Conteaxtualized communications

Two words to guide yoursocial media efforts: prevention and proactive...

Yes indeed

Have you ever wondered why, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, more small business people don’t copy the branding techniques used by corporate America and adapt them?  Like scenes out of AMC’s Madmen, one assumes that these branding “secrets” are fiercely guarded.

Transparency being the buzzword of the decade, John Armato, Sacramento, CA- based senior partner of Fleishman-Hillard agreed to tell us about how branding techniques used by much larger companies can be applied to the small business platform as well. “Communication landscapes have changed rapidly just over the past 15 years,” says Armato. “By the early to mid 2000s, blogging and social media began to reach critical mass and a fragmentation of traditional models of media began to take place.  The simultaneous rise of a generation of marketing-savvy consumers revealed a skepticism over ‘assertion PR’ – a voice and style that screams ‘believe me just because I am telling you.’” Armato goes on to explain how engagement became not only a popular by-product of social media; it also became a necessity in the eyes of consumers.

“Seeing the trend of endorsement-through-engagement beginning to happen, Armato and other leaders in the company’s brand marketing practice group came together from around the country to discuss not just what was hot, but what was really beginning to matter to the average consumer.  “To tackle changing PR landscapes, we typically bring smart people together,” says Armato. “We expose them to world class clients and have them tell us about the underlying patterns that are changing commonly-held wisdom.  This is how we find out what brands need to do in today’s marketplace, what consumers now expect, and how we, as communications consultants, can help businesses succeed in this environment.”

The result was what Armato refers to as “The Five Marketplace Mandates.”

Continue Reading ... 

Brands and Business can learn many new ideas from this infographic.

Good insights into how brands can interact with customers and prospects on different platforms.

Nunca fue tan fácil gestionar una marca.

Search engine optimization is no longer strictly about publishing quality content and building the authority of the content. SEO now involves engaging consumers and building relationships.

SEO has changed.  Have you?

Integration of SEO to social media efforts & promotional activity is key to aligning successful messaging to prospects & leads

Find all Personal Services businesses in Los Angeles, CA, California with their business address, contact and other information.

Great tips on how to do more of what we all know we should be doing more of.

Here's how having clear business objectives can help you be much more effective in your social marketing.

Le content marketing le nouveau SEO en 2013

Jedes Spiel hat seine Regeln - auch Content Marketing. Hier eine nette Übersicht. Aber nie vergessen: Nichts ist in Stein gemeißelt, es gibt kaum eine Regel ohne Ausnahmen.

Content marketing basics for beginners.

This is true for research as well as business - what is the purpose and how does the research/researcher clearly focus on expanding the base of knowledge?

Go Brand Yourself was uploaded on SlideShare on Sunday, and in less than 5 days it received more than 20.000 views. This seems to suggest that Personal Branding can really work, not only in job seeking, but also in boosting your online presence.

Being a brand is what separates you from your competitors and creates a much stronger connection with your customers.

There's a major distinction between advancing your marketing efforts and actually transforming yourself into a brand. If you want to be a brand -- which should be your ultimate goal -- you need to understand the difference between what your customers "need" and what they "want."

Need. Our customers need certain things from our business. A need is fulfilled by a functional benefit -- a fact or rational attribute about your company. Generally speaking, most competitors in any field supply roughly the same functional benefits and can therefore generally fulfill the needs of their customers. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be in business. Fulfilling a need doesn't differentiate one business from another; it's a cost of entry.

Want. In order to be truly successful in business, your customers have to move beyond just needing your product or service to actually wanting it. While they may need the functional benefits that your business offers, it's important for your brand that they want to choose you over other options. The "want" is what separates your business from others, and turns you into a brand.

"Want" is an emotion, and therefore represents the more connective benefits your business and brand offers. When you reach an emotional level with your customers, you become a brand in their minds. You've made an emotional connection that rises above functional features and that builds loyalty. It's the "want" that moves you from being an ordinary product or service to being a desired brand.

Let me illustrate.

Continue Reading ... 

Will Critchlow has a good, in-depth analysis of SEO metrics and how to pay attention to those that really count.

If you are into KPIs, testing, measuring and keeping progress under precise, measurable tabs this is definitely a good resource to check.

Informative. Instructive. In-depth. 7/10

Full article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/meaningful-seo-metrics

This article give some quick tips to get your website back on track with your visitors.