For mobile marketing best practices, I usually turn to Kim Dushinski, the Founder of the International Mobile Marketing Business Network, the premier trade association for mobile marketing entrepreneurs and professionals.

According to Kim, in Mobile Marketing there are 10 Rules, or Commandments as she calls it, that you should follow. They are:

1. Do not send Mobile Spam – spam is unwanted text messages.
2. Use QR Codes only for mobile action – The only type of device that can scan mobile action codes (like QR Codes, Microsoft Tags, Snap Tags, etc.) are mobile ones. Therefore, the destination of the QR Code absolutely must be MOBILE-FRIENDLY. Do not send a mobile code scanning visitor to a desktop size site.
3. Ensure your website is mobile friendly – you are getting mobile visitors to your website. Make sure you have a mobile friendly version when visitors arrive. Make sure your site works for your mobile visitors.
4. Only create a mobile app if there is a valid reason to do so – mobile websites and mobile apps serve a distinctly different function. Mobile websites are typically used when someone wants quick and easy information while in a mobile context. Mobile apps are downloaded onto phones and tablets when the end user plans on using the functionality of the app repeatedly. Therein lies the power of the mobile app. Repeat use.  The only reason you need to create a mobile app for your business is when you can provide a reason for your customers to want to use it again and again and again.
5. Market your mobile campaigns fully and accurately – Mobile marketing must integrate with your other marketing efforts in order for it to succeed. Robust marketing of your mobile marketing campaigns is required.
6. Mobilize your email – Make sure that any email you send is readable on their tiny screen because you never know which email will be opened there instead of on a full size monitor.
7. Do not ignore mobile, for your neighbor won’t – Just because you don’t send text messages or don’t use your phone to go online doesn’t mean that your customers don’t. The reality is that they do. And ignoring what your customers are doing is really just not smart.
8. Always provide RELEVANT VALUE – If you are expecting your customers to engage with you on the most personal media platform in their life, then you must make it worthwhile to them. Mobile marketing campaigns must keep the customers’ needs as the primary focus.
9. Obey the context in which your customers are interacting with you – Mobile phones are tiny powerful computers, yet you must not forget that their owners are in a mobile context while using them. They may be in a hurry trying to find a specific piece of information very quickly. Make it easy for them to do so.
10. Only use mobile when it is the right tool for the job – always ask yourself what mobile is adding to the equation. It should be clear that mobile makes it easier to accomplish the end result or provides quicker access to something.

To read the full article, go to the 10 Commandments of Mobile Marketing.

Social Media Examiner is known for its signature online summits like Social Media Success Summit and Facebook Success Summit. These events bring together the world’s top social media experts and entrepreneurs, and gather huge worldwide audiences.

But social media marketing doesn’t need to be strictly an online experience. There’s great value when you make those online relationships come alive in person. Now Social Media Examiner is bringing only the best presenters to its premier conference, Social Media Marketing World 2013.

It takes place in ‘America’s Finest City,’ San Diego, California! The 70 miles of pristine beaches, a dazzling array of world-class family attractions and wonderful weather all year will provide the backdrop for the mega-conference that will take place at the bay-front San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina on April 7, 8 and 9, 2013.

The conference is designed to inspire you with amazing content and empower you with the smartest social media marketing ideas and strategies.

Social Media Marketing World—an Exceptional Conference

Here are four other reasons why you should attend Social Media Marketing World 2013.

#1: Meet the Experts

Over the years, you’ve received advice from the top industry experts via blogs, podcasts, videos, webinars and Social Media Examiner’s online success summits.

Well, how would you like to finally meet the experts face to face?

All of the experts you’ve come to respect and admire will be in one place.

Presenters include Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, John Jantsch, Michael Stelzner, Dave Kerpen, Lee Odden, Jason Falls, Mark Schaefer, Mario Sundar, Cliff Ravenscraft, Jesse Stay, Joe Pulizzi, Ann Handley, Marcus Sheridan, Ric Dragon, Brian Carter, Amy Porterfield, Nichole Kelly, Derek Halpern, Pat Flynn and authorities from more than a dozen major brands including Sony, Zappos.com, AT&T, SAP, Intel, Cisco, Neutrogena and Salesforce.com, just to mention a few!

