A friend sent me a link to this video yesterday entitled Stuff Social Media People Never Say. It made my day and I’m pretty sure it’s going to make yours, too.

For those of us who are immersed in the digital space, it’s easy to forget that a large percentage of our family and friends, not to mention our clients, often have no flipping idea what we’re talking about – on any given day. The world we live in has a language all its own, filled with things like @messages and DMs and Hangouts and Scoops and Pins. Nodding, aren’t you? Well, it’s confirmed, you’re a geek. As if there was really ever any doubt.

Without further ado, here you go. Note that after the jump I’ve jotted down some of my favorites, just so you won’t have any trouble remembering them.

“So, I would say that Friendster is one of the most effective marketing tools.”

“No, I don’t think we need WiFi in here” (Seriously. Who would ever say that?)

“Ohhhhh, I love CAPTCHAs”

“Who’s Mark Zuckerberg?”

“Do you know how to get my client on FourSquare?”

“Where’s this plug in?”

“The Mommy Blogger! An uptapped audience!”

“Do you know if a laptop comes with Google?”

“Does anyone know how to install Internet Explorer? I really need it.”

“I just hit 50,000 unread emails in my inbox!”

“I miss MySpace!”

“Huffington Post …… Okay great. I will have my client give you a call right away (what’s that?)”

“Bill Gates wasn’t THAT influential.”

“No, no, no no! Make sure ALL that traffic goes straight to our LiveJournal.”

“Steve Ballmer is a true visionary!”

“Okay. Thanks for cc’ing me on all those emails!”

“Do you know who Robert Scoble is? I can’t figure it out.”

“Go SOPA!”

“Can I get Facebook updates on my pager?”

“Oh no! I have too many Twitter followers!”

“Do you know I’m the mayor of this bathroom on FourSquare?”

“Oh yeah. I found that error message really helpful!”

“Who is Mark Zuckerberg?” (worthy of a double mention)

And the number one thing that social media people say all the time:

Please DO NOT share this!

Seriously. You know you laughed at this just as much as I did. Thanks to my goofy PR buddy Robb Yagmin from PS Public Relations for always being on the lookout for things that will make me laugh. And kudos to GregoryFCAfor creating the video — it was awesome!

Oh, and because I’m really nerdy, when I published this post at 9:40 am this morning, the video had 418 views. Let’s see how we can rock that baby!

Stuff Social Media People Never Say is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

A quick note? Before we dive in to how you can generate leads from LinkedIn, keep in mind that, as with other social networking platforms, one of the keys to LinkedIn success is to use the site often. I’ll talk about this more later, especially when it comes to your profile, but you’ll want to get yourself in the mindset to check in on and engage with LinkedIn on a daily basis, if not more often. Sure, it may be tough to find the time, but in my experience, diligent use of the site can pay off in a big way, an incentive that likely makes up for the investment of your time and resources.

Without further ado, let’s dive in to the 12 most effective ways to generate leads on LinkedIn.

1. Your profile

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Yet the profile is the core of your LinkedIn presence, and if it’s not up to par, you need to make time ASAP to refine and complete your profile. A common mistake is to treat it like a resume—don’t do it! Don’t be afraid to give an in-depth look at your current experience and career history. After all, you want to give other LinkedIn users a complete look at all you have to offer when it comes to a certain industry or skill-set. Think of your LinkedIn profile as a valuable piece of real estate—maximize the space you’ve got to get the best results. A couple of other tips? Use a professional-looking head shot as your profile image, crop it closely so someone looking at your profile can almost look you in the eyes and don’t speak about yourself in the third person.

2. Connections

Aside from your profile, your LinkedIn connections are one of the most important tools you can use. After all, the more connections you have, the wider your reach, and the more likely you are to be exposed to potential leads and business opportunities. Enter your email address if you want to let LinkedIn find users with whom you’ve already connected. Or look in categories such as current and previous employers, the college you attended or your geographic location to find connections. When you find someone with whom you want to connect, don’t just click send on LinkedIn’s default invitation – that’s the epitome of impersonal (not to mention lazy). Take a few minutes to write a brief message. Maybe you met this person at a conference or event, or know him or her through a past project. Remind this person of your connection and express your enthusiasm at the opportunity to stay in touch. Those little details can translate into a big first impression, and set the stage for future communication.

