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I’m in the thicket of online media every day. I’ve studied and practiced all the best practices in
social media, blogging, email and web content. I was a very early adopter of LinkedIn and Twitter, then Facebook. I’ve been doing email marketing successfully for about 7 years now.

My educated opinion is there is something very wrong with current “best practice” marketing models that will have to change at some point. Marketers may be more transparent but they’re also more full of BS than ever. It’s not intentional BS, it’s just a lot of useless information to which I’m referring as BS.

Why is this? Most marketing departments are trying to out-tweet and out-blog each other in an attempt to win the Google position race. So what happens to content? It becomes diluted and cheap, even if it does raise visibility.

Now PLEASE don’t misunderstand. There are many excellent blog writers out there sailing valiantly in the ocean of mediocrity. Much of my continuing education has been gleaned from reading good blogs. They can be entertaining and very enlightening. The perfect turn of phrase in a tweet can open up a whole new area of interest and enrichment, but finding such a tweet is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

If in doubt, leave it out!

If planned and executed well, a blogging and social share strategy can certainly raise your keyword rankings in Google. That’s great, and the planning & executing should only include high quality content.

That’s why I’ve cut back the volume of my own social shares for business. If a post doesn’t smack you with a “must see more” kind of experience, you won’t share it. If you won’t share a post or be moved by it to take action, just how effective is it?

When other people – outside your organization – enthusiastically share your content with their valued friends and connections, you’ve struck social pay dirt… if it leads to referrals and new business.

I understand the term “conversions” to include when people fill out a form on a landing page for a free E-book download. You “converted” them from an unknown human entity to a “lead” in the database. You have their email address but did you really convert them? Do they even have the capacity to be a client? Do they have relationships with potential clients?

That’s where good marketing automation OR good salesmanship comes into play to nurture the “lead” all the way to being a paying customer. However, high quality content over high quantity noise will shortcut the lead nurturing. My newsletters and blog posts generate direct sales without a lot of lead nurturing because people in the audience really like the message and therefore conclude that we can help them. People call or email a direct response requesting a meeting or proposal. Those are my key metrics.

Striving to be at the cutting edge of your industry requires cutting edge thinking, better product design, superior service models, strong and deep relationships… What else can you think of?

Being the first to re-tweet a technology advance or scoop news from a third party may be fast but it’s also quite easy. What did you and your company do to advance the technology? Why are you THE BEST re-seller of that hot new technology? If you consistently demonstrate best, you’ll be talked about with just a few well conceived and well placed posts. Others will do the volume sharing for you and your Google search rank will tend to skyrocket when that happens.

Our potential to positively affect each another through communication is enormous with the digital tools we have. We need to channel our messages in valuable ways or it’s a big waste of time. Let’s try to focus more on what really matters in business; quality work, quality relationships and growth – things worth blogging about.

The post Cheap Noise is Getting Out of Hand appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

By Chuck Sink

The default position of almost every corporate communication decision is the watered down, safe, politically correct version of the story. Unfortunately, that’s the bogus version.

The risk of offending one vocal audience member has executives cowering in fear of the social and political mobs. Honesty and truth are hiding in the minds of communicators as they try to offend nobody and please everyone.

Did you know that you are often right and those who disagree with you are often wrong?  Seriously, did you know that your deeply held, principled values are very likely better for our society than the values of those vehemently opposing you? Yes it’s true and you need to speak truth to power as well as to ignoramuses.

If you know something to be true and have the evidence behind you, be forthright and honest in your communications, regardless of whom may be offended. I’m fairly certain I will lose 2, 3 maybe 5 subscribers over this newsletter content. That’s okay with me because I have a very loyal core of readers in this audience. You are the people who make good things happen in my world. Thank you! <3

Trust in business is vital to our economic freedom and vitality. The only people we can really trust are those who are willing to tell us exactly what they believe to be true. Keep in mind that discretion and judgement are important in guiding what needs to be said, to whom and when.

Keep all communications relevant, in proper context and based in love. That way, even your adversaries will hear the ring of truth in what you have to say.

The post Crack a Few Shells to Get Food for Thought appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

A FREE NETWORKING EVENT to celebrate our TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Thursday, May 30, 2013 – 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM

Eastpoint Executive Center – 264 South River Road Bedford, NH 03110

Create Content  to Drive New Business!

Presented by Chuck Sink Link and Eastpoint Executive Center

Please RSVP  by leaving a comment right here on this post.

You may also RSVP by contacting Chuck:  chuck@chucksink.com  |  (603) 345-7223

Come learn something valuable and make connections.  See you May 30th!

Create content that is engaging!

The post Learn and Network at the Chuck Sink Link Anniversary Event appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

By Chuck Sink

In today’s marketing world you need to be a good Content Curator (Curator, huh?)  Curating the content is also known as getting the content so if I use the word “get” instead of “curate,” forgive me. The last real curators I knew worked exclusively for museums.

Give Me an Easy Tool!

A client of mine recently asked her SEO vendor what they use to generate fresh content for the dynamic news feed on their website. What “Curator Plugin” did they use? The answer came back starting this way: “There’s no easy answer on this one…” The vendor went on to explain how they manually get (curate) articles for their news feed. “We all do a lot of reading and we share the best of what we find…” continued the answer.  That answer is one reason I respect this particular vendor so much. They are diligent specialists and very good at what they do.

The post Curate Content that Drives New Business appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Has a headline or subject line ever grabbed your attention and then everything else in your world disappeared for several minutes while you voraciously read a good article? Did your current project take a back seat while your mind relentlessly pursued more information in the article? Perhaps you stopped and wrote a note to the author because you just had to offer your timely and relevant feedback!

Best of all, maybe the article struck such a resonant chord that you finally made a decision to take some positive action and invest in yourself or your company.

That, my friends, is what good content is all about. We hear about “inbound marketing” and “content marketing” all the time these days, but what is it? Is it an article that’s trending with what most of the target market is thinking? Maybe. Is it a thought provoking piece about a controversial or potentially game-changing subject? Could be.

These examples tend to be lay ups in the world of content marketing. Simply sharing a good blogger’s materials is fine but it tends to get the recipient thinking more about the blogger than the sharer! Lay ups are okay for staying in the game but it’s the more dramatic half court and 3 point shots that win tournaments.

The Secret of Good Content

When you can hit someone with information that experience tells them is prescient and relevant, your’re doing content marketing right. Real world experience and true stories are what grab attention and move people to take action. It’s often the repeated issues that are right in front of us – the problems we can identify and solve right now that we need to be talking about.

You need not always be concerned with innovation or cutting edge technology or the latest best practices to get your target audience’s attention. What you need is authentic value communicated in way that your customers and prospects will benefit from.

If you’re an architect or interior designer, offer easy space planning or simple energy saving ideas. If you’re an attorney, provide ways people can stay informed of changing laws. If you’re a mortgage officer, write about how to manage an escrow account to avoid surprise recalculations. If you’re a manufacturer, share your supply chain expertise in ways that would save customers money. If you’re a printer, show off a direct mail piece with an unusually high rate of return.

These are just the first ideas off the top of my head. I’m sure you can come up with better content ideas for your clients. Perhaps someone like me can help you better develop your content and consistently distribute it.

Keep thinking about things that your audience would like to know more about. Chances are, if something interests you, it will interest them too.  Listen closely to your customers and provide content that answers the questions they’re asking. Keep a file of ideas. Always write down your ideas or you will forget them!

When you see a great article you want share, instead of just slapping up a link, take some time and write down your own thoughts on the same topic. Make it relate even more specifically to your customers.

Clear away the clutter of information overload by serving up content your audience wants to consume and can actually use. You’ll become known as an authentic value provider. You’ll be trusted and called first when it’s time for doing business.

The post Good Content Clears away Clutter appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Call it a feature article, a white paper or a blog post. Maybe your written wisdom is a work of art like a tribute, reflection or poem. Whatever it is, if it’s thoughtful, articulate and valuable to an audience, it’s an asset and should be leveraged as such. Businesses need to create and disseminate information today or they will become obscure and lose relevancy in a crowded marketplace.

The good news for all businesses is there are myriad ways to share and disseminate information freely now. Effectively reaching a target audience of a few thousand used to cost tens of thousands of dollars in the glory days of old media. Today the same reach of exposure can be achieved at no dollar cost other than spending some of the time you’d be watching TV, by building your online networks instead.

Websites are the central communication hubs for businesses today and blogs are where visitors go to find out if the organization has a pulse. Blogs are best leveraged as an integral part of the organization’s website so search engine crawlers can detect the origins of the relevant, fresh, visible content for which they are sniffing. Google looks for dynamic, relevant content that is viewed, shared, back-linked and repeated so it’s best to keep your blog on your website.

Setting up 3 or 4 social media accounts and strategically syncing them for blog content sharing can get your message out instantly and to hundreds or thousands of people FREE! Then there’s email marketing. Newsletters work when the information is valuable. Every blog post can be a newsletter and vice versa. By the way, don’t make the mistake of only pushing your own promotional messages. Be alert. Pay attention to your network and what other people share. Learn from it.

Twitter is a wellspring of fresh valuable ideas and thought leadership. It’s where I often get ideas about which to write articles and blogs. Read people’s tweets and check out their linked content when it catches your eye. Leverage the work of others by sharing it. Engage valuable new business connections, clients and partners by commenting on and sharing their posts. Compliment people when they teach you something new and invite them to comment on your stuff or answer your questions. LinkedIn is exceptionally valuable for this, especially when you participate in Group discussions.

“But I don’t have enough content, I don’t know what to write about and I just don’t have the time with how busy I am…” Everyone reading this post is an expert at something, maybe a few things so saying you don’t know what to write about isn’t true. If you think you’re a bad writer, just dump your ideas out on paper and hire a good writer to edit your messages – it’s not expensive if you provide all the facts. Saying you don’t have time to write your blog and mange your social media networks usually doesn’t wash either. Do you have time for your favorite TV shows every weeknight or a few drinks “after work?” Does your alarm clock have an early morning setting?

It’s true that some professionals really don’t have the time to devote to content creation and online networking development. An architect’s time is better spent designing buildings; a lawyer’s time is most profitably spent litigating, counseling or defending clients. In some cases it makes sense to hire a professional communicator or agency to keep your blog content dynamic and your social media pages updated while you go out and slay dragons or bag trophies.

Increase the value of your business by increasing the quality and quantity of your information assets. So, in blogging it’s your call. Spend the time or spend the money. Either way, like a bank, you’ll see a nice ROA – return on assets.

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