I read about Angelo Merendino’s photo essay documenting his wife’s struggle with breast cancer via @GuyKawasaki this afternoon - beautiful photographs with an even more beautiful message.
Whole collection here.
“We see this chart as a great prioritization list for online marketing efforts. Content marketing (again), influencer outreach and SEO/SEM should be at the top of your list if you’re such a marketer.”
As a follow-up to this morning’s earlier post about content marketing, here’s a study about consumer trust and the effectiveness of different marketing/advertising tactics.
I wonder exactly what the top winner, “brand or product recommendations,” means - personal recommendations from friends/family, I assume? That’s a good way to avoid any marketing or advertising noise altogether (professional reviewers can be bought, it’s true, and thought leaders being paid for tweets is another untrustworthy venue, and the list goes on and on and ends with don’t trust anyone on the Internet), but …
… it just seems a little limited. My best friend might swear by a certain brand of lipstick, but what about all the other brands of lipstick out there that she hasn’t tried?
Consumer-written online reviews would be at the top of my list. I agree with the crowd on text messages from companies or brands, though - that’s just annoying.
I came across this slideshare presentation from Velocity Partners over the weekend and was refreshed to read something about content marketing that didn’t sound like a LinkedIn “why your company should know about content marketing” article.
On top of the great message - it’s true, content marketing has become the next social media, and a lot of it is garbage! - the design is simple, fun, and effective.
Only downside: a little long-winded, maybe?
We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming of striking infographics (my latest obsession; I’m not ashamed) to note that I’ve started writing a blog about infertility-related topics as part of my job at VFP.
Keeping in line with my current infatuation with infographics, here’s an interesting one about using social media as a customer service channel.
I agree that too many companies (including my own!) are reluctant to venture out into the brave new world of social media as an instant-reply tool. The risks seem numerous:
What if we say the wrong thing and it’s out there for everyone to see?
What if we don’t reply quickly enough?
What if someone asks a question that we don’t want to answer in print?
Yes, sure, I hear you - but the numbers speak for themselves, and should provide enough motivation to figure out solutions to these concerns. I count myself among those who hate to use the phone under any circumstances, but especially for customer service - a smooth, seamless, and satisfactory online experience would go a long way towards ensuring my loyalty to a comany.
Social Customer Service presented by Five9