3. Share content

I mentioned earlier that one of the keys to LinkedIn is remaining visible and active. Think of LinkedIn as a fast-moving information stream. Every time you make a connection, edit your profile, post content or participate in a group, you (and your profile) show up in LinkedIn’s stream. This is a mini-marketing message to your connections and the fact that you’re visible and active on the platform lets them know you’re serious about LinkedIn and it’s power. An easy way to maximize visibility is to share content on a daily basis (or even more frequently, if you can.) You probably consume a lot of content throughout the day, so why not share what you’re reading with your connections? If you want to highlight your expertise or skills, stick to sharing information that aligns with a particular industry or subject matter, and take time to write a couple of sentences that detail your thoughts on the piece when you post.

4. Answers

One of the more overlooked features of LinkedIn is Answers. Just as you can post content to your profile to highlight your expertise, you can answer questions posed by other LinkedIn users. This is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge. You’ll also be communicating with people who are outside your immediate circle of connections, giving you the chance to expand your reach. How to do it? That’s simple. Just browse the current questions, whether you look at those posed by your network or narrow them down from one of LinkedIn’s recommended categories. When you find one that you can answer, go for it! You’ll help yourself emerge as a knowledgeable source in that field, which opens the door for others to contact you regarding prospective opportunities. Aim to allocate time to do this a few times a week and you’ll be amazed at the benefits you can reap.

5. Groups

If you haven’t already joined LinkedIn Groups, consider this your wake-up call. You can find groups for certain industries, schools, cities, interests and other criteria. Join the groups that look interesting to you and start participating – just like in real life. Imagine that. Weigh in on existing discussions or start your own. When you post content to your LinkedIn profile, you can also specify that the link be shared to certain groups, which is a great way to cross-post to several different areas at once.  Think of groups as a smaller, more niche networking opportunity, but equally valuable in helping you maintain your LinkedIn visibility and demonstrate your expertise.

6. Events

Here’s a novel idea—take some of your online interactions offline! Scan upcoming events in your area that are posted on LinkedIn to find potentially valuable networking opportunities. After all, as tempting as it is to conduct all of your interaction online, there’s an intrinsic value in meeting up with people face-to-face. Once you’ve established that initial bond, you can continue to build the relationship on sites like LinkedIn and will be top-of-mind if a new job, prospective client or other growth opportunity becomes available.

7. Research

If you’re heading to a sales or other business meeting, it’s not a bad idea to spend a little bit of time doing some preliminary research. Look up the meeting attendees on LinkedIn to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds and work experience. You’ll also be able to see if you have any connections in common and, if so, can mention a mutual friend’s name as a conversation starter. Any time you can demonstrate that you’ve done your homework and have taken the time to get to know the people and the businesses with which you’re working, you make a far more effective impression.

8. Company page

Do you have a LinkedIn Company Page for your business? If not, set one up! This allows interested parties to get a snapshot of your business as well as your employees. And just as you post content links on your personal profile, you can post them on your business page, too — yet another way to establish yourself and your company as an expert in a particular industry. LinkedIn recently rolled out the ability for a company to post status updates and in our experience, this is a drastically under-used tool. Set up your page, make regular status updates – you’ll be amazed at how your brand presence on the platform might grow.

9. Applications

Applications are what I like to consider the “pimp my profile” part of LinkedIn. You can choose from a number of different apps to add features and personality to your profile. One of my favorites? SlideShare, which displays your presentations in your LinkedIn profile. I’ve landed several business leads from presentations alone, so the ability to publish your presentations so that they’re visible to your LinkedIn audience is a key tool when it comes to lead generation. We’re also big fans of feeding your corporate blog into your LinkedIn profile, which is another app and very easy to do. As you add apps, choose them with a discerning eye. You don’t want your profile to become too cluttered and hard to read. You may also want to consider installing the apps toward the bottom of your page so that your work experience, skills, recommendations and other pertinent information have a more premium placement on the page.

10. Recommendations

Speaking of recommendations, these are nifty tools that add a richer level of engagement to your LinkedIn profile. Don’t be afraid to approach current and previous colleagues and superiors and ask them to write a brief LinkedIn recommendation. You’ll want to be sure to return the favor, and you can also volunteer to write a recommendation for someone else, which will likely result in a reciprocal write-up. Recommendations are built-in testimonials, so the more you have, the more information someone can get about you, your work habits and your strengths, increasing the chance that a business prospect will approach you for an upcoming project or similar work. And you can’t get a recommendation unless you ask for one – so get going.

