Bentley Motors has announced an overhaul of its international customer publication Bentley Magazine and is appointing content agency Archant Dialogue to execute the new strategy for three years from summer 2018. The appointment came after a competitive tender, which was launched in 2017 and generated responses from more than 10 global content agencies. It confirms the [more…]
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2018/01/bentley-motors-appoints-archant-dialogue-to-revamp-customer-magazine/
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Gaffes, scandals and ineptitude : including The Gerald Ratner cut-glass sherry decanter
Full marks to British business, which, after years of churning out a world-class collection of gaffes, corporate scandals and outright ineptitude, again spent 2017 producing a stockpile of gems that look like they might have been concocted by a combination of Oliver Stone and David Nobbs. Still, that is precisely the type of unrecognised corporate [more…]
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2018/01/gaffes-scandals-and-ineptitude-including-the-gerald-ratner-cut-glass-sherry-decanter/
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2018/01/gaffes-scandals-and-ineptitude-including-the-gerald-ratner-cut-glass-sherry-decanter/
Latest Instagram Update Lets You Schedule Posts in Advance
Although the exact day and time you post content to Instagram matters less than it used to -- since your followers’ newsfeeds are now organized by relevance, engagement, and other factors versus post age -- it’s definitely still important.
Here’s why. Let’s say 10% of your audience is online on Tuesday at 3 p.m. You post a creative GIF showcasing your latest product. Because not many people are scrolling through Instagram, it gets fewer likes and comments than your average post. Instagram’s algorithm interprets this as the post is less appealing than your typical content, so it’s displayed to a smaller percentage of your network.
For this reason, it’s a good idea to figure out when your followers are most active and post on those days and times. (Need a tool for this? Try Iconosquare or Squarelovin.)
While having this information is useful, you do have to wait -- poised over your phone or computer -- for the specific hour to strike. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the “set it and forget it” approach.
Luckily, Instagram’s latest update makes that a reality. The company announced a change to its API that will let third-party tools enable post scheduling. In other words, if you use an app like Hootsuite, you can upload your content and choose when it will go live on Instagram.
Post scheduling isn’t available for Ads, nor will you be able to use it within Instagram itself (meaning that unless you’ve got a tool hooked up to your personal account, you’ll still have to time that picture from brunch strategically).
How to schedule a post on Instagram
- Step 1: Connect your business Instagram profile to a third-party tool like Hootsuite.
- Step 2: Go to your tool’s dashboard.
- Step 3: Compose a new post with the visual assets, captions, and/or hashtags as you want them to appear on Instagram.
- Step 4: Preview your post to make sure it looks right.
- Step 5: Use the scheduling feature to select the date and time you’d like the post to go live.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/schedule-instagram-posts-update
2 Simple Frameworks That Will Make You a Better Storyteller
As content strategists, we spend a lot of time talking to business people about the importance of storytelling to their business. When the subject comes up, a lot of folks get nervous. They say things like, “Well, I’m no Hemingway!” or some other nervous response.
The pressure of storytelling can keep a lot of people from even trying.
But here’s the thing: we don’t have to be Hemingway to be good at stories. Storytelling is part of what makes us human. If you have human DNA, you’re built to tell a story. Unfortunately, some of us give up on our storytelling ability too early. But even if you’re not a professional storyteller, there are a couple of storytelling frameworks that can help you bridge the gap. The two frameworks discussed below will help you regain some storytelling confidence, and start telling engaging stories in business and in life.
The Hero’s Journey
See if you can guess what story this is.
We have a hero who starts in humble beginnings and answers the call of adventure. She leaves home, gets out of her comfort zone, receives training from a wise old mentor, and then goes on a great journey. On this quest, she faces a bad guy, almost loses everything, but eventually succeeds and returns home having changed for the better.
What story are we talking about?
Is this Star Wars? Harry Potter? The Hunger Games? The Odyssey? The Matrix?
It’s actually all of them.
This is a template for storytelling called The Hero’s Journey. It comes from author Joseph Campbell, and it’s everywhere. It’s one of the most relatable storylines because it basically mirrors the journeys of our own lives. Understanding The Hero’s Journey can give you insight into how to frame your own stories, whether it’s the true story about your company or a fictional story that stirs your imagination.
The following diagram breaks down this Hero’s Journey template, step by step.
We start in an ordinary world. A humble character gets called to adventure and initially refuses, but meets a wise mentor who trains them and convinces them to go on said adventure. They’re then tested. They meet allies, and they make enemies. They approach a final battle and almost lose but, eventually, find it within themselves to succeed. They return home to an appropriate hero’s welcome, transformed by the journey.
Let’s walk through this from the lens of the greatest story ever told.
