Writing about events you’re attending is a key part of any content marketing strategy. It puts you in a thought leadership position without a speaking gig, gets you exposure without the bill for a booth, and validates your expertise in the eyes of clients and prospects. Not to mention, conference or event organizers, speakers, and attendees are likely to read and share what you create, broadening your audience. And a bonus: original content gives you something other than “Glad to be here” to tweet on the event hashtag.

Of course, when you’re headed to a conference, you’re extra busy travelling and trying to keep up with work that’s not getting done while you’re away. Never fear: You can create content about an event even before you go.

Below are different types of content you can create before, during, or after an event. Pick a few that will be quick and easy to execute because of your particular skill set, plan ahead, and coordinate with team members who stayed behind to help make it happen.

1. Write about what you’re looking forward to. Why are you going? What sessions are can’t-miss? Write a quick post about what you’re most excited about, and your target audience—as well as any speakers you’re looking forward to meeting—will eat it up. Check out this post about Content Marketing World for an example.
2. Curate content about the event from around the web. Are other attendees creating content? Pull it all together in one post, and you’ll have major share candy for anyone included. For example, the organizers of Content Marketing World created this post.
3. Design an infographic about the conference. If you’re a designer, create a conference infographic. For a pre-event infographic, grab some data about conference speakers and attendees beforehand. Or if you’re feeling ambitious, create infographics about the conference as it’s going on, like JESS3 did at LeWeb ’11. Of course, you can wait until after the conference to create recap infographics, too.
4. Create a Twitter list of attendees and speakers. Add anyone who tweets on the event hashtag to a custom Twitter list of speakers and attendees. Event attendees will thank you for helping them find each other. For an example, check out the list our client Popper and Co made for TEDMED.
5. Live blog a session. Before the 2011 event, Content Marketing World organizers asked a bunch of bloggers to claim a session to “live blog.” For the post I wrote, I cheated a bit by writing the intro and outlining a structure beforehand. At the session, instead of taking notes, I created a blog post as I was listening. Then Content Marketing World’s team proofread and posted the content for me immediately after the session. Here’s the post, as an example.
6. Take live notes. If you’re a quick typist, try taking live notes at events. I do this a lot using Google Docs. My typo-ridden, but thorough, notes have gotten me lots of kudos and even a free t-shirt (thanks @jasonkeath!). Here’s notes from Social Fresh Baltimore, for an example. Tip: Change your Google Doc settings so anyone can edit and watch your typos magically disappear as readers make fixes.
7. Wrap up a session. If you’re not quite up to live blogging or note taking, take good notes privately and then turn them into a blog post a few days later. Here’s my wrap of @cc_chapman’s Social Fresh Baltimore presentation, as an example.
8. Expand on a session. Attend events that aren’t quite in your target audience’s niche? Write a post about how what you learned applies to your audience. For example, check out my social media marketing spin on Maryland Governor O’Malley’s Tweetup.
9. Collect takeaways. Instead of just wrapping up one session, recap your favorites from the whole event. Write about a few lessons you learned, and boom, there’s your post. Here’s an example, from Social Fresh Baltimore.
10. Take a short video of quotes from the crowd or a fun moment. Got a smart phone? Grab a vid. Ask attendees “What’s your biggest takeaway from today?” or capture a fun moment as it happens. For example, see @noordnrycherry‘s quick video of @nichole_kelly‘s antics at Social Fresh (warning, put your headphones before turning this on at work).
11. Create a LiveBinder. If you’re a born organizer, create a LiveBinder of online conference materials. With a LiveBinder, you can create tabs to house different types of content. Thanks to @kimbagreen for spreading the word about this cool tool—check out her binder for Social Fresh Baltimore.  

Remember: Creating content focused on events won’t pay off if no one knows about it. Tweet it, post it on the event’s Facebook or LinkedIn group, and/or simply shoot an email to the organizers and ask them to share.

Now, it’s your turn—how have you taken advantage of an event to fuel your content marketing efforts? Comment and add your ideas and input.

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Marketers can learn from this campaign, so I thought I’d break it down. This post is not a comment on feminism, or the meaning of the campaign. Rather, it’s a story about the strategy behind the campaign, which never could have been this successful with the technology available a decade ago.

Here’s how it worked:

Online and Offline Integration

The campaign was community driven from the start. The students collected photos of their classmates displaying their personal reasons for feminism—see below. They then turned the photos into posters, and distributed the posters all around campus. The posters, of course, had links to the Facebook page for the campaign, where the entire collection of images was uploaded.

Online Reactions

News of the campaign spread fast. The page launched on April 6th, and according to the group’s post, grew by 1500 fans on April 11th alone. The campaign spread to Tumblr and Twitter, and was covered by sites ranging from Mashable to FeministsIndia.

Yet with such a controversial topic, some of the discussions occurring on the group’s Facebook page were more contentious than constructive. Initially, the group allowed the debate to rage—personal attacks flying, counter arguments descending into insults.

Offline Reactions

From a marketing standpoint, this is what I find most interesting about this campaign. Not only was the campaign fielding controversy online, students were vandalizing posters around campus with very anti-feminist notes, such as “I Need Feminism Because Sandwiches Won’t Make Themselves.” See one of the pictures here.

The marketing takeaway: people can wreak havoc with your offline branding efforts too. You just might not notice it unless you happen to walk by.

Online Course Reversal

Initially, the students behind the campaign posted the vandalized posters on the Facebook page. However, the posters have now been removed. I can understand why—when I looked through the comments below the pictures of vandalized posters on the Facebook wall (I saw them when they were still up), the commentary was more juvenile insults than lively conversation.

Posting the vandalized pictures originally was the right move, because the vandalism gave the campaign legitimacy, and showed that there was indeed a battle to be fought.

Yet the way the students reversed course after the comments got too nasty was also smart (if somewhat hastily typed). They took down the vandalized posters from the page and posted the below message on the wall:

After this initial post, the students continuously posted about their comment policy, and now have an explanation of the comment policy in their “About Us,” as well as pinned to the top of the wall.

What You Can Learn From This

There are many lessons you can learn from this campaign as a marketer. Three quick main takeaways:

1. Sticking to offline marketing doesn’t mean your brand is safe.
2. Integrate online and offline marketing for maximum success.
3. Have a comment plan, and if you have a large audience, publicly post a comment policy.

Throwing it back to you—what do you think the Who Needs Feminism campaign did right? Could have done better? What lessons have you learned from their example?

Even if you’re not a confident writer, you can become one. You may never jump with joy at the thought of writing 40 pages of website copy, but writing quickly and effectively will help you when you write for the outside world (tweets, blog posts), and for internal use only (business plans, emails).

This post was sparked when a friend approached me: “Tracy,” she said, “I have a feeling my job is going to demand more writing soon. I’m just not good at writing! How do I improve?”

What a great question—and one writers of all levels should ask themselves. In answer, here’s some advice I live by:

1. Read. It’s simple. Reading makes you a better writer. As long as it’s written well, it really doesn’t matter what you read—Harry Potter, the morning paper, you name it. Reading will give you a sense for what’s elegant and what’s awkward—and you won’t have to diagram a single sentence. If you’re trying to write something specific, say a business plan or a resume, get your hands on some specific examples (ask Google, or a writer friend). The blank page will be less intimidating if you have a style and format to mimic.
2. Study “The Elements of Style.” Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” will reveal many new ways to write concisely and elegantly. You may want to modify some rules if you’re writing in an informal, personal style, but the basics are sound. My favorite advice from this little manual? “Omit needless words.”
3. Start with the way YOU naturally think. Don’t love writing? Would rather draw a chart? Great! If you’re dealing with a complex concept, organize your thoughts in the easiest way possible. For me, this is scribbling notes all over a piece of paper (real paper!). For an engineer, it might be mapping out precisely how ideas fit together with geometric shapes. For others, it may be making an outline on PowerPoint and moving the slides around until you get the best order. The actual writing will be much easier if you’ve already organized your ideas.
4. Write $**tty first drafts. Writer’s block can bring progress to a screeching halt. Get going by simply writing SOMETHING and worrying about whether or not it’s good later. Five more tips to defeat writer’s block here.
5. Find a formula and stick to it. There’s a reason why many blog posts are numbered lists. They’re easy to write, read, and share. But no matter how complex the writing task, adhering to a good formula can save you hours. This may be an actual format—like headers and bullet points—or simply a general idea of what content goes where. For blog posts, here are some formula ideas from Will Davis.
6. Ask for individual feedback. It’s easy to bypass this in the daily rush, but asking a friend, colleague, or professional editor for personal feedback on your writing is essential. If you already work with an editor, make sure they’re educating, not just editing. If they make changes and you don’t know why, ask for an explanation. Use those explanations to keep track of and eradicate your bad habits.
7. Read your work aloud. This is a fantastic editing tactic. Reading your work aloud forces you to slow down and pay attention to the overall rhythm of your writing, as well as every single word and punctuation mark. For example, if you find yourself gasping at the end of a sentence, it’s way too long.
8. Kill your babies. That sentence you love? Your favorite word? The intro you slaved over? If it’s not right upon review, you have to kill it.  But don’t worry about this in your first draft! Let all of your ideas out initially, wait a day, then cut 25%. That way, to begin with, you’ll have plenty of raw material. When you’re editing, you’ll have distance from that proud feeling of finishing a piece of writing. Even if you don’t have the luxury of a day, wait an hour. Or at least go get some coffee and come back.
9. Never stop learning. You should never stop and say “Woohoo! I can write now!” Always read, edit your work ruthlessly, and seek feedback from fresh eyes.

Now you’re armed: Get reading, and get writing. Striving to improve is half the battle, gaining experience and confidence will take you the rest of the way.

Any tips to add? Please comment and let me know!

Interested in learning more about Content Marketing? Download our free eBook, “How to Grow Your Business with Content Marketing.”

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Now, I’m not going to give away Colleen’s secret sauce (you’ll have to head to one of her seminars for that) but below are a few tips from both my experience and Colleen’s talk on how to make the most of your LinkedIn presence.

1. Think about your goals. Why are you on LinkedIn? To find new employees, partners, and contractors? To be found? A mix? Your goals should drive your entire presence.

2. Post a picture. Please. Of your face. You should have a professional looking headshot as your LinkedIn photo so people can put a name to a face.  If you’re uncomfortable with recruiters or prospective clients seeing your picture next to your professional credentials (a valid concern), you can change your privacy settings so only your connections can see your photo.

3. Use LinkedIn to remember names. LinkedIn can help you with offline networking too—simply checking out someone’s profile after meeting them at a networking event, even if you don’t connect, can help you remember their name and what they do. This is another reason why having a picture is important—it will help people remember you.

4. Make the most of your headline. Colleen really stressed this one—your headline does not have to be your job title alone. Job seekers, use “Talented [Your Profession] Seeking New Opportunity” not “Unemployed.” Students, use “Aspiring [Your Profession] Seeking Internship,” not “Student at [Your University].” Keep it concise, but make sure it communicates what you do and what your skills are. Here’s mine:

5. Post statuses. Updating your status gives you visibility on your connections’ LinkedIn home page. If you have found something online your business connections would like, or have good news to share about your work, spread the word by posting it on LinkedIn.

6. Write a rich but concise summary. Your summary should be about you, not your company—don’t just copy and paste the “about” page of your employer’s website. Your profile should be about what you do at your company, not what the company does as a whole. Tip: use concrete details like results you have generated and tasks you do on a daily basis to show people how awesome you are, not tell them.

7. Explore LinkedIn applications. Colleen encouraged us all to add Amazon’s Reading List application to our LinkedIn profiles. I was skeptical—I wasn’t sure how the fiction I love would be relevant to my professional connections. However, Colleen got more comments on this list, she said, than anything else in her profile. Sure enough, a few hours after I added Reading List to my profile, in came a message from a connection. She had written her senior thesis on Steinbeck and wanted to know what I thought of East of Eden. If you’re not a big book person, you can still enrich your profile with apps like Slideshare for presentations, WordPress for blog posts, and any number of others (the directory is here).

8. Add sections to your profile. LinkedIn offers several sections beyond the standards so users can showcase volunteer experience, projects, foreign languages, even test scores. This is especially helpful for young networkers who may not have extensive work experience, but adding more sections can add weight to any profile.

9. Connect with care. Your LinkedIn network is only as valuable as the strength of your connections.  For some professionals—like recruiters or salespeople—it is advantageous to connect generously, but personally, I favor being a tad picky. I’d like to think I could recommend—or at least answer questions about—anyone I am connected to on LinkedIn. If you  want to connect with someone and think it might be a stretch, be sure to personalize the message you send with the invite to explain why you want to connect—and why this person should want to connect with you.

10. Join and participate in groups. Some groups are full of spam, but others are generally valuable. For example, in the marketing industry, the Marketing Director Support Group is a great place to get and give advice. Do a little research, think back to your goals, and you’ll likely find a group that will help you reach them. If you can’t find a group, just start one!

Did you find anything new in this LinkedIn advice? Have anything to add? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

We know a lot of people are writing about this—but we’re sensing a great deal of confusion from our clients and contacts, so we thought we’d explain the most important changes.

Details are still coming out, and we were not at the invite-only Facebook Marketing Camp Wednesday where announcements took place, but here’s a recap of the most important changes from the past few weeks as it applies to marketers.

Timeline for Brands

Ever since Facebook Timeline pages were rolled out for individuals, we suspected that this would be coming soon for pages. Well, timelines are here, and you must switch over by March 30th, whether you like it or not. Here are three things you should know about right now due to this change:

No more landing tabs: You can no longer set a default landing tab for your page. If you were planning on running a contest, driving people to click “like” to get a fan-only coupon, or even pointing ads to a particular landing tab, fuhgetaboutit. Applications will still work in Facebook, but they will show up in the same place where the photos, videos, and friends buttons are now on an individual profile. Woohoo for the bigger image to advertise tabs and apps, but boo for the loss of the landing tab.

Cover photos: Just like an individual user, you will now have a giant space at the top of your page. Better figure out what to put there before March 30th! We recommend using your logo, and only your logo, for the small square space (the whole thing has to shrink down to 32 by 32 pixels, so you can’t fit much else). For the cover photo, B2B marketers could try a collage of client logos, and B2C marketers may want to consider a customer photo. After all, Facebook is about engaging with your audience. Unfortunately, there are some stringent regulations about these photos which disallow brands from having a big call to action for the like button. Read this before you design your photo.

Direct messages: If Facebook has to take away landing pages, at least they can add something cool in return. This feature gives your fans the ability to message your page, and once they message you, you can reply as your page.  This is a great tool for replying to customer feedback and questions.

Pinning posts: On the new timeline, you can “pin” a post to a fixed position at the top of your page. This is a great way to get attention, but does not equal a custom landing tab, of course.

For a step-by-step guide to setting up your page, I recommend this Hubspot post. But Timeline wasn’t the only thing to change recently for marketing on Facebook, so onwards!

Facebook Ads

With an IPO in the works, Facebook is quickly focusing on how to better monetize its advertising platform. If you’re running a Facebook ad campaign, or thinking about running one, here are the biggest things you should know about the new Facebook ads.

Decreased character limits: Before, Facebook ads gave you room for 135 characters in your ad copy. Now, you have only 90 characters. Ay carumba! Get that virtual red pen out and cut!

Sponsored stories directly in the newsfeed: Facebook has slowly started rolling out Sponsored Stories to display directly in users’ news feeds, rather than on the side of the news feed. This will be more prominent now, with the announcement of premium Facebook ads.

Sponsored stories on mobile devices: With about a third of Facebook posts coming from mobile devices (and that’s from May 2011), Facebook has to take its ad network mobile. With its new premium offering, Facebook will allow for placement of ads on mobile devices. Looks like this will only come with a commitment of $25,000 a month, though—ouch.

How does your brand plan to change its Facebook strategy in the face of the new changes? Comment and let us know.

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Holy cow.

Marketers, have no doubt: consumers love Pinterest.

But what the heck is Pinterest, and what should your brand do about it?

Have no fear—this post is here to help!

What is Pinterest?

Have you ever had a bulletin board in your bedroom or above your desk, with little reminders, ideas for later, and pictures of your cat? Or think of the bulletin board full of posters and notices at the gym or the local coffee shop.

Now take that bulletin board, imagine it online, and you’ve got Pinterest.

Basically, Pinterest is a socially connected public bulletin board.  Users create “boards” based around a theme or topic, and then grab images from around the web and “pin” them to that board. Of course, Pinterest is connected to Facebook and Twitter, so users can share their pins with all of their friends.

You don’t need to sign up to browse Pinterest, so it’s easy to take a peek to familiarize yourself. For an example of a very cool personal Pinterest presence, check out Steve McGauhey (who is male, unlike about 70% of Pinterest users on this female dominated platform), and for a brand presence, check out Whole Foods’ profile.

How do I know if my brand should be on Pinterest?

While Pinterest is already a big deal for some brands, it’s new, might be a passing trend, and might not have the right audience for your brand. Before you spend too much time investigating Pinterest, make sure it could be right for your business.

One note: whether or not you decide to get involved, Pinterest’s popularity should spur your brand to use more images. Even if you’re not on Pinterest, adding an image can double your page views.

To figure out whether or not Pinterest is worth your marketing resources, ask yourself the below questions. If you can answer “yes” to most of these questions, dig deeper into Pinterest.

1. Has anything from your website already been pinned? Enter in http://pinterest.com/source/yoururlhere/ to see if Pinterest users have already pinned anything from your website. (Thanks Social Media Examiner for the heads up on this one).
2. Does your brand create a lot of photography or images? Pinterest is all about images—and if coming up with images is like pulling teeth for you, Pinterest will be like a root canal and cavity filling all in one. On the other hand, if your brand is all about images, you probably don’t even need to read the next two questions—Pinterest is for you.
3. Do you target 25-34 year old women? While people of all ages and genders hang out on Pinterest, 25-34 year olds are the largest age demographic, making up almost 30% of the user base, and almost 70% of users are female (source). If that’s your brand’s sweet spot, Pinterest has a lot of potential.
4. Do you market a product or service related to fitness, food, art, clothing, crafts, travel, sports, gadgets, or weddings? These are some of the many consumer focused categories on Pinterest. However, there’s not even a general “Business” category for users to select when they create a board, so professional services companies, you might be out of luck.

How to get started on Pinterest

If Pinterest is right for your brand, here’s how you can get started:

1. Create a profile through connecting with Twitter. Many Pinterest users have connected their profiles with Facebook—giving them access to their friends’ pins and vice versa. However, there’s no way for brands to use this feature, so we recommend connecting with Twitter to tap into your network there, or, if you’re not on Twitter, starting from scratch.
2. Integrate Pinterest into your other marketing efforts. “Ugh,” you’re probably thinking, “I’ve already got buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and StumbleUpon!” Too bad—if you’ve got lots of product pictures and answered “Yes” to the questions above, make some room. Pinterest simply drives too much traffic to ignore—set traffic rolling to your site with a “pin it” button.
3. Create boards, and pin a mix of original and curated content. If your Pinterest boards sell too much, your brand won’t fit in with the fun, useful nature of the site. While including prices on product images can be a good idea, make sure the focus of your Pinterest presence is entertaining or helping your customers, not selling. Your website is where you should do your selling.
4. Repin, comment, and engage. Unlike on Facebook, on Pinterest, brands can act just like humans. Engaging (tactfully) with other users can help grow your brand’s presence—and your customers’ awareness and loyalty.

Have you used Pinterest yet? Let me know what you think in the comments. And of course, feel free to check out my personal Pinterest page—fair warning, it’s mostly cute puppies.

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Yesterday, I took part in a Government 2.0 experiment—the first tweetup organized by @governoromalley’s team at the State House in Annapolis. Here’s my take on how it went.

Social Media is Changing How We Work Together

While technology and new media is nowhere near as powerful as the human heart, O’Malley stated in his opening remarks, it has enabled humans to be more connected than ever. In his opinion, using this connection to improve our communities as tough times continue is critical.  While his opening remarks were general, his actions prove that he’s willing to put muscle behind this notion. I for one hope that this small tweetup is just the beginning of a flood of political leaders helping constituents play a larger role in policy conversations.

All organizations should take note—just as social media has the potential to transform politics, it is transforming the rest of our economy as well. If your organization isn’t thinking about how you can grow or adapt to take advantage of social media, it is missing a huge opportunity.

Turning the Tables

At the beginning of the tweetup, Jeremy Johnson (@tanlife) asked O’Malley what he thought of Baltimore @mayorsrb’s initiative to bring 10,000 families into Baltimore in 10 years. O’Malley gave his thoughts, fighting the assumption that we can do nothing about problems like crime and trash, but also turned the tables to ask Johnson what he thought would solve the problem. Johnson works with a nonprofit, Operation Oliver, which believes the answer to this question is putting “boots on the street”—getting started, picking up trash, and making things happen.

This particular issue aside, this exchange showed the power of new media to bring regular people into policy discussion. Because of this event, and the power that social media presents for the individual, Johnson and his organization had an opportunity to be heard.

Just as social media changes government, it can also change business and nonprofits. Are you asking your customers what new products they want to see? Are you asking your donors what they think the next priority for your non-profit should be? If not, start.

Answering Tough Questions

At one point in the event, I pushed Governor O’Malley on an issue that’s sure to be contentious this assembly—shifting some of the responsibility for teacher’s pensions to the counties without sacrificing classroom funding. I got an honest answer—we haven’t worked it out yet, and have to make some tough choices. O’Malley went into more detail, but fully admitted the complexity and risk of the situation.

Throughout the session, O’Malley confronted questions like mine honestly. This approach is vital in a world where word spreads about mistakes and inconsistencies faster than ever—attendees had fact checking capabilities at their fingertips and were live tweeting their thoughts and O’Malley’s answers.  If he had glossed over an issue, we would have called him out.

The same applies for companies and other organizations. If your company is dealing with a complicated issue, you can’t hide it just by not having a press conference about it. For example, 75,000 people have liked a Facebook page urging Mattel to create a bald Barbie to which children with cancer can relate. Mattel has released only vague statements in response, making their brand seem inflexible and old fashioned. Tackling hard issues quickly and truly responding to difficult questions is essential in a world of crowd-sourced, instant media.

Takeaways For Your Organization

New media is a fantastic marketing tool, but at yesterday’s event, it showed that it has the potential to be much more. O’Malley learned about the issues important to a group of his constituents, and I won’t be surprised if we see a few policy adjustments and programs arising out of yesterday’s conversation.

Here’s how your organization—political, commercial, nonprofit, or educational—can learn from and build on yesterday’s social media integrated event.

1. Hold real life tweetups. At least among the folks I talked to, the consensus on yesterday’s event was that it was cool, and should be repeated. Whether you’re a politician, CEO, President of a University or Executive Director of a non-profit, why not host an annual or quarterly tweetup? They’ll grow both your social media presence and your perspective on what matters to your audience.
2. Ask questions that matter. Don’t just use your Twitter handle to ask people what they think of the Ravens game or what their plans are for New Years. If you’re a politician, ask what people think about same sex marriage, or who should be paying teachers’ pensions. If you’re a school, ask students what their dream dorm would be like—and incorporate their answers next time you build one. If you’re a business, ask about what kinds of products or services your customers or clients would like to see next, and use their answers to form your plans. Asking questions that matter will get you answers that matter.
3. Hold a Twitter Town Hall. President Obama held a Twitter Town Hall back in July that allowed people from all over the country to ask questions that were answered live, shown on a streaming feed, and tweeted on the @whitehouse account. O’Malley and other politicians could do something similar to bring more voices into policy discussions. If your business or organization has a large enough online audience and a geographically disparate customer base or clientele, you could consider doing the same—whether it’s “Live Answers to Accounting Questions” or “Live Answers About Adopting a Pet.”
4. Hold Twitter “office hours.” Politicians—or someone from their office—could be available for a given number of hours every month so that citizens can ask questions and get an almost instant answer tweeted back. No live streaming video necessary—just guaranteed attention to a Twitter account and a commitment to answering tough questions. Your business or nonprofit could provide a subject matter expert to do the same, whether it’s a marketing expert or an on-the-ground medical aid worker in Haiti.

Did you follow the #mdgovtweetup? Is your organization doing anything similar? How do you see new media transforming politics, business, and the world? Please comment below—I’d love to continue the conversation.

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Here’s my quick list:

1. Job Posts—Especially with the difficult economy, people love job matchmaking, and are quick to share job posts. The funny thing is most job posts are awful: they’re poorly written, poorly formatted, and just plain boring.

This job post from a local company is a breath of fresh air. It combines videos, well designed text, and a lot of personality to clearly address the details, but also show why the job would be exciting. Unfortunately for anyone seeking, the job has been filled—but take a look at this post, enjoy, and be inspired for when you create your next job post (or go take it to your HR department).

Whether or not they show your company in the best light, people will share your job posts. You should be proud of them.

2. Unsubscription Confirmation Pages—A while back, Groupon’s unsubscription confirmation page made the viral rounds. Normally, these pages are boring and blank—if you’ve made it to the unsubscribe page, it’s clear that you’ve left the fold of treasured customers. Yet there’s value in creating an unsubscription page that leaves a smile on a former subscriber’s face. It’s likely that unsubscribers don’t hate your company, but just want off your email list. So it’s still in your best interest to make them happy.

3. Business Cards—Sally Hogshead gave me her card when I met her at Content Marketing World. It’s interactive and shareable—I showed that business card to several people both at and after the event, and I’m writing about it now. If you can turn a business card into something people want to show off to others, not just file away, that’s a brilliant content marketing move in my book.

4. 404 Pages—Sure, you don’t want people to end up with a “page not found” message if you can help it, but why not give folks something to share if they do end up lost on your domain name? I landed on this 404 page a few weeks ago, and I’ve shared it several times since. A simple sense of humor in unexpected places goes a long way.

5. It’s up to you! Where have you been surprised by effective content marketing? Let me know in the comments, so we can create a much longer list than 5.

Here’s the top five things that stood out for me from this event:

1. Measure the impact of mobile marketing before you dive in. As both @seo_girl and @jeannehopkins spoke to for web, and @meladorri spoke to for email, check your web and email program’s analytics to see which platforms and devices people are using to consume your content. If a lot of your traffic comes from mobile devices–and more importantly, as @seo_girl pointed out, if your mobile bounce rate is high–you’re probably missing opportunities for mobile marketing, or doing something wrong.

2. QR codes can be cool, but they can also be wasteful and ridiculous. Whatever you do, provide multiple options for access. Yes, more and more people are using QR code scanners, but that doesn’t mean you should plaster QR codes everywhere. As @thetimhayden covered, first, think about how people are actually using their phones–do you really think people are going to be able to scan a QR code from a billboard? To get around this, when possible, provide a link, an SMS option, and a QR code so people can access your content in the way that’s best for them. For a laugh on this count, check out @unmarketing’s video ranting (thanks to @cc_chapman for providing).

3. Don’t forget SMS. According to @justinpgh, with emails, you’re lucky to get a 20-30% open rate. With text messages, 90% of people read the message in the first 15 minutes. I’d love to see the data on this first hand, but basically, for urgent, last minute, and real time marketing, SMS marketing can’t be beat.

4. Earn attention, don’t interrupt. A recurring theme throughout the event is one we harp on all the time @rightsource: don’t interrupt people to get attention, find out where they’re already paying attention and go to them there. In her lunchtime keynote, @maggiefox pointed out new advertising models from media companies such as Digg and StumbleUpon that insert content into users’ organic streams (Reddit and Twitter do this too). That makes advertising content, rather than products, essential for success–but the opportunities to create lasting relationships and grow an audience of fans who love your brand are huge. (Thanks @noordnrycherry for suggesting this point!)

5. Use psychology in your marketing. Even though he had the hard task of waking us up with the first talk of Day 2, @derekhalpern incorporated some really interesting psychological concepts into his talk. I loved his idea of thinking about your customers and potential customers as groups united against a common enemy. Derek used Apple as an example. They didn’t make Mac and PC users feel…snarkiness…toward each other with their “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials. They simply took the innate human tendency to unite in groups against a common enemy and capitalized on it. Brilliant. How can everyone, Derek asked, split our customers and potential customers into groups? Then, how can we play those groups against a common enemy in a way that benefits our businesses?

If you’d like a more comprehensive review, check out my open for editing Google notes here. They’ve been a hit–and thanks to @jasonkeath for the free Social Fresh T-shirt!

Last, if you attended, what did you think was a huge takeaway? Which afternoon sessions did it really suck that I left out? If you weren’t there, do you agree with the above points? Let’s talk in the comments.

“Uh oh,” you may be thinking. “The marketing department is talking about that whole blogging thing again. Last time we did this, it was a disaster. Worse, no one seemed to like my posts.”

Yikes! Stop right there! And think again!

Yes, a lot of corporate blogs are awful. But neither your company’s blog nor the posts you contribute to should bear a sense of impending doom. We spend a lot of time helping clients manage their blogs. This involves bringing together subject matter experts, sales reps, marketing employees, and executives — many of whom have unique ideas but have never written a blog post.

One of the first questions we get from new bloggers is, “What makes a good blog post?“  As we answer, the doom drifts out of the room and is replaced by the glowing light of nurturing leads and increasing sales. Cha-ching!

We thought we’d share our answer with our readers here. 

1. Good blog posts speak to a target audience.

Figure out who is buying what you’re selling and write for them. If your company specializes in building mobile applications, you’re likely selling to executives and marketing departments, not mobile app developers. Your own developers can still write content for your blog, but they should keep content way less technical than it would be if they were writing to their peers.

2. Good blog posts speak to the same audience the whole time.

It would be nice for marketers if every business had just one audience to reach, but that’s not realistic. Take the mobile app company again. Sometimes they sell to marketing, sometimes they sell to IT. They also use content as a recruiting tool, so sometimes their developers really are writing to their peers.

Addressing all of these audiences doesn’t make for the most consistent blog as a whole, but as long as you keep each post consistent from start to stop, you’re ok. For example, it’s not a good idea to start a post with a novice question and then give a very technical answer. Let your readers know what they’re getting into.

3. Good blog posts are about 400-1,000 words.

Blog posts should be easily digestible during a coffee break.  Readers will give up if they need to scroll down endlessly.  If you’re getting upwards of 1,000 words, consider breaking your post into two parts, or tightening up your ideas and language.  I chopped off about 400 words to make the final version of this post and it’s better for it.

4. Good blog posts are quick and easy to read.

Just because something is short doesn’t mean it’s easy to read. Make posts easy to skim by cutting content up into sections and lists. In fact, I’ll bet most people reading this post will simply skim the bolded description for each point, and read the explanations for the points they don’t understand. If I’m wrong and you’re reading every point word for word, prove it with a comment.

5. Good blog posts say something interesting and useful.

It’s OK to write a blog post about a quick thought, but make sure it’s a whole thought, not half of one and half of another. Would what you’re writing change the way your reader thinks about an issue? Spur an idea? Be worth emailing to a coworker? If not, you’ve got work to do.

Note: Old news to you might be useful to your readers. Last year, I wrote a post on How to Use Twitter for Beginners. Simple, but readers liked it (as shown by the comments), and we often send it to prospective clients who are Twitter newbies.

6. Good blog posts don’t have to be works of art.

You probably won’t win a Pulitzer Prize and that’s ok.  As long as your posts are useful, readers will come back for more.

7. Good blog posts show, not tell.

Don’t tell readers your company is awesome; write great content so readers are the ones who say your company is awesome. Use concrete, specific language and examples to build trust with your readers.

8. Good blog posts have a compelling title and lead paragraph.

Make your readers want to read your post right away.  But don’t promise something with your title and intro that you don’t deliver.  Here are 5 tips to improve your headline click-through rate.

9. Good blog posts are SEO optimized.

OK, I just told you to have a compelling title, but especially with titles, you need to strike a balance between catchiness and SEO. Scott Paley explains this with a story over at Abstract Edge. Don’t flood readers with keywords, but do pay attention to the basics such as pretty URLS (#2 here) and meta descriptions.

10. Good blog posts include a call to action.

Even if it’s just a call to comment or connect on Twitter, blog posts should end with something that moves readers to a next step. Do not, however, ask people to buy something at the end of a post. Hard sells in blog posts will lose your readers’ trust.

Well, there are my top 10 qualifiers for a good blog post. Please feel free to add your own tips and questions in the comments. And then get blogging!

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