11. Mobile

If your schedule is anything like mine, you’re constantly on the go—and you probably always have your phone in hand, right? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t maximize the LinkedIn mobile app to stay up-to-date with your profile and connections. LinkedIn has done quite a bit of work on the app over the last year, and I think this latest version is downright snazzy. What’s more? It’s convenient. You don’t necessarily have to be at your computer to update your profile, do a bit of research or find out what’s happening with your other connections. It all goes back to maintaining your visibility on the site, and the mobile app is a key tool when it comes to facilitating a steady stream of LinkedIn activity.

12. Promote

Now that you’ve put all of this hard work into creating your LinkedIn profile, building your connections and establishing a more robust presence on the site, it’s time to promote your efforts! Make it easy for people to find you on LinkedIn. Publish a link on your other social networking profiles, your website, your blog, your business cards, your email signature—wherever applicable. And if you write a blog that contains business-related content, make sure you’ve installed a LinkedIn sharing button so that others can more easily publish your information on their own profiles.

When it comes to generating business leads, it’s all about staying visible and increasing your reach, two fundamental components that can be achieved with LinkedIn. The site undoubtedly requires a time commitment – but so do any networking or new business development efforts. There’s no easy button when it comes to building credibility and a network. And, for us, LinkedIn is one of our number one sources of new business leads.  I can assure you that your investment in the site is one of the better things you can do for your company or personal brand.

How else do you use LinkedIn to generate leads? Do you have trouble making it a part of your daily online routine, or as the site become a regular part of your digital marketing strategy? And if we’re not yet connected on LinkedIn, feel free to stalk me.

Featured image by Nan Palmero licensed via Creative Commons

Republished with permission, courtesy of 12 Most

12 Most Effective Ways To Generate Leads On LinkedIn is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Feel free to let down your guard—a post in Facebook’s help center confirms that the messages are part of a recent Call Tracking Study outreach to better understand how many phone calls local businesses receive as a result of their Facebook page.

Obviously, Facebook is serious about wanting participation. They are offering a $500 credit for Facebook advertising if you sign up for the month-long study—not too shabby of an incentive, right? Once you’ve confirmed your participation, you’ll receive a special phone number from Facebook that you’ll need to put on your business page for one month. That way, Facebook will be able to count calls that occur as a result of the page, while also ensuring that the calls reach their recipients.

Here’s a copy of the message, courtesy of All Facebook:

With Facebook spam and hacking so prevalent, it’s no wonder that even a legitimate message like the one above was tagged as possibly suspicious. Yet it’s a smart move on Facebook’s part to stay up-to-date on these issues and let users know of legitimate correspondence—especially when it comes to a potentially valuable offer for small business owners. After all, free advertising is a pretty powerful perk.

In the meantime, we hope that Facebook will publish results of the study. Tying Facebook exposure to phone calls received can provide yet another valuable metric of what Facebook marketing can do for a business or brand. It’s our bet that businesses might not actually receive many calls as a direct result of their Facebook pages, but the proof of that will, of course, be in the pudding.

There’s a lot to be said for a well-designed business brand page on Facebook, and offering relevant information, shopping, great, entertaining, informational or otherwise valuable content on Facebook. Obviously, if you’re a small business that has a brand page but isn’t doing that, you’re probably not getting many calls. And signing up for the promotion will be a great test of that and can perhaps set you on a path to making some modifications that might make a difference.

Bottom line – it’s all about the data. The more data you can collect about the effectiveness of various platforms, the more you validate your digital marketing strategy—and can help sell skeptical parties on your efforts, too.  If you’re a small business with a brand page on Facebook and decide to participate in the promotion, we’d love to know about your results after the test period is over.

Image via Stock.Xchng/otjep

Recent Facebook Emails To Small Businesses Are Research, Not A Scam is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Yet there’s no denying that Google+ can elevate your brand’s digital marketing strategy, especially if you put some thought into your Google+ presence before you build it. To help jumpstart that thought process, check out a recap of the recent Focus roundtable, “Getting The Most Out Of Google+ For Your Business.”