Yes, we’re talking about Star Wars. Let’s step through a crude synopsis to see how well it matches Campbell’s pattern:
In the first Star Wars film, we begin with the rather ordinary Luke Skywalker. He lives on a farm on a desert planet. One day he meets some robots who need help. They need to find a local hermit named Obi-Wan Kenobi. So Luke takes the robots to Obi-Wan, who basically says, “Luke, you need to go out and help save the universe.” Luke initially says, “No, I have all this stuff going on,” but Kenobi, who becomes Luke’s mentor, convinces Luke that he should go. Kenobi trains him how to use a lightsaber, and Luke goes on an epic space adventure.
On the journey, Luke meets the villain, Darth Vader. He battles evil stormtroopers. He makes friends: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia. And then he has to help defeat the super-weapon, the Death Star. Nearly everything goes wrong, but in the end, Luke succeeds in blowing up the Death Star. The last scene of the movie is of Luke getting a metal put over his neck by the princess, who kisses him on the cheek. Now he is in his new home, a changed man, emboldened by the great power of the Force, which he can use on future adventures.
This is the Hero’s Journey, which—modified in various ways—we see repeated in stories throughout history. The simple version of this is that pattern of tension that we learned from Aristotle. We have an ordinary person (what is), and we have adventure that lies ahead (what could be). The transference from one to the other is the journey.
In business, the case study is a rather common way marketers use this kind of story to sell a product or service. (Most of them are a little less entertaining stories than Star Wars, unfortunately.) A case study is the story of where a customer was, where they wanted to be—the tension!—and how they overcame that gap.
If you listen to podcasts, you’ll hear this story told in most every ad. One of the most common ads is for Harry’s razors, which tells the story of “Jeff and Andy, two ordinary guys who got fed up with paying way too much for razors at the pharmacy and decided to buy their own warehouse to sell affordable razors.”
The problem with most brands’ stories is they either don’t fully utilize the four elements of great storytelling, or they don’t walk us through enough of the steps of the Hero’s Journey to capture our attention.
That’s why these frameworks are so useful. They’re a really easy way to ensure that we’re more creative when we’re coming up with stories or trying to convey information.
It’s sort of like a haiku: If we told you right now to come up with a poem on the spot, you would probably have a tough time. But if we told you to come up with a haiku about Star Wars, you’d likely be able to do it. This framework helps you focus your creativity.
Another great story template comes from comedy writing. It starts similarly: A character is in a zone of comfort. But they want something, so they enter into an unfamiliar situation. They adapt, and eventually get what they’re looking for but end up paying a heavy price for it. In the end, they return to their old situation having changed.
This is the plot of pretty much every episode of Seinfeld.
For example: During the sixth season of the show, George gets a toupee. This new situation is unfamiliar, but he likes it and quickly adapts to it. Once he has what he wants, though, he starts getting cocky. He goes on a date with a woman and behaves like a haughty jerk.
It turns out that his date, under her hat, is actually bald, too. When George is rude about this, she gets mad. His friends also get mad at him. “Do you see the irony here?” Elaine screams at him. “You’re rejecting somebody because they’re bald! You’re bald!” She then grabs George’s toupee and throws it out the window. A homeless man picks it up and puts it on.
The next day, George feels like himself again. “I tell you, when she threw that toupee out the window, it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he tells Jerry. “I feel like my old self again. Totally inadequate, completely insecure, paranoid, neurotic, it’s a pleasure.”
He also announces that he’s going to keep seeing the bald woman. He returns to apologize to the woman, only for her to tell him that she only dates skinny guys.
So then George goes back home, having changed. He has his regular bald head now, but he’s learned a lesson. (But because it’s Seinfeld, he goes back to his old habits by the next episode.)
Both of these types of journeys are the journeys that we all go through in our lives, our businesses, and our families. As a storyteller, you can rely on these journey templates to shape your plots so you can fully unleash your creativity within.
The Ben Franklin Method
When Benjamin Franklin was a boy, he yearned for a life at sea. This worried his father, so the two toured Boston, evaluating various eighteenth-century trades that didn’t involve getting shipwrecked. Soon, young Ben found something he liked: books. Eagerly, Ben’s father set his son up as an apprentice at a print shop.
Ben went on to become a revered statesman, a prolific inventor, and one of the most influential thinkers in American history. He owed most of that to his early years of voracious reading and meticulous writing—skills he honed while at the print shop.
Franklin wasn’t born an academic savant. In fact, in his autobiography, he bemoans his subpar teenage writing skills and terrible math skills. To succeed at “letters,” Franklin devised a system for mastering the writer’s craft without the help of a tutor. To do so, he collected issues of the British culture and politics magazine, The Spectator, which contained some of the best writing of his day, and reverse engineered the prose.
He writes:
I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat [sic] the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand.
Basically, he took notes at a sentence level, sat on them for a while, and tried to recreate the sentences from his own head, without looking at the originals.
Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them.
Upon comparison, he found that his vocabulary was lacking, and his prose was light on variety. So he tried the same exercise, only instead of taking straightforward notes on the articles he was imitating, he turned them into poems.
