Papa Advertising ~ News

National Hunting Products Company Tags PAPA Advertising ~

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Robinson Outdoor Products, a leading innovator in scent control hunting apparel and liquids as well as treestand safety equipment, recently named PAPA Advertising as Agency of Record.

According to Skip Papa, agency president and creative director, the relationship encompasses all aspects of Robinson's marketing communications, public relations and media.

"Robinson is committed to growing their business by delivering innovation and that includes their marketing initiatives," said Papa. "Our account team is responsible for building and implementing strategies to drive customer awareness, retail growth and brand development."

Robinson's current product lines include ScentBlocker^®, Scent Shield^®, and Whitewater Outdoors^® as well as Robinson’s innovative safety product family, Tree Spider^® safety harnesses and LIVEWIRE™ decent systems.

Six Marketing Opportunties You May Be Missing ~

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 -0600

When developing a content marketing plan, marketers afford much-deserved attention to blogs, e-books, webinars, data sheets, media releases, videos and other channels. But they often overlook some less-used, but equally valuable touch points.

On-Hold Messaging. Ditch the on-hold music and the typical sales pitch for something your customers and prospects may value. Customize the on-hold message for each department; perhaps suggest how listeners can make the most of your product or service.
Invoices. Forget the traditional invoice stuffers. Include quality content with your invoice (or on the invoice itself) that might capture the customer's attention and continue building trust. Maybe even add content that makes the customer smile.
Follow-Up Surveys. When you send customers surveys to fill out about their sales or support experience with your company, make sure you reward their feedback. Why not give customers a teaser of great content to start and reward with the full item at the end of the survey?
Welcome Letter (Or Email). Typical emails or letters that welcome new customers after a purchase fall short of delivering anything of value. Use the opportunity to provide the newly acquired customer with great content to use or share.
Holiday Card. Whether you send customers a physical or virtual card, email or video during the holidays, you should take the opportunity to give them something that will increase their trust in you and your company. Show off your company's personality—and your staff.
Confirmation Emails. When someone makes a purchase, or when you send out shipping notifications, do you optimize the message for great content or leave it as the standard boring text file? Use this opportunity to engage and increase trust.

SOURCE: MarketingProfs

PAPA Earns National Awards For Edinboro University Marketing ~

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Marketing firm PAPA Advertising has garnered a gold, a silver and two merit awards in the 27th Annual Educational Advertising Awards, an international competition conducted by HMR Publications Group.

The awards recognized the creative excellence of television commercials, outdoor billboards, annual report and admissions collateral that PAPA developed for Edinboro University, located in Edinboro, Pa.

Conducted by the Higher Education Marketing Report, the Educational Advertising Awards is the largest educational advertising awards competition in the country. This year, more than 2,000 entries were received from more than 1,000 colleges, universities and secondary schools from all 50 states and several foreign countries.

PAPA Wins Big At 2012 ADDY Awards ~

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Marketing firm PAPA Advertising took home two gold, four silver and two merit awards from the 2012 ADDY Awards sponsored by the Erie Ad Club.

The awards recognized the creative excellence of PAPA’s efforts on behalf of several clients including:

Ashtabula Medical Center, outpatient services campaign
Asbury Woods Nature Center, website
Becky Veith Travel, website
Edinboro University, microsite
Edinboro University, annual report
Edinboro University, admission collateral
Fat Willie’s Wing House, logo

Conducted by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY Awards are the world's largest advertising competition with more than 40,000 entries. Regional Gold honorees advance to district competition; winners at that level compete for national recognition.

Six Tips for Social Media Success ~

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Even the best marketers can use a little advice—and reminders—every now and then. Here, six social media marketers share their secrets to social success:

Start with the Right Strategy
"Align with the goals of your department. That's a good starting place. In most cases your department strategy should also align to a larger corporate strategy. We don't want a communication strategy that is at odds with our service strategy." (Shannon Paul, Blue Cross Blue Shield)

Know Your Objectives
"Tie your social media activities to existing objectives, such as increasing online sales, driving web traffic or boosting attendance at your next webinar or offline event. Set a reasonable target, see what happens and use it as a benchmark for future campaigns." (David B. Thomas, Radian6)

Deliver Relevant Content
"Deliver the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer (or partner). Relevant content happens as a result of listening, thought leadership, Google insights, and community sentiment." (Michael Brito, Edelman Digital)