The online discussion, moderated by Janet Fouts of Tatu Digital Media, featured the insight and expertise of Community Organizer 2.0’s Debra Askanase and V3’s own Shelly Kramer. The hour-long session explored the business applications of Google+, as well as some things to think about as you establish and maintain your brand’s G+ presence. For example, what value are you adding through your business page? And why should people add your business or brand to their G+ circles?

It’s not enough to simply recycle content that’s already appearing on sites like Facebook and Twitter to build out your G+ presence. Instead, focus on the unique strengths of Google+: the ability to send separate messages to specified circles and host interactive gatherings through Hangouts, to name a couple.

Shelly, Debra and Janet also presented some great examples of businesses and non-profits that are making an impact on Google+. After all, sometimes it’s best to learn from those who are blazing a trail, then you can refine and tweak those tactics to fit your own brand or business.

The discussion was also guided by audience questions posted through the interactive Focus dashboard. Audience questions flew so fast and furiously, in fact, that the dialogue inspired a follow-up event to take place as a Google+ hangout. Stay tuned for details, and in the meantime, check out the audio recap of the roundtable to learn more about how you can harness the power of Google+ to elevate your digital marketing strategy.

A Recap Of The Focus “Google+ For Business” Roundtable is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

For marketers and senior management looking for a quick hit from social channels, there continues to be disappointment. I can’t tell you how many meetings I sit in where a senior executive says to me “Yeah, yeah, yeah – but I don’t have time to do that stupid tweetering stuff,” or “I don’t know about this blogging business – why would we want our competitors knowing what we’re doing,” or “I’d like to get new business from LinkedIn, but I’m too busy to spend any time fooling around there.”

But for marketers who understand how to set goals for the use of social channels, how to strategically integrate social media marketing into their traditional marketing efforts and how to use the channels in a meaningful way, there’s a return.

Marketing Sherpa’s webinar “Realizing a Return on Your Social Marketing Investment: Strategies Behind the Monetization of the Social Media Channel” reinforced this by breaking down social media marketing investment into maturity phases. Those maturity phases are Strategic, Transitional and Trial.

Strategic Use

Essentially, almost 50% of CMOs surveyed who are using social channels in a strategic fashion indicated that social media marketing efforts are producing a measurable ROI and are continuing to invest in social efforts. Not surprising – having a strategy and well-defined goals usually pays off, no matter what tactic you’re using. The other 50% of strategic users indicated that the results of social media marketing is promising, they expect it to produce ROI and will continue to invest conservatively in social media marketing efforts.

Transitional Use

For marketers using social channels in a transition phase – meaning they’re well beyond the early stages but not quite into the full on strategic use phase, almost 20% report that their efforts are producing measurable ROI and another 70% see promise and plan continued conservative investment.

Trial

There are many folks just dipping their toes into the social media marketing waters. But even so, those in the early experimentation stages are seeing some concrete ROI – a reported 11% and an additional 60% see promise and plan on continued investment. So even for the companies who are at the very early stages of experimenting and integrating social media marketing into their overall marketing efforts, there’s evidence of overwhelming perception of potential benefit – and impact on the bottom line.

That speaks volumes, at least to this marketer, as to what’s on the horizon for businesses of all sizes. As you can see from the above graphic, a miniscule portion of the CMOs surveyed for this particular study reported that they see no ROI from social media marketing efforts and aren’t interested in further investment. Methinks it might be safe to say those marketers have their heads firmly in the sand and might be some of the same people who proudly proclaim they have no use whatsoever for a mobile device.

Bottom line, marketers are finding value – and return on investment – in social media marketing efforts. What are you seeing? Are your clients or businesses continuing to set more concrete goals, establish benchmarks and seeing a return on their investment in social media marketing? Or are you in the camp that’s still lobbying against old school thoughts that social media is for kids and that clients and prospects can’t possibly be served and/or discovered through these channels? I’d love some examples from you – of either type.

Social Media Marketing Investment Delivers ROI is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Borrell conducted an online survey from January through August of 2011 that resulted in some 4,200-plus responses. Main Street Goes Social reports that almost two-thirds (64.4%) of SMBs are presently using social sites for marketing purposes and social media marketing expenditures are expected to double in the coming year.

