Internet Marketing Strategy 2.0

Jake Sorofman, Research Director at Gartner, highlights in his blog the key traits of effective online communication:

1) It’s human: it speaks with a conversational voice, from one human being to another. Thought isn’t hidden behind stilted corporate speak, chest-thumping claims and pompous language.

2) It’s neutral: perhaps not wholly objective, but it holds fire on the hard sell in favor of issues-centric storytelling that supports a brand’s point of view without always making the brand the hero.

3) It’s simple: attention spans aren’t what they used to be and competition for that limited attention has reached a fever pitch.

4) It’s visual: It’s also easier to consume when you’re already up to your eyeballs in dense text.

5) It’s curated: you don’t have to create all of your own content. Leverage happens when you organize and annotate third-party content that helps tell your story or sell your point of view.

6) It’s conversational: communities talk back to sustain the dialogue in the form of comments, reviews, ratings and new content of their own that defends or argues against your point of view.

7) It’s organic: it’s published fast, often in response to unpredictable moments."

My comment: I think that most of these seven points are pretty accurate though I personally do not think that being neutral and simple are always strengths when it comes to effective online communications.

I guess it depends on the situation, but, in my humble view, I will likely favour more companies and individuals that a) take a stand and a side on important issues and b) that are not concerned with providing simple, superficial, easy-to-consume content.

Being organic, as intended here, is also something that in my eyes will not be a key absolute advantage point for companies, but it can definitely be in many cases a plus point.

Good points. Rightful. 8/10

Original article: http://blogs.gartner.com/jake-sorofman/forget-big-data-here-comes-big-content/

Gartner's 2013 Social Marketing Survey:
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/digital-marketing/social-

marketing-survey.jsp

(Image credit: Creating content - Shutterstock)

If you keep investing time on optimizig your site for Google, or investing in link building efforts of all kinds I suggest you give a good read to this article.

Wriiten by Awini Anburajan on Buzzfeed: "Search traffic to publishers has taken a dive in the last eight months, with traffic from Google dropping more than 30% from August 2012 through March 2013...

...While Google makes up the bulk of search traffic to publishers, traffic from all search engines has dropped by 20% in the same period.

BuzzFeed tracked traffic referrals to over 200 publishers in the BuzzFeed Network, a group of sites that carry BuzzFeed's tracking code and include the Huffington Post, Daily Mail, NewsweekDailyBeast, Time, Sports Illustrated, Us Weekly, and Rolling Stone. Collectively the sites represent an audience of more than 300 million people globally.

Of the three major search engines — Google, Yahoo and Bing — only Yahoo saw growth in this period.

While Yahoo grew search traffic in this period, it sent 21M referrals to publishers in March, less than half of the 48M referrals sent by Google. Traffic from Bing dropped 12%."

And check this: "In March, Facebook sent 1.5x more traffic than Google, the greatest difference we've ever measured between the platforms. At the same time, we've watched traffic from other social platforms — Twitter and Pinterest -—continue to grow an audience and drive traffic traffic to publishers."

Are you ready for this?

Insightful. Informative. Must-read. 8/10

Full article: http://www.buzzfeed.com/aswini/where-did-all-the-search-traffic-go