by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 4, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Add stickers to your photos on Twitter to join in on real-time conversations about trending topics and to grow your audience.
Twitter announced at the end of June that it would be rolling out a new feature called #stickers. Twitter stickers are a visual twist on a hashtag, meaning you can add them to the photos you tweet and be connected to the community using the same sticker. Users can click a sticker to see other tweets tagged with the same image.
You can use multiple stickers (up to 25), place them anywhere on your photo, and resize and rotate them. There are hundreds to choose from, organized by categories, including:
- Accessories (e.g., hats, sunglasses)
- Smilies and people
- Animals and nature
- Food and drink
- Activity (e.g., sports equipment, instruments)
- Travel and places
- Objects
- Symbols
- Flags
Why would my business use Twitter stickers?
Twitter suggests, “Use [stickers] to share what you’re doing or how you’re feeling, to show support for a cause, or to just add some flair.” While their primary intention may be fun, Twitter stickers should pique businesses’ interest because they are searchable. And anytime something is searchable, that means it is another opportunity for potential customers to find you.
By using a sticker on one of your tweets, you increase your audience for that tweet in the same way that you do when using a hashtag. People who search by the stickers you use will see your tweets.
Imagine the potential! Medals or sports icons during the Olympics, weather stickers during extreme elements: millions of people will be using and searching these images. Find clever ways to relate Twitter stickers to your photo content, and you’ll strike a chord with an enormous audience.
Also, don’t discount the value of showing some of your brand personality through social media. Having fun with Twitter stickers can give your followers an idea of what your company is all about, show the human face behind the company name, and help them connect with you.
How do I add a sticker?
Stickers are now available to all iOS and Android users. Here’s how to add a sticker to your photo:
1) Tap the Tweet compose icon.
2) Tap the camera icon to take a photo or to select one from your camera roll.
3) Tap the sticker icon (a smiley face) on the bottom right-hand corner of the selected photo to launch a library of stickers. Say I wanted to tweet this photo of my dog:
4) Tap your selected sticker(s). Once placed on your photo, hold and drag the sticker with your finger to move to your desired position.
5) To tilt, enlarge, or shrink a sticker: Place two fingers on either side of the sticker and turn the sticker clockwise or counterclockwise to rotate, or slide your fingers apart or together to resize.
6) If you’d like to remove a sticker from a photo, press and hold on the sticker, then drag it to the bottom of your screen until the trash can icon appears.
Here is what the finished product looks like:
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by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 3, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Here are some guidelines on what content marketing might cost your business and why you need each element to be successful.
Content marketing can be a game-changing strategy for companies looking to increase brand awareness, improve lead-generation efforts, and grow their business. But sticker shock can prevent some from pulling the trigger — especially when an organization is unsure how to measure ROI.
Content marketing will require an investment in services that are not cheap (writing, design, social media management, etc.) or a major time commitment from your own human resources. That being said, the more dollars or resources you throw at it will not necessarily ensure greater success.
To find the right pricing for your content marketing, it’s important to understand what you are paying for. Here are some guidelines for how much content marketing should cost (if you’re doing it right).
A pricing breakdown
The right content, published at the right time, reaches buyers who are looking for products or services like yours and informs them about your business. That, in turn, entices them to become customers.
Here’s the rub: You cannot just throw any old content out there and expect it to work. Here is what you need:
1) A data-driven inbound marketing strategy
This initially may cost around $20k. That sounds like a lot, but here’s why it is so important.
Research proves that content marketing is drastically more effective when it is 1) backed by a strategy, 2) the strategy is documented, and 3) a designated person is leading the strategy. Whether created by an in-house team or an outsource partner, your strategy should be driven by data, and should include these vital components:
- Buyer personas and journey: Who your potential customer is and what steps they take to research, evaluate, and decide to buy
- Content mapping and demand generation: What topics appeal to your customers? How and when should you deliver content? What channels reach customers best?
- Conversion and scoring leads: How to optimize lead-conversion rates and evaluate leads throughout the buyer journey; identifying optimal timing for sales calls
- Goals and KPIs: Define what success looks like and how to measure progress
2) Content marketing talent
Human resources may cost $5K-$10K per month. You need a team of skilled writers, graphic designers, and social media managers who can produce quality content, on a regular basis, and distribute it effectively.
Why can’t you just have the intern do it and save some cash, you ask? When it comes to content, you get what you pay for. Consider that 27 million pieces of content are shared every day. That means consumers can afford to be picky about the media they consume. If they find your content lacking in quality, substance, or appearance, they simply won’t read it. You might as well not have written it.
For your content to be effective — meaning your content attracts your target audience and drives profitable customer action — it must stand out, really stand out, among the masses. For that, you need a professional hand.
3) Lead management, marketing software and analytics
This may cost about $10k per month. It includes marketing automation software, like HubSpot, as well as a skilled manager(s) to provide insight and reports on content performance. This way your organization can effectively track leads, evaluate what is working, and adjust your strategy as necessary to ensure optimal performance.