SMB marketing expenditures for social media marketing were at about $1.1 billion in 2011; they’re expected to hit $2 billion in 2012 and predicted to almost double again to about $3.9 billion in 2013.

However, as we know, there’s a big difference between embracing social media marketing and effectively integrating social media marketing into the rest of your marketing mix. Having a Twitter or a Facebook account or a corporate blog is one thing. Using them to effectively to generate more brand awareness, serve customers and to drive leads and sales – those are entirely different animals.

It’s kind of like all the businesses that rushed to embrace daily deals sites like Groupon and others, ran a promotion that wasn’t well-thought out with a sound strategy driving the marketing campaign and lost money (and probably customers) in the process. Or the businesses who want you to ‘Like’ them on Facebook, without knowing what, exactly, they’ll do with those likes once you deliver them up. Never mind considering how to entice you to care enough to like them in the first place.

Effective social media marketing is all about delivering value. It could be value in the form of customer service. It could be value in the form of entertainment. It could be value in the form of information. And so many other things. But having social media accounts and utilizing them as a bona fide part of your integrated marketing strategy – that’s what delivers results.

So, hopefully, if you’re a business owner serious about using social media marketing as a part of your marketing strategy, you’ll be focused on what your overall business goals are, think about how social media channels and social media networking might fit into the rest of your marketing initiatives, and then really focus on what kind of value you can deliver as a result of your efforts.

Those things — if you do them – they work. Whether your business is large or small.

SMBs Embracing Social Media At A Rapid Pace is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Brands everywhere seem to be in search of what is today’s holy grail – Facebook likes. Want to know how to get them? It’s really pretty simple. Give people something they want. And if you do that, that’s the first step toward using Facebook to make money.

Yes. It really can be that simple. 

You’ve likely seen the same ubiquitous signs everywhere that I have — “Like Us on Facebook” — or an even more compelling call to action, simply displaying the Facebook logo. I don’t know about you, but when I’m visiting my local sub shop and see those lame invitations, it elicits nothing more than a head shake.

Do brands really think that that’s all it takes (rhetorical question – I already know the answer). That because I see a sign in their store (or on their enewsletter or in a newspaper or TV ad) that I’m going to stop what I’m doing, pull out my phone and navigate over and “like” their page? Or even more ridiculous, that there’s even the most remote chance in you-know-what that I’ll remember to do it later, when I’m parked in front of my laptop? Dudes.

Seriously. It’s so not gonna happen.

But you know what does work? Asking for a like and giving something in return. Like this example from women’s clothing boutique Francesca’s. In exchange for a like, they’ll give me a promo code for a 50% discount on a piece of merchandise. That? That’s value. Oh, and combine that with the fact that they’ve let me know that this offer is good today only, well that … it’s a pretty compelling call to action. This kind of request — it gets my attention. What does it take to get your attention? Think about it as you think about asking for Facebook likes.

What do you think? Are you more likely to like a brand that doesn’t offer you any value, any compelling reason or even any reason at all to like them? In my world, the answer is a resounding no. 

As my friend Brian Carter in his new book The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook so aptly says, Facebook is the new email opt-in and cultivating likes (ergo fans), is a concrete way that brands and online marketers can make money using Facebook.

“Facebook allows you to capture ideal prospects regardless of how soon they’re going to buy, make an impression on them, and build a relationship with them. Getting potential customers more cheaply and reaching those new fans over and over with your Facebook page means you have a big advantage over companies that are only marketing on Google” says Carter. And he’s right.

It’s important to know – and a step that’s often omitted by companies large and small — that creatively marketing your Facebook page, making offers to potential fans that make sense and amassing initial likes is only one part of the process. Now the onus is on you to take that a step further. And the first step in that process is understanding that Facebook is about relationships.

And if you’ve managed to acquire fans, you need to think about what you’re doing on Facebook – from a marketing standpoint – that adds value to that relationship. A Facebook “Like” is like a first date. Now the challenge is to interest your fans in more dates. More dates mean giving them a reason to come back to your page time and time again, getting them to participate in discussions, share stories, or take advantage of a special promotion or offer and, equally as important, getting them to share the content you create on your Facebook page. And that, my friends, is marketing.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? You know we don’t recommend stuff that we don’t really believe in and, trust me, Brian’s book is sitting here on my desk as I write this. If you want to know more about how to effectively use Facebook as part of your online marketing strategy, buy the book. Today.