I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
As his skill at imitating Spectator-style writing improved, he upped the challenge:
I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat [sic] the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts.
He did this over and over. Unlike the more passive method most writers use to improve their work (reading a lot), this exercise forced Franklin to pay attention to the tiny details that made the difference between decent writing and great writing:
By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer.
When he says a “tolerable English writer,” he’s being humble. In a trivial amount of time, teenage Franklin became one of the best writers in New England and, shortly after that, a prodigious publisher.
But more importantly, being a better writer and a student of good writing helped Franklin become a better student of everything. Good reading and writing ability helps you to be more persuasive, learn other disciplines, and apply critical feedback more effectively to any kind of work. When we’re hiring for Contently, our first impression of a candidate is dramatically impacted by the clarity of their emails.
After building his writing muscles through his Spectator exercises, Franklin reported that he was finally able to teach himself mathematics:
And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham’d [sic] of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker’s book of Arithmetick [sic], and went through the whole by myself with great ease.6
Perhaps Ben’s little secret for learning to write isn’t so dissimilar from what MIT professor Seymour Papert’s research has famously revealed: that children learn more effectively by building with LEGO bricks than they do by listening to lectures about architecture. It’s not just the study of tiny details that accelerates learning; the act of assembling those details yourself makes a difference.
This is an excerpt from the Amazon #1 New Release, The Storytelling Edge: How to Transform Your Business, Stop Screaming Into the Void, and Make People Love You by Joe Lazauskas and Shane Snow. Order it today to take advantage of some awesome pre-order bonuses.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/two-simple-frameworks-thatll-make-you-a-better-storyteller-in-business-and-in-life
The New Energy Context … insight engineers … [Exclusive Research]
Traditional internal combustion powered vehicles account for over 95% of the UK & European market. Until recently a fringe choice, the reality of electric plug-in vehicles soon becoming more mainstream was given a major prompt when GB & France governments announced this summer that no new petrol-only or diesel powered cars & vans will be [more…]
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2018/01/the-new-energy-context-insight-engineers-exclusive-research/
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2018/01/the-new-energy-context-insight-engineers-exclusive-research/
The Ultimate Social Media Holiday Calendar for 2018 [Resource]
Whether it's International Cat Day, Pizza Day, or Talk Like a Pirate Day, it seems like almost every day, the internet is celebrating a holiday.
Whenever I log onto Twitter, I quickly scan what's trending on the left-hand side of the screen. Have you ever had this experience -- when you see an obscure holiday or observance day trending, and you think to yourself "Yup, I'm celebrating that"?
Some of these holidays might be simply too silly for your brand to engage with (and we certainly don't suggest sharing content on social media and then tacking on a completely irrelevant hashtag for the sake of traffic -- that's just plain annoying). But others might not be. You could be missing valuable opportunities to take advantage of trending topics with fun and relevant "holiday" content on social media.
From food to politics to animals and everything in between, there is a plethora of observance days worldwide during which marketers can share content relevant to their industries, get involved in a movement, or simply generate more awareness.
To help you plan for trending holidays, we created a list that you can bookmark, as well as a downloadable calendar so you can get automatic reminders. The list isn't exhaustive (there are a lot of food-specific holidays out there) and these dates and hashtags may still be subject to change. But this is a great starting point for social media marketers who want to learn more about what's trending and how they can plan their content in a way that will be fun and engaging on Twitter and other social platforms.
Tap the + symbol in the lower right-hand corner of the calendar below to add it to your own Gmail calendar.
