2011

article thumbnail

Social Media is Lowering Our Content Standards

Digital B2B Marketing

Sharing has ceased to be an endorsement of the quality of content. Social media has created the expectation that we share content, and in the drive to meet the content demands social media places on us, our content standards are falling. Here are signs that sharing content may have become more important to you than the content itself: You have started reading in order to find content to share, not because you want to spend time reading content.

article thumbnail

Forget Those Ugly Holiday Sweaters! Give Yourself the Gift of Simple, Sophisticated BI

Elegant BI

Forget Those Ugly Holiday Sweaters! Give Yourself the Gift of Simple, Sophisticated BI. I didn’t get the present I wanted for the holidays or for my last birthday? I got gift cards to stores I don’t like and ugly sweaters! YUCK! What I REALLY needed was a better way to manage my business. I didn’t know whether my goals were achievable or if I was making any headway in the market.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Klout’s Best Move: Making You Not Care About Your Score

Digital B2B Marketing

Were you upset by Klout’s recent algorithm change? Do you pay less attention to Klout than you did before the algorithm changes? If so, you may be doing exactly what Klout wants you to do. If you care about grades in school, you study for your exam. The algorithm is clear (test results, possibly quizzes, attendance or participation) and you work to influence the result.

article thumbnail

Klout’s Best Move: Making You Not Care About Your Score

Digital B2B Marketing

Were you upset by Klout’s recent algorithm change? Do you pay less attention to Klout than you did before the algorithm changes? If so, you may be doing exactly what Klout wants you to do. If you care about grades in school, you study for your exam. The algorithm is clear (test results, possibly quizzes, attendance or participation) and you work to influence the result.

article thumbnail

Are Your Impact Comms Resonating With Stakeholders?

Whether your organization is at the start of its sustainability and impact journey or years into it, many brands share a common concern: the uncertainty of whether they are sending stakeholders mixed messages. Creating content that speaks to your audience's “love language” can be a tricky dance. But, worry not! 3BL has put together tips to ensure that your content not only finds its rhythm but also resonates with your target audiences.

article thumbnail

Are Smartphones Making Us Stupid?

Digital B2B Marketing

Smartphones always have a corner of our attention. When they beep, buzz or blink, we take notice. Walking down the sidewalk, on public transit, or while watching television, our smartphones are our sidekicks. Even during meetings, or maybe especially during meetings. But our attention is rarely complete. Few people schedule smartphone time the way they schedule work time.

More Trending

article thumbnail

All Media Will Be Social Media

Digital B2B Marketing

This is a forward looking opinion post on the potential future of digital marketing. The future of digital media is social. With the far-reaching tentacles of Google and Facebook, no digital marketer will be able to approach marketing without engaging in some form of social media. Today, companies can choose to ignore social media. Although [.].

article thumbnail

Remove the Barriers to Strategic Planning in B2B Marketing

Digital B2B Marketing

As B2B marketers enter the 2012 strategic planning season and begin shaping executional plans, it is important that we get it right. The goal is to create a strategy that survives the full year (and beyond) and gives you a framework for more tactical planning, execution and optimization. Today, many companies have replaced strategic planning with a set of goals and tactics, without a formalized marketing strategy.

article thumbnail

Five Step Guide: Gaming Google for the Long Term

Digital B2B Marketing

Google makes approximately 500 search algorithm changes a year. Looked at another way, Google averages two algorithm changes every business day. Wow. Many of these changes, like the well publicized rounds of Google’s Panda updates, are designed to remove ways companies have found to game Google’s search results. So how do you keep up with all the changes Google makes?

Gaming 56
article thumbnail

Five Step Guide: Gaming Google for the Long Term

Digital B2B Marketing

Google makes approximately 500 search algorithm changes a year. Looked at another way, Google averages two algorithm changes every business day. Wow. Many of these changes, like the well publicized rounds of Google’s Panda updates, are designed to remove ways companies have found to game Google’s search results. So how do you keep up with all the changes Google makes?

