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Comment Management Tools You Should Know

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:43:59 +0000

What is Comment Management? Virtually all blog software offers commenting functionality, so why would you need a 3rd party comment management service? Many of the comments and “reactions” to content posted on a blog never make it to the blog itself – the source of the conversation. Comment Management tools provide all the expected features and also pull in mentions & citations of the post as well. That way when someone reads a post on your blog, they can see comments made directly on the post as well as mentions made of of the post on other sites like Twitter. Should you add a comment manager tool to your blog? It depends how much of your social engagement is happening off your blog and also whether you feel it will add to the user experience to see a collected list of on and off site interactions. For many blogs, citing comment and reaction counts is simply a matter of social proofing and popularity. For others, it’s an attempt to harvest all the conversation about a post at the source. To help you decide, here are the three main comment management tools to consider: ECHO from JS-Kit offers a wide array of features. It can be embedded on a blog or static web site and pull in comments from Twitter, Digg, comments from other blogs, FriendFeed and several others. Commenters can choose to promote their comments simultaneously to Twitter, Facebook or Google Friends. Sites like Technorati and Guy Kawasaki use ECHO. We tried JS-Kit but didn’t like not being able to show comments on top of the off site citations under each post. JS-Kit ECHO Live is $12/year and ECHO Live white label is $48/year. There is also a PRO version with many other controls and features with costs according to page views ranging from $195 to $1995 per year. Disqus , as you may have noticed, is the commenting system we are currently using on Online Marketing Blog . Disqus lets readers choose their identity, via: Facebook Connect, OpenID, or Twitter Sign-in, when they leave a comment. Comments can be threaded and the moderation dashboard is easy to use. Off site references to your content on Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, and YouTube are pulled in as “Reactions”. You can sort comments as we do, on top, then show the reactions below. Readers can choose to cross post their comment to other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can edit comment content but not the names of commenters, which is frustrating because some spammers write really useful comment content but spam them hell out of their names and links. The base version of Disqus is free. Disqus VIP offers much hand holding support and analytics. Cost is not disclosed on the site so it must be very expensive. IntenseDebate was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress and therefore, can be easily added to WordPress blogs as well as TypePad, Tumblr or Blogger blogs. There’s comment threading, notification by email, commenter profiles and points, moderation, cross posting to Twitter and several other features. IntenseDebate is free. Which comment management tool is right for you? It depends on your use. If you have a static web site and you’d like to add comment features, then ECHO might be a fit. If you want something that offers all the basics and works natively with WordPress then maybe IntenseDebate is your pick. If you want more features and also don’t want to pay anything, then it’s possible Disqus is the choice for you. The great thing about these tools is that they are easy to install and test out. Here are other reviews you might find useful on these comment management systems. Blog Comment System Shootout: Disqus vs. Intense Debate vs. JS-Kit Echo – 40 Tech 3rd Party Comment System Roundup – Dave Mosher’s Blog Although I pinged Facebook and Twitter connections for examples of other 3rd party comment management tools that pull in off-site citations, I didn’t hear about any. I didn’t find much on Google either. There are other comment management services, tools and plug-ins, just not any (that I’ve found) that automatically pull in 3rd party mentions of your content. If you know of other comment management systems that pull in comments from other social media sites, please share in the comments. Do you use any of the the tools mentioned above? What has your experience been? What features would you like to see added? © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Comment Management Tools You Should Know | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Comment Management Tools You Should Know

E-mail strategies to boost customer engagement – Thewisemarketer.com (subscription)

BlogPostman — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:08:35 +0000

E-mail strategies to boost customer engagement Thewisemarketer.com (subscription) By embedding social media icons for top social networking sites - such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn - directly in the content of the email, ...

