What’s on my marketing desktop? Here’s 10:

I thought I’d kick off my “Digital Marketing Tools Review” category by sharing a list of the programs I have open and running day to day on my desktop that help me to do my job in B2B tech marketing. I will follow soon with my top ten favourite mobile apps as well as a different post (or maybe a few) dedicated to various social media sharing sites, but for now I’ll share what keeps me going during the 9-5:30 Monday to Friday spot.

If you like the post and want to share, I’d love to hear about the tools you can’t live without.

These are a bit of a random mix of desktop applications and web based apps (they are not in any particular order):

1. Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is my preferred app for tweeting because I need the multi-column view. I tweet from my own account and two other business related accounts, and I need to be able to see the activity in all of them all of the time. I also want to see my mentions, direct messages and the results from any given #hashtag I’m following.

2. Bitly

Bitly shortens links for my tweets and provides me with analytics so that I can who has clicked on my links.

3. Linkedin

I’ve been a member of LinkedIn since 2004 and I use it more than ever. I like the news feed stream featured on my home page and I am actively involved in several LinkedIn Groups (I will list these in
another post!) Once or twice a week, I make time to get involved in group discussions – this has been a great way to learn about everything from marketing automation to SEO. I run a LinkedIn Group for my business and as a business, we do use LinkedIn to gather intelligence on people who’ve recently made job moves or people we’d like to invite to industry events. I often “hear” about events relevant to me via LinkedIn which is useful because I can see a list of everyone attending. Lastly, I use LinkedIn for its original purpose, which is to make connections with like minded business people – I’ve been contacted and have met some extremely useful connections using LinkedIn.

4. Google Analytics

Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics stays open on my desktop all day, every day.

I monitor the traffic of three different websites and produce daily reports to review not only top content, but also top referral sites. For a *free* tool, I have to say, Analytics is pretty impressive. I can monitor which browsers my audience use, whether they are accessing the sites via mobile devices, and how long they stay on the site. I can also identify keywords and content that are causing high bounce rates.

Continue reading “What’s on my marketing desktop? Here’s 10:”

This week’s best reads

What a busy week. Trying to cram five days of work into four is never easy and Easter weekend activities were on top of me before I knew it!

Here we go – my best reads from this week:

  • The Cost of Bad Content: This was definitely the best thing I read this week. As you will see from parts I and II in my Content Marketing series, I take special interest in anything that does a deep dive on it as a concept and am especially interested when people actually apply some analysis. This post is excellent – it actually looks at whether people are assessing how much content marketing is costing to produce, and whether the content is measurably helping the business or if it’s in fact a waste. I think one of the best points Michael Brenner (@brennermichael) makes is that B2B marketers often focus on content marketing activities rather than the measurable results the content marketing should produce. He also points out that as a whole, we B2B marketers are not necessarily doing a great job of measuring the impact of *bad content*. I encourage you to read this post and ponder it. On my part, it’s inspired me to get going on the final part in my Content Marketing series.

*The other thing I read (which is now a few months old) was Want jobs? Upgrade your wireless network. This article looks at the number of jobs the move from 2G-3G created, and examines the move (in the US) from 3G to 4G and how it will likely have the same effect. From the article: “It sounds like a small number, but it adds up: By September, the study predicts the 4G network transition will have directly created 231,690 U.S. jobs.”

This week’s best reads

I’ve decided to add a new category called “This week’s best reads” just to highlight some of the amazing material I come across on a weekly basis – I promise to keep it all relevant this blog and will not be directing you to some of my usual web haunts (I’ll admit it, I love those photos of baby pandas as much as the next gal and my husband does send me some LOL articles from the Dailymail.co.uk):

Here we go – my best reads from this week:

  • Only 13% of B2B Marketers Drive Leads with Social Media: @ilonah tweeted this article and I was intrigued as I’d just sat on the panel for PR Firm Cognito’s Breakfast Byte (Topic: Social Media in B2B Financial Services) and in the audience were a lot of B2B Marketers curious about how to better to drive leads using social media. I am not surprised that only 13% of B2B marketers feel social media is driving leads, but what was missing from this survey was quite a large comparison category – that being corporate websites.
Source: As noted in image. Taken from http://socialmediab2b.com

Spotlight on Content Marketing: Part II – Social media: The medium shouldn’t be the message, but it is

In Part I of Spotlight on Content Marketing (Content Marketing is not a new concept!) I made the following claim:

There is nothing new about the concept of content marketing. There is also nothing new about today’s preferred choice of delivery for content marketing (the web)……but combine that with the power of social media and you’ve got enough to inspire a series of endless workshops that will take a reassuringly expensive bite out of your marketing budget. 