Return on investment
If you’re still uncomfortable with these numbers, keep these in mind: Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.
Content marketing is valuable in growing any business. But remember that getting your return really does require making that investment.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 2, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
Content marketing can help with lead generation and nurturing, but your business still needs a solid sales staff to close deals.
Content marketing helps generate a steady influx of quality leads and provides relevant information to prospects as they move down the sales funnel. Content can even help close a deal.
But forget any notion about content marketing replacing the work of your sales staff. The two must work together to convert leads into customers.
Even quality leads do not typically turn into sales on their own. You need a sales staff to take those opportunities and cultivate them into new business.
What content marketing does vs. your sales staff
Content marketing and sales staff provide different touch points for leads at distinct stages of the buying cycle. Here are a few examples:
Forming a relationship
- Content marketing opens up dialogue with potential customers. Often the first signs of customers’ interest appear after they read one of your blog posts, when they open and click through an email, or they share your company’s posts on social media channels.
- Your sales staff keeps that positive contact going to the next level. They develop it into a conversation. That person who read your blog post now has a relationship with a person in your company.
Providing information
- Content marketing can reach a potential customer early, while they are looking for solutions. B2B buyers report spending more time conducting research, using more expert content such as vendor websites, user reviews, and social media, before making a purchase. Your business should be producing content in order to make the short list of buyers who are looking for products and services like yours.
- Your sales staff answers those important first questions. When a customer reaches out with a query, s/he is likely 60% through the sales process. The customer has done a fair amount of research, and the sales rep must speak specifically to the customer’s needs — in a way that generic content can’t — to keep them interested and moving down the funnel.
Advocating for your brand
- Content marketing increases brand awareness for your business. It helps elevate your brand position within the industry and keeps your business top of mind, even when potential customers aren’t ready to make a purchase.
- Your sales staff is the advocate for your brand when a customer is preparing to make a purchase. They should be proactive in pursuing business when customers show interest in your content or when they reach out with questions. They drive dialogue and get to know customers and how your business can help them.
The content marketing, sales staff partnership
Curating and creating great content will generate quality leads for your company. But, your sales staff is vital to building relationships with potential customers and closing the sale.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Jul 29, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Here I share some of our best performing content from the first half of this year.
Auditing your content and adjusting your strategy is an important part of an effective content marketing program. I like to do an in-depth look at how our content is performing every six months.
As I was evaluating our most popular articles in the first half of 2016, one of the things that struck me was how well they spoke to our content strategy. The top 10 blog posts reflect the topics that we know are most interesting and valuable to our readers. This reinforces the importance of 1) creating a strategy based on your target audience, 2) developing content around that strategy.
While the list itself is interesting, I think the articles are worth sharing again because of their quality and value. So, in case you missed them, here are our top blog posts from the first half of 2016.
Fronetics’ 10 most popular supply chain articles in 2016 (so far)
1) Four Supply Chain Companies that Excel at Social Media
These four organizations have it down when it comes to social media. Consistent posts inform and engage their followers. Who are they and what are they doing that is working? Read the full article.
2) Diversity and Leadership: An Interview with Arrow Electronics’ Kendrea Durr-Smith
Kendrea Durr-Smith runs a unique team as director of global trade compliance at Arrow Electronics. Her department works with people of all different cultures and backgrounds, while recent changes at Arrow with respect to trade management and compliance have given her team exciting, new responsibilities. Read the full article.
3) Top Logistics and Supply Chain Blogs of 2016
Companies in the supply chain and logistics industries are realizing the enormous benefits that a quality content marketing strategy, including regular posts to a company blog, can offer. These three companies, in particular, are publishing content that not only drives business to their websites, but also fuels conversation about industry best practices, trends, and issues. Read the full article.
4) Shipping company Eimskip Places a High Value on Culture and Art; It’s Paid Off
Iceland’s oldest shipping company regularly hosts local artists on voyages between its headquarters in Portland, ME, and Reykjavik. The practice reflects Eimskip’s great efforts to integrate itself into all aspects of the communities in which it operates. Read the full article.
5) 3 Key Tips for Creating Valuable and Compelling Content
This guest post by Jennifer Cortez, director or marketing communications at Transplace, discusses her company’s approach to content development. Read the full article.
6) Getting to First Base with a Social Network
Guest author Tania Seary is founder of Procurious, a global online network for supply chain and procurement professionals. In this article, she discusses some of the key decisions leadership made along the way to build the company from the ground up. Read the full article.
7) Social Media Facts for B2B Companies
Understanding how users are engaging with social media is important for businesses hoping to reach consumers with these tools; however, the information is hard to track down. Here are eight of the most recent, relevant statistics and facts about social media for B2B organizations. Read the full article.