Downloadable Holiday Calendar
National & Global Holiday Calendar: 2018-2019
January 2018
February 2018
March 2017
April 2017
May 2017
June 2017
July 2017
August 2017
September 2017
October 2017
November 2017
December 2017
January 2018
2: Science Fiction Day #ScienceFictionDay
4: National Trivia Day #NationalTriviaDay
5: National Bird Day #NationalBirdDay
8: Clean Off Your Desk Day #CleanOffYourDeskDay
11: Human Trafficking Awareness Day #HumanTraffickingDay
13: National Sticker Day #NationalStickerDay
15: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day #MLKDay
National Hat Day #NationalHatDay
18: Get to Know Your Customers Day (third Thursday of every quarter) #GetToKnowYourCustomersDay
20: Cheese Lovers Day #CheeseLoversDay
World Day of Social Justice #SocialJusticeDay
21: National Hugging Day #NationalHuggingDay
24: National Compliment Day #NationalComplimentDay
25: Community Manager Appreciation Day #CMAD
Opposite Day #OppositeDay
28: Data Privacy Day #PrivacyAware
National Pie Day#PieDay
February 2018
2: Groundhog Day #GroundhogDay
World Wetlands Day #WorldWetlandsDay
4: World Cancer Day #WorldCancerDay
Super Bowl Sunday #SB52
5: National Weatherperson’s Day #NationalWeatherpersonsDay
7: National Send a Card to a Friend Day #SendACardToAFriendDay
8: National Boy Scouts Day #BoyScoutsDay
9: National Pizza Day #NationalPizzaDay
11: Inventors Day #InventorsDay
13: Mardi Gras #MardiGras
World Radio Day #WorldRadioDay
14: Valentine's Day #ValentinesDay
16: Chinese New Year #YearOfTheDog
17: Random Acts of Kindness Day #RandomActsOfKindnessDay
18: National Battery Day #NationalBatteryDay
19: Presidents Day #PresidentsDay
20: Love Your Pet Day #LoveYourPetDay
21: International Mother Language Day #IMLD
March 2018
1: National Peanut Butter Lover's Day #PeanutButterLoversDay
2: National Read Across America Day #ReadAcrossAmerica & #DrSeuss
National Employee Appreciation Day #EmployeeAppreciationDay
3: World Wildlife Day #WorldWildlifeDay
4: National Grammar Day #NationalGrammarDay
National Pancake Day#NationalPancakeDay
6: National Dentist's Day #DentistsDay
7: National Be Heard Day #NationalBeHeardDay
National Cereal Day #NationalCerealDay
8: International Women's Day #BeBoldForChange
National Proofreading Day #NationalProofreadingDay
Popcorn Lover's Day #PopcornLoversDay
10: National Day of Unplugging#NationalDayOfUnplugging
National Pack Your Lunch Day #NationalPackYourLunchDay
National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day #NWGHAAD
11: National Worship of Tools Day #WorshipOfToolsDay
Daylight Savings#DaylightSavings
12: National Girl Scout Day #GirlScoutDay
National Napping Day #NationalNappingDay
14: Potato Chip Day #NationalPotatoChipDay
Pi Day #PiDay
15: World Consumer Rights Day #WCRD2018
16: National Freedom of Information Day #FreedomOfInformationDay
World Sleep Day#WorldSleepDay
17: St. Patrick's Day #StPatricksDay
18: Awkward Moments Day #NationalAwkwardMomentsDay
19: National Let's Laugh Day #NationalLetsLaughDay
20: International Day of Happiness #InternationalDayofHappiness
World Storytelling Day #WorldStorytellingDay
First Day of Spring #FirstDayofSpring
21: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination #RacialDiscriminationDay
World Poetry Day #WorldPoetryDay
22: World Water Day #WorldWaterDay
23: National Puppy Day #NationalPuppyDay
24: Red Nose Day #RedNoseDay
Earth Hour Day #EarthHour
25: Tolkien Reading Day #TolkienReadingDay
26: National Spinach Day #NationalSpinachDay
Purple Day #PurpleDay
27: American Diabetes Association Alert Day #AmericanDiabetesAssociationAlertDay
30: Doctor's Day #NationalDoctorsDay
National Take a Walk in the Park Day #NationalWalkInTheParkDay
31: World Backup Day #WorldBackupDay
Transgender Day of Visibility #TDOV
April 2017
1: April Fools Day #AprilFools
2: World Autism Awareness Day #WAAD
3: Find a Rainbow Day #FindARainbowDay
National Walking Day#NationalWalkingDay
4: Hug a Newsperson Day #HugANewsperson
7: World Health Day #LetsTalk
10: National Siblings Day #NationalSiblingsDay
Encourage a Young Writer Day #EncourageAYoungWriterDay
Equal Pay Day#EqualPayDay
11: National Pet Day #NationalPetDay
12: International Day of Human Space Flight #InternationalDayOfHumanSpaceFlight
16: National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day #PJDay
17: Haiku Poetry Day #HaikuPoetryDay
National Tax Day#TaxDay
18: National Columnists' Day #NationalColumnistDay
19: Get to Know Your Customers Day#GetToKnowYourCustomersDay
National High-Five Day#NH5D
20: National Look-Alike Day #NationalLookAlikeDay
22: Earth Day #EarthDay2018
23: National Picnic Day #NationalPicnicDay
World Book Day #WorldBookDay
25: National Telephone Day #NationalTelephoneDay
World Malaria Day #EndMalariaForGood
National Administrative Professionals Day #AdministrativeProfessionalsDay
Denim Day#DenimDay
26: National Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day #COUNTONME
27: Arbor Day #ArborDay
