2008 has seen the rise of many great web apps that help in content distribution. Having you content available in several areas accomplishes several goals:
- Improve SEO
- Increase Potential Audience
Two of my favorite apps for this goal are PixelPipe.com, Ping.fm and TubeMogul.com
With TubeMogul you can get your videos distributed to all the major video sites with only one upload.
With Ping.fm you can post messages to all the major microblogging/social networking sites and any links in the messages to bookmarking sites.
With PixelPipe.com you can post photos and videos to a plethora of photo sharing sites and blog hosts... SUPER AWESOME
While these two apps still cover a lot of ground there is still some legtwork worth doing!!!
- Look for fairly active Niche communities on Ning.com, Kickapps.com, etc. and make sure to post you relevant videos too them. They may be smaller audiences, but they are probably more receptive audiences as well.
- Digg, Mixx, Twine, and many other worthwhile social news/bookmarking sites arn't supported by Ping.fm yet and are worth posting too.
Hopefully this helps you in your marketing efforts, hopefully I'll be posting more tips often again!!!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Ad Storm #8 - The goal of Blogging for Marketing/Business
Hey Guys,
If your my age (22, soon 23), you probably remember having your livejournal when you were in highschool. Before myspace was around blogging platforms existed and they were how we would leave ourselves open to the world as our voyeuristic generation likes to do.
Although as we grow up putting out every emotional vulnerability online for the world to see becomes less appealing while blogging still grows to have more and more purposes. From a business perspective you maintain a blog for the following reasons:
- Create a targeted mailing list in the content you deliver, to either push your own products or to sell the list itself.
- Create a targeted following to sell ad-space on your blog, Mashable.com is one of the best for showing use of ad inventory on their blog.
Either way it comes down to accomplishing two foundational efforts of any marketing approach.
- Defining who you are targeting and what content is of value to them.
- Creating superior content of value to your targeted audience.
If you understand these fundamental things you can create a successful blog as a revenue source and marketing tool. Of course some good leveaging of SEO and RSS never hurts.
If your my age (22, soon 23), you probably remember having your livejournal when you were in highschool. Before myspace was around blogging platforms existed and they were how we would leave ourselves open to the world as our voyeuristic generation likes to do.
Although as we grow up putting out every emotional vulnerability online for the world to see becomes less appealing while blogging still grows to have more and more purposes. From a business perspective you maintain a blog for the following reasons:
- Create a targeted mailing list in the content you deliver, to either push your own products or to sell the list itself.
- Create a targeted following to sell ad-space on your blog, Mashable.com is one of the best for showing use of ad inventory on their blog.
Either way it comes down to accomplishing two foundational efforts of any marketing approach.
- Defining who you are targeting and what content is of value to them.
- Creating superior content of value to your targeted audience.
If you understand these fundamental things you can create a successful blog as a revenue source and marketing tool. Of course some good leveaging of SEO and RSS never hurts.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Ad Storm #7 - Fun with RSS feeds
Hey Guys,
Public Relations, Advertising, these are things we know and for the most part the way to use them most effectively have been for the most part become routine. Although the internet has become a new playground for marketing think tanks and visionaries. While Search Engine Optimization seems to have all the glory of online marketing, capitalizing on RSS feeds and content delivery to me is the true key to online marketing success.
Before most social networks tried to create walled gardens where everything had to be done within the network, but as competition began to open their walls the pressure to create content portability has increased. While many feared this would kill the competitive edge of a closed community this actually became a boon to then upcoming networks Twitter and Ning as they capitalized of the use of cell phones and widgets on other networks to get the word out.
So that kinda is the situation from a historical context, but I'm here to talk about RSS feeds and how to use them. RSS feeds is way of syndicating content, when content is formatted into an RSS feed it can be read by any RSS feed reader. Every blog and major news source has an RSS feed, so what how does that benefit content delivery.
One way to think about it is this, all major email services now have built in RSS readers, so if I could add the feed to all my favorite news sources to my email reader and read them in one place I'd be willing to read it more often, right? If I read it more often it means any advertisements in the content will get more consistent views, right? Which means monetization. This is one way to look at it.
When creating your product website you can seamlessly incorporate RSS feeds into you page, so what are some clever ways to use this? Let's say I have a product website, but my marketing department head doesn't have time to be at a PC typing up updates and uploading photos, how can I keep him connected.
