organization

Evernote

I live and breath Evernote. It is actually how I compiled this blog post before uploading it into WordPress. Think of it as your Five Star® binder (yes, I was a child of the 80′s) that keeps everything together. Inside, you have your notebooks for all of your different subjects (or in this case, clients). The notebooks are all sorted according to your preference, making them easy to reference later. You can sort by date created, date updated, source, size of note, etc. It also works with pretty much every computer, phone, and mobile device on the market.

If you are looking for a certain note that you can’t seem to find, don’t worry — everything is searchable by keyword, as well as by tag. It is a cinch to stay organized, capture meeting notes, set up action items, store important screenshots and information, and share important notes with the team. Need I say more?

Cost: Free

Powerbot

Speaking of Evernote, what do you do once you have made the notebook for a specific client? You can use Powerbot to send it to your peers. The app can attach the notebook to your email, archive to Evernote once sent, or save an email thread directly to Evernote once it has been read.

Cost: Free

Rapportive

If there is one extension that BlueGlassers use over any other, it’s Rapportive. This app shows your contacts’ social media presence right inside your inbox, along with their picture and location. This is a great way to learn a little more about the interests of your contacts or clients through what they post on their social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, etc). This insight helps you get to know your client on another level and allows you to build a stronger relationship by creating conversations.

With clients and contacts all over the world, it’s also a nice reminder of their time zones and where they are and what may be going on in their neck of the woods. While I know a lot of this information off the top of my head, it’s a good reminder and really helps with personalizing emails and other communications. The more personal I can be with contacts, the better the relationships I can build with them.

Cost: Free

Resources

Next Meeting Lab 

This app is a favorite of Suzanne Reyes, a member of our Client Services team. It is located on the sidebar in Google Calendar, and allows the user to see upcoming meetings without actually clicking on the events within the calendar. Since Suzanne schedules all client calls, all team members’ calendars are listed on the calendar to advise her as to when our team is available. This creates quite a cluster, so the Next Meeting Lab offers a quick glance as to what is up next. 

To access this helpful tool, go to Google Calendar —> Settings —> Labs —> Next Meeting (Located towards the bottom of the Lab’s list). There are many other great tools on the Labs page as well if you are looking to spruce up your calendar.

Cost: Free

World Clock

This extension is quickly downloaded to the Chrome toolbar, and allows our team to see time zones all around the world. When planning events in other cities or trying to set up a call with another country, this tool is a lifesaver. We can set it to list the time zones we refer to the most (Pacific, Central, Eastern, Greenwich Mean Time for London, etc). This app is great because we have clients and employees located all over the world. This makes it easy to see when calls can be scheduled that will work with both our team and the client’s team.

Cost: Free

Awesome Screen Shot

This is another tool that does not go a day without use within our company. When you are trying to explain something to someone through email, I find it most helpful when you can actually see what is being discussed so no items are lost in translation. Awesome Screenshot helps you better communicate the whole picture of what’s happening through visual evidence. And it is pretty awesome for things like blog posts. ;)

Cost: Free

Personal Blocklist

Our entire Content Team uses this extension. When conducting research, it filters out Google noise they don’t want to see (for example Wikipedia or eHow). If a member of the team comes across sites they know they will never use or want to see, they block them as well. This extension helps the team find more accurate information from the right sources much more quickly.

Cost: Free

Procrastinator

This blocks access to selected websites during selected times of the day. So it forces users to focus on a single task at a time without too much distraction. No procrastinating around here!

Cost: Free

What are your favorite apps and extensions? Please share them in the comments below!

Additionally, events present an opportunity to meet people who could make a lasting impact on your business and even change your life. In 2011, Chris Winfield wrote about our conferences being, “a great way for us to get to know new people and to build stronger relationships with clients, partners, and form new ones.”

Most importantly, leveraging event opportunities can position your company and its employees as industry thought leaders. This is why we host our BlueGlassX events, and why we send Blueglassers to speak at conferences around the world.

I don’t write this post as one of those thought leaders, and I’ve never had a role in actually organizing one of these events. So you might be asking, “So what do you have to share?”

A Techie’s Point of View

Last year, I went to my first conference. I was doing video freelance work for a corporate event held at Disney, helping to set up the room and all of the equipment, run graphics and video, and break everything down at the end. I’m not saying I know all there is to know about event management or speaking, and I obviously haven’t attended many conferences. However, I’ve been a fly on the wall, and I’ve seen equipment break, schedules get thrown off, and miscommunication create problems that could have been completely avoided.

By following these recommendations, event organizers, speakers, and attendees can create events that run more smoothly and provide an optimal visitor experience.

