Content marketing is a long-term solution. Here’s why it takes so long to see results.
You are committed to your content marketing program. You’ve created blog posts, uploaded videos, and collaborated with industry leaders. You may have started noticing an increase in web traffic, social reach, and other engagement metrics like time on page. You’re on the right track!
The problem is your lack of leads or sales. Your boss is pressuring you for results, and you’re starting to question your efforts. Are you doing something wrong?
The answer is NO.
In fact, you’re doing everything right. Now you need to give your investment time to deliver on your return. But I know you’re asking, “Why does content marketing take so dang long to work?”
[bctt tweet=”Content marketing is a long-term solution that helps businesses build brand awareness, grow their audience, and generate new leads and sales. ” username=”Fronetics”]
Content marketing is a long-term solution that helps businesses build brand awareness, grow their audience, and generate new leads and sales. But it takes time and effort to achieve results. You don’t want to give up before you see the fruits of your labors.
Just how long will it take for your content marketing strategy to yield results? Well, that really depends on your business and your goals, but you can count on at least six months. Content marketers Neil Patel and Carol Ann Tan both write that content marketing strategies take at least six to nine months to start seeing results.
But that doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel. Here are 4 reasons content marketing doesn’t show results overnight but is still well worth your time and investment.
Video: 4 reasons why it’s NOT time to give up on content marketing
Please don’t give up on content marketing before it’s had time to play out. We understand you want to see the fruits of your labor. But if you pull the plug too early, you’ll lose out on your initial investment, not to mention the leads and sales that are eventually coming your way.
If you’re looking to grow brand awareness fast, here are 8 tricks to boost your efforts.
Have you ever noticed how some brands seem to have crept into popularity overnight? You’ve never heard of them, and then, all of sudden, they’re everywhere.
Their brand awareness has sky rocketed, and they’re achieving every company’s ultimate goal: Customers know about them. So what’s their secret?
Here at Fronetics, we don’t believe they have a secret. We believe that they took advantage of content marketing and its many benefits — growing brand awareness included. They were able to scale their growth in a short amount of time, a true success story for the digital era. Companies like Uber and Yelp have used these tips to implement small changes that yielded large results.
Remember, in order to grow brand awareness, you need to be proactive. It’s time to steer away from some of the traditional marketing methods, which don’t take into account how modern B2B buyers research vendors. Start putting your content marketing strategy to the test.
[bctt tweet=”To grow brand awareness fast, it’s time to steer away from some of the traditional marketing methods, which don’t take into account how modern B2B buyers research vendors. ” username=”Fronetics”]
If you’re looking to increase your brand awareness fast, there’s no better place to start than with content marketing. Check out these 8 tips for using content marketing to grow your brand awareness fast.
A new study shows that businesses that reply to customer reviews receive better ratings overall than those that do not respond.
I’ve written before about the rising popularity of B2B user review sites and how supply chain and logistics businesses can use them to increase organic traffic and lead-to-sale conversion rates. B2B buyers are increasingly considering user reviews when making purchasing decisions. That’s great for business — when the reviews are good.
But what if you get bad reviews?
[bctt tweet=”Bad reviews don’t necessarily spell disaster — but they do mean that you should incorporate a response plan into your overall marketing strategy. ” username=”Fronetics”]
A brand new study published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) shows that businesses that reply to customer reviews get better ratings overall. This means that bad reviews don’t necessarily spell disaster — but they do mean that you should incorporate a response plan into your overall marketing strategy.
Replying to reviews is an important part of online reputation management — which is especially crucial in the B2B space, where companies live and die by their reputation. So how does responding to reviews improve your online reputation?
A study in why to reply to customer reviews
To examine this question, Professors Davide Proserpio and Giorgos Zervas looked at tens of thousands of hotel reviews and responses from TripAdvisor. What they found was that “when hotels start responding, they receive 12% more reviews and their ratings increase, on average, by 0.12 stars.”
While 0.12 may not seem like a lot, in the scale of TripAdvisor’s 5 star system, where ratings are rounded to the nearest half star, it has a significant impact on customers’ perceptions.
Proserpio and Zervas found that “approximately one-third of the hotels we studied increased their rounded ratings by half a star or more within six months of their first management response.”