How to Get Likes And Make Money With Facebook is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

The problem? Not that Papa John’s–as a brand–is rude, racist and fond of using wildy inappropriate language when it comes to describing customers. But, apparently, there’s an employee there who is. This reminds me of the idiotic Domino’s employees who took it upon themselves to do gross things to pizza and videotape themselves doing it. And I remember all the crap that Dominos took as a result of it.

Brands today are very much held hostage by the behavior of their employees. And no matter what happens, no matter when, no matter who perpetrates ugliness like this inconsiderate worker at Restaurant #1070 in New York City, the brand stands responsible. And crisis management is a 24/7 job.

When it comes to your brand, who’s in charge of that job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? The agency you work with? Someone on your staff? Who’s monitoring the online space for brand mentions? What happens when something like this happens? Do you have a social media crisis plan in place? And it stinks that in today’s business world there’s never a time when you don’t have to be on, alert, and ever vigilant. But the reality of it is, that’s what the real time world is. And when you’re a brand–or you work for one–there’s never any time that you can relax and check out.

I feel sorry for Minhee – because it sucks to be discriminated against. And I feel sorry for the folks at Papa John’s for hiring such a nimrod. Hopefully, he or she will get what’s coming to them and find themselves out of a job. Or, at the very least, get some training about what’s appropriate and what’s not when it comes to customer service.

And hopefully consumers will be smart enough to realize that it’s not Papa John’s who’s responsible for inappropriate behavior in this case – it’s an employee without a brain. Unfortunately, I’m already seeing tweets in the Twitter stream maligning the brand in general and that’s too bad. But, haters are always going to hate. Hopefully everyone else who encounters this realizes that it’s not the brand as a whole that misstepped, it’s one very insensitive employee.

Lesson From Papa John’s: Your Employees ARE Your Brand is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

All too frequently, the presentation that you’ve worked so hard to complete sits in a file on your computer once it’s concluded. You might need to borrow content from it for another presentation, but other than that, the fruits of your labor don’t get any additional exposure.

Why SlideShare?

That’s where SlideShare comes in. Think of SlideShare as a way to diversify your content marketing strategy—after all, presentations are forms of content, too. Not all of the presentations you prepare may be suitable for public consumption, but for those that are, SlideShare is an ideal solution.
When you upload your presentation to a platform like SlideShare, you not only extend the life of that material, but also show the public how you think, work and present solutions. Think of it as a way to provide an ongoing demonstration of your expertise and skills, an ideal way with which to attract prospective clients and other professional growth opportunities.

SlideShare: Traffic and Tips

SlideShare is one of the fastest growing content marketing platforms and much of its audience is comprised of industry professionals and business owners. According to the Content Marketing Institute, SlideShare receives 60 million visitors a month—one-third of which come from organic search. That means your presentation—and, by extension, your expertise—can reach a whole new audience that you wouldn’t have otherwise found. This means big things not only for you, but your brand or business, too. Increasing your online visibility equates to higher brand awareness and recognition, and SlideShare can be an important part of enlarging that reach.

SlideShare Best Practices

Before you post a presentation to SlideShare, you may want to do some editing, especially if your slide deck is long. Here are some tips from CMI on creating the optimal SlideShare presentation, including:

• Keep your presentation between 10 and 30 slides
• Use an average of 19 pictures
• Use an average of 24 words per slide (we think this is high)

SEO Always Matters

And as you tag your presentation, remember that search engine optimization always matters. Be sure to label relevant topics, industries and subject matter while envisioning what your prospective audience may be searching for. Provide an overview on SlideShare as to what the presentation is about and tempt viewers with what kind of takeaways they might get from the presentation. Some tips for SEO:

• Use keywords in the title
• Use keywords in the summary
• Use tags in your description
• Use large text in your presentation. It may seem easy for you to view it, but for SlideShare, bigger is always better.

I have to give a shout out here to Al Bonner of Presentation Transformations. I used to think I crafted pretty decent presentations. That is until Al started being in charge of them. And I realized that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. When you put your work on display for the world to see, be sure that it’s pretty stellar. And if you need someone to help fine-tune or craft your presentations for you, Al is the guy I recommend. I bring the vision and the ideas and Al turns them into somethingfar better than I did on my own.

