Mark Schaefer just wrote a blog post regarding Coke’s decision to fire their CMO. Except that Coke’s CMO had just recently championed a new marketing approach that focused primarily on storytelling, the firing wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy.
Marketing professionals applauded this decision and saw it as a message for the general public of what is to come. The joy and tea leaf reading seemed to be for nothing, then, when they fired their CMO.
Finally, Coke made the choice to resume its regularly scheduled programming, which was advertising. Is this, however, really a warning that authentic sponsored content is in danger of disappearing? Not right away.
At the Fusion Conference in Washington, DC, I recently heard Mathew Sweezey, Principal of Marketing Insights at Salesforce.com, put it this way to me:
“I’m from Atlanta. When we want to ask for any type of soft drink, we ask for Coke. They’ll be fine. Just because Coke is going back to business as usual does not mean we need to abandon authentic branded content.”
You shouldn’t adopt this strategy just because Coca-Cola has decided to spend all of its marketing budget on narrative. In contrast, you should not follow their lead if they decide to withdraw that money.
Your marketing strategy should be guided by the demands of your audience.
Facebook Is looking for Your Money
Social media marketing has changed recently. Experts are increasingly advising us that we must pay to achieve any momentum on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Although to a certain extent this is true, it does not imply that we should stop using those channels to forge real connections with our target audience.
Buyers buy from other buyers. Additionally, social media has been and will continue to be an excellent setting for fostering more interpersonal relationships. The more they believe in you, the more they’ll spend with you.
Undoubtedly, connecting with people on social media used to be very simple. People would really notice and respond to a post you made on your corporate page.
The social media networks’ algorithms are always evolving. Consider your personal Facebook news stream. Facebook determines what you should see. This implies that anything you don’t have a desire for won’t show up in your feed.
How then can you interact with people with all this algorithmic filtering? It’s not impossible just because it’s difficult.
Real relationships endure throughout time. Paid ties are, at best, transient. Also keep in mind that some people adore them. Your approach should be to make them start to adore them.
Make useful material, and then distribute it on your social media platforms. Identify the persons you could have influenced or otherwise worked with to produce the material. Say something to the effect of « shout out to Mark Schaefer for inspiring me to write this post! »
Read the works of subject-matter experts and write frank critiques of them. Share and discuss their posts. Request an interview with them or a guest post. Specify them in any posts you make of their content or interviews. They will likely enjoy the content and leave a remark. The likelihood that someone will view and like your page rises as a result.
Interact with supporters and followers. Respond to their inquiries. Find answers to their issues. Offer them specials and rebates. To begin a fruitful conversation, connect immediately. Whenever it makes sense, start groups.
Building a community that endures is made possible via contests, user-generated content, brand ambassadors, and incentives schemes.
The long-term strategy of concentrating on growing your fan base requires a lot of work. But if you stick with it, the benefits will last for a very long time.
Google Is Looking for Your Money
More studies are emerging that demonstrate the challenge of ranking on Google. Despite the fact that this is the case, it is still feasible for quality material to rank. (At least for now) Google isn’t just a pay-to-play channel.
You should put more emphasis on context rather than on content and keywords. They’re looking for you, but why? Specifically, what do they require?
Relevance and context are what Google is seeking. An improved searcher experience has been the primary goal of each algorithm upgrade made by this company. That is Bodhi. He is really curious. If you can identify this reference, you receive 10 points.
In other words, although there are still some spam links that appear in the SERPs (search engine results pages), they are becoming less frequent. In addition to the phrases you use while searching on Google, consider the following:
Google uses your search history, browsing patterns, and location to identify not just what you’re searching for but also how, where, when, and why.
Situational changes: which type of device (desktop, tablet, or mobile) are you using? Where and how are you searching (verbally, textually, through Google, or on another website)?
Social norms and trends: Google also examines who is conducting searches similar to yours and which links they visited. They also take into account how well-liked the websites are that connect to your search.
Always keep in mind that Google’s success is a result of continuous user experience improvement. If Google didn’t operate successfully, the verb « to Google something » (to search for something) wouldn’t have developed. We would use Bing or ask Jeeves instead of Google if it were bad.
Popularity of Websites
Becoming one of those « popular » sites is necessary if you want to rank highly on Google. If you buy popularity, keep in mind that you will only show up in the SERPs while you are still paying. Your listing disappears along with the money.
However, well-liked websites that offer a good user experience will see their rankings rise over time. Just type « flowers » into the search bar. All of the Google shopping links and adverts are located at the top. But immediately below that, you ought to see a list of your nearby florists and perhaps even a map showing where they are.
The sites that appear in the previous example are mostly influenced by their geographic location. The context of your searcher’s goal may include a significant role for location. Savings, quality, or current relevance are all potential factors. To properly comprehend all of the aspects that play into the searcher’s « intent, » you must genuinely enter their head.
We would be here all day if I went down the SEO rabbit hole, so let me return to my primary argument now. If you are aware of what Google and your searchers are looking for and put a lot of effort into increasing exposure, you can still rank on Google.
A website’s popularity is defined by the quantity of relevant backlinks linking to it, the amount of hits it receives in the search engine results pages (SERPs), user reviews, social media mentions, and user experience (which truly might include all of above). Hard effort, a sound link-building strategy, and a social media marketing plan may help you accomplish all of these goals.
Naturally, you can’t build links without a strong, well-built website with a lot of useful content and/or excellent products. Your popularity grows from there:
Backlinks
Building links is still a thing, and it’s a very essential one. Link quality now serves as a distinction. Previously, you would want every link—good or bad—to increase traffic. The links linking to your website will now be used by Google to evaluate it. Thus, you had better have a few of them.
Building links to your website can be done actively or passively. Being proactive means that you may actively seek out links or look for opportunities to contribute on other websites in order to get them to link back to yours (see more below).
Giving people something worthwhile to link to is more the focus of passive link development. Produce top-notch content that will appeal to and satisfy your audience. Send out that material via your social media platforms, email newsletter, public relations efforts, etc.
Passive isn’t the right term because all of this still requires a lot of effort. But the links will develop over time and eventually stand alone. The actual benefit of having quality content is that the links will grow and get better over time without much further work on your side.
Guests Posts
These days, guest posts have a bad reputation. That’s because spammers started participating in guest blogging. Still, it functions. Again, context and quality are crucial in this situation.
As long as it’s done honestly, guest posting is acceptable, according to Google. As you can see, these spammers simply produced subpar material on subpar websites while posing as guests or contributors. With spammy links pointing back to the website they were promoting, they would overstuff this content.
Google has been cracking down on this behavior since May 2017 (with previous, more gradual crackdowns). However, reputable guest posting is still very powerful and is also accepted by Google.
Look for websites that are well-known in your sector. Your coworkers and clients frequent these websites for information. Go out and inquire about putting your material on their website once you’ve established yourself as a fantastic source of informative information.
Syndicated material is excellent. Several websites syndicate our content. This implies that our articles will be published on a well-known website along with a link to the original piece on our website. But this isn’t what I mean when I talk about guest posting.
What I mean is that you provide excellent material that is exclusive to the well-known website. Give them something special and helpful, and they’ll show their appreciation by giving you prominent placement on their website, a link to it, social media shares of your piece, and more.
On occasion, they may even interview you for a list or feature you on their website. Google is aware of all of these links, mentions, and shares, and it takes them into account when determining where you will appear in the SERPs. Your rating will improve over time the more you accomplish.
There are plenty of chances to build links
You may obtain links, mentions, and shares in a variety of various methods. Consider giving HARO a go. As a listserve where journalists may find subject matter experts (SMEs) for stories they are writing, Peter Shankman founded HARO (help a reporter out). One of the SMEs may be you! Seriously!
Another excellent tool for link building is Quora. Essentially, Quora is a popular question-and-answer website. Search for queries there that you can provide answers for. Answers are rated by others, thus the better the response, the higher you’re standing. By doing this, you can get your link to show up alongside a question and an answer. That’s about as nice as it gets contextually.
Other effective link-building strategies include using forums and blog comments. Comment on these by offering insightful analysis and more information, or by respectfully disagreeing with someone.
Make certain your contribution to the conversation is valuable. You’d appear spammy if you didn’t. Spam doesn’t look nice at all.
Everybody Wants Your Money
It is not either/or when it comes to original branded content and paid advertising. It may be necessary to purchase Google listings or Facebook advertisements at times to get the ball rolling. A term that is essential to your existence could occasionally be impossible to rank for, forcing you to pay for it.
It does not follow, however, that you must always pay just because you must pay occasionally. Currently, access to the Internet is still free. Still, organic traffic growth is possible. Additionally, it is steady good traffic.
No amount of advertising can create trust. awareness, perhaps. Nobody will be grateful for an advertisement. That human-to-human interaction is still necessary. The goal of the Internet is to enable meaningful information exchange by bringing people together who couldn’t previously.
It’s foolish to drop your genuine brand strategy because Coke did. You aren’t Coke. You may increase your reputation by upholding it. Acquiring it will increase qualified traffic. Long-term benefits will come from establishing success through the development of trust.