5 Ways to Leverage Real Time Search in Your Online Marketing Mix

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:11:32 +0000

Since late 2009 when Google introduced real time search, the concept has gained a lot of attention. Today, real time search is at the top of the priority lists for all the major search engines – Google, Bing and Yahoo!. As part of the new technology, Google is combines live updates from sites like Twitter and FriendFeed with the latest news headlines and blog posts in search results. For web searchers, real time search means the ability to discover breaking news the minute it’s happening. For marketers, it presents a whole host of opportunities to increase online visibility. Here, we’ve provided five ways to leverage real time search in your online marketing efforts. 1. Develop the type of content that supports real time SEO With real time search, frequently publishing online content becomes a must. Try incorporating these three types of content to support both traditional and real time SEO programs: Tweets and Facebook fan page updates: Micro content from social sites now has the ability to appear in search results. It’s quick and easy to frequently post Tweets and Facebook fan pages updates, so both should play a big role in your real time SEO content strategy. Blog posts: Blogging presents the opportunity to help your content rank and show thought leadership at the same time – since blog posts can offer more valuable information than micro content. Optimized press releases: By optimizing press releases and submitting them through authoritative newswires, you can help your content achieve high rankings. 2. Mobilize your fan base Creating a core group of brand advocates is important for a number of reasons. They recommend your products and services to their friends and family, defend your reputation in times of trouble and are more likely to adopt future products and services you introduce. Now add one more benefit to the list: Brand advocates – particularly authoritative ones – can link to your content to help keep in the real time stream. In addition, brand advocates who are active on social sites like Twitter can create their own content about your company that can appear in real time search results. 3. Know what’s hot in the news With real time search, it’s important to recognize both what users are searching for online and what they’re discussing via social channels – at this very minute. Create frequently updated content that speaks to the latest topics and trends, and is optimized for the latest search terms. A variety of tools exist to help monitor search and conversation trends: Google Trends : Use this free tool to find the hottest topics and hottest searches in Google Social Mention : Determine the strength, sentiment and reach for terms used throughout the social web, including blogs, microblogs, social networks, video sites and news sites BlogPulse : Find the top blog posts, key phrases, new stories and more from across the search universe or related a specific topic Delicious : See the types of content that goes wild across the social web Trendistic : Learn trending topics in Twitter over the last 24 hours, week, month or more (see image below) Trendistic shows “online marketing” trends over the past 30 days. 4. Time your content promotion efforts wisely Give your content an extra boost by monitoring when blog posts, articles and other online content are indexes in Google News or Google Blog Search. Then ensure tweets, Facebook fan page updates and other social content promotions are timed right after the content is indexed. Doing so will help you take advantage of every opportunity to appear in real time search results. 5. Optimize your web site and online content for mobile technologies Real time search is relevant on many mobile devices, including Android and iPhone devices. So Web site optimization for mobile technologies becomes even more important. Consider these few mobile SEO tips: Limit the use of images Keep the design simple and clean Test to ensure your site appears as it should across various mobile devices The bottom line is, it’s crucial to take advantage of every real time search opportunity that comes around. Remember that these opportunities won’t stick around for long – presenting themselves quickly and then disappearing. It is real time, after all. Have you implemented real time SEO into your online marketing mix? Tell us what best practices you’ve found so far. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | 5 Ways to Leverage Real Time Search in Your Online Marketing Mix | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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5 Ways to Leverage Real Time Search in Your Online Marketing Mix

Social Media: Content and Accessibility – Natural Products Industry Insider

BlogPostman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:29:07 +0000

Social Media: Content and Accessibility Natural Products Industry Insider To take the first step toward utilizing social media to enhance a corporate online presence, personnel can create individual profiles on LinkedIn . ...

Mint Social Releases Social Media Content Engine – Fast Pitch Press (press release)

BlogPostman — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:08:22 +0000

Mint Social Releases Social Media Content Engine Fast Pitch Press (press release) In addition to having a blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter account, Mint Social recommends that businesses repurpose their existing content (PowerPoint's, ...