Gaming 56
article thumbnail

7 Strategies to Gather (and Actually Use) Competitive Intel from Employees

Leaders in competitive intel know that the employees who interact with customers and prospects every day hold valuable competitive insights that could help win sales. But they don’t have a good plan or system to gather, organize, and share these insights with the stakeholders who need them. In this eBook, we outline 7 strategies to make it easier to build and scale an employee sharing program that will drive competitive advantage.

article thumbnail

Three Reasons Mobile Changes Everything in Marketing

Digital B2B Marketing

The research about mobile usage does not do mobile justice. Sure, 82% of executives have a smartphone. 49% of C-level executives search on a mobile device. Yes, mobile is pervasive, but numbers alone don’t capture how much mobile can change marketing. Many B2B marketers are catching on slowly, distracted by low mobile usage on corporate websites or a limited understanding of how mobile marketing and mobile accessibility contributes to goals.

article thumbnail

12 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2012

Digital B2B Marketing

I was recently informed that every marketing blogger must publish their predictions for the year ahead. So to claim my status as a blogger and not put my right to use WordPress at risk, here are my 12 serious predictions for B2B marketing in 2012. Content Marketing 1. Name recognition will rule. Flooded with content, audiences will turn to recognized sources.

article thumbnail

Online Marketers are Creepy

Digital B2B Marketing

A creepy alligator has been stalking me. Yes, an alligator. Ads for HostGator , perpetually offering 20% off, have been on nearly every site I visit. Unfortunately for HostGator, I already chose a hosting provider, and now, I’m tired of HostGator’s advertising and their alligator mascot. Retargeting ads are inexpensive and for online direct marketers, they usually perform very well on click rate, conversion rate and cost per conversion metrics.

article thumbnail

Online Marketers are Creepy

Digital B2B Marketing

A creepy alligator has been stalking me. Yes, an alligator. Ads for HostGator , perpetually offering 20% off, have been on nearly every site I visit. Unfortunately for HostGator, I already chose a hosting provider, and now, I’m tired of HostGator’s advertising and their alligator mascot. Retargeting ads are inexpensive and for online direct marketers, they usually perform very well on click rate, conversion rate and cost per conversion metrics.

article thumbnail

How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

article thumbnail

Five Signs Your Content Marketing is an Illusion

Digital B2B Marketing

Content Marketing should provide valuable information to your market at large and to prospects at each stage of the buying process. Ideally, your content is easily discovered, naturally making you and your content a resource. But how do people find your content? Is it through search and peer recommendations (which are increasingly connected), or will they only find it in their inbox?

article thumbnail

Thought Leadership Marketing is an Oxymoron

Digital B2B Marketing

Thought leadership is a common marketing topic, but unfortunately thought leadership is not a common outcome of marketing. Part of the problem is that thought leadership marketing has lost all notions of actual thought leadership. Gartner defines thought leadership marketing as “the giving — for free or at a nominal charge — of information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position

article thumbnail

Can We Save Twitter From Ourselves?

Digital B2B Marketing

Twitter is not a communication channel, it is a platform that allows each of us to create and evolve our own custom communication channel. If Twitter is not working for communication, it is not a problem with Twitter. As a platform, Twitter is developing and our behavior reflects its infancy, with the full spectrum of human behavior on display. The societal norms for Twitter have yet to be established.

article thumbnail

Online is 77% Less Impactful than Newspaper

Digital B2B Marketing

This could be called a rant. And it briefly draws on basic economic theory. So unless you like rants based on forgotten college coursework, use the navigation or category links above to find another post. Otherwise, read on, and please share your thoughts below or with me on Twitter. According to eMarketer’s Ad Dollars Still Not Following Online and Mobile Usage , on hour spent online drives 77% fewer advertising dollars than an hour spent with newspapers.

article thumbnail

Maximize Productivity and Simplify IT Management with Conversational AI

ChatGPT has dominated boardroom conversations for months now. From drafting a stock trading program, to creating a SQL query to model data, there are practically no limits to the applications of the AI language model assistant. At ManageEngine, we have been working on our own AI-assistant, Zia. Zia is a fully-trained analytics assistant that can perform a range of functions such as creating and adding reports to dashboards, providing conversational support to data analysis, insight discovery, bu

article thumbnail

Content Will Not Be King

Digital B2B Marketing

Nearly every marketer in every industry has heard the cry “ Content is King “ Even the cover of Ad Age was emblazoned with Content is King last month, complete with a crown. Once a call for change and recognition of a new marketplace reality, Content is King has become conventional marketing wisdom. The problem is, conventional wisdom is average.