Improved ratings are related to management response
So why is it that the hotels started to get more and better reviews when management started responding?
The researchers examined every facet of the data to rule out other factors that would undermine causality, and found that in fact “improved ratings can be directly linked to management responses,” rather than improvements made to facilities or services.
To explain it, the researchers make the analogy of eating at your favorite restaurant and your meal arrives late. You complain to your dinner companions, but when the manager checks in seconds later and asks how everything is, “for a moment, you consider complaining, but instead choose to avoid confrontation and focus on enjoying the rest of your meal.”
Essentially, by humanizing your presence on review sites, you discourage potentially awkward online interactions.
The researchers conclude, “While negative reviews are unavoidable, our work shows that managers can actively participate in shaping their firms’ online reputations. By monitoring and responding to reviews, a manager can make sure that when negative reviews come in — as they inevitably will — they can respond constructively and maybe even raise their firm’s rating along the way.”
Do you always reply to customer reviews on user review sites?
Also in social media news April 2018: Instagram shuts down API platform, LinkedIn’s updates aimed at helping B2B marketers, and Facebook expands split ad testing.
Facebook has been busy creating updates focused on user security in the wake of the Cambridge/Analytica scandal. Since the data breach, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has committed to protecting user’s information and outlined several initiatives in the works to “prevent abuse, protect personal data and privacy, improve security, and take down fake accounts.”
One of the key takeaways from the scandal has been the lack of regulations overseeing business practices, as it applies to user data. It is safe to say that new regulations are looming in the not-so-distant future.
[bctt tweet=”“Computer science is undergoing a ‘reckoning’ and an ‘ethics crisis’ not unlike what has happened in chemistry with dynamite, in physics with nuclear bombs, and in human biology with eugenics.” Yonatan Zunger” username=”Fronetics”]
Google engineer Yonatan Zunger wrote in the Boston Globe, “Computer science is undergoing a ‘reckoning’ and an ‘ethics crisis’ not unlike what has happened in chemistry with dynamite, in physics with nuclear bombs, and in human biology with eugenics.” These regulations could have major impacts for advertisers, who have been capitalizing on data collected by social media platforms. Regulations that limit the tracking and retaining of user data will especially affect target advertising that relies on capturing data from target audience users.
Fronetics is staying on top of these changes and will continue to provide social media recommendations and updates on regulations.
Here’s your social media news for April 2018.
Facebook Changes Include More Transparency Around Ads and Pages
Facebook is working to make important changes that are aimed at increasing transparency and authenticity. “By increasing transparency around ads and Pages on Facebook, we can increase accountability for advertisers — improving our service for everyone,” says Rob Goldman, VP, Ads, and Alex Himel, VP, Local & Pages, in a statement on Facebook’s website.
Last October the social media giant rolled out restrictions on electoral ads on Facebook and Instagram. This April, Facebook is expanding those restrictions to all “issue ads” — for example, political topics — so only authorized advertisers that have been approved by Facebook can run issue ads. These changes are aimed at preventing any additional user data and privacy issues.
Facebook is also enforcing a verification process for all admins managing pages with large numbers of followers. “Those who manage large Pages that do not clear the process will no longer be able to post. This will make it much harder for people to administer a Page using a fake account, which is strictly against our policies.”
YouTube Introduces TrueView Ads
YouTube’s new ad format, TrueView for Reach, is its latest update aimed at boosting engagement for advertisers. The format allows advertisers the ability to build ads from 6 to 30 seconds long, with the skip option available after 5 seconds. “Our six-second bumper ads were designed to drive more reach among the audiences you care about, especially as they become increasingly on-the-go. They showcase not only the fun of storytelling in six seconds, but also the benefits of adapting to consumer behavior,” posts Ali Miller, Product Manager, Video Ads, and Khushbu Rathi, Product Manager, Video Ad for YouTube.
Facebook Improves and Expands Ad Split Testing Capabilities
Last October Facebook gave advertisers the ability to create split tests in Ads Manager’s Guided Creation workflow. The new update this month allows users to create tests in Quick Creation flow, making it even easier to manage ads in bulk and test ads against one another. Quick Creation will also feature a dashboard that shows “standard KPIs for the ads in your split test, such as CPM, CPC, CTR and more, to inform your marketing strategy.”