29: International Dance Day #InternationalDanceDay
30: National Honesty Day #NationalHonestyDay
National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day #AdoptAShelterPetDay
International Jazz Day #JazzDay
May 2017
1: May Day #MayDay
International Workers Day #IntWorkersDay
World Asthma Day #WorldAsthmaDay
3: World Press Freedom Day #WPFD2017 #PressFreedom
World Password Day #WorldPasswordDay
4: Star Wars Day #StarWarsDay
International Firefighters Day #InternationalFirefightersDay
Space Day#SpaceDay
5: Cinco de Mayo #CincoDeMayo
6: National Nurses Day #NursesDay
8: Thank a Teacher Day#ThankATeacher
9: Europe Day #EuropeDay
National Receptionist Day #NationalReceptionistDay
12: National Limerick Day #NationalLimerickDay
13: Mother's Day #MothersDay
15: International Day of Families #FamilyDay
16: Love a Tree Day #LoveATreeDay
17: International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia #IDAHOT2017
18: National Bike to Work Day #BTWD
Endangered Species Day #EndangeredSpeciesDay
20: National Lemonade Day#NationalLemonadeDay
21: National Memo Day #NationalMemoDay
24: National Scavenger Hunt Day #NationalScavengerHuntDay
Heat Awareness Day #NoFryDay
28: Hamburger Day #NationalHamburgerDay
Memorial Day #MemorialDay #MDW
29: Paperclip Day #PaperclipDay
31: World No-Tobacco Day #NoTobacco
June 2017
1: Global Day of Parents #GlobalDayOfParents
International Children’s Day #ChildrensDay
National Donut Day #NationalDonutDay
3: National Cancer Survivor’s Day#NCSD2018
4: Leave The Office Early Day#LeaveTheOfficeEarlyDay
Civic Day of Hacking #HackForChange
5: World Environment Day #WorldEnvironmentDay
6: Higher Education Day #HigherEducationDay
8: World Oceans Day #WorldOceansDay
Best Friends Day #BestFriendsDay
14: World Blood Donor Day #GiveBlood
National Flag Day #FlagDay
17: Father’s Day #FathersDay
20: World Refugee Day #WithRefugees
21: National Selfie Day #NationalSelfieDay
World Music Day #WorldMusicDay
International Yoga Day #InternationalYogaDay
First Day of Summer
22: Take Your Dog to Work Day #TakeYourDogToWorkDay
27: National Sunglasses Day #NationalSunglassesDay
28: National Handshake Day #HandshakeDay
30: Social Media Day #SMDay
July 2017
1: National Postal Worker Day #NationalPostalWorkerDay
2: World UFO Day #WorldUFODay
4: Independence Day (United States)
7: World Chocolate Day #WorldChocolateDay
11: Cheer Up the Lonely Day #CheerUpTheLonelyDay
12: Malala Day #MalalaDay
15: Give Something Away Day #GiveSomethingAwayDay
17: World Emoji Day #WorldEmojiDay
18: Nelson Mandela International Day #MandelaDay
20: Get to Know Your Customers Day #GetToKnowYourCustomersDay
Moon Day #MoonDay
27: Talk in an Elevator Day #TalkInAnElevatorDay
30: International Day of Friendship #DayOfFriendship
August 2017
1: Respect for Parents Day #RespectForParentsDay
2: National Coloring Book Day #NationalColoringBookDay
8: International Cat Day #InternationalCatDay
9: National Book Lovers Day #NationalBookLoversDay
10: National Lazy Day #LazyDay
11: National Sons and Daughters Day #SonsAndDaughtersDay
12: International Youth Day #YouthDay
World Elephant Day #WorldElephantDay
13: International Lefthanders Day #LefthandersDay
15: National Relaxation Day #NationalRelaxationDay
16: National Tell a Joke Day #NationalTellAJokeDay
19: World Photo Day #WorldPhotoDay
World Humanitarian Day #WorldHumanitarianDay
20: National Radio Day #NationalRadioDay
26: National Dog Day #NationalDogDay
National Women’s Equality Day #WomensEqualityDay
September 2017
3: Labor Day #LaborDay
4: National Wildlife Day #NationalWildlifeDay
5: International Day of Charity #CharityDay
6: Read a Book Day #ReadABookDay
8: International Literacy Day #LiteracyDay
9: National Grandparents Day #NationalGrandparentsDay
11: National Day of Service and Remembrance #911Day
12: National Day of Encouragement #DayOfEncouragement
National Video Games Day #NationalVideoGamesDay
14: Stand Up To Cancer Day#KissCancerGoodbye
19: Talk Like a Pirate Day #TalkLikeAPirateDay
21: International Day of Peace #PeaceDay
Miniature Golf Day #MiniGolfDay
22: Car-Free Day #CarFreeDay
Hobbit Day #HobbitDay
First Day of Fall
26: European Day of Languages #EDL2017
National Women’s Health and Fitness Day#FitnessDay
27: World Tourism Day #WTD2017
28: World Rabies Day #WorldRabiesDay
National Good Neighbor Day #GoodNeighborDay
30: International Podcast Day #InternationalPodcastDay
October 2017
1: International Day of Older Persons #UNDOP
International Coffee Day #InternationalCoffeeDay
World Vegetarian Day #WorldVegetarianDay
World Habitat Day#WorldHabitatDay
2: International Day of Nonviolence #InternationalDayOfNonviolence
3: National Techies Day #TechiesDay
4: World Animal Day #WorldAnimalDay
National Taco Day #NationalTacoDay
5: World Teachers Day #WorldTeachersDay
World Smile Day #WorldSmileDay
10: World Mental Health Day #WorldMentalHeathDay
11: International Day of the Girl #DayOfTheGirl
World Sight Day #WorldSightDay