Develop Meaningful Relationships
"Use social media as a platform for developing relationships. Show your thought leadership by answering questions on LinkedIn and Quora—it could lead to new contacts and leads." (Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solutions)

Integrate into Your Marketing Mix
"Don't leave opportunities on the table; explore how you can extend your marketing effort by integrating social elements into your PR, events and customer support activities." (Jane Price, Marketing Consultant)

Measure What Matters
"Distill social media measurement down to core metrics that your company is already measuring that have history behind them. When you show what social media is or isn't delivering there is a conversation that can take place." (Nichole Kelly, Full Frontal ROI)

Welcome to the Age of Video Engagement ~

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0700

From PR Newswire, here's a white paper with straight-forward advice to get your organization thinking about video engagement.

Download PDF

You Botched That Email Campaign: Now What? ~

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0700

We all make mistakes...many at the click of a mouse. Here’s a great article with some very practical advice on how to "save" the day on email marketing efforts that go awry.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2012/6861/you-botched-that-marketing-email-now-what

How To Establish An Online Newsroom ~

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0700

With journalists and the media relying heavily on web-based resources, it is essential for organization’s to place relevant news, information and digital assets in a central, organized and easily accessed online newsroom. If you haven’t established one already, here are key steps to get your online newsroom up and running.

Consider Your Audience
Before establishing an online newsroom, you need to determine your target audience. Consider who will be looking at the content: journalists, consumers, business partners. Tailoring content specific to your audiences needs is critical; if it’s not relevant they won’t be back.

Post Relevant Content
Once your audience has been established, determine what content fits their needs best. As a general rule, photos, press releases, employee biographies and the option to subscribe to email or RSS alerts are standard in an online newsroom. Other sharing options, such as news clips, company history pieces and links to social media outlets, should be considered as well.

Optimize For Search
Making sure that your content is loaded with keywords is critical for search engine optimization (SEO). Certain amounts of restraint will need to be applied; too many keywords can trigger spam filters that can block your content from being displayed publically, rendering your content almost useless. Creating URLs with keywords rather than general web jargon can drive SEO with less threat of spam filters. Using commercial distribution websites, such as PR Newswire or Cision also increases SEO.

Remember Contact Information
Including contact information for marketing or public relations staff is equally important. Journalists work to short and specific deadlines; they want the name, email address and telephone number of a person that can help them on their schedule, not yours. Don’t bury this information on an obscure page; include it in a dedicated link or at the end of each piece of content. Creating a search function within your newsroom will help users find what they need.

Be Prepared For A Crisis
As an administrator of your newsroom, you should be prepared for a crisis and the communications it will require. A crisis can happen at any time and you need to be available to respond quickly, regardless of what day or time it happens. Make sure that you can access your newsroom from anywhere in the world, not just a specific computer in the office. In addition, make sure your site servers can handle the increased traffic that a crisis will attract. This is not the time to have to worry about a server crashing.

Remember, your online newsroom may be the first experience the media has with your company. It’s your responsibility to make sure it’s the right first impression.

Social Media and Manufacturing ~

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0700

So how does a low-profile manufacturing business benefit from social media? You’re probably thinking, “It’s manufacturing. We don’t manufacture anything ground breaking” or “we don’t have anything to talk about.” Wrong. Manufacturing companies can benefit from social media. Here’s how:

Relationship building
Most customers, whether it be direct customers or other businesses typically do not know much about a company other than what they can read on a company’s website. Nor do they have the ability to get to know the company staff beyond a phone call to the sales department to place an order. While a website is vital to establishing a company’s online presence, there’s much more that can be utilized.

Through social media, a company can post pictures of company events, products or services they offer or issues and trends that relate to the companies target audience. Posting pictures and products that your company offers illustrates that there is more to the company than just the name or the sales staff. It is good public day-to-day routines. For example, posting a few (tasteful) pictures from the company Christmas party shows that there are real people with personalities working to serve your audience. Posting biographies of the executive leadership gives audiences more information about the leadership in the company. Overall, posting this type of information shows that your company is transparent and is proud of your staff and what they do at your company.

Showing interest in your audiences industries
Cultivating conversations with your audiences about trends, ideas and thoughts about the industries they’re involved in gives a sense that your company genuinely wants to interact with its audience and establish a relationship beyond another order number. For example, a company that manufactures ovens could post interesting trends, topics and news from the baking, pizza and restaurant industries. Asking questions and starting conversations about topics like this bring audience members into the conversation; that’s exactly the two-way style of communication that makes social media so unique.