8) Amazon Loves Logistics? The E-Commerce Giant’s Next $400B Opportunity
Amazon’s recent activity suggests it plans to move into the logistics space as a 3PL provider. This article examines why such speculation is valid and how it might disrupt the estimated $400 billion fulfillment market. Read the full article.
9) EBN’s Hailey McKeefry on Women in the Supply Chain Industry
This interview with EBN Editor in Chief Hailey McKeefry examines the gender gap in the supply chain industry in light of her own career path. McKeefry also offers advice to women considering entering the industry. Read the full article.
10) Women in Manufacturing and the Supply Chain: Disparity and Opportunity
A McKinsey & Company report found that diverse companies financially outperform companies that are not diverse by 15%. And in terms of gender diversity, specifically, research shows that when women are in positions of leadership, companies perform better — much better. How can the supply chain capitalize on that information and impact the bottom line? Read the full article.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Jul 27, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Effective content marketers have these four things in common.
Think your content marketing could be better? You are not alone. Only 30% of content marketers feel they are effective, and, according to a recent survey, 55% of B2B marketers say they do not actually know what an effective or successful content marketing program looks like.
In fact, some of the key findings from the report, B2B Content Marketing 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America, may surprise you.
Recognizing success
First, the team must understand what they are striving for:
- Only 44% of B2B marketers say their organization is clear on what content marketing success or effectiveness looks like; 55% are uncertain. For success, everyone must understand what to look for.
- Only 32% of B2B marketers consider themselves sophisticated or mature in their skill-level. Sixty-four percent of those in the sophisticated/mature phase say they are effective at content marketing, while only 23% in the less-experienced adolescent phase express confidence. But, when strategies are documented, it appears to increase the confidence and success at every skill level.
What makes a team more effective at content marketing?
One key theme that emerged from the survey is that effective content marketers do these four things.
1) They know what effective content marketing looks like.
Effectiveness can be defined as meeting your overall goals and objectives — but in order to do so, those goals must be clear. B2B organizations that have a clear vision of content marketing success are more effective than those that do not. In fact, 79% of the most effective marketers report having that clarity, while 77% of the least effective say they lack it.
2) They have continuous communication.
The most effective B2B marketers (61%) meet daily or weekly with their content marketing team — either virtually or in person. Fifty-four percent say team meetings are valuable.
3) They document their content marketing strategy.
Documenting your content strategies can directly improve a marketer’s overall effectiveness. Fewer B2B marketers are doing this (32% in 2016 vs. 35% last year), even though research supports that a documented strategy can significantly improve results.
4) They document their editorial mission/long-term goals.
Research found that 48% of the most effective content marketers also have a documented editorial mission statement. This statement clearly defines who your audience is and why your content will be effective — it defines your brand. You should also document any long-term goals, like lead generation and sales, for example, will be the most important for most B2B content marketers over the next 12 months.
Having clear communication, documented goals, and defined strategies will provide direction, which can be the guiding light to effective content marketing. Implement these proven steps to better focus your team and to make effective content marketing clear and recognizable.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Jul 25, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Get your news in front of the one billion iOS users with this step-by-step guide to publishing on Apple News.
Do you use Apple News? If you have an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch) and have upgraded to iOS 9 or beyond, the app is preinstalled.
Users love the easy-to-read interface and the fact that they don’t have to download a number of different third-party news apps. That’s because Apple News aggregates content from various media outlets, from the New York Times to local blogs, based on user preferences. You can refine what news you see by choosing your preferred publications and topics, which are as general as politics or as specific as the Chinese economy.
There are a number of topics and channels relevant to the supply chain. From supply chain management and automotive logistics to packaging news and sustainable brands, Apple News is an excellent source of content for companies in the industry.
Here’s more good news: Anyone can publish on Apple News. That means your business can distribute your content through this platform with the chance to reach the more-than-one-billion iOS users around the globe.
Signing up as a publisher is simple. Here are four easy steps to get started.
1) Sign into iCloud.
Go to https://www.icloud.com/#newspublisher and enter your iCloud login details. You can quickly create a free account if you don’t have one already. Click “Continue.” Note that you’ll need to agree to the End User License Agreement.
2) Set up your channel.
Complete details about your publisher name, contact info, and channel name. As a publisher, you can have multiple channels, each representing a different publication (such as a blog and a newsletter). After set up is complete, you can add a new channel by clicking “Create New Channel” and entering publisher and channel info.
Channel content is divided into sections. Your default section will contain the main content of your channel, but you can have up to 25 other sections to organize your content by topic or type. Apple suggests that 6 to 8 sections is optimal.
3) Upload your logo.
Upload a PNG file (smaller than 2 MB) of your logo that will be used throughout News to identify your content.
4) Select a publishing format.
You must choose between RSS feed or Apple News Format, which optimizes your content for iOS devices. Other benefits of Apple News Format include the ability to create articles in Publisher, add team members, get analytics, and earn revenue through iAd.
Once you submit all of this information, Apple will review your information and get back to you before your channel launches officially.
Learn more about publishing on Apple News.
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