Hidden Tips of Digital Marketing

I read many marketing and business development articles each day. I’m always curious to hear about the new tips/advice that the experts are willing to share. Hearing what experts are doing and seeing their data is very helpful right?

Only if you’re just getting started.

If you’re just getting into marketing, read it all. Learn the language. Learn the process. Learn what strategies were used in the past and why. Once you understand the language and have some knowledge of what worked, stop listening to the experts. Don’t listen to what they say…just watch what they do. You’ll learn much more.

The hottest marketing advice doesn’t come from listening to experts. It comes from watching what they do.

This article, The Psychology of Shareable Content has a lot of great information in it. It’s a great read, especially if you’re just getting into marketing. It covers things that have been tested and tracked for several years. When reading the article, take the time to look for their “hidden tips”.

Ask yourself what are they doing and why. As you learn the language marketers use and some of their marketing strategies utilized in the past, you’ll develop the ability to see what experts are doing today. It’s your job to figure out why and if that strategy will help you as well.

So what are some of the “hidden tips” that stood out to you? I always look at the layout of each article I read. In this article, they used multiple pages to increase the number ads you saw while reading that post (increased the amount of money they’re making for writing it).

What else stood out to you? Do you see any “hidden tips” from me in this post? There are some here.

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Nonprofit Marketing | Engaging Donors Panel

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a few nonprofit marketing techniques on the Engaging Donors Panel Discussion at IMPACT Funding Symposium hosted by The C2 Initiative. I’ll be sharing my advice for nonprofit marketing techniques with 50 organizations that range from social services, environmental, education, health & wellness and economic empowerment.

Other Panelists on the Nonprofit Marketing Panel

Laura Rossman, Moderator
Bethany Booher: 618 Creative
Dana Workes, Dana Workes Creatives, LLC

When speaking at the PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day, I took some time to prepare and decided to write down and share some of my thoughts and share them as a blog post. I received a lot of feedback for that post, and will continue to do the same for upcoming events, including the IMPACT Funding Symposium.

Nonprofit Marketing Techniques

What are the best marketing tools for nonprofits in order to share their mission?

Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Buffer, SproutSocial and all the other social media management platforms help make managing social media easier… but, by far the best marketing tool nonprofits can use is their smartphones. Take photos, take videos, use Facebook live video, use Snapchat, use Instagram and Instagram Stories to show how donations really do make an impact. The transparency of the behind the scenes content will serve as constant reminders and visual proof of donations making a difference. This will encourage people to donate for the first time and continue to donate again and again.

How important is the website in encouraging donors and what things do I need on my site?

It’s not important. Your website doesn’t need to convince people to donate. People don’t search for ways online to donate money. You have to reach out to them and motivate them. Spend your time creating content and distributing it through social media and other influencers.

That being said, your website needs to do one job that is very important – and it must do it perfectly. Process donations and capture user information. Your website should be branded to match your social profiles, everything should match in terms of color, photos, call to actions, etc. Make sure that when a donation call to action is clicked on social media, it is obvious they have found the proper website. The donation process needs to be quick and work flawlessly. Be sure to ask for email addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses. Any information that will help you with future marketing efforts. Avoid demographic information, it is already available to social media and Google analytics. Don’t make the donation processes longer than it needs to be. In fact, you should always be trying to make it shorter and faster.

How can we effectively use social media to create outreach for our organizations?

Use your smartphones to capture the behind the scenes moments. Share how donations truly do make a difference. Be as transparent as possible. People want to be sure their donations are being used to support the mission and not being misused to benefit others.

What’s the best ways to create a brand for our nonprofit?

Always focus on the mission. To be perfectly blunt, people don’t care about you. They care about the mission. Create a branding style book that will help you with creating matching social profiles, website, mailers, etc. That way your audience can quickly identify your pages. Outside of that, just stay focused on the mission and let the rest of your brand grow organically.

How can I make the most of the annual giving day campaigns…nobody knows about us?

Don’t focus on those days. Annual giving days are overrun with posts from nonprofits both big and small. Everyone is releasing content and competition on social media is crazy high. Social media algorithms are forced to pick and choose what content to show and what to push to the side. Annual giving days are the perfect time to repurpose and reuse content. On those days pick your top performing content from the last year, and reuse it. Post every hour and try to push through the noise – but keep in mind there’s still 364 other days to get donations.

What can nonprofits do to create content that make people want to give to our organization?