article thumbnail

TV Really Is Easier to Measure than Social Media

Digital B2B Marketing

KMart’s CMO made waves recently by saying TV, and other traditional channels, are easier to measure than social media. Social media proponents responded, defending social media’s measurability and highlight the data social media provides. My favorite was this tweet from Jay Baer (who I have a tremendous amount of respect for and I don’t disagree with lightly).

article thumbnail

Stop Advertising and Give Them Content! [The Numbers Prove It]

Digital B2B Marketing

We all want to get more than we give, it is simply human nature. We don’t overpay at Walmart out of the goodness of our hearts. Likewise, we don’t pay attention to advertising that doesn’t give us something of value in return , either discounts, entertainment or information. I could launch from here into the value of developing personas to ensure advertising is delivering value.

IT 49
article thumbnail

Can’t Buy Me (Social Media) Love!

Digital B2B Marketing

In social media, marketers buy attention with promotions or discounts. And research shows consumers expect this from marketers. 44% connect with brands on Twitter for discounts ( source ). The problem is, buying attention is an old school mindset, plopped into a new communication paradigm. For social media to become an important part of the marketing mix and create loyal customers, it cannot continue to rely on tactics that reinforce consumer price sensitivity.

Gaming 49
article thumbnail

A Practical Guide to Business Intelligence Governance

Speaker: Marius Moscovici, CEO Metric Insights & Mike Smitheman, VP Metric Insights

While the proper governance of data is clearly critical to the success of any business intelligence organization, focusing on data governance alone is a huge mistake. Organizations continually fail to generate ROI on their governance initiatives because they are too narrow in scope. To be effective, Business Intelligence (BI) governance must cover both data and visualizations.

article thumbnail

Connecting Thought Leadership to Lead Generation in B2B Marketing

Digital B2B Marketing

Many B2B marketers look to content marketing as a key part of establishing thought leadership. However, companies frequently expect the same content marketing program to capture contacts or leads as well. The problem is, registration and thought leadership are at odds with each other. Thought leadership requires your point of view to be broadly distributed and recognized across a peer group , where it can drive discussion and shape opinions.

article thumbnail

3 Questions For When Mobile is the First Screen

Digital B2B Marketing

Mobile devices are expected to be the primary mode of internet access in the next three years. This is worth saying again: Your company’s digital experience will be primarily via mobile devices. The current response from marketing falls woefully short of where they need to be in a few short months. Discussions of mobile marketing quickly turn to apps, mobile sites and how to make content mobile-friendly.

article thumbnail

Buyers to Marketers: Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

Digital B2B Marketing

“Why do you want my email and phone number again? So your sales consultant can contact me? No thanks, I’ll pass.” Most B2B marketers are still fixated on capturing registration data, and no wonder. The marketing automation machine lives on a diet of email and your sales process is built on the telephone. The problem is, your buyer’s process is not built on your email or your phone.

article thumbnail

What Comes After Lead Generation?

Digital B2B Marketing

Two weeks ago, I wrote Five Reasons Lead Generation is on its Last Legs , exploring the reasons why today’s common lead generation tactics are beginning to fail. However, the requirement that marketing deliver leads will not change. Marketers need to move beyond today’s content for contact information exchange and embrace new ways to drive demand and capture more interested and qualified contacts.

article thumbnail

What Regulations Will Impact Sustainability Comms in 2024?

Navigating the waters of sustainability reporting disclosures and regulations can be intimidating, to say the least. With various measures set in motion in 2023 to keep companies accountable, there is a lot in store for brands’ impact communication in the upcoming year. 3BL is kicking off this January with our Navigating ESG Comms Through the Cosmos - Capricorn Edition by highlighting the impact of: The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Climate disclosure rules The European Commission