#2: In-Person Networking With Like-Minded Peers From Around the World

At Social Media Marketing World, you’ll make priceless professional connections that will last a lifetime.

One thousand marketers are coming to San Diego from all over the world. Attendees are already coming from Norway, Dubai, France, Australia, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, as well as all parts of the United States.

The networking environment will be a one-of-a-kind experience. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Structured networking after keynotes and lunch (so you don’t have to miss any training sessions) and a catered opening-night evening party at the historic San Diego Natural History Museum. Here you’ll tour the museum, enjoy food, drinks and entertainment, and of course network with your peers while surrounded by dinosaur relics!

2. On Monday night, prepare to set sail aboard the Inspiration Hornblower—the largest private yacht in Southern California for the exclusive San Diego Bay Networking Cruise.  Why not grab a drink and get to know some of the folks you’ve connected with online, as you take in the breath-taking views of San Diego from the open-air sky deck?

3. If you want a quiet place to sit and talk, or perhaps do some video interviews, the Networking Plaza will be available for you around the clock. This is a huge centrally located space that can hold hundreds of people and is equipped with round tables, computer charging stations and video filming stations. So anytime you want to do some serious networking, this space is available to you 24/7!

#3: Highly Valuable Content

Take in highly valuable and inspiring pitch-free content—a trademark of Social Media Examiner—from 49 expert-led marketing sessions covering social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

Here’s a quick glimpse of the amazing content you can expect at Social Media Marketing World 2013:

• Social Tactics Track: Find out the best and newest ways to market your business with social media. Pick up actionable tips to improve your marketing with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube.

• Social Strategy Track: Discover new strategies that will draw ideal customers to your business. Enjoy sessions on social strategy, the psychology of social media, measuring social activities, organizational transformation and much more.

• Community Management and Business-Building Track: Discover how to build communities and ultimately sell your products and services via social media. Track sessions include Facebook community management, developing community with blogs, building local businesses with social media and selling with social.

• Content Marketing Track: See how successful bloggers and podcasters build and maintain content that their customers love sharing. You’ll discover how to leverage content to sell, how to move people to action with content and tips for excelling with blogging and podcasting.

#4: Make it a Vacation

Social Media Marketing World starts Sunday evening on April 7 and extends through Tuesday, April 9, 2013. Why not stay a few extra days and make a vacation out of your trip?  If you really cannot travel that far, a Virtual Pass is also available.

Discover all that Social Media Marketing World has to offer

 One of the most difficult things to do when you are blogging, is to constantly come up with new ideas. Use one of the following methods to source ideas for writing on your blog.

#1 Read Newspapers and Magazines

When reading a magazine or newspaper it is often a better way to get a more detailed, detached perspective of current events and hot topics.

Take a few magazines and newspapers of choice and take notes as you read through them.

Look for topics that have the potential to be funny, exciting, useful, or controversial. And then use them to stimulate discussion on your blog.

#2 Use Keyword Tools

One way to understand your blog readers better is to find out what they look for on the Internet. You can do this by using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Using this tool, you can simply enter a word or phrase, such as “golf equipment” and the tool will return a massive list of related keywords, including such things as “golf umbrella” and “new golf clubs.”

Here, you’ve tens and maybe hundreds of keywords that you can easily turn into ideas!  You can also sort these results by the search volume they received, which will allow you to isolate the most popular keywords.

On top of finding popular topics, using keywords for blog post ideas, will improve the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) of your blog.

#3 Ask Your Readers

Your readers know what they want to read about more than anyone else. This is precisely why any attempt to generate new blog topics should begin with a frank discussion between you and your blog readers.

If you use WordPress or a blogging platform that permits it, consider using a plugin to conduct two different polls.

• The first poll should ask what direction readers would like your blog to move towards in the long run.
• The second should ask which topic they would like you to discuss in an upcoming feature piece. You might consider creating a new poll for the second question on a monthly basis.