Utilizing social media also gives the impression that the company is staying with current trends and is up to date on offering the most cutting edge ways of communicating with their customers. More importantly, it shows that your company encourages feedback from its audience. Opening the doors to two-way communication can lead to product discussion, customer service…the possibilities are numerous.

It’s free!
The vast majority of social media platforms are completely free to use. Facebook and Twitter are free to use entirely, while LinkedIn is free to use, but offers different memberships that offer more services for an annual fee. Social media management software, such as TweetDeck or HootSuite, allows users to manage their accounts on multiple platforms from one home screen and post to multiple platforms at once. They also offer the option to schedule posts for the future. This software is also free, but HootSuite offers analytical services for a small monthly fee.

Drives SEO
Social media can be considered a low-risk project that has the potential to gain a lot of interest in your company from audiences that may not have interacted with your company if it wasn’t active in social media. Raising brand awareness is all about reaching to more people. When a person searches a company on a search engine, usually the first result will be their company website, along with a bunch of unrelated results that have nothing to do with their original search. By using social media, your presences show up on search engine search results, augmenting the website as another source of information.

Your manufacturing company can reap the benefits of social media just the same as any other company that uses this popular technology. The huge reach that social media has, paired with the little to no cost to operate makes it an obvious choice for any company that wants to expand their potential for new customers or potential partners.

Six Social Trends For 2012 ~

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0700

What can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder, in no particular order:

Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with "real life," we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could "swipe" their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino's Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of "trans-media" experiences are likely to define "social" in the year to come.

The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout's attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we'll continue to see play out in the next year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and more about the tools and techniques professionals use to "score" digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.

Gamification Nation. No we're not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number of social apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participation abound. It's likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates. Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcare and even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the company's digital leaderboard.

Social Sharing. Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next. We probably don't know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.

Social Television. For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether it's talking to the person next to you, or texting, tweeting, and calling friends about what you're watching. But television is about to become a social experience in a bigger and broader sense. The X Factor now allows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encourages viewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can "check-in" to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows.

The Micro Economy. Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sort of micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who choose to (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would be inventors called Quirky lets the best product ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the "inventor" takes a cut. Air BnB turns homes into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examples may point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals over institutions.

These are a few emerging trends which come to mind. As with anything, looking to the past often gives us clues for what may come in the future.

– HBR BLOG NETWORK

PR Lessons from Occupy Wall Street ~

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0700

Communications power has shifted, perhaps permanently. Those who master the tricky task of harnessing and unleashing the power of the social web can become truly influential.

Grassroots movements attract the powerful. Today, traditional sources of power scramble to associate themselves with grassroots movements – or to respond to them. It’s only a matter of time before this agenda finds its way onto an even bigger stage.

Rush to understand, but don’t rush to judge. Thoughtful observes should seek to understand what is happening – not just the news but also the strategies, tactics and sources of power that shape today’s headlines. People shouldn’t make claims without scrutinizing them. It’s worth thinking critically before tweeting, retweeting or forming an opinion that you may have to change later.

- PR TACTICS

Streaming Your Brand in a Real-Time World ~

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0700

Remember when public relations campaigns had a beginning, a middle and an end? How far we’ve come. Now “brandstreaming” – real-time, always-on, multi-directional, multi-format communications – is the order of the day. Read more in this PR Newswire white paper.

Content Marketing Yields Leads, Customers and Brand Development ~

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0700

Lead Generation a Top Priority
Among B2B companies using content marketing (and 82% do, according to a new study from content curation firm HiveFire), lead generation tops the list of objectives. Sixty percent of B2B marketers name leads as their top priority. Running a close second (57%) is converting those leads into paying customers. Branding, reputation and awareness are third at 45 percent, according to a July 2011 survey by Marketing Sherpa.

Content includes white papers, fact sheets, case studies, webinars and email newsletter campaigns, all aimed at fattening the sales funnel with new leads, and convincing those leads to buy. As one might expect, the benefits and effectiveness of each type of content differs for B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) firms.

