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Everyone Needs a Friend

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”

If you are an ‘80’s baby, you definitely know this quote because the person associated with it was as soothing as a warm fuzzy blanket and those footy pajamas we all used to wear. “The Joy of Painting” was on PBS and was a hit for more than a decade. Well not really a hit for today’s TV standards, but definitely a great educational show.

“Gotta give him a friend. Like I always say ‘everyone needs a friend,’” Bob Ross would say as he paired a tall green lazy tree next to a lonely bush.

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3 Tips to Keep Your Content Marketing and Social Media Strategy on Track

Social media and content marketing go together like peanut butter and jelly – they’re just better together. We spend loads of time and energy creating content that is valuable to our readers. So how do we ensure this content gets into the right hands? Social media can be a perfect solution.

Once you have content to share, it’s important to use this as efficiently and effectively as possible. What are the results? Better SEO, higher brand engagement, and increased brand awareness to name a few.

Here are some tips to stay on the right track with social media and content marketing:

  • Have a plan – this includes an editorial calendar for all content, a plan to execute your social media strategy, and a goal of what you’d like to accomplish.
  • Interact – social media is a perfect place to connect with others. Start a conversation, offer valuable content, create a poll, run a contest and make sure almost all of your social media posts encourage engagement. When you share your content, try to do so in a way that speaks to your audience, not at them.
  • Analyze – the only way to find out if your strategy is effective, and that’s to analyze. Not sure where to start? Try these 5 free tools. If something isn’t working, take a look at the quality of both your content and your social media strategy, modify and try again.

Need some more guidance when it comes to content marketing and social media? Contact the Content Boost team.

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Fresh Content! That’s the ticket!

A parking ticket is like a mosquito bite.  It’s annoying, it itches, it lingers and it leaves a scab, or a dent in your wallet, if you scratch too much.  The funny thing is if you ignore the itch and don’t scratch it, the mosquito bite fades away pretty quickly. Summer is coming; you should try it.

The problem with a parking ticket is if you ignore the ticket, it will definitely not fade away.

Fast forward to six months after ignoring my ticket. I now have a $100 dollar fine and am standing in a line with 170 other people that decided to also ignore their ticket.  We are all facing the same direction and have that blank stare of desperation as if a guillotine was waiting to take us out of this misery. I look around after the mullet of the guy in front of me stops being hilarious and notice that the walls of the courthouse are chipping, the smell is musty, the area is dark and gloomy and the officers look bored out of their mind.  It is nine in the morning on a Tuesday and the ticket booth is open but the courtroom has yet to open its doors.

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Squeaky Clean Content

My monthly car wash ritual is the same every time. I plan for the entire process to take 20 minutes tops, in and out. After the interior vacuuming is said and done and the wet wipe is quickly applied to the interior, the half way mark is purchasing the “new car” scented tree.  The final part is easy; just pull up to the grumpy underpaid worker holding an insane amount of dollar bills, pay and tip him and I’m out.  Seems simple right?Not today. A new overly energetic college kid jumped in front of my car and skipped his way to my window to immediately inform me of the four choices they now offer. The ultimate wash (guaranteed for seven days!); the wheel blaster wash; the clear coat application wash; and the rust protector wash (or the basic water and soap wash).

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Why Content Marketing Makes Sense

If you had the choice to interrupt your customers or to provide them with enriching content which just so happened to capture their attention, which would you choose?

Such is the difference between traditional marketing—billboards, radio spots, television commercials and newspaper ads—and content marketing. Whereas the former aims to grab a hold of the viewer’s attention for a brief moment, the latter seeks to provide the same viewer with multiple forms of valuable content in order to help build and grow a long-term relationship. Traditional marketing is expensive and provides not much more than a distraction. Content marketing offers valuable information and entertainment which lasts longer and can be shared on social networks with ease.

In light of this, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that businesses are increasingly looking toward upping their content marketing efforts. According to Jonathan Lister, who oversees the North American advertising sales and operations for LinkedIn, 18.9 percent of marketers focused primarily on content marketing in 2012. In 2013, that number has jumped to 34.8 percent. Continue reading “Why Content Marketing Makes Sense”

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The Imminent Ubiquity of Content Marketing: What Happens Next?

Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi explores a really interesting question in one of his more recent blog posts: Once all brands have started embracing content marketing, what happens next?

Ah, the great old question of what comes next.

We certainly all asked it a few decades ago when the world was first introduced to the mobile phone. And while bulky and hefty, we quickly watched as it paved the way for the dominance of smartphones, apps and the BYOD revolution. Fast forward to today and the competition for your consumer-ready hands is fierce.

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Ahh, Coke’s New Marketing Campaign Makes Me Thirsty

This is the age of the mobile device. The days of print advertisements wane in the rearview as we now drive down the highways of the future.

In order to stay fresh and relevant, firms need to rethink their marketing strategies if they want to connect with and convert a target market that is always evolving.

And the fine folks at Coca Cola seem to have done just that.

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I don’t even drink Coke—I’m more of a water-and-coffee-drinking guy—but there I was on a Friday afternoon, staring at a virtual paper cup bearing the soft drink company’s logo. The cup was shifting back and forth across my computer screen, and I was charged with pulling back a virtual sling shot and trying to aim a virtual ice cube into the cup in order keep its virtual contents at the perfect temperature of 37 degrees. Continue reading “Ahh, Coke’s New Marketing Campaign Makes Me Thirsty”

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Are You Just Waking Up to Content Marketing?

In Washington Irving’s classic tale Rip Van Winkle, a young man leaves his home along the Hudson River for a sojourn into the Catskill Mountains where he encounters a group of strange, bearded men. As the story goes, Rip proceeds to drink their liquor, and soon falls into a deep slumber.

When Rip finally wakes up, the world around him seems like a very different place. He is startled to learn that he too has grown a long beard. The stock of his gun has rotted away, and his dog has run off. This is because Rip did not sleep for just one night—he was out cold for 20 years. Confusion mounts as Rip walks into town and discovers how everything around him has changed. Continue reading “Are You Just Waking Up to Content Marketing?”

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What Did You Just Say?

We’re all looking to differentiate ourselves; it’s essentially a top goal of content marketing.

We’ve all been given the same advice from marketing managers: “stand apart,” “have a cutting edge,” “make a difference”…but how speakingexactly are we living up to these expectations? What is it that enables us to stand apart when compared to the mound of competitors striving to do just the same?

A piece of this puzzle is found in the way we speak.

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Afraid of Striking out at the Content Marketing Game? Don’t Be

shutterstock_89687209When we think about fear, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s iconic statement from his first inaugural address undoubtedly comes to mind: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

It’s an incredibly simple but powerful statement. After all, why fear something that is out of our control? Why play the “what if” game instead of simply living life? We spend so much time worrying about something that can happen as opposed to just dealing with adversity when it comes our way.

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