Content that shows transparency and connect donations with real success of the mission. Focus on engaging content. You’re competing for attention against all kinds of other brands and updates from friends and family. Keep an eye on social media trends and what the platforms are pushing. The more content of a certain type your seeing in your newsfeed (live video, etc.) the more likely it is to be performing well in Facebook’s algorithm. Use that to your advantage. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, just be observant and keep an eye on what works for others.

Featured Photo is from one of my favorite nonprofits, The Foundation for Photo/Art in Hospitals.

Mission

The unique mission of the Foundation is to place large, framed photographs of nature and beautiful places from around the world in hospitals to give comfort and hope to patients and their families, visitors, and caregivers. Studies show that nature art has a beneficial effect on relieving a patient’s stress and anxiety. The photographs are intended to provide color and an atmosphere of compassion where healing is encouraged.

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Why I’m Excited For This Week

  • It’s Monday. I love Mondays as much as I love Fridays. Transition days are the best.
  • I had a truly awful dream last night. I woke up incredibly happy because it isn’t real.
  • Nicki’s blog was featured by Stitch Fix over two weeks ago. We’re still seeing a boost in traffic from it.
  • I’ll be talking with other public relations and marketing professionals about How to be Successful in Digital PR on Tuesday at 6PM on the #PRSASTL Twitter Chat.
  • On Wednesday I’ll be speaking with non-profits about best ways to gain donors and increase the outreach of their missions through digital marketing at IMPACT Funding Symposium hosted by The C2 Initiative.
  • Thursday night I have my next Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) meeting. I missed last week’s meeting, and I’m really looking forward to getting back to it this week.

Featured Image (top of post) is a photo I took at Busch Wildlife a few weeks ago. I took the photo on my Samsung Galaxy s5. I used the phone’s stock camera app and an add-on fisheye lens. A few quick edits were done using Snapseed and Instagram.

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I’ve Been Quiet, Here’s What I’ve Been Up To

Let’s keep this quick.

New Focus

What I was doing, with all the best intentions (but failing).

  • Saying yes too often.
  • Feeling guilty when saying no.
  • Spreading myself too thin. (At the expense of myself and the ones I love.)
  • Trying to compartmentalize my life.

What I am doing, successfully.

  • Eliminating things that don’t matter, don’t produce results or don’t make me happy.
  • Combining parts of my life that overlap.
  • Redefining goals.
  • Building my faith.
  • Focusing on the long-game.
  • Tracking personal growth.

I know who I want to be, and I know that I’m not that person today. At the end of the day, if I’m closer to being the person I want to be than I was yesterday, It’s a good day.

New Job

I’m working with my family at R. M. Wester & Associates, Inc. I have a job title, but here’s some of what I do in no particular order.

  • Build and maintain websites (yes, multiple. At this point there’s 3) that allows potential clients to find us, learn about us, and discover how we can help them.
  • Implement new technology in the office to help us work more efficiently as a team.
  • Fully integrate our marketing and project scheduling efforts so they become one. Then automate it.
  • Desktop support.
  • Redesign our current and previous client databases to be easily accessed and sorted.
  • Create and execute marketing campaigns that get the phone to ring and the front door open.

Other Things That Fill Up My Day

Contract Work

Outside of the full-time job, I am still running St. Louis Social Media Consultants, but I’m more selective with the clients I take on. My time is more limited, and my current ideal client is looking for strategy and training, but not the daily implementation.

New Hobby

I’m learning more about photography and videography, and absolutely love it. It’s become my new passion. It’s creative, it keeps me moving and it incredibly important for digital marketing. Mostly, I take photos and videos that my wife, Nicki, uses on her blog Scrumptious.Style. Speaking of her blog, go read it and like her page on Facebook.

Since this is a random post with several updates and no focus point, I’ll add in one of my photos as the featured photo (above the post).

Snapchat Geofilters

Together, my wife and I just launched a new service that we both sell from different angles. We now create Custom Snapchat Geofilters. Currently, we’re focused on personal use Geofilters for weddings, bachelorette parties, birthdays or other fun events. Nicki sells her wedding Geofilter designs on her Etsy page. They’re inexpensive, $10. All you have to do is find the design you like and let her know what you’d like it to say. Then you get the file emailed to you and you upload it to Snapchat and set your time, date and location and you pay the Snapchat fees. Nicki’s target audience are people just like you, the couple getting married or hosting the event. She’s on the business to consumer (B2C) side.

I sell the same Geofilter designs. The only difference is they cost $35, and I upload them for you and my price already includes the Snapchat fees. My target audience is event service businesses. I sell to wedding photographers, venues, and the like. They can then include it in their service packages, and even charge more for it if they’d like. I’m on the business to business (B2B) side.

Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP)

In early spring, I attended the Christ Renews His Parish retreat at Sacred Heart in Florissant. To be honest, at the end of the weekend retreat, I didn’t feel as though I got much out of it. However it was the spark that started the fire, it was a slow burn that got more powerful as time went on. I promised myself I would be open to God when He asked something of me. So when I was asked to help host the next CRHP weekend, I accepted and have been helping plan the next weekend, which will be in mid-September.

 

 

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My Life At A Tech Startup

Waking up in the morning isn’t too bad. Yes, it’s early, but I don’t have to worry about putting on a suit. My jeans, t-shirt and company branded zip-up hoodie are perfectly acceptable. Somedays the traffic gets to me, and I arrive at work frustrated, but most days a quick perspective check makes the drive enjoyable.

I drive through downtown Clayton, past the government buildings, large corporations, banking offices and seemingly endless law firms. I turn on Carondelet and look down the street lined with tall brick buildings. At the end of the block, there’s The Ritz-Carlton with beautiful landscaping and fountains in front of it. My building is on the right, just before The Ritz. I turn into our building, driving right into our garage, avoiding the typical hassle of trying to find parking in downtown Clayton.

We have a reputation in the building. Maybe it’s because we wear super casual clothes in a building full of suits. It also could be that the other company on our floor can hear us playing pool. …and showing up with coolers full of beer at 8 AM when we had our company picnic probably didn’t help us fit in either. Before you start judging us, let me explain that one. We had a softball tournament after lunch at the park down the street. The coolers stayed closed until we were at the fields that afternoon. So yes, we stand out, and the side-eye in the elevator is always entertaining.

A quick scan of my keycard on the 12th floor and I’m in our kitchen. The kitchen is stocked with cereal, chips, candy, all kinds of snacks and about 7 different ways to make coffee. I still only know how to use one of them.

The quickest way to my desk is to cut through the lounge, past the large TV hooked up with a Xbox One and Wii U, the foosball table, pool table, arcade games even a candy claw machine. Oh and there’s usually a few Razor scooters sitting around in there too. They’re not used as much as you’d think. While they make getting to meetings more fun, it’s incredibly difficult to ride one with a laptop in hand. Still, it’s not uncommon to see a VP challenging others to race around the office on Friday afternoons. It’s a fun environment to work in, and surprisingly productive.

Multiple computer monitors sit on each desk, and not much else. It’s a tech startup, so there’s rarely a need to actually write. A few weeks after I started, we were asked to bring a pen and paper to a meeting. I had to ask to borrow a pen; it was like being in high school again. Overconfident, underprepared.

Oh, and the pen and paper weren’t even needed directly for work – just for a quick game after our weekly team meeting. We usually play a quick 10 minute game of Pictionary, Hangman or Heads Up but we mixed it up that day. Whoever loses the game has to take notes the following week, but they also get to choose the game for the next meeting.

Outside of the games, we did get a lot of work done. Our 13 entertainment websites were viewed by over 120 million unique users each month, generating 600 million monthly page views and over 4 billion monthly ad impressions.

Did you notice the change of tense in that last paragraph? It was intentional. That was my life at a tech startup, and now I’m on my way to my next challenge.

Last week I was asked to join the CEO in a small conference room. He explained that layoffs were needed, and unfortunately, it was my last day with Gateway Media.

This isn’t a shame on them post. The digital publishing industry is tough, and that can clearly be seen through similar stories in recent months. Mashable, BuzzFeed, Gawker, Huffington Post and many others have also had to make tough decisions and change their strategy to maintain success.

The leadership at Gateway Media has a record of being extraordinarily talented at identifying new trends and opportunities for growth. Yet sometimes layoffs are still unavoidable. Sometimes a new direction is needed, and the company has to limit risk and be flexible during a transition. That’s business, that’s startups, that’s life. (This is my opinion, not anyone else’s.)

Working at Gateway Media was a great experience. I had the opportunity to learn a lot, test my knowledge and work alongside some unbelievably talented coworkers. I left with no ill will towards anyone and I truly hope to see Gateway Media continue to succeed.

 

Life Goal:
Work at a tech startup.

 

Thank you, Gateway.

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SEO Templates | Speaking at the PRSA and IABC Event

Remember how I said I was going to create a list of things that make me happy? Well, I did that. I just chose not to share it. Instead of sharing the list, I’ll share a few things I learned from that exercise.

  1. I enjoy teaching.
  2. I like to push myself to be uncomfortable (personal growth).
  3. I like to help others.
  4. I love digital marketing (I find it fascinating, and it often combines helping or teaching others).