 #4 Listen to your Readers

If you simply pay attention to the comments section on your blog, you will  yield all the information you need.

For example, was there a debate or number of questions in the comments section over one of your previous topics?  Pay attention to this by creating a second blog post on the topic.

#5 Lurk on Forums

By visiting forums regularly, you can generate great ideas for blog posts. When you’re on a forum, look specifically for hot topics.

For example, if a thread has received hundreds of replies and has remained at the top of the forum for a good period of time, there’s a good chance that it will be popular on your blog too.

Conclusion

Coming up with blog post ideas can be difficult. However, if you keep a list of places where you can reliably find good new ideas, tap into that as often as needed.

PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING POLL AND TELL ME WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ ABOUT:

I discovered this Infographic from Social Triggers.  This gives you some good best practices for writing the perfect blog post every time. Take note of the good structure and the placement of the Call to Actions.

Let me know in the comments what you think and if this could help you to craft better blog posts in future.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed for more tips and tools for Blogging!

2012 Internet Numbers

If you have used Online Marketing in your business the past few years, you will find the 2012 Internet Numbers very interesting.

I found this article about the number of Internet users, websites, email users, smart phones, tweets etc. from Pingdom.

I thought I would highlight a few numbers that really caught my attention and that would help to give you a better understanding of the Internet.

Email

•     2.2 billion – Number of email users worldwide.
•     144 billion – Total email traffic per day worldwide.
•     61% – Share of emails that were considered non-essential.
•     4.3 billion – Number of email clients worldwide in 2012.
•     35.6% – Usage share of the most popular email client, which was Mail for iOS.
•     425 million – Number of active Gmail users globally, making it the leading email provider worldwide.
•     68.8% – Percentage of all email traffic that was spam.
•     50.76% – Percentage of all spam that was about pharmaceuticals, the top category of all spam.
•     0.22% – Share of worldwide emails that comprised some form of phishing attack.

Web pages, websites, and web hosting

•     634 million – Number of websites (December).
•     51 million – Number of websites added during the year.
•     43% – Share of the top 1 million websites that are hosted in the U.S.
•     48% – Share of the the top 100 blogs that run WordPress.
•     75% – Share of the top 10,000 websites that are served by open source software.
•     59.4 million – Number of WordPress sites around the world.
•     3.5 billion – Number of webpages run by WordPress viewed each month.
•     37 billion –  Number of pageviews for Reddit.com in 2012.
•     35% – The average web page became this much larger during 2012.
•     4% – The average web page became this much slower to load during 2012.
•     191 million – Number of visitors to Google Sites, the number 1 web property in the U.S. in November.

Internet users

•     2.4 billion – Number of Internet users worldwide.
•     1.1 billion – Number of Internet users in Asia.
•     519 million – Number of Internet users in Europe.
•     274 million – Number of Internet users in North America.
•     255 million – Number of Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
•     167 million – Number of Internet users in Africa.
•     90 million – Number of Internet users in the Middle East.
•     24.3 million – Number of Internet users in Oceania / Australia.
•     565 million – Number of Internet users in China, more than any other country in the world.
•     42.1% – Internet penetration in China.

Social media

•     85,962 – Number of monthly posts by Facebook Pages in Brazil, making it the most active country on Facebook.
•     1 billion – Number of monthly active users on Facebook, passed in October.
•     47% – Percentage of Facebook users that are female.
•     40.5 years – Average age of a Facebook user.
•     2.7 billion – Number of likes on Facebook every day.
•     24.3% – Share of the top 10,000 websites that have Facebook integration.
•     200 million – Monthly active users on Twitter, passed in December.
•     819,000+ – Number of retweets of Barack Obama’s tweet “Four more years”, the most retweets ever.
•     327,452 – Number of tweets per minute when Barack Obama was re-elected, the most ever.
•     729,571 – Number of messages per minute when the Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo saw 2012 finish and 2013 start.
•     9.66 million – Number of tweets during the opening ceremony of the London 2012 olympics.
•     175 million – Average number of tweets sent every day throughout 2012.
•     37.3 years – Average age of a Twitter user.
•     307 – Number of tweets by the average Twitter user.
•     51 – Average number of followers per Twitter user.
•     163 billion – the number of tweets since Twitter started, passed in July.
•     123 – Number of heads of state that have a Twitter account.
•     187 million – Number of members on LinkedIn (September).
•     44.2 years – Average age of a Linkedin user.
•     135 million – Number of monthly active users on Google+.
•     5 billion – How many times per day the +1 button on Google+ is used.
•     20.8% – Usage share of HootSuite as a social media management tool among the world’s top 100 brands.