13: National Train Your Brain Day #TrainYourBrainDay
14: National Dessert Day #DessertDay
15: Global Handwashing Day #GlobalHandwashingDay
16: World Food Day #FoodDay
Bosses Day #BossesDay
17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty #EndPoverty
18: Get to Know Your Customers Day #GetToKnowYourCustomersDay
20: World Statistics Day #StatisticsDay
21: Reptile Awareness Day #ReptileAwarenessDay
24: United Nations Day #UNDay
25: Greasy Foods Day #GreasyFoodsDay
29: Internet Day #InternetDay
30: National Publicist Day #NationalPublicistDay
Checklist Day #ChecklistDay
31: Halloween #Halloween
November 2017
1: World Vegan Day #WorldVeganDay
National Authors Day #NationalAuthorsDay
National Cook For Your Pets Day #CookForYourPetsDay
3: National Sandwich Day #NationalSandwichDay
4: National Candy Day #NationalCandyDay
Daylight Saving Time Ends #DaylightSavings
7: Stress Awareness Day#StressAwarenessDay
8: National Cappuccino Day #CappuccinoDay
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine (STEM) Day #STEMDay
11: Veterans Day #VeteransDay
13: World Kindness Day #WKD
14: World Diabetes Day #WDD
15: Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day #CleanOutYourRefrigeratorDay
America Recycles Day #BeRecycled
16: International Day for Tolerance #ToleranceDay
17: International Students Day #InternationalStudentsDay
19: International Men’s Day #InternationalMensDay
20: Universal Children’s Day #UNChildrensDay
National Entrepreneurs Day#EntrepreneursDay
21: World Hello Day #WorldHelloDay
22: Thanksgiving Day #Thanksgiving
24: National Day of Listening #DayOfListening
Small Business Saturday #ShopSmall
26: National Cake Day #NationalCakeDay
Cyber Monday #CyberMonday
27: National Day of Giving #GivingTuesday
29: Electronic Greeting Card Day #ElectronicGreetingCardDay
30: Computer Security Day #ComputerSecurityDay
December 2018
1: World AIDS Day #WAD2017
3: International Day of Persons with Disabilities #IDPWD
4: National Cookie Day #NationalCookieDay
5: World Soil Day #WorldSoilDay
6: Microwave Oven Day #MicrowaveOvenDay
8: Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day #PretendToBeATimeTravelerDay
10: Human Rights Day #HumanRightsDay
Nobel Prize Day #NobelPrize
11: International Mountain Day #InternationalMountainDay
14: National Salesperson Day #SalespersonDay
21: Crossword Puzzle Day #CrosswordPuzzleDay
First Day of Winter
30: No Interruptions Day – Last Work Day of the Year #NoInterruptionsDay
31: New Year’s Eve #NYE
Sources: National Day Calendar, Sprout Social, TrackMaven, Holiday Insights, Brownielocks, National Peace Corps Association, Sparkflow
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-holiday-calendar-2017
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
How to Become an Influencer in Your Industry
Influencer marketing has skyrocketed since it first made its mark.
That's very much due to the way purchasing decisions have changed over the years. You might recall, for example, a story about how many women no longer trust celebrity endorsements. That's because most consumers, research shows, seek product and service recommendations from those who are, above all, knowledgeable and credible.
And today, those qualities often come in the form of social media influencers.
When it comes to getting advice or recommendations on what to do -- which product to buy, which movie to see, and where to travel on vacation -- there are still areas where we trust our peers more than we do "experts."
But that's part of what makes an influencer so powerful: Despite perhaps being an expert in his or her field, by sharing content and insight in a certain way, consumers view that person more as a peer. We have things like constant access to video and other visual content to thank for that -- the tools that help us "get to know" people online in ways that weren't quite as accessible only a few years ago.
So, how can you tap into this area, and become an influencer in your own field?
What Is an Influencer?
Influencers are ordinary people who have earned a substantial loyal following because of their expertise and transparency. Unlike celebrities actively endorse products on their social media accounts, influencers achieved their fame because of the valuable information they share with their followers.
It’s for this reason why one of the influencer marketing trends experts anticipate in 2018 is the increase in demand for social media influencers, specifically micro-influencers (influencers with less than 100K followers). Not surprising, more and more people want to become social media influencers.
The question is: where do you start?
In this blog post, I'll be laying out ten ways how to become a social media influencer. On their own, they will help you slowly make your mark and establish you as an influencer in your industry. But do all these together, and you have a powerful strategy that will help speed things up exponentially.