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Mint Social Releases Social Media Content Engine - Fast Pitch Press (press release)

How To Develop Great Content – SESNY

BlogPostman — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:00:45 +0000

At Online Marketing Blog, content marketing is frequently a hot topic. And with good reason: it’s a vital skill for marketers. Not only do we at TopRank Online Marketing see great results implementing content marketing for clients, but the industry as a whole sees it as a clear trend. Consider the following stats: 6 in 10 marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in 2010. 71% of bloggers who maintain blogs for a business – their own or one they work for – report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs (as just one example of content marketing in action). Content marketing plays an integral role in many of the top digital marketing tactics marketers implemented in 2009. In this fast-paced panel, 3 content marketers each shared some quick tips, trends and strategies for content marketing. Byron White, Chief Idea Officer, ideaLaunch Byron ran through an overview of 10 tips to follow when fleshing out a content marketing plan: 1. Develop a content marketing plan – many digital marketers just dive in without any type of plan. This is always a mistake, before going any further, you need to get organized and understand next steps 2. Use free and paid research tools to research terms – there are a slew of both free and paid research tools which can help you define keywords necessary to create a keyword glossary. Use tools in conjunction with your own creativity to create an inclusive list of terms. 3. Find the hot topics and keywords – by understanding the industry and leveraging tools, you can discover hot/trending topics and keywords to be a part of your mix in addition to the mainstay terms. 4. Develop customer profiles for testing/research the competition – building customer profiles and competitive research allows you to draw upon a knowledge base when creating content to both stand out from competitors and connect with your audience. 5. Develop an SEO plan with “keyword silos” – made up of long tail and short tail keywords – in addition to building a keyword list, group it into like terms in order for your content team to leverage it in an effective manner during content creation. 6. Score content for SEO strength – either via an automated tool or manually, score existing content for SEO strength in order to gauge what to optimize first. 7. Infuse your brand with great content – on the web, your content is your brand (and your brand is your content). 8. Create stories – people connect with stories more than just product pages and lists of features. Tell stories and connect with prospects at a much deeper level. 9. Define great content – know what great content looks like before you develop it. You can’t create something remarkable unless you have a vision in mind. 10. Document content publishing date – this is a frequently forgotten, but important tip. Only by documenting new content publishing date can you track/trend success of that content over time. Of course, metrics are key – track interaction and engagement with content. Get to a point you understand how your content, whether a blog post or a product page, is converting and working for your brand. Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks Heather spoke on developing great content in the B2C and B2B space. Why care about content? The best SEO is good content, according to Seth Godin. If you want people to convert, link to you or even visit your site you need quality content. Main advantage of good content? Control. Great content allows you to gain control of your site. Tip # 1: Think about your target audience Start by creating a customer persona. The questions you need to answer to do this include: Who is your target audience? (hint: it’s not everyone) Do you have multiple audiences? How old is your typical buyer/reader? What education level do they have? What are their average levels of income? What benefits are important? Tip #2: Expand your keyphrase universe Look for opportunities to build out new, unique content. Reach both hit and long tail phrases, and create content that speaks to a broad mix of terms. One way to do this is build out a resource section to answer both broad and ultra-specific, detailed questions. Tip #3: Free your content from “fake SEO rules” “Party like its 1999…but don’t optimize your site that way.” I.E. – there’s no need to follow a specific keyword density to rank. Instead focus on quality first, keywords second. General SEO content rules: Keyphrases in headlines/subheadlines Keyphrases in hyperlinks Keyphrases throughout the content (but not forcing it) Keyphrase-rich title Focus around 2-3 keyphrases per page Tip #4: Help your titles sizzle off the surface of SERPs When you’re on a SERP, there are 10 results and users need to pick one. Try to keep your titles to around 70 characters Include your main keyphrases Clearly explain what the landing page is about Include benefit statements (such as “free”) whenever possible Tip #5 There is always something you can do Beware the “website mullet.” Check for outdated copy. Some of the worst offenders can be press pages, conference/events pages, old articles, etc. Where possible, update copy or add additional content if you have older areas of a website gathering cobwebs. Also, if you want to build out a new section of the site to make your content friendlier but can’t change the template: start a blog or create a new section of the site. Don’t let technical issues get in your way. Jonathan Allen, Director, Search Engine Watch Jonathan spoke on the idea of using other people’s websites/social sites to gain rankings and an audience. The theme was on mash-ups – aka remixes of content. Define your goal – is the goal of this content to persuade or sell people to take action or is it more long-term, to develop links to improve your search engine rankings/brand awareness. Develop personas – I.E. connectors, those hyper-connected individuals who will help your content spread. By reaching them, you achieve the highest propensity for your content to spread. Create content – it must be relevant and must be compelling. Connect – once content starts to spread, connect with others and encourage them to share so it spreads further. Rinse and repeat – when you find a formula that works, continue to leverage that to create additional content.

Blog Marketing – Creating Dynamic Content

BlogPostman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:01:49 +0000

Those online business owners and website entrepreneurs that have done their homework on what makes a successful website different from an unsuccessful one already know that content is the key. Content provides material for the search engines to inspect and use to rank you higher in the search results, as well as dynamic material that will keep visitors returning to your site again and again.

A common mistake for rookie website owners to make is that they will work hard on their web pages, and then leave them to stagnate while they focus on other parts of the business. Although you can’t be redesigning your home page over and over, blog marketing is a great way to display unique content every day.

If you’re interested in ways that you can leverage dynamic content more efficiently so that it will help you to climb up even higher in the search engine rankings for the keywords that you are associated with, you’ve got to consider blog marketing and all the ways it can increase your visibility.

Those who have heard of blogging, but never heard of blog marketing will be interested to learn that it is a method for driving interested viewers to your web pages by creating attention grabbing posts and linking them to your main website.

Many people want to take advantage of blog marketing, but don’t have the writing skills or the time necessary to accomplish this goal efficiently. This is when you should think about turning to an experienced internet marketing firm for help.

Those advertising firms that have a lot of experience with online companies will know just how to set up a blog marketing platform that can be easily updated, and that will attract attention from the major search engines, like Google and Yahoo. Then, if you so choose, these firms can have their teams of talented writers post content for you on a regular basis.

When you have a successful blog marketing campaign in place, you will have the advantage of additional sites linking to your site on a regular basis. The search engines will notice this, and they will note that the content on the blogs seems to be relevant to your site. As a result, you are likely to move up in the search rankings.

When it comes to internet marketing you have to be creative in order to survive. Click here to learn more about how blog marketing can increase your site’s visibility and traffic.

OMS10 B2B Marketing Case Study: Marketo

BlogPostman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:08:37 +0000

Our agency TopRank Marketing has been working with Marketo providing SEO, content and blog marketing consulting services for about 2 years. I finally had the opportunity to meet Marketing VP Jon Miller in person today prior to his presentation at Online Marketing Summit: Marketo’s Secret Sauce for Demand Generation. Marketo is one of the fastest growing software companies in the U.S. and this session is a case study for how Marketo has achieved that rate of growth. Marketo launched their main product about 2 years ago. In 2 years, they’ve signed up 400 customers at a value of about $30,000 per year in recurring revenue. The current run rate is over $12 million which is pretty impressive for a 3 year old company. Marketo revenue cycle benchmarks show that Marketo spends about 50% more than comparable companies on Marketing but less on sales. Their customer acquisition cost are much less than other software companies. Marketo has a very efficient marketing and sales effort. How is that so? They use their own product and have made smart investments in their marketing efforts. Rather than a sales cycle, Marketo focuses on the revenue cycle that starts from awareness to becoming a customer. Awareness > All Names > Engaged > Prospect Qualified > Lead > Sales Lead > Opportunity > Customer Marketo keeps their landing page forms very simple. They then actual manually check the company web site and decides if that inquiry is a worthwhile prospect. Since they’re marketing automation company, adding a manual process may seem contradictory but such activity helps sales people evaluate companies a lot more effectively. Contacts are then nurtured and scored. If they score above a certain level, they become a “lead”. Awareness – Investments in awareness and brand have paid off in a very big way for Marketo. They’v found it to be very effective to focus on content and thought leadership through tips, best practices and ideas that are available without registering. Marketo’s blog is their single most effective marketing tactic. They’ve actually diverted marketing investment away from other activities and focused instead on blogging. Woot! TopRank gets a shoutout as Marketo’s SEO agency. PPC is the top converting tactic and their best leads are coming in from inbound: search and word of mouth. Once a prospect is generated, sales follow-ups are personalized and very soft touch. What is Lead Nurturing? The art of maintaining permission to stay in front of your buyers as they educate themselves. The key to lead nurturing is relevance. Types of Lead Nurturing: Stay in touch, Incomin lead processing, Accelerators, Lead lifecycle. If you get a new prospect, about 1/4 are sales ready. Putting lead nurturing in place resulted in 50% more qualified sales leads at 33% of the cost. Content mapping . Make sure content is relevant to where buyers are in the buying cycle. Think big, start small and move quickly. It doesn’t have to be your content either. You can package other content with your observations surrounding it. Companies with sales people that spend the time to qualify leads ultimately generate more revenue. Lead scoring rules focus on behaviors: Latent and Active. Latent means people engaging with content. Active means showing interest intent such as Googling Marketo’s brand name as well as downloading reviews, visit web site 2x in one week. There’s a certain threshold that’s met to initiate follow up. There’s a huge drop off for leads that are not responded to with 5 minutes or less. Inbound leads are segmented: target companies, enterprise companies, other. Also segmented by latent or active. Response time is based upon meeting scoring criteria. Inbound calls, contact us forms, and qualified free trial requests get “Active” follow up. ie speedy follow up. At the end of the 21 day lead nurturing period, a final email is sent giving options for recipient to self score themselves in terms of interest in Marketo. No lead left behind: There’s an automated process that reminds sales teams to follow up. This dropped unresponded leads from 33% to 5%. Lessons learned: Focus on the entire revenue cycle, not just generating new leads. Do not understimate the value of creating content! Build trust and reduce risk vie thought leadership and social media. Leverage analytics. You can learn more about Marketo on their blog and on Twitter .

Live from OMS: The 10-Step Content Strategy

BlogPostman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:17:04 +0000

It was amazing how few hands went up yesterday at the Online Marketing Summit when moderator Joe Pulizzi asked how many people in a room full of marketers have a content strategy in place. Attendees scribbled madly as his expert panel laid out a plan: Start with a needs assessment. Mike Stelzner of SocialMediaExaminer.com suggested starting out by asking who your ideal reader is. You need to be able to visualize that person and focus clearly on his or her persona to create content that resonates with that audience, he said. Get a sense for the competitive landscape . Where does your desired audience get information? Determine if there is a need that isn’t being filled and if you can own that gap, advised Content Rich author Joe Wuebben . Lawrence Coburn of RateItAll mentioned Seed.com as an example of a data-oriented service that can tell you what your market is searching for. Find out what stories people are telling about your brand . Listen to what your desired customers are saying. Survey them, if possible, and integrate what you learn into your plan. Choose your corporate voice . Simon Kelly of Story Worldwide suggests creating a “story platform” that will help define your voice. Make sure your voice is congruent with your core corporate values and consistent across channels. Your corporate voice will be defined by your audience demographics and company goals. It shouldn’t be confusing to your audience in any way. Know your core keywords . There are relatively inexpensive ways to find out the best keywords to target on your site. Coburn mentioned Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery as places to start. Commit to your blog . In Arnie Keunn ’s business, Vertical Measures, 25% of his Web traffic comes from its blog. The blog should be the hub for your marketing activities, with platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked as the spokes. Your blog is real estate you own, and you can control 100% how your content is presented. Make content educational, not promotional . Tell stories about problems your customers have, don’t just pitch your product. Consider asking for registration/further engagement with your audience at the end of your content — once readers are hooked — rather than at the beginning. Shoot for 200 to 400 words, which is the sweet spot for blog-post length, and don’t forget to augment your content with video whenever possible. Integrate your content with the other social-media channels . Embed social media into your content — even if your content is PDFs of case studies, e-books or white papers. Give readers the opportunity to engage in your content and share it with their networks. Lightweight ways to encourage reader engagement include adding a “like” button to your content, plugging in Facebook Connect and including discussion threads for blog comments. Create a content calendar . Build the calendar at least three months out. Make sure it includes season- and industry-related events and is accessible companywide. Tend to reader comments . Last, but definitely not least, leave no reader comment unattended. Image credit, Eoseye , via iStock

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Live from OMS: The 10-Step Content Strategy