1. updates answer - I can register my marketing rep with Twitter in which he can update news and promotions via his cellphone. I then will incorporate the RSS feed from his twitter profile seamlessly into my page using standard web design techniques and you get constant content without a need to chain your marketing guy to a chair.
2. Photos Answer - While Ning.com's purpose is to let brand build their own social network, Ning has some useful features for content distribution since all content is syndicated in RSS feeds. So register your guy again with an account on any Ning network, he is then giving an email with which he can email photos and video to with his phone.
So your marketing guy, armed with a good camera phone now has the ability to update your website via his phone with text, photos, and videos. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what you can do RSS feeds. Then you can recycle the the feeds into widgets for your consumers to paste on their myspace profiles and such for further content exposure.
See the value?
- Alex Merced
Public Relations, Advertising, these are things we know and for the most part the way to use them most effectively have been for the most part become routine. Although the internet has become a new playground for marketing think tanks and visionaries. While Search Engine Optimization seems to have all the glory of online marketing, capitalizing on RSS feeds and content delivery to me is the true key to online marketing success.
Before most social networks tried to create walled gardens where everything had to be done within the network, but as competition began to open their walls the pressure to create content portability has increased. While many feared this would kill the competitive edge of a closed community this actually became a boon to then upcoming networks Twitter and Ning as they capitalized of the use of cell phones and widgets on other networks to get the word out.
So that kinda is the situation from a historical context, but I'm here to talk about RSS feeds and how to use them. RSS feeds is way of syndicating content, when content is formatted into an RSS feed it can be read by any RSS feed reader. Every blog and major news source has an RSS feed, so what how does that benefit content delivery.
One way to think about it is this, all major email services now have built in RSS readers, so if I could add the feed to all my favorite news sources to my email reader and read them in one place I'd be willing to read it more often, right? If I read it more often it means any advertisements in the content will get more consistent views, right? Which means monetization. This is one way to look at it.
When creating your product website you can seamlessly incorporate RSS feeds into you page, so what are some clever ways to use this? Let's say I have a product website, but my marketing department head doesn't have time to be at a PC typing up updates and uploading photos, how can I keep him connected.
1. updates answer - I can register my marketing rep with Twitter in which he can update news and promotions via his cellphone. I then will incorporate the RSS feed from his twitter profile seamlessly into my page using standard web design techniques and you get constant content without a need to chain your marketing guy to a chair.
2. Photos Answer - While Ning.com's purpose is to let brand build their own social network, Ning has some useful features for content distribution since all content is syndicated in RSS feeds. So register your guy again with an account on any Ning network, he is then giving an email with which he can email photos and video to with his phone.
So your marketing guy, armed with a good camera phone now has the ability to update your website via his phone with text, photos, and videos. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what you can do RSS feeds. Then you can recycle the the feeds into widgets for your consumers to paste on their myspace profiles and such for further content exposure.
See the value?
- Alex Merced
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Ad Storm #6 - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Hey Guys,
In todays marketing climate if your not at least somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of SEO your in danger of losing a lot of potential traffic to your site. I won't lie, while I'm pretty knowledgeable about marketing especially using web technologies my practical use of SEO is limited enough that I won't call myself an authority. Although for all of you who aren't the most web savvy or never really red on SEO here a few quick tips for on-page optimization.
- Make sure your brands tagline is not only something people remember, but also something that uses words people would look for. The key to SEO is using popular search terms in the most natural way possible. You tagline will be put in the most vital places by your web designer naturally, don't assume they are SEO experts so make sure wording is right.
- testimonials are a classy way of getting certain terms on your page over and over again without going overboard. Go out and ask your current consumers questions that might get them to use your target words naturally, it shouldn't be hard if the search terms your targeting are worth anything.
- make sure your site has some sort of blog that way it is crawled whenever there is new content and make sure to use your terms in any content added if it goes into it naturally of course.
Those are some quick tips for on-page optimization, otherwise email press releases to key blogs and newsletters which not only serves your PR goals but also helps SEO, got to love the online marketing karma.
- Alex Merced
P.S. go SEOFAQ and SEOmoz and don't forget about your link karma when making content.
In todays marketing climate if your not at least somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of SEO your in danger of losing a lot of potential traffic to your site. I won't lie, while I'm pretty knowledgeable about marketing especially using web technologies my practical use of SEO is limited enough that I won't call myself an authority. Although for all of you who aren't the most web savvy or never really red on SEO here a few quick tips for on-page optimization.