How to Become an Influencer in 10 Steps
1. Find your niche.
If you want to become a social media influencer, the very first thing you need to do is to choose a specific niche where you want to be known.
Although most social media influencers start out posting content, they're passionate about, what sets them apart is the fact that they tend to focus on a particular niche within the industry they're passionate about.
To find your little corner of influence, you'll need first to determine who is your target audience by developing a unique persona—a semi-fictional representation of your ideal reader. Tools like HubSpot’s Buyer Persona Generation Tool can help you identify the individual wants, needs, challenges, and goals of your ideal reader that you can help solve and address, pointing you to the right niche to establish yourself and grow as an influencer.
2. Use the "First Principles Thinking" approach.
In an interview with Kevin Rose, Elon Musk explained that there are two reasoning approaches people use. The first and most common is the analogy approach. People that use this reasoning method decide to do things based on what has happened in the past.
That's why we often see many people in a particular industry doing nearly the same thing, talking about the same topics, and even using similar formats when it comes to publishing and promoting their content.
The second reasoning approach is what Musk refers to as the First Principles Thinking approach. Instead of basing decisions on past successes or failures, Musk and others that use this reasoning approach study objective fundamentals and make their decisions based solely on that.
What’s good about following Musk’s way of thinking and reasoning is that it opens you up to other possibilities and approaches by “forcing” you to disregard the status quo, and think differently. Doing that can help set yourself apart from other influencers in your niche, and allow you to bring something new and fresh to the table for your target audience.
3. Choose your social media channel.
Instagram is the channel where 93% of social media influencers focus their content -- because it gives them the best results.
Source: Marketing Profs
However, just because those are the current statistics doesn't mean that Instagram is a perfect choice all the time.
The reason is simple: Your ideal audience may not be spending most of their time here.
If you want to quickly grow your following and establish yourself as a social media influencer, you need to make sure that you choose the right social media channel based on your niche and ideal audience.
Here are three questions to ask to help guide you in choosing the right social media channel:
Who is your target audience?
Again, this is where creating a holistic persona of your ideal audience is crucial. Instagram and Pinterest are excellent choices if you're aspiring to reach out to millennials. On the other hand, if your target audience consists mostly of business executives, LinkedIn may be your best bet.
Where are the other influencers in your niche?
Aside from sharing the same target audience, being active in social media channels where the big influencers in your niche open the door for you to reach out to them, and even collaborate with them in the future.
One tool I found extremely useful for this is BuzzSumo. When you do a search here using your targeted keyword, you'll not only see what topics other influencers have tackled, but where they also share these pieces of content.
This is extremely valuable -- it points you to the social media channel where the content is shared the most, making these ideal places to reach out and grow your following.
What type of content will you create?
Some social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to post a diverse range of content formats while others like YouTube and Instagram only focus on providing users a specific content format.
That said, it's vital that you select the social media channel that best suit the content strategy you'll develop, which we will look into in the next section.
Regardless of which social media channel(s) you choose, remember not to go overboard with your selection. Stick to using two to three networks. Otherwise, you'll be spreading yourself too thin, and will find it difficult to build your credibility and following.
4. Develop your content strategy.
Just like in inbound marketing, the format and quality of the content you publish will make or break your chances of successfully building yourself as a social media influencer.
Decide on the format you'll use when creating your content. It should be one through which you're able not only to deliver valuable information, but also, express your personality and voice -- which help add uniqueness to the content you produce for your target audience.
Part of developing an effective content strategy is giving your audience the right balance of informative content and personal content. Remember, one reason why people trust influencers is due to their relatability.
One efficient way to do this is through the 5-3-2 principle: Out of every 10 posts you publish in your social media account, five of these should be valuable content written by someone else, three are educational and informative content you created yourself, and two should be posts about yourself.
Now, you may be thinking, "How will this help me become an influencer if half of the content I'll be publishing is curated content?"
For starters, influencers are known for being able to provide valuable content to their audience. That includes sharing content written by others that they believe their followers will find useful.
More important, sharing content published by other influencers in your niche will help you slowly get their attention. As a result, it will be much easier to reach out to them and ask them to do the same for you later on.
If you need help discovering topic ideas for your content, try these resources.
Google Related Search Keywords
This is found at the bottom of the page after you search on Google. It lists down the most frequently used long-tail keywords used by your target audience when searching for content on the internet.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is a website that gives you a comprehensive list of the different questions that are commonly asked around your chosen keywords, which you can then answer through your content.
Quora
Similar to Answer the Public, Quora gives you a list of different questions asked surrounding your selected keyword. The main difference between the two is that unlike Answer the Public, which offers you a list of questions based on search algorithms, the questions you find in Quora are those that were left explicitly by individuals currently facing a problem or challenge.
At the same time, Quora allows its members to leave answers to these posted questions. This gives aspiring social media influencers the chance to flex their muscles, and showcase knowledge on this topic -- and, eventually, your niche.