Organizers

Running a large-scale corporate event is a challenging task, and I have the utmost respect for those who are organized enough to plan out multiple days of an event to the minute. A few simple steps can make all the difference in helping your event go as planned.

1. Have a timer on stage, in the presenter’s line of vision.
Whether the audience can see the timer or not is a matter of preference, but the speakers should have one or more timers they can see no matter where they are onstage. I’ve seen presenters accidentally go over the time they were allotted because they forgot to check the timer on their laptop.

2. Have a way to communicate with presenters while they are onstage.
Having some sort of live communication system with presenters is essential to having an event run smoothly. The conference I worked at Disney had two TVs at the front of the stage; they displayed the timer for the speaker, gave the speaker a five-minute wrap-up warning, and allowed us to send them messages (e.g., “The next presenter is late. You can take five more minutes.”).

3. Provide free snacks and beverages throughout the day, even if meals are provided.
A little free caffeine and cookies can be the perfect fuel to re-boot your audience between meals. Fifteen minutes gives attendees a chance to stretch their legs and network, which could set your company apart as caring for its friends and clients. If your corporate event has multiple tracks, just putting out a quick snack between sessions could be just as effective.

4. Have someone live-blog and live-tweet your event.
It can be hard for people to wade through all the resources partially covering an event. If you have your own, attendees and other speakers will appreciate the recaps and be more likely to share them, giving your company even more visibility.

Speakers

I’ve never given a presentation for a corporate event before, but I’ve been one of the people left scrambling to reorganize when a speaker has thrown a monkey wrench into the work. Although a speaker doesn’t set out to mess up organizers’ plans, even innocent mistakes can lead to some pretty awkward moments — and potentially create tension for organizers, techies, other speakers, and attendees. A little careful preparation can help you avoid newbie mistakes.

5. Don’t go over your time.
If you don’t think you’ll get through your whole presentation in the time given, either modify it, or run through important points and provide a copy of the slides online for later reference. However, it’s best to give yourself extra time to avoid going over. I’ve also seen presenters talk about how much time they have left when they’re talking. It can be distracting. More polished presenters tend to not talk about their time. They just work within the time they have, regulating it as they go. I’m sure this is harder than experienced speakers make it look; I just know a polished presentation when I see it.

Event organizers work rigorously to prepare an event schedule. Even five extra minutes can throw off the rest of the day, especially if multiple speakers go over. Going over time results in another speaker having less time to speak, attendees having a shorter break, or the event running later than expected (and promised). Keep these things in mind when preparing your presentation.

6. Talk to the organizers before you present to ensure you have technical details down.
Make sure you know exactly how you are controlling the slides, how to work your microphone if you have one, when you should get wired up if you’ll be using a lapel mic, and how much time you have to present. I’ve seen remote controls for advancing presentation slides give speakers fits at events I’ve worked. None of the presenters were told where to point the clicker, so it worked about a third of the time they clicked it. The only speakers who didn’t have problems were the ones who came to us before they presented and asked what they could do to make sure the remote worked for them.

7. Contact corporate event organizers EARLY about giving a presentation.
If you are planning on pitching to speak at a conference in the upcoming year, you better get on it! A lot of conferences have a three-to-four-month lead time if you want to speak. Here’s a list of search and social conferences coming up in 2013.

Attendees

BlueGlassX in Tampa was the first corporate event I attended without working behind the scenes. You may think your job as an attendee is just to show up and learn things, but  it’s a prime opportunity to enhance your networking experience and keep you looking professional.

8. Live-tweet or live-blog the event you are attending.
These are some of the best ways to network and absorb a ton of information at a conference or event. I was live-tweeting at BlueGlassX, so it was my job to sit in all of the sessions, process the information, and tweet the greatest insights and quotes from speakers throughout the day. I gained more than a hundred followers in just two days, and the visibility I got from tweeting so much allowed me to network like crazy. It also forced me to pay attention, even if I was feeling a little sleepy after lunch or antsy at the end of the day.

9. Arrive to the sessions or events on time.
It can be really distracting for presenters and other attendees if you’re walking in late and setting up your station five minutes into a presentation. No matter how big the event, I know from past theater experience that the presenter’s eye will be drawn right to you.

10. Network and ask lots of questions.
If you’re attending a conference or corporate event, this is your time to learn. It can be easy to assume that your questions are stupid and that everyone else at the event already knows what you’re confused about. It’s been my observation that speakers actually like being asked questions about their presentations. It’s a great way to cut through awkwardness, and it’s rewarding for them that you want to know more about their area of expertise. If they’re speaking, they most likely enjoy teaching others. So cast aside your reservations and go after what you want to learn. After all, these events aren’t free.

Getting the most out of a corporate event takes dedication and a lot of hard work, but with the proper preparation, any event can be a great one.

What tips to do have for other event attendees, speakers, or organizers?

If you’re a content marketer and you want to know how to effectively engage your audience and hold their attention, I highly recommend you give the show a listen because “This American Life” and Ira Glass do both of those things like nobody’s business. How? They tell stories.

Storytelling is nothing new. From the Paleolithic paintings in the Lascaux Caves, to Egyptian hieroglyphs, to the first words written with ink and paper, people have been telling stories. Kids beg their parents for “just one more” story before bedtime. And despite all the predictions of doom and gloom for the publishing industry after the advent of the Internet, fiction publishing is alive and well, even if it has had to adapt to 21st-century sensibilities.

But how does storytelling fit into marketing? Why would you want to tell stories rather than just inform people about your products or services? Shouldn’t you just be trying to sell, rather than wasting time with stories? And just how do you tell stories, anyway?

I learned three important things from Ira Glass that evening, both about storytelling and about content marketing.

If It’s Interesting to You, It’ll be Interesting to Others

Throughout the evening, Glass played snippets of shows that had aired in the past, and discussed why they worked, and how people reacted to them. At one point, he played part of an interview of a woman who restocks vending machines on an aircraft carrier.

Now, you’re probably thinking, why on earth would anyone care about an interview with someone who maintains vending machines? Well, that may be true in any other context, but this woman, as I said, works on an aircraft carrier, so already, there’s a unique aspect to her story, a glimpse into a world we don’t often get to observe.

At one point during the interview, the reporter asks her about which items she has to stock most frequently, and she mentions the most popular items (Snickers and Starburst), and the items that seem to never need rotating (Bonkers fruit chews—I’d never even heard of those).

So how did such a seemingly boring question make it into the final version of the show? Because the interviewer found it fascinating. You can hear it in his voice. As the woman begins describing what goes fast, and how the Bonkers will stay in the machines — even when there’s nothing else in them – you can hear him laughing. He’s obviously delighted by this information.

Glass explained that he loves those kinds of interviews. The ones where the reporter, maybe just for a few minutes, stops being a reporter and just becomes a person interested in the world around them, interested in what other people do and why. And if the reporter finds it fascinating, chances are, someone else out there will, too.

And it is. Because I can relate. Snickers and Starburst? Heck, yeah. Those would probably be my first choice, too. Bonkers? What the heck are those?! No, thanks. So this interview, this unguarded, unplanned tangent into vending machine products, gave me a moment where I could relate to those men and women who serve on aircraft carriers, who do jobs so far removed from my own.

Everything you create won’t be interesting to everyone, every time. But if you can reach just a handful, even just one person, with something that’s important to you, something you think is important to share, you’ll have succeeded.

Just for a moment, stop trying to sell all the time, and share something of value. People appreciate valuable information, and whether you believe it or not, they do make note of where it came from, and they’ll definitely notice that you weren’t trying to shove a product in their face. Give it a shot. Don’t sell something; tell a story.

Be Invisible

At a couple of points during the evening, Glass took questions from the audience. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the question that prompted this answer, but I do remember the answer. Glass recommended another radio program — “99% Invisible.”

This show, hosted by Roman Mars (someone’s parents like Roman mythology), examines architecture and design, and highlights something about the design process you probably wouldn’t have known about otherwise — the invisible part of the finished product.

The overarching point is, when you look at an example of effective design, whether it’s a beautiful building, or a sleek website, you’re not supposed to notice the design. You’re not supposed to think, “Wow, look how that cornice is formed,” or “Gee, that’s a really clean user interface.” You’re supposed to appreciate the design, yes, but as a whole, for the way it makes you feel, not for its individual elements.

A good designer, digital or otherwise, makes everything seamless, so those elements don’t draw attention to themselves, and detract from the whole. This philosophy can also be applied to content creation.

One bit of advice I give quite often when editing is, “Show; don’t tell,” which is pretty much the textual equivalent of being 99% invisible. Obviously, people who read what you write will know it was written by someone, that it took time and effort, and didn’t just magically appear on a page.

The trick is to let the content shine, and to not draw attention to the structure. Phrases such as, “here is an example of” or “below you’ll see” or the dreaded “in this post” take the reader out of the piece, and remind them they’re reading a blog post, or an article, or an infographic. I feel it’s also a manner of talking down to the reader.

If you can smoothly transition from the point of your post into the examples that support it, you’ll get much closer to the reaction you want to elicit than saying, “Hey, reader, because I don’t think you’ll be able to tell what’s going on, I’m going to point out that I’m giving you examples now!”

When you’re reading a fiction book, do you ever see, “In this chapter, we’re going to see how the main character solves the big problem he’s facing.” No, of course not, because that’s not an effective way to tell a story, not to mention, no self-respecting publishing house would ever accept a manuscript written that way. So why would you write a blog post that way? Why would you point out “In this infographic…” when you know good and well the reader is looking right at your infographic, and can see the information without you pointing out that it’s there?

Instead, describe the action or ideas, using dynamic language that keeps your readers interested, and keeps them turning the pages.

Create a “Driveway Moment”

If you’re an NPR fan, you’re very familiar with the driveway moment. It’s the audio equivalent of a page-turner. You’re listening to something in your car on the way home from work, maybe, and just as you pull into your driveway, when normally you’d just get out of the car and go inside, the show creates a moment where you’re not sure what’s going to happen next, and you just have to hear how it ends. You sit in your driveway until it’s over, for the satisfaction of getting to the end of the story. “This American Life” constructs driveway moments like no other show on the radio.

That night on stage, Glass shared with us one such story, about a guy, his office manager’s nine-year-old daughter who would sometimes help out around the office, a little person, and crab walking. Yes, you read that right. Glass played the story up to this point:

…And so there’s this day when it’s early in the morning. I’ve arrived at the office. And I go into the bathroom. And when I come out of the bathroom, I have my glasses in my shirt pocket, rather than on my head.
And I look down this hallway and I see this small person walking towards me. And I then get down and start to crab walk towards her. So I go down on my haunches and put my hands up as if they’re claws and waddle towards her.

Here, Glass stopped the playback and said, “At this point, no one is turning off their radio.” And he’s right. Because we know even before the guy gets there that there has to be more to this story than him just joking around with a nine-year-old. There’d be no real story there. And not having his glasses on…that’s just asking for trouble. It’s the kind of foreshadowing that puts you on the edge of your seat, and makes you cringe at the same time, because you know something weird, bad, or just embarrassing is about to happen — and it does.

While no one’s going to be reading or looking at your content while they’re driving (at least, they shouldn’t be), you can still create that “driveway moment.” It’s about grabbing someone’s attention so that they stop whatever else they’re doing, and they take the time to truly absorb the information you’re offering. It’s about creating something that evokes an emotion, and maybe prompts the reader to comment on your content. If you can get someone to take time out of their day to not only read your content, but comment on it, you’re doing something right.

Just remember, that time you’re asking of your readers is precious and limited. We’re all busy, and we all have numerous things out there vying for our attention. And this is all the more reason to respect the reader, and give them something of value — to tell them a good story. Creating that kind of exchange, that immediacy, is part of the foundation of content marketing. If you can build that, you’re well on your way to success.

Are Panda and Penguin Related?

Looking back at Google’s algorithm updates over the last 12 months, I think we’re seeing a very similar trend:

1. Panda = penalising websites with thin or weak content
2. Penguin = penalising sites which have links from thin or weak content

When you think about Penguin and Panda updates in this way — in combination with the huge range of brand and social signals that Google are getting much better at reading and bringing into their algorithm — it becomes clear that human engagement and activity is starting to have a much greater impact on search results.

For example, here is an advert I saw in the London underground recently:

In my opinion, this type of advertising is genius. Firstly, it’s getting people to find out for themselves about the product from existing customers using third-party endorsements for honest reviews and showing that they are putting their money where their mouth is.

And secondly, Sonos are sending Google one the best messages you can: people are “talking” about their brand. We all know Google loves brands and they’re getting much better at reading the signs. So whether it’s branded anchor text or brand queries, Google knows there’s a popular brand behind this traffic increase, and maybe that brand deserves a bit more attention in the search engine result pages (SERPs) as a result.

That to me is the biggest shift — it’s now much more about building high quality links as a by-product of great content. Look at page authority in many ways, more than you would domain. If you have an active audience there, it’s relevant to readers or users; if no one reads it, that means no one cares – why should Google?

So how do you build a link profile that can compete at the very top of your market sector?

Think Ahead: 13 Steps to Building a Market Leading Link Strategy

I’ve broken down the process we take when looking at link modelling across our clients sites into 13 key steps. This doesn’t only apply to sites which have been hit by Penguin, we do this for everyone to ensure they are on the right track — turning your link profile into a goldmine and not a ticking time-bomb!

1) Change your mindset on metrics of link or site quality

Firstly, stop thinking like a link builder and start thinking like a Google engineer or a customer instead. Ask yourself this question:

Does my link provide value to the end user?

Good link building should be a natural by-product of great content. This means you need to think firstly about providing value to the end user, as opposed to what would Google think.

Google hates old-school link building, so if you’re thinking about them first, you’re still not really getting away from the problem.

Think about the important link metrics. That means forgetting about the search engine optimisation (SEO) metrics we are so used to for now — such as PageRank or Domain Authority — and start considering what really matters:

1. Traffic potential a link can send.
2. RSS subscribers of target audience.
3. Bounce rate of your content.
4. Average number of social shares or comments your blog generates per post.
5. Would the spam team like this link? Does it make Google look bad?

There’s often a re-education process involved in getting these metrics across to your client or boss, but it’s more important than ever that you focus on building the right links. In order to do this, you need to shift your mindset.

2) Identify if and when you’ve been hit by a penalty

If you think you’ve been hit by Penguin, the first thing you should do is to check Google Webmaster Tools for messages from Google to confirm if your suspicions are correct.

Following this, take a look at Google’s algorithm change history to figure out if a drop (or hopefully increase!) in traffic coincides with a Google algorithm update.

If you’ve been hit by Panda, I would recommend going back and analysing your content performance ratio as the first step. Figure out how much content you have indexed vs. pages which are generating search traffic.

If you’ve been hit by a Google Penguin penalty, use tools like PanguinTool.com to dig deeper and highlight what Google updates were rolled out at the time as a comparsion overlay against your organic traffic in Google Analyitcs; then continue working through the next stages of this post.

3) Download all of your links

Take an Excel dump of all of your links, I would suggest using Majestic for this. For example, we decided to analyse the online dating market and here’s what the profile looks like for the number-one site in the sector, Match.com:

4) Analyse your anchor text distribution (ATD%)

One of the biggest warning signs of a site that has been hit by Penguin is unnatural anchor text. What stands out the most to Google is a high percentage of anchor text using key “money terms.” People just don’t link like that, so a strong backlink profile needs to have a natural mix of anchor text across branded and non-branded terms.

If you’ve received a message from Google Webmaster Tools saying that your site has been penalised, there’s a good chance it’s a manual penalty and it’s phrase specific (as opposed to Panda, where your whole site’s content has been devalued).

It’s often a long way back from here, so you want to make sure you’re doing things the right way so you can get this lifted as soon as possible. But that doesn’t mean you should rush into removing or disavowing links or submitting reconsideration requests.

Our first step would be to analyse the anchor text distribution for the site, pinpointing the phrase(s) which have experienced a drop. Here’s the ATD% for Match.com as an example:

This shows a score of 0.061% for the keyword “online dating,” which is very healthy. We’ve found that anything between 0.05% and 0.1% is often the sweet-spot for sites with strong profiles. However, don’t just take our word for it, results vary a lot based on the market so make sure you do your research.

5) Dig Deeper Using SEO Tools for Excel

Using SEOTools for Excel allows you to use Regular Expressions in Excel. The idea behind using this tool would mean greater efficiency in helping you to better establish:

1. Branded vs. non branded anchor text distribution
2. Related keyword inclusion of keyword anchor text distribution

(For those that are not familiar with Regex, I would recommend reading these posts by Annie Cushing on regular expressions.)

This can help you quickly distinguish whether the keywords in the columns are branded or non-branded. For example, Match.com wouldn’t be too difficult a term to comprehend without filtering out the branded anchor texts. However, for a site like Plenty of Fish, there would be a range of alternate brand expressions such as:

• pof
• pof.com
• plentyoffish
• plenty of fish
• plenyoffish.com

With SEOTools, we can use the Regular Expressions to help us provide a formula of true or false:

By filtering out the brand related anchor text in the columns, you are able to effectively (and quickly) analyse and compare the anchor text distribution compared to that of your competitors:

Furthermore, anchor text can then be filtered to show key terms related to the anchor text.

From here, you can then start to build a much clearer picture of what the marketplace looks like and what the profiles of leading sites look like.

6) Analyse link volume vs. referring traffic

As you would analyse site indexing vs. traffic to pages, you’ll want to compare the volume of links vs. the number of links sending referring traffic.

In my opinion, one of the the most significant changes over the last 6-12 months is that Google has become much better at reading human engagement and audience signals behind content.

This means that Google is far more likely to pick up on any links they consider to have been built solely for SEO purposes and attribute more attention to content with high levels of human activity. Mashable, for example, is normally a good example of this, as they generate a large volume of social shares and comments for most published stories:

Again, forget about SEO for now and start thinking about what is most important: a link’s ability to drive traffic from a targeted audience. If a link is a by-product of great content, it has much more chance of being clicked by users, and as a result, valued by Google.

Analyse how much traffic is being sent from your links. For now, pretend that Google doesn’t exist and you’re building links like you’re back in 1997 — to generate traffic, leads, and sales. In doing this, it makes sense that you’d want to keep the ratio of link volume vs. links sending traffic high. If Google values brands as highly as we think – surely they’d do the same?

7) Analyse topical relevancy of links

Sometimes it can be too easy with Penguin updates to assume that the penalty is anchor-text related. Most reports are of over-anchor text optimisation, but I wouldn’t rule out other reasons and signs of unnatural links being hit too.

Beyond anchor text, another obvious sign that a link perhaps isn’t natural, is if it’s located on a completely unrelated site. That doesn’t mean for sure that it’s unnatural, but if a perfume site, for example, had a large percentage of ForEx links, it’s likely to stand out as unnatural.

We analyse the topical relevancy of links by assigning them each an ODP (Open Directory Project/DMOZ) category:

This way we can spot common trends across the market and if something looks like it shouldn’t be there, it probably shouldn’t. And if we can find it, I’m pretty sure Google can too.

8) Compare it against your competitors

Every market sector is different, so analyse your competitors and find out what a number one ranking site profile within your industry looks like. Hopefully it’s your own, but if it’s not, that’s what you want to replicate:

We’ve used our internal tools to compare all of the above stats — find out the average anchor text distribution (ATD) scores for your competitors vs. your own site.

9) Find out what a Number One site profile looks like

From your analysis, you should now have a clearer idea of what a number one site in your industry looks like. That’s your target — you want to be there. Additionally, there’s a lot you can learn about around why and how the top sites made it there.

Use tools like Link Detective to find out what types of links competitors have and start to build an action plan on how you can start to model your own link profile in a similar way.

Apply your own SEO knowledge and common sense here. You don’t want to replicate a bad domain’s link profile which is just about to get hit by the latest roll-out of Penguin. But generally, molding into a profile that fits with the market leaders is a good start.

10) Consider removing/disavowing links which don’t match your target audience

My first piece of advice here would be to use this with caution. You need to have done your research and really know what you are looking for before you start removing links.

The decision also depends on many factors, such as:

1. Your link profile
2. The market-leaders profiles
3. If you’ve been hit by a Penguin-related penalty

However, if you are in a position where you need to take action in order to clean-up your profile, I would recommend prioritising the high ATD% links you’ve highlighted during analysis, alongside the off-topic links which you consider to have been built for SEO purposes.

You can then begin to look for and remove these links from your profile. Personally, I would only consider using the Disavow Tool once all else has failed — if you can remove a link manually, remove it. If you can’t, that’s what the disavow tool is there for — but again, use with caution!

11) If hit by a manual penalty, file a re-inclusion request

Once you’ve been hit by a manual penalty, just fixing the issues is often not enough – you’re likely to need to submit a Google re-inclusion request to get the issue fully resolved.

This means you’ll need to identify why you’ve been hit initially. Google’s guidelines are pretty vague at the moment, but they will be improving this by providing specific examples of suspect links. It’s important that you document everything so you can show a record of any links you’ve removed and disclose the links you’ve paid for or think Google may be holding against you.

Once the manual penalty is applied, it’s rarely a quick fix to get this lifted, so you need to be as clear as possible and accept that it takes time and patience. If you’ve only just removed links, rather than assuming Google will manually check these for you, try waiting until they have been cached instead.

You may not get there the first time either. If it was easy to get a penalty lifted, that would encourage people to push their luck again next time; Google have purposely made the process tough. But once you’re out of Penguin, you’ll start to see rankings gradually starting to return.

We’ve found that the penalty is commonly phrase-specific (especially if anchor text related). Interestingly, once you remove links and are re-included, rankings often return back to a very similar level to where they were listed pre-penalty. This suggests that those links were having no real impact in the first place, but the penalty was more of a deterrent to prevent future link building activities of this nature.

This is very clever in my opinion. Previously, these type of links had no impact, which meant SEOs could build as many links as possible, in volume — they would either work or not, so the net result was usually an increase in rankings. It no longer works that way and Google has made this a far riskier strategy by better identifying paid or manipulated links and penalising sites for this activity.

This also makes Google’s job much easier, because they can cut down this activity by increasing the risk involved. So bear this in mind when submitting your re-inclusion request, Google wants to see that you understand what you’ve done wrong, you’ve made the effort to fix it, and that you won’t be doing it again.

12) Create a scalable content marketing strategy

Your main focus should be on creating an online buzz and building a natural link profile which reflects this. By focusing on high-quality content production and outreach, you can start strengthening your brand’s reputation and audience — and with that, comes links.

Look at the different types of content you can build into your strategy, for example:

• Infographics
• In-Depth Articles/Blog Posts
• Videos
• Kinetic Typography
• Interactive Infographics
• HTML5 content
• Quizzes
• Microsites/Communities
• Running Webinars/Events
• etc.

I spoke about this in more detail at SES London, it’s all about being awesome!

It doesn’t necessarily have to be harder either — just focus that effort you used to spend on creating 100 blog posts towards creating one outstanding content initiative instead.

That’s a much more interesting campaign for your team to work on internally. They can now focus on something they are really passionate about and then reap the rewards by naturally acquiring high-quality, targeted links that can build long-term and sustainable results.

13) Focus on audience & topical relevancy

Once you’ve built your content strategy into an editorial calendar, you’re almost good to go.

But before you start, if you think of Penguin as penalising links from weak and thin content, then it’s vitally important to consider the content placements you’re targeting in terms of audience and relevancy, as opposed to just looking at the strength of a site or domain.

Make sure that when your content is published, it’s generating human engagement and activity in the form of comments, social signals (shares, likes, G+’s, retweets) and natural links — the type of signals that only come from great content. From a natural link acquisition perspective, you want to be generating links which generate their own links and co-citations.

The example above shows that if you publish content on a publication URL, this should naturally start to generate links back to a) itself and b) the original source (your site). This is what naturally happens when you publish content on an actively engaged and relevant audience.

Without this, it’s a sign that your content isn’t highly valued by users — in which case, why should Google value it?

Key Takeaways

The main learnings I’ve taken away from this are that you should:

• Identity (and consider removing) links which have no value to users.
• Try to model the link profiles of the top sites within your sector.
• Create a scalable content marketing strategy to focus on audience and human engagement.

This is how we analyse Google Penguin updates and link profiles – it would be great to hear how you have approached this in the comments below.

I’ve observed a number of concerns among the paid search community, particularly around measurement, data collection, and campaign structuring. Advertisers and agencies have spent the last few years restructuring PPC (pay per click) accounts and heavily segmenting campaigns to allow for more granular targeting, budget allocation, reporting, and optimization strategy. Early in February 2013, Google launched Enhanced Campaigns and essentially told everyone to go back to the drawing board and start over.

Despite all of the initial concerns and worry this might actually be a good thing for search marketers and advertisers.

What Does This Mean for Advertisers?

In addition to tablet targeting merging with desktop targeting, Google is introducing vector-based bidding. Advertisers will be able to set maximum costs per click (CPCs) on mobile as a percentage of their maximum CPCs on desktop. They will also be able to direct mobile traffic to a different landing page. Tablet and operating system/original equipment manufacturer (OS/OEM) targeting are the only features they are truly phasing out.

So conceptually, this is not a fundamental shift in strategy. Tactically, however, the campaign structure will need to be revisited in order to achieve the same level of optimization and reporting capabilities. Advertisers should still have the ability to segregate mobile and desktop campaigns, but it will require a little creativity and a lot of restructuring.

Tablet is merging with desktop, and mobile targeting is evolving, but Enhanced Campaigns don’t stop there. Vector bidding will be extended to geo- and time-based targeting. If advertisers consider that local searches constitute 24% of Google queries (according to a Chitika study in October 2012), and that mobile search queries are highest after office hours, they could leverage the new geo-based, time-based, and mobile vector bidding features to bring their PPC campaigns to the next level of sophistication.

We can speculate that mobile CPCs will increase as a result of Google changing the rules of engagement once again, but only data can validate those assumptions. I am choosing to look on the bright side — Google is challenging advertisers to get on board with the “mobile movement” and revisit their overarching search engine marketing (SEM) strategy.

Mobile marketing is still a work in progress. Google has been advocating mobile for years, yet advertisers have been lagging in laying the foundation for their programs despite endless compelling arguments.

I have managed multiple global Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 SEM accounts over the past seven years, and none of them had a robust mobile environment (if they had one at all).

Google says just 33% of advertisers have mobile-optimized sites. eMarketer forecasts the number of mobile shoppers in the U.S. will represent 62% of digital shoppers in 2013. But 96% of consumers say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This means there is a clear disconnect. It also means there is a huge opportunity for the companies that get it right.

Has Google Really Shattered Planet PPC? 

The release of Enhanced Campaigns is hardly a disruption of best practices as we know them. Think of it more as an evolution, and maybe even a step in the right direction. It will require significant effort to prepare for the migration, and will undoubtedly complicate your optimization strategy, but those changes could also open the door to more dimensionalization of PPC campaigns. Personally, I’m glad that mobile (specifically), as well as targeting capabilities, are back on the SEM strategy table.

What do you think these changes mean for your business and your SEM strategy? Have you begun to put a new plan in place?

In reality, it’s just a fancy term for being nimble in reacting quickly to shifts in the market. As a marketer, have you ever thought about using a simple tool like Google Reader in helping you tackle the the concept of agile marketing?

Before you can apply a solution, you must identify the problem. So let’s take a look at some challenges you may face as a content marketer, and then discuss how you can use Google Reader to overcome them.

With Change, Can Come Speed Bumps

With content marketing, the idea is to create content, then measure its effectiveness to determine whether or not it was successful — whether it led to conversions, attracted new followers, built relationships, etc. You then have a model to work from and can leverage the content that did work in a variety of ways, thereby extending its shelf life.

Although this process is highly effective, may come across a few speed bumps in implementation, especially in a team environment.

Communication: A lack of communication among team members can cause a loss of information shared within a fast-paced environment. The stronger communication is within a team, the better their ability to act and react to market changes with greater speed and creativity.

Varying degrees of expertise: Each team member should have the same basic level of understanding of client businesses, competitors, stakeholders, and other influencers in the market. This is where teamwork and open communication, and breaking down of silos become invaluable.

Collaboration: A lack of collaboration between staff can cause holistic campaigns to be broken and to not be as unified as they could be.

The Million Pound Question: How?

How can we overcome the inevitable roadblocks that always seem to pop up? How do we move towards an integrated model that allows us to easily adapt to change and opportunity? It boils down to:

• Ditching the silos.
• Making sure everyone internally is on the same page.
• Supporting fellow staff members in different ways to get the best value.
• Looking at the big picture.
• Having a system in place in order to pinpoint your internal bottleneck problems and challenges.

Using Google Reader to Build an Agile Team

You may already know how to leverage Google Reader for guest post opportunities & blogger outreach. It turns out Google Reader can actually help your team become more agile.

Step 1: Ditch the Silos

First, look into integrating team members so that everyone is on the same page. You can use Google Reader as a central source of information where everyone can access the information easily.

Start by creating a new email account, preferably a Gmail account. For this in particular and moving forward, I recommend you start using the Chrome browser. One of the best things about Chrome is that you are able to have multiple profiles, making it easily accessible for all users, like below:

Step 2: Integrate the Team

Similar to if you were leveraging Google Reader for guest post opportunities and blogger outreach, begin by searching and gathering prospective blogs and social accounts that:

- belong to industry leaders within your local market
- are influential within the industry
- offer a selection of industry-leading competitor blogs
- include high profile Twitter accounts to follow. (this could be companies, real people, or both)

Once you have identified the sites and profiles, add them to Google Reader:

Essentially, the RSS feeds you have found are now a knowledge pool for your team to refer to.

Organise Your Feeds

Start by thinking about which blogs would be relevant to which parts of your team. Create labels that reflect the right team members.

For example, if you work in a digital marketing environment, this post “A Big ol’ List of Online Marketing Blogs” (thank you to @wayneb77 and @s_rvll- good find!) are great sources, and places to start sorting out folders in the following categories:

What you have now is a Google Reader account that is shareable and can be updated by your team. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and has access to the same level of learning.

Step 3: Support Your Team

Ultimately, creating a pool of knowledge accessible to all will lead to the opportunity for your team members to share news and help each other in two ways:

First, they can send interesting blog posts simply via Google Reader:

However, to make things more useful, it would be ideal to send the emails to contact groups rather than individuals (this would have to be configured internally your end). For example:

• searchteam@madeupdigitalcompany.com
• analyticsteam@madeupdigitalcompany.com
• socialmediateam@madeupdigitalcompany.com

So you might send the email like this:

Hello Analytics Team,

I came across this post last night, and thought you guys might find it useful:

http://analytics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dashboards-advanced-segments-and-custom.html

Maybe this could work well as blog post as to help guide people how to create custom social sharing report or publisher dashboard?

Warm Regards

Pak Hou
Content Outreach Specialist, BlueGlass UK

Second, you can use iffft to make different recipes for Google Reader. For example, when items are starred, the items will be sent to your email address as shown below:

How Will Your Team Benefit?

Using Google Reader in this manner will not only help your team become more agile, it will help them become a more cohesive team. Increased efficiency and communication also make for a productive work environment. Put all that together, and you’ll see improvements in how your team functions, which can also mean an increase to your bottom line.