- Make sure your brands tagline is not only something people remember, but also something that uses words people would look for. The key to SEO is using popular search terms in the most natural way possible. You tagline will be put in the most vital places by your web designer naturally, don't assume they are SEO experts so make sure wording is right.
- testimonials are a classy way of getting certain terms on your page over and over again without going overboard. Go out and ask your current consumers questions that might get them to use your target words naturally, it shouldn't be hard if the search terms your targeting are worth anything.
- make sure your site has some sort of blog that way it is crawled whenever there is new content and make sure to use your terms in any content added if it goes into it naturally of course.
Those are some quick tips for on-page optimization, otherwise email press releases to key blogs and newsletters which not only serves your PR goals but also helps SEO, got to love the online marketing karma.
- Alex Merced
P.S. go SEOFAQ and SEOmoz and don't forget about your link karma when making content.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Ad Storm #5 - Building your Own social network
Hello,
With Ning and Kickapps trailblazing in the world of Social Network Hosts, the question is what is the major benefit of building a separate branded network instead of just using myspace/facebook groups and profiles to build your community. I'll give the same explanation I gave the guys at SHANE&SHAWN (where I'm currently a marketing intern, amazing shoes) before I created their Ning network.
Having a profile on a social network is about building awareness, even though people can interact with your brand with comments and through reading content you put out the end user still have thousands of other profile to dedicate their time to while on this network than to really burn your brand into their brain.
If your brand is a lifestyle brand, then a social network is valid investment cause instead of putting out content to fight for the end users time, you let the end user create content in a branded space. This creates a deeper experience of the brand, and of course the air of exclusivity and legitimacy over a myspace group or profile.
It's the same difference as buying the latest Puma shoe at the foot locker at the mall over the Puma store at union square in NYC. In both locations you can buy the product but which brand are you truly immersing yourself in, Foot Locker or Puma?
A branded social network isn't something that's gonna tip the scales in your favor overnight, but through active community building and content producing you can carve yourself a niche to re-enforce your brand into your core consumers who'd appreciate the fan service. Though to get new faces make sure you still are building awareness with a heavy dose of Myspace/Facebook.
- Alex Merced
With Ning and Kickapps trailblazing in the world of Social Network Hosts, the question is what is the major benefit of building a separate branded network instead of just using myspace/facebook groups and profiles to build your community. I'll give the same explanation I gave the guys at SHANE&SHAWN (where I'm currently a marketing intern, amazing shoes) before I created their Ning network.
Having a profile on a social network is about building awareness, even though people can interact with your brand with comments and through reading content you put out the end user still have thousands of other profile to dedicate their time to while on this network than to really burn your brand into their brain.
If your brand is a lifestyle brand, then a social network is valid investment cause instead of putting out content to fight for the end users time, you let the end user create content in a branded space. This creates a deeper experience of the brand, and of course the air of exclusivity and legitimacy over a myspace group or profile.
It's the same difference as buying the latest Puma shoe at the foot locker at the mall over the Puma store at union square in NYC. In both locations you can buy the product but which brand are you truly immersing yourself in, Foot Locker or Puma?
A branded social network isn't something that's gonna tip the scales in your favor overnight, but through active community building and content producing you can carve yourself a niche to re-enforce your brand into your core consumers who'd appreciate the fan service. Though to get new faces make sure you still are building awareness with a heavy dose of Myspace/Facebook.
- Alex Merced
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ad Memorial #9: MercedForFreedom.com
In my political efforts of late, I have created a website where I educate people on the issues called MercedForFreedom.com. While the site has a very simple design the drive of the site is the information in form of Videos, Mp3's, and Blogs that it's provides.
In videos by Eban Pagen of GetAltitude.com he talks about giving value, and that is essentially the idea of all the free media. By providing valuable and educational media for free the value of visiting the site increases. This is the idea behind most media driven websites who's ends is high traffic. While the purpose of my site is to educate and boost awareness of the Alex Merced political brand, this technique can be used to fulfill many Marketing Communication goals.
Remember, free media is a low cost way to add value to your brand.
In videos by Eban Pagen of GetAltitude.com he talks about giving value, and that is essentially the idea of all the free media. By providing valuable and educational media for free the value of visiting the site increases. This is the idea behind most media driven websites who's ends is high traffic. While the purpose of my site is to educate and boost awareness of the Alex Merced political brand, this technique can be used to fulfill many Marketing Communication goals.
Remember, free media is a low cost way to add value to your brand.
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