The Power of Content Marketing

Creating great content is one thing. Getting anyone to see it, that’s a whole different animal. And so, don’t just upload your presentation and hope people stumble across it. There are so many ways to use the presentation once it’s on SlideShare and that’s part of what makes the platform so attractive. Write a blog post and embed it, put it on your company website, embed it in an email newsletter, share it on LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook. That way, that one piece of work that you invested so much of yourself in live on in so many different iterations and really produce some bang for the buck. Oh, and when the day comes that a presentation you created is featured on the homepage of SlideShare … your smile will be pretty broad.

The Benefits of SlideShare’s Pro Account

The thing that I especially love – because I’m a geek – is the analytics that SlideShare provides. We have a pro account, which you need if you care about things like analytics, and that allows us some insights into what pieces of our content are the most compelling. It also shows us – as of today, anyway, that 36.6% of our views come directly from being embedded in another piece of content and 32.7% come SlideShare. Those are views (and opportunities to show other show we think) that those pieces of content would not have otherwise had, had we not uploaded them to SlideShare.

Another thing that’s particularly interesting, and which helps you know what kind of content is resonating with your audience, is seeing which pieces of SlideShare content are the most embedded, and which are the most active, as well as which countries your viewers are coming from. It also gives me insights not only from a content marketing strategy standpoint, but from a new business development standpoint as well. If you know me at all, you know that kind of stuff is my crack cocaine.

Are you using SlideShare as part of your content marketing strategy? If so, have you seen some benefits?

Content Marketing: Leveraging Your Presentations With Slideshare is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Because this generation of fitness loving overachievers has no intention of slowing down or letting a little thing like getting older get in the way of being active and doing what they love. Not without a fight, and not without turning to the best that health care has to offer to keep them in fighting shape. Boomers need things like knees, hip replacements, plastic surgery procedures (don’t judge until you’re there) and maybe even weight loss-focused procedures.

Add to that the Boomers’ disposable income — they collectively spend over $3 trillion annually — combined with their use of technology, participation in social media channels, and savvy hospitals, physicians and specialty health care clinics can make significant inroads when it comes to reaching this target audience.

But having a presence on Twitter, Facebook and the like isn’t enough. And that’s where the smart marketers will prevail. Hospitals and health care providers must first understand the value of content marketing and what an integral role content strategy will play in their integrated marketing efforts moving forward.

Consumers today find the service providers they seek in one of two ways: they search the web and they ask their friends. Boomers make up 32.5% of the US adult population and a pretty significant 36% of the total online adult population. Boomers account for about one-third of the Web traffic on a typical day. (Pew Internet & American Life Project).

Using the web to search for information about health is one of the most common things that people of all ages do, including Boomers. This chart from Pew Internet (pictured below) illustrates that quite nicely.

The key to success when it comes to reaching these searchers is to respect the web enough to understand the value of search engine optimization and develop a subsequent content marketing strategy. And the second, equally as important, step is to understand the value of social channels and how building a brand presence in those social networking arenas – places like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — and participating in those channels on a regular basis is an integral part of the process. And one of the ways to establish credibility in those social media channels is to regularly share relevant, informative, educational and sometimes even entertaining content – your own original content, as well as that produced by others.

How to get there? That’s really pretty simple. Great content already exists. Consider this: hospitals produce a large amount of printed material on an annual basis, and they also are home to some of the smartest, most talented and innovative minds around. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel; instead, hospitals and health care providers just need to look at some of the things they’re already doing. They can then establish some specific goals, and begin the process of exploring how to repurpose some of their existing content to suit a wide variety of online channels. That …. well, that’s what you call creating a content marketing strategy.

Content marketing isn’t brain surgery. In fact, it’s really just brand storytelling. And when it comes to hospitals and health care providers, there are so very many stories to tell. Using content marketing as a way of showcasing talented physicians, specialties, clinical trials and patient success stories is one of the ways hospitals can show thought leadership, innovation, compassion, commitment to and excellence in patient care and the like in a really effective manner. And by demonstrating those traits, health care providers will not only continue to build relationships with their current patient base, but also position themselves to reach new patients—especially those in the Boomer generation—as a result of online visibility and a thoughtful approach to an integrated marketing strategy.

Hospitals Want Boomer Business? Focus On Content Marketing And Social Media is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency