The Innovative Marketer's Blog

Pinterest is really popping.  It has quickly become one of the fastest growing social networks.  According to a recent Pew study, 15% of American internet users are on now Pinterest—just barely trailing Twitter at 16%.  Pinterest recently launched pages for business—allowing commercial use of the network.  With its aim to “connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting,” it could be a great addition to your content and social media marketing.  

Social media is not a flash in the pan.  It is a big deal and has become so integral to modern life.  Many prospects may not even take a company seriously, if it does not have a presence on Facebook and Twitter.  Organizations that ignore social media marketing do so at their own peril.  Most major corporations have a presence on some, if not all, of the major social networks—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.  Doing social media marketing right requires genuine engagement, smart content curation and the sharing of your own original, highly shareable content.  Excellent content creation is critical.  Without it, social media success does not have real value.  Attracting a larger captive audience on social media is great.  However, what good does it bring, if you are not achieving increased website traffic, lead generation and ultimately more new business as a result of your social media efforts?

With all the hullabaloo surrounding social media, business blogging is not getting the attention it rightfully deserves.  There are so many benefits of maintaining an effective company blog, and companies who do not risk missing out on opportunities for increased lead generation, more new business and amplified brand recognition—to name only a few.  According to HubSpot,  companies that maintain blogs attract 55% more website visitors, get 97% more inbound links and have 434% more indexed web pages than companies without blogs.  The more often a company blogs, the more traffic and leads it will be able to produce.  Businesses that produce at least 20 blog posts per month generate over five times more traffic than those that produce less than four per month.  Additionally, companies that blog at least 20 times per month generate four times more leads than those without a blog.  Clearly, high-quality business blogging has real value.  Learn how to take your content marketing to the next level.

I admit it, I never really got the infographic craze. All the scrolling. The information density. I could see it in a 6 foot poster on my wall but studying the image on my 20” monitor just didn’t inspire me. So an infographic really needs to scream value in order to get my attention or get me to share it. That said, there are two recent infographics about trends that do have my attention. Here they are, and here are my thoughts on each.

Content creation is vital to inbound marketing, and most marketers know they need to update their company blog on a weekly basis.  Blog posts are necessary and important for driving traffic to your website.  However, there are other forms of content you can employ to add some variety and freshness to your website.  It is easy to fall into a content creation rut—producing the same types of content over and over, which can become boring and tiresome for you.   A lack of variety in content is not only boring for you; it is not exciting for your readers or prospects either.  Here are six fresh content ideas to help add some new life to your company website.

Infographics—or information graphics—are visual representations of information, data or knowledge.  They are used to convey complex data or a great deal of information in a streamlined fashion to foster quick and easy understanding. (remember the adage a picture is worth a thousand words?) Consider adding infographics to your school admissions marketing mix.  If you want your school to stand out to among its competitors and be memorable to prospective applicants, feature more visual content on your school website in order to amplify your school admissions marketing.