5. Distribute your content.
No matter how great your content is, if you’re not getting people to see it and engage with it, it’s not exactly useful.
That said, it’s important that you carefully plan out when you’ll be publishing and distributing your content on social media.
The best time to post content on social media hugely depends on which social media channel you chose to use. This infographic provides a detailed breakdown of the best days and times when to distribute content for each of the most popular social media networks.
It's just as critical to know how to post your content on social media. While each social media channel has its own rules and guidelines, here are some general best practices that are applicable regardless on which social media channel you use.
Stick to one theme per social media channel.
Focusing on one specific theme for each of your social media channels allows you to give your followers a more holistic picture of who you are, what you do, and what you stand for. That way, you’re able to publish more diverse content while still keeping your profiles very sleek and cohesive.
More important, it helps you categorize the different types of content you publish. That way, your followers know which social media channel they’ll find the content they need from you.
Customize your message.
Even if you’re posting the same piece of content on different social media channels, always take the time to make sure that you customize the message you include in it. Not only does it make each of your posts more personalized, but as Aaron Haynes, founder of Fenix Pro points out, it prevents your followers from feeling like their being spammed on their social media feeds.
"You need to make sure that you tailor every single content you post caters to the wants and needs of your followers, whether it's a regular post or a paid post," he explains. "The worst thing is that they can report your account as spammy, which could mean the end of your social media influencer dream."
Optimize posts for mobile.
The average person spends over three hours on his or her mobile device.
Source: eMarketer
And within that time, 80% of it is spent on social media. That said, make sure that the posts you publish are just as appealing in mobile as they would be when viewed on desktops or laptops.
6. Grow your network.
While you’re still in the process of establishing your credibility and expertise as a social media influencer, you’ll need to actively grow your follower base.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is through blogging. Even though more Internet users are turning to social media networks for information, the fact remains that you don't entirely own your space here. One misstep can easily cause these social media networks to take down your account, causing you to lose all of your content and followers.
Blogging can help you kickstart your follower base by helping you get discovered. By including social media sharing buttons on each of your blog posts, your visitors can share your content with their respective social media networks.
If you have the budget, and you have a premium content offer on your blog, Justin Morgan -- a.k.a., the Dental Marketing Guy --recommends promoting it as a sponsored post. That way, your content can find its way onto the feeds of those that match your ideal persona, introducing yourself and what you have to offer to them.
Blogging is also an efficient way to reach out and connect with is influencers in your niche as well as those related to yours. Blogging was how I connected with key influencers in my niche and exponentially grew my follower base.
Creating guest posts is another way of growing your followers. Getting featured on a reputable site within your niche helps you further establish your credibility and authority. At the same time, it will help you capture the attention of the more prominent influencers in your niche, and even open the door for collaboration with them.
7. Engage with your followers.
When your followers leave a question or comment on your posts, take the time to acknowledge and respond to them. That can make them feel like they're valued and that you sincerely want to help them. It will also help you develop a relationship with them.
Of course, not all of the comments and questions will be positive. As an influencer, expect that you’ll have your fair share of negative comments and criticisms. Make it a point to keep your cool and address them professionally.
8. Evaluate your progress.
This step is crucial, especially if you’re looking to collaborate with brands for their influencer marketing campaigns, since this is one of the things that brands look for in an influencer to partner with.
Most social media channels give you insights and analytics to monitor your progress -- things like demographics, reach, and engagement rate, that will show how quickly (or slowly) you’re building your audience. It will also shed light on which content formats get the highest engagement rates, so that you can create more of these.
9. Stay updated.
If you’ve been active on any social media channel, you know how often networks update their algorithms, as well as their posting terms and conditions. As an aspiring influencer, you need to keep yourself updated with these changes to avoid penalizations.
You’ll also need to familiarize yourself with FTC guidelines and policies, especially if you’re going to be collaborating with brands to promote their products and services on your social media accounts.
With influencer marketing proving itself as a highly effective marketing strategy, the FTC has become even more vigilant in monitoring brands and partner influencers that might be violating marketing guidelines.
10. Be consistent.
According to Adam Steele, founder of Loganix, if there’s one thing that surpasses quality content, it’s consistency.
That’s because your followers need to be able to count on you to deliver quality content on a consistent basis. If you don’t, they’ll eventually stop following you, or at least paying attention to you.
Scheduling your posts using a social automation tool like eClincher or HubSpot’s social publishing tools can help ensure that you stay consistent with your posts. Instead of manually publishing on each of your social media profiles, these tool allow you to create, upload, and schedule posts in batches.
Positioning yourself as a social media influencer will take some time, so you'll need to be patient with the process, and stay consistent with it.
Most important, understand that becoming a social media influencer in your industry is not the end destination. Instead, it's a stepping stone to more significant opportunities and responsibilities.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-become-an-influencer-in-10-steps
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)