Instagram Cuts Off Older API Platform
In light of Facebook’s data security issues, Instagram announced it is shutting down the API platform, effective immediately. They have also greatly reduced the amount of data developers can access per hour, dropping from 5,000 calls per hour to only 200. Tech Crunch reports Facebook’s bold action to reform its APIs shows it’s willing to prioritize users above developers — at least once pushed by public backlash and internal strife.
LinkedIn Rolls Out Native Video for Sponsored Content and Company Pages
LinkedIn introduced autoplaying native video ads that will appear in the news feed section as stand-alone posts, as well as the ability to include native video on a company page for businesses and publishers. These changes were developed to help B2B marketers grab the attention of their audiences and increase engagement. “While video is a proven and popular tactic to engage decision-makers, the challenge has been finding a quality environment in which to reach them.” The update will be available to all businesses in the next few weeks.
Twitter Expands its Official Partners Program
Back in 2015, Twitter introduced its Official Partner Program, a select set of companies aimed at helping brands increase their ROI on advertising, brand awareness, and scaling customer care. The program has been so successful, Twitter announced it’s expanding the program to include six new partners: Curalate, Jebbit, VidMob, Vidsy, Animoto, and Social Native. “Each provider offers a unique solution that expands the advertisers’ toolset and delivers high-quality creative for brands on Twitter.”
Supply chain leaders should use these 5 social media tips to grow brand awareness and increase your company’s profile as an employer.
Like most busy executives, it’s hard to find time for your daily tasks and projects without adding social media into the mix. But having a presence on social media is no longer optional for leaders. It’s a necessity.
Though branding might not come easily for some supply chain management executives, it is key in today’s digital world for positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry, as well as gaining positive traction as an employer.
We’ve talked a lot about the supply chain talent gap. Here’s where a consistent, informative social media presence could help you and your company.
Millennials in the workforce are more likely to apply for jobs with companies that have a strong social media presence. They want to work for leaders that are openly posting about industry trends, collaborating with competitors, and working toward innovative products and services. What better way to highlight your role as an industry leader than through social media?
Getting started can be intimidating. There are lots of different social media channels. And even more options regarding content within those channels. Do you start a blog? Post on Twitter? Upload videos to YouTube? It’s not as easy as just writing a few blog posts and throwing them up on Facebook.
So how do you get started cultivating a social media presence? Here are 5 tips to help any supply chain leader.
Infographic: 5 social media tips for supply chain leaders
Don’t let the hype of social media deter you. A strong personal brand is a major asset to any executive or aspiring executive. It doesn’t have to be a chore. It can become a fun and fulfilling part of your work routine, and it pays off. We hope these tips are useful even if you’ve been active on social media in a professional capacity before!
With Facebook’s latest Cambridge Analytica scandal, you may be reevaluating if it makes sense to dedicate time and resources to your company’s Page. Can users trust Facebook?
Facebook has been in the spotlight quite a bit lately. And we’re not sure the saying “all publicity is good publicity” is holding true for the ‘Book.
From a user perspective, Facebook has faced widespread criticism in recent months for its role in spreading sensationalist, often inaccurate news stories. And from a corporate standpoint, a number of changes to News Feed deprioritize content from business Pages, making organic reach less attainable.
Next, a scandal.
Then the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. The New York Times reported that UK-based data firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained personal information without user’s knowledge, or more importantly, their consent. Since the report was published, Zuckerberg has profusely apologized for Facebook’s involvement in the data breach scandal, even placing a full-page apology ad in three American newspapers.
The fallout.
More and more big-name companies are removing their Facebook Pages — including Sonos, SpaceX and Tesla — as a result of the data breach. The hashtag #deletefacebook has been trending as more and more users remove their personal Facebook pages.
And then there’s Facebook’s stock. It fell more than 13 percent in the five days of trading following the initial reports. And at the end of March, the stock fell more than 20% off its 52-week high.
What does this mean for your business?
Kettie Laky, director of social media at Fronetics, has been closely following all the latest developments, as well as monitoring our clients’ Facebook analytics data. In this video, she’ll let you know whether you can trust Facebook and what you need to do next.