Some Content Is More Effective
According to Focus Research, blog posts and webinars/virtual events are about equally valuable for North American B2B and B2C marketing efforts; these were the top two choices for both categories for 35-39% of survey respondents. Both categories also listed videos (20-23%) and podcasts (6-9%). But B2B companies like the results from publishing industry white papers (31%), while just 14% of B2C companies deem these “most valuable.” And 10% of B2B companies also identify vendor-sponsored white papers as useful; B2C firms don’t use these at all.

One surprise: B2C companies find more value in data-driven research reports (29% compared to 20% for B2B firms). User/peer-generated content is also deemed valuable by both business categories (23% B2C and 17% B2B).

A bonus to content marketing: fresh, authoritative content keeps company websites high in organic search rankings. And as more people read company content, those rankings remain high, and more people (leads) find the content.

Email Marketing Drives Content “Push”
A new report from eMarketer, “B2B Lead Generation: Using Content to Acquire Customers,” affirms that companies are finding they can attract early-stage buyers with content and draw them into the sales pipeline, as well as foster longer-term relationships with established customers. Companies are mingling published content options with competitive comparisons, specific company information and interactive elements. Email marketing is a key tactic for sharing much of this content.

SOURCE: Second Wind

What to Consider Before Launching Employee-Focused Channels ~

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Don’t assume you have a captive audience when communicating internally. Consider this advice from PR News and experts Steve Halsey and Ken Gedaka:

It’s a crowded world out there. Hundreds of e-mails, thousands of news feeds and millions of Web sites—not to mention text messages from family and friends—compete for our attention every day. When evaluating how to integrate digital media into an internal communications campaign, some things to consider include:

Are They Plugged In?
Where are employees located and how do they access information? Are they mostly at headquarters, branch offices or remote locations? What kind of devices do employees use for business? What percentage of workers is based in manufacturing locations?

Culture
How does the internal environment affect access to technology, transparency and receptiveness to the channel?

Intent
What is the overall goal of the campaign and what action do you want employees to take? Which digital communications vehicles and channels best align with the given intent?

Intranet: Library vs. Channel
What does the company intranet look like? How is it built? Is it a place to simply download forms and files? Can it be an information hub of the company? How does its set up impact your options?

Multimedia and Dynamic Content
What do you want the experience to be? Can you effectively integrate audio and video to make things more dynamic? Is there a role for internal webcasts and multimedia presentations? Will your message be helped, or hurt, based on how dynamic it is?

Momentum
What is the frequency you need to publish digital content to keep your internal audience tuned in? How will you source that content…today, tomorrow, next week, next month? Can you maintain the momentum of whatever you create?

Metrics
How and what will you measure? Are you open to what that data says and adjusting your campaign in concert?

Leadership Appetite
Are internal communications valued? How willing are your executives to being more transparent? Will they support making internal communications more social? Answers to questions like these will help you determine whether or not you will be able to unleash an external digital mind-set on internal communications.

PAPA Advertising Named Agency of Record for WNY Health System ~

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Erie agency to develop branding, advertising and web marketing programs for Lake Erie Regional Health System of Western New York

Lake Erie Regional Health System of Western New York (LERHS) has engaged PAPA Advertising to launch a comprehensive, integrated marketing plan. Initial assignments include market research, brand development, interactive marketing and service line advertising.

Brooks Memorial Hospital, Lake Shore Health Care Center and Gowanda Urgent Care & Medical Center are all a part of the system’s continuum of services that includes acute care, diagnostic imaging, rehabilitation, behavioral health and skilled nursing.

“The health system’s executive leadership indicated that our 30 years of health care marketing experience got their attention,” noted Mike Smiley, vice president at PAPA. “PAPA’s health care team has worked with more than two dozen health care organizations, including Ashtabula County Health System, EmergyCare, Hamot Health Foundation, Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Shriners Hospitals for Children and Saint Vincent Health Center.”

Smiley added that the agency’s work in health care has been nationally recognized for strategic and creative excellence in health care advertising and public relations, reflected by more than three dozen national awards.

Turn Waiting Time Into Idea Time ~

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Here’s some great advice from Howdesign.com: when you feel you don’t have time to sit and think, try using dead time to generate ideas and insights.

Checkout Lines. Look at people and what’s in their carts. Notice impulse items. Try to understand buying habits.
Restaurants. Scrutinize menus and displays. Decide how color, lighting and music affect the business.
Cars. Capture ideas while stuck in traffic with apps like Voice Memos.
Airports and Parks. Notice how people dress, eat and drink...what they read. Watch how they connect with others.
Trains and Planes. Use flight time to brainstorm; generate random lists or ideas for projects.