Mobile

•     1.1 billion – Number of global smartphone subscribers.
•     6.7 billion – Number of mobile subscriptions.
•     5 billion – Number of mobile phone users.
•     5.3 billion – Number of mobile handsets.
•     1.3 billion – Number of smartphones in use worldwide by end of 2012.
•     465 million – Number of Android smartphones sold in 2012, a 66% market share.
•     31% – Percentage of the U.S. Internet population that used a tablet or e-reader.
•     13% – Mobile share of global Internet traffic.
•     5 billion – Number of mobile broadband subscriptions.
•     1.3 exabytes – Estimated global mobile data traffic per month in 2012.
•     59% – Share of global mobile data traffic that was video.
•     500 megabytes – Amount of monthly data traffic consumed by the average smartphone.
•     504 kbps – The average mobile network connection speed globally (all handsets).
•     1,820 kbps – The average mobile network connection speed globally (smartphones)

Based on these numbers a few predictions that can be made with certainty are:

• we will be accessing the Internet more with mobile devices
• social media will play an increasingly important role in our lives, and
• we’ll rely even more on the Internet both privately as well as professionally.

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Go here to setup your own customised Online and Social Media Marketing Plan for your business!

As an entrepreneur you have a successful business, operating from a position of strength and you are respected in your market. You have an established marketing strategy for your business, but your website is old and ineffective.

You realise that you need to adjust your marketing strategy to integrate Online Marketing, as well as Social Media Marketing. But you don’t know where to start, because you don’t have the background and understanding of the latest trends and tools to use, or you believe it will take too long and you certainly don’t have the time.

The purpose of this article is to give you 6 simple steps to getting started with social media marketing, as well as giving you a recommended tool that you can use to integrate online marketing and social media marketing with your existing marketing strategy.

Here are 6 steps to getting started with social media marketing:

#1 Define the Goals of Your Social Media Strategy

Before starting a social media campaign, ask yourself a few questions.

• What do you want to achieve?
• Why are you investing time and money?
• How much are you willing to invest in social media?

Beginning with the end in mind is the key to success. An effective social media campaign can help establish your credibility, reach out to potential customers, and rank higher in the search engines.

#2 Set Up User Profiles for Your Business

Sign up on all the major social media sites. Start with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Create a Facebook fan page for your business. Write a short description of your company and include a link to your website in your bio. Keep your profile informative and friendly – don’t make it overly-promotional. Remember to include keywords you want to be found for in all your profiles.

#3 Engage with Like-Minded Professionals

Search for industry influencers and see how they use social media. Contact them, exchange ideas, and talk about new business opportunities. Share their posts and show interest in their work.

#4 Find Your Community

Find out where your customers/clients are hanging out and how they are spending their time. Use free tools like Twitter Search, Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, Facebook Search, etc. Think of social media as a cocktail party. You are there to mix, mingle, and make friends. Wherever you find your customers is where you should start investing your time and resources.

#5 Participate in Conversations

Social networks are an excellent way to promote your brand. It’s worth joining these sites, and finding people with similar interests to you. Add yourself to groups and communities that share common interests with your business. Understand your customers’ needs and participate in conversations.

#6 Measure Your Results

Set up the tools that you need to measure the results of your social media campaign. Define what your success criteria are. Be patient. Success will not happen overnight. At the beginning, establish a regular reporting process that could be done at the end of every week or month. Make use of analytics tools and adjust your strategy accordingly.