Here’s another one:

The reason B2B businesses are jumping on the content marketing bandwagon is because they are finally realising they have the ability not only to generate leads by producing creative, helpful stuff, but also because they can produce, publish and distribute it themselves!  In short, they can share it. The rise of social media has been the tipping point. 

The medium shouldn’t be the message, but it is
Marshal McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

The key is in the method of delivery. 48 years after the first publication of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man his claim that the “medium is the message” still rings true.

Simply put, it’s taken social media to highlight content as the basis of a good marketing strategy. Continue reading “Spotlight on Content Marketing: Part II – Social media: The medium shouldn’t be the message, but it is”

Spotlight on Content Marketing: Part I – Content Marketing is not a new concept!

The world outside *must* feel the need to educate me as there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t receive an email or LinkedIn invite to a course dedicated to content marketing.

Content has a way of stacking up at chez Reid!

I try not to be irritated, but when an email or invite comes along that describes content marketing as “the newest trend” or new in any way, I become annoyed. I want to be clear on this one:

There is nothing new about the concept of content marketing. There is also nothing new about today’s preferred choice of delivery for content marketing (the web)……but combine that with the power of social media and you’ve got enough to inspire a series of endless workshops that will take a reassuringly expensive bite out of your marketing budget. 

As you’ll see later on in the series, Continue reading “Spotlight on Content Marketing: Part I – Content Marketing is not a new concept!”

Cognito Breakfast Byte: Social Media in B2B Financial Services

The lovely folks over at Cognito have invited me to be a panelist at their next Breakfast Byte on March 28th. I look forward to a great discussion with the audience and my fellow panelists!

CognitoBreakfastByte

Attention digital marketers! Google Panda: 10 questions answered

1. What is it? No one (including Google) says it better than Wikipedia who say: Google
Panda is a change to the Google’s search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites”, and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

What I say: An algorithm is a step by step procedure used for calculations. Remember that the change to Google’s algorithm is based on the *human* testing of thousands of websites for quality. The aim behind Panda is to ensure searches return you quality sites…..sites that deserve to be high in search rankings.

2. Why did Google implement it? It’s all about survival. Continue reading “Attention digital marketers! Google Panda: 10 questions answered”

Great Meetup: Adaptive Web Design: Does Size Matter?

Last night I dropped in to the Innovation Warehouse after work to attend @DigitalPondUK’s cleverly named Meetup: Adaptive Web Design: Does Size Matter?

Why did I go?

What’s a Digital Pond Meetup? “The Digital Pond is a meetup community welcoming all those from a digital discipline wanting to learn more or build networks with others within the industry.”

Adaptive Web Design: Does Size Matter
Thursday March 1st Meetup @The Innovation Warehouse: Adaptive Web Design: Does Size Matter?

Once upon a time I was a web designer. While it’s something I’ve always maintained an interest in, as a digital marketing specialist my curiosity extends into User Experience (UX) which is specifically what this Meetup was aimed at.

I work with a few UX designers and have always been fascinated by right-brain/left-brain way they approach their work. The strict processes they develop and follow mixed with the seriously impressive creative flair they all demonstrate on a daily basis never fails to draw me in. Our office walls are decorated with some of the prettiest, most eloquent flow charts, wireframe sketches and narrative journey maps you’ll ever see.

UX & Digital MarketingContinue reading “Great Meetup: Adaptive Web Design: Does Size Matter?”

Pinterest for the B2B tech marketeer: Part II: Let it appeal to your creative side

In Pinterest for the B2B tech marketeer: Part I: Think about your customers & prospects, I noted that as a technical marketing person Pinterest may not necessarily appeal to your prospects, you may, as a social media enthusiast, find it a useful creative tool for reasons such as these:
board on Pinterest

  • Creating your own supporting visuals in the form of infographics, videos, slideshare cover slides charts or basically any image that “tell the story themselves” for blogs.
  • Creating and/or building up new concepts and fields
  • Creating mood boards
  • Promoting events

Your images & videos on Pinterest

Pinterest has been a great reminder to me that some of the best, most easily digested blogs posts are the highly visual ones, particularly the ones that contain images that illustrate the point of the post.

Creating your own infographics is a great way to make your blog posts invaluable, and “pinning” the  visuals that live in your posts to a board in Continue reading “Pinterest for the B2B tech marketeer: Part II: Let it appeal to your creative side”