A New Brand Emerges ~

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Nearly 30 years ago, three hospitals in Erie, Pa., developed EmergyCare, a centralized medical transportation service designed to better meet all types of emergency and non-emergency needs in the region. In recent years, EmergyCare evolved to be an independent and dynamic mobile medical organization, but its fleet of 68 vehicles and the uniforms of more than 300 employees still bore its outdated identity.

"To strengthen awareness and position EmergyCare as a regional asset for philanthropy, our leadership team decided it was imperative to update our brand," explained Jennifer Farrar, EmergyCare's director of development. "We felt that PAPA's extensive brand experience, particularly in health care, would enable us to achieve our objectives."

EmergyCare challenged PAPA to create a new brand identity and positioning theme that would work across the organization's broad scope of services and reflect their team's commitment to timely, compassionate medical response.

"We had to determine how EmergyCare's new brand identity would work with all their ambulances and medical taxis, even their helicopter," said Toni Malena, PAPA graphic designer. "Just as important, we had to consider its application to uniforms and equipment bags as well as stationery and signage."

Following input from EmergyCare's internal team, PAPA developed initial design concepts and themes to test with an external focus group. With that input, the new brand image and positioning theme - When your health is on the line - were finalized. A few weeks later, Bill Hagerty, EmergyCare's executive director, introduced both to the staff and community.

"EmergyCare is robust organization that offers many levels of medical transportation services, often providing life-saving care," Hagerty remarked. "Our new brand conveys that in a very strong way. The response has been overwhelmingly positive."

What to Do When a Customer Isn't Ready to Buy Today ~

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Many clients say their customers complain that every time they try to do web research, they are immediately bombarded by salespeople looking to close a deal. It does not matter if you are investigating an accounting package, marketing automation, health insurance or just a copier — lots of people wanting to get your requirements and send you quotes.

According to online experts, this is because many lead-management programs make the mistake of treating all prospects as if they're ready to make a purchase right away. So how can you set your company apart from the rest—and prove a valuable resource in a prospect's research process? Here’s some great advice:

Give as much—if not more—than you take. Prospects need a reason and benefit to share their goals and needs with you. They also need some assurance that their information will not be used 'for evil.'"

Tailor your communications for each prospect. Make it clear that you're responding to a specific question or action. Look at Amazon recommendations as a best practice, where each recommendation can be traced back to a specific past behavior of that customer.

Establish yourself as an impartial intermediary. You're here to help the prospect make the best possible purchase. And sharing third party feedback on your product or service—even if it isn't entirely positive—might actually enhance your credibility.

The Point: You'll earn the most goodwill (and, potentially, close the biggest sales) if you give a prospect exactly what she wants during the research process.

Source: B2Bbloggers

Is Google+ the Ultimate Content Marketing Platform? ~

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:00:00 -0600

As we’ve said around here a few hundred times, smart social media marketing is actually content marketing.

Why?

Because people love to share content on social networks.

If that content is yours, you’re being introduced to new people with every share … to people who now have an opportunity to know, like, and trust you enough to buy from you.

People on Facebook and Twitter have been providing free exposure via sharing to smart marketers who build their businesses with online content. But there’s a new player in the game that may just become the content marketing platform of choice.

Let’s talk about Google+ (since everyone else is).

In case you’ve been incarcerated in a Turkish prison for the last few weeks, Google+ is the new social networking platform from the search engine giant.

It’s been more accurately called a “sharing” platform, and I think that distinction alone means everyone producing online content needs to take a serious look at Google+.

Here are 3 things to think about when considering whether to hop on Google+ to drive traffic back to your site:

1. People

Based on initial reports, Google+ is the fastest-growing social network ever, despite a limited-access, invitation-only launch.

Google confirmed 10 million users after only two weeks, and that number may have reached 20 million as you read this.

That’s in part to its better design and functionality, but also because of the integration of Google+ across the Google network. Google already has hundreds of millions of users in general, which gives Google+ an “unfair” advantage that Facebook and Twitter didn’t have at this stage.

Takeaway: Social networks are powered by people, and it looks like Google+ is off to a great start. If the growth rate continues, there’s a good chance the people you’re trying to reach will be on Google+, which means you should be on Google+.

2. Sharing

As noted above, Google+ has been built from the ground-up as a content sharing platform.

It takes the good things about Facebook and Twitter and makes them better. More importantly, Google had the luxury of watching what Facebook and Twitter have done wrong, and made it right.

There are plenty of other articles that explain why Google+ is shaping up to be an excellent content sharing platform. Down to brass tacks, Google has solved the inherent privacy and “over-sharing” issues that make Facebook problematic, while providing a rich multimedia and discussion environment that Twitter simply can’t match.

Takeaway: Google+ has been put together in a way that encourages, rewards, and protects content sharing. Content marketers have every incentive to participate since Google knows that content sharing drives social networks.

3. SEO

Google’s search engine was built on the premise that content with links pointing to it deserves to be ranked higher than content with fewer links.

With the emergence of social media, the Google algorithm has evolved to include sharing as an additional indicator of content quality for ranking purposes.

Google has been effectively locked out of the walled garden of Facebook.

Twitter tweets and retweets have been shown to influence Google rankings, and my bet is they still will going forward.

But now, Google has its own content sharing platform that provides direct access to “the voice of the people” when it comes to quality content.

Takeaway: This is the big one. Building an audience on Google+ may be the smartest thing you do as a content marketer when it comes to improved search rankings. You still need to understand the language of your audience and reflect it back in your content, but Google will now have direct indications that you’re putting out quality stuff.

It’s Still Early …

Despite the early fascination and impressive growth rate, this thing is barely out of the gate.

If you want to get your feet wet, sign up for Google+ and add me to one of your circles. I’ll be sharing content and observations from my own use of Google+ to help you out.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t clearly state that Google+ is not a replacement for your website or blog. You share content that resides on your property, where you make the rules.

Being a digital sharecropper is never cool, no matter who owns the plantation.

— Copyblogger

Is your organization “age-ready?” ~

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:00:00 -0600

In 2009, at the age of 60, Bruce Springsteen earned more revenue from his concert tour than did Coldplay and the Jonas Brothers combined. Really.

It’s apparent we live in a new world where the 50+ consumer is fast becoming the major driver of the U.S. Economy. Is your organization ready to claim your fair share of the $3.5 trillion spent annually by boomers and older adults on consumer goods and services (by the way, younger adults spend around $2.3 trillion, or about a third less according to the latest Consumer Expenditure Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)?

It is time for all organizations -- from Fortune 500 corporations to non-profits to government entities to local retailers -- to get up-to-speed on what is happening to the demographics in the U.S. and what to do about it. Over the next two decades America and most of the world will undergo a profound, transformative, industry-changing, revolutionary and permanent change: there will be fewer younger people and greater numbers of older people than ever before. This change will be as dramatic and all encompassing as the change that happened between Aug. 6, 1991, and today, some 20 years later.

That's right, on that day Tim Berners-Lee announced to the online world that he had created the worldwide web (sorry, Al Gore was not in the room at the time). If you could go back to that day, knowing what you know now about the impact of the web on literally everything, what would you do differently? Not just in 1991, but in '92, '93, '94 and so on? How would you have capitalized on the change, as it happened? (

Our belief is that the inevitable age shift is as profound, transformative, industry-changing, revolutionary and permanent. Knowing that, what should your organization start doing differently? Now, in 2011, and in '12, '13, '14 and so on. We see three courses of action:

Become "Age Aware." The simple facts about the size and spending of the 50+ consumer segment ought to be well known by anyone running an organization today. Here's another demographic time bomb few seem to grasp: between now and 2031, the 18-to-49 age segment is expected to grow in size by 12 percent, reaching about 153 million. The 50+ segment will expand by 34 percent, reaching 135 million, almost as large. Focusing only on young adults -- about half the market -- is a fast way to ruin your business.

Get "Age Ready." Once your organization has a grasp on the demographic realities, it is time to plan for the future. The longer-trend, permanent shift in the age composition in America will impact every industry and every organization, but not all at the same time in the same way. Does your organization have any game plan for capitalizing on this future?

Plan to become "ageless." Few organizations can afford separate marketing programs for different generational or age segments. The ultimate goal is to change how you approach marketing so it is truly "ageless." A good place to start is by reading David Wolfe's Ageless Marketing. Finding a path forward that enables you to effectively market to both young and old is not difficult. It starts, though, with your organization coming to grips with the reality that such a move is demographically necessary.

Source: Matt Thornhill