The tool that I recommend to help you create a well-researched, customised Online Marketing Plan in order to guide your company on how to market your products/services to your target market is called Marketing Strategy Profit Planner.

To help you achieve your desired results from online and social media marketing, it also includes a Social Media Strategy template and checklist.

Don’t delay, use the Marketing Strategy Profit Planner today to integrate online and social media marketing with your existing marketing plan.

One of the goals of a business blog could be to build a community. The question is how to go about building a community of fans on your blog?

Let’s discuss some ways to leverage from your blog community:

6 Tips for Building Community on Your Blog

#1 Comments

Blog comments are an obvious place to start and you should take full advantage of this powerful blog feature. How do you encourage more comments?

• Ask questions at the end of your post
• Interact with your readers by acknowledging their comments
• Answer questions that arise in the comments
• Set the tone you want and moderate comments if you’re getting a lot of spam
• Go one step further and check out your readers’ blogs and comment on their posts
• Be positive, encouraging and grateful for the time your reader took to share his/her time and thoughts with you

#2 Make it all about your reader

Most people don’t care that you’re an expert, but they want to know how you can solve their problems. Therefore:

• Focus on what your readers wants. Comments and feedback will give you a lot of clues.
• Answer reader questions. Post a form on your site soliciting questions.
• Post questions for discussion.
• Put the spotlight on your readers by featuring their questions or comments.
• Create a weekly roundup featuring links to your readers’ content (check out the Fetching Friday Resources Mashup on Kikolani.com for a great example)

#3 Make your content interactive

Everyone loves to share their opinion.

• Create polls with Polldaddy.com or Vizu.com
• Create a quiz
• Have contests and competitions

#4 Solicit guest posts and invite your audience to contribute content

• Articles
• Tutorials
• Gather a selection of tips on a subject
• Post images and request suggestions for captions

#5 Create action steps

While it’s nice to express your opinion on what and why your reader should do something, giving them action steps so they can immediately implement your advice helps build credibility with your audience and demonstrates that not only do you know what you’re talking about, they can be successful to if they apply what you teach.

• Give step by step homework
• Include a video tutorial
• Post an assignment that is related to your article and ask your readers to submit their results in the comments.

#6 Create more connection points with your fans and take your community off the blog.

Your audience spends time on social networks so do a poll (see #3) to find out where the majority spend their social time and engage with them there.

• Create a private forum (either paid or free)
• Publish a newsletter with different content (good for building your list!)
• Create a group(s) on your primary topic, on Facebook or LinkedIn

I trust that these tips will inspire you to actively use your blog to build a community around your brand.

Here are the blog community building action steps…

1. Pick one of the six tips to implement in the next week.
2. Focus on just one activity for the week. Don’t try to implement more than one tactic since you’ll want to be able to determine what results you get and focusing on one at a time will give your clearer feedback.
3. If you need a specific tool to implement the tip, then get it, install it, use it.

Take Action Now!

Please visit my Facebook Page: Integrated Communication Advisor and let me know how it’s going with building community on your blog!

At the beginning of a new year, it’s always interesting to reflect on 2012 and also to have a look at the predictions made for Social Media and Content Marketing for 2013.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, the following predictions were made for 2012 of which several became true:

• Google+ will become a force in 2012 – this is true as Google has become a major player after Facebook and Twitter with 500 million users.
• Video and mobile will finally both take center stage – this prediction has proven true if you think of the explosive growth of YouTube, smart phones and tablets in the past year.
• 2012 will be the year of integration; marketers were struggling to learn which social media sites worked best for different content pieces. Many integration tools and tactics have evolved to help with integrated communication marketing in 2012.
• Delivering content any which way that the audience wants it will be critical in 2012 – communicating with prospects and customers on the channel of their choice has become the mainstream approach for customer service in 2012.

Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2013

Now let’s have a look at some of the main Social Media and Content Marketing predictions for 2013 as sourced from the Content Marketing Institute.

Here are a few highlights of trends predicted by the experts:

‘the “Content Strategist” role will become an important part of the marketing department in more than just a handful of brands. Content strategy will be seen as an integral part of the marketing planning process’

Michael Brenner, Senior Director, Integrated Marketing and Content Strategy, SAP

‘2012 brought new roles like Content Marketing Director. These leaders are now accountable for maintaining and growing sustainable content marketing programs for their brand — with aggressive schedules for publishing and production. In 2013, I believe we will see more companies internalize production-level content marketing personnel, adding titles like Production Manager and Managing Editor to the organizational chart. That’s great news for displaced journalists’

Nate Riggs, Director of Social Business,  The Karcher Group

‘2013 will be the year of visuals. From Pinterest and Instagram to SlideShare and YouTube, visual appeal will rule content creation and curation. In an era of content overload, users will be looking for a fresh face and innovative presentation. Creative graphics, photos, and videos will capture imagination’

Joellyn Sargent, Principal, BrandSprout Advisors

‘Tablets, smartphones, and laptops make up the buyer’s multi-device ecosystem. In response to this companies need to cater for this by providing an optimal viewing experience: easy reading and navigation with minimum resizing, panning, or scrolling across a wide range of devices. Content needs to be structured in chunks that can be flowed into this architecture.’

Valeria Maltoni, Sr. Director of Strategy, Empathy Lab

To download the full Report of Predictions for 2013, click Social Media and Content Marketing predictions.

From my perspective I think companies cannot afford to continue to participate in Online Marketing in 2013 without a proper integrated Communication Strategy and Content Marketing Plan. Your marketing message needs to be tightly focused and aimed at the target audiences by using the channels where they prefer to hang out and making it easy for them to find you. Your content also needs to be educational, entertaining and always providing value.

In terms of going mobile, for 2013 I strongly recommend that companies should ensure that their websites/blogs/newsletters are mobile friendly for easy consumption by so many audience members who prefer to do everything on-the-go, instead of sitting in front of their computers. You cannot afford not to be found from mobile devices like smart phones or tablets or for your website to be difficult to navigate. This will only dilute your online marketing efforts and effectiveness. This is an easy situation to rectify in 2013 if you haven’t focused on mobile yet.

To enable my customers to create and implement their own customised integrated Online Marketing and Social Media Strategy Plan, I have released the Marketing Strategy Action Plan for 2013!

To leverage from Mobile Marketing I recommend a good book: “Everything you ever wanted to know about Mobile Marketing” to help you understand Mobile Marketing, or to go straight to the Mobile Marketing Activation Kit if you’re ready to start.

When you look at the Content Marketing and Social Media predictions for 2013 from the Content Marketing Institute, it is evident that Content Marketing will remain strong and grow even more pertinent in 2013. Content marketing will be an essential ingredient of your Marketing Plan for 2013.

To leverage from Content Marketing, I would like to recommend the Content Success Summit 2013 hosted by the Social Media Examiner. I have attended several of their online Summits before, and they always provide immense value with all the latest trends and recommendations from well-known experts.

Content Success Summit 2013 is a special online conference designed to help you master content marketing (brought to you by Social Media Examiner). Join Joe Pulizzi (co-author, Get Content Get Customers), Ann Handley (co-author, Content Rules), Michael Hyatt (author, Platform), Michael Stelzner (author, Launch), Amy Porterfield (co-author, Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies), Mark Schaefer (author, Return on Influence), as well as Lewis Howes (co-author, LinkedWorking), Derek Halpern (Social Triggers), Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income) and Marcus Sheridan (The Sales Lion)—just to mention a few.

Click here for sample class and to learn more: Content Success Summit 2013

Don’t delay, register today if you want to qualify for the 50% discount until 10 January 2013!

Thanks to WordPress’s flexibility and ease of use, many businesses and entrepreneurs have selected it as their platform for business blogging.

However, there are always some errors that slip in that could make you look silly or unprofessional. Use this Infographic from Copyblogger to understand the errors and how to avoid them.

Remember to comment and let me know what you think!

Like this infographic? Get more WordPress publishing content from Copyblogger.