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to combine a few of these. I was the speaker at the PRSASTL & IABCSTL members only event.

 


I wanted to share my knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). After working with many clients over the past few years, I realized that SEO is often pitched as a complicated and often expensive process. The truth is, it doesn’t have to be. A lot of search engine optimization is simply learning how to properly write for search engines. So I created SEO templates for blog posts, LinkedIn and Pinterest and shared those with the members of St. Louis Chapters of PRSA and IABC.

Tweets From The Event

 

 

 

 

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Happiness And Success

Last week I listened to an intriguing interview with Dr. Emma Seppälä, the author of The Happiness Track. The interview covered data-driven insights into how our overextension is hindering our success, and how cultivating happiness can drive our achievement. Yes, you read that correctly.

Data suggests that happiness may drive success, not the other way around.

I’m guilty of thinking that success, whatever that word may mean, will lead to happiness. It is easy to believe that you must be successful to be happy, but the data suggesting that happiness leads to success is compelling. Naturally, I want both, happiness and success – so maybe I need to follow Dr. Seppälä’s research and focus on happiness first.

I’m going to give it a try. I’m a big fan of writing for self-reflection, so I’ll start with making a list of things that make me happy. Step two will be trying to determine what success means to me, and I have a feeling that will be difficult. In the meantime, I’m going to attempt to follow Dr. Emma Seppälä’s six steps to happiness and success.

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PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day – Building Momentum Part 2

If you’ve read my first post about PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day, you already know that I’ll be speaking on the young professional panel tomorrow. (Actually, I spoke earlier today because I’m going to schedule this post to publish just after the panel discussion, but I’m writing this the night before.)

Our moderator, Nicole Halpin, sent out a preview of some of the questions we will use to get the discussion started tomorrow. While preparing tonight, I decided I should summarize my answers to a few questions. Not only will writing my answers out help me think through them more thoroughly, but sharing them may help someone else out as well.

#PRSASTLCD

“I myself worked through my senior year and graduated without relevant internship experience. What would you suggest for those in this room that have never had an internship?”

Work on developing your portfolio. Find a way to create your internship, take on small freelance projects. The experience you gain from developing your leads, pitching your ideas and managing client projects will be valuable no matter what direction your career takes you. Make sure you track as much data as possible and create case studies to include with your resume as work samples.

“How did you personally stand out in the resume pool?”

I included as many numbers as I could. I talked about doubling the number of social media followers, increasing click-through rates by X percent or even better, revenue generated by my tactics.

“When applying for your first job, how do you pitch yourself when you lack the 3-5 years industry experience that we typically see in job postings?”

I completely ignored it and focused on the quantifiable results. In my opinion, real proven results mean more than the number of months or years spent sitting in an office, and I did my best to talk about results instead of how long I’ve worked where, etc.

“As a PRSSA graduate that quickly became involved in the St. Louis PRSA chapter, I understand networking is key in growing as a young professional. How can students utilize networking to its fullest extent without seeming desperate for a job?”

The best networking isn’t the typical networking. It isn’t chamber of commerce meetups or grabbing coffee with other industry professionals. The best networking is volunteering. Pick an organization you believe in and start donating your time and knowledge. You’ll meet a lot of people, prove you know what you’re doing and add some interesting projects to your portfolio. Always track the data and write up case study summaries. Those results will be the best additions you can add to future job applications.

“I heard at my first Career Development Day that HTML is a great asset to have in your portfolio so I took online introductory courses to make myself stand out when applying. Are there other skills you would suggest to our audience to learn and add to their personal portfolio?”

HTML for sure. I’d learn everything you can about Excel, not just the basics, everything. I’d also learn as much as you can about writing for search engine optimization. Once you know how to write for search engines, you’ll be able to start optimizing everything – especially your LinkedIn profile. Once I optimized my LinkedIn profile, the number of times my profile was viewed doubled and I began receiving messages from recruiters wanting to discuss potential career opportunities. It only took me a few hours to optimize my profile, and I ended up getting a job offer when I wasn’t even searching for one because of it.

I’d also look for as many free certification courses as you can; such as Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Certification, Google Adwords Certification and Google Analytics certification.

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The Real Reason Watching The Clock Sucks

How often do you find yourself watching the clock at work? Every few days when the dull tasks come along? Once a day when your energy starts to dip? Every minute of every day? Hopefully not – it sucks. Watching the clock brings down my mood and makes the day move by so slow that I think my watch battery died.

When I’m watching the clock, I’m completely restless. I am constantly moving in my chair, bouncing my legs and thinking of how great it will feel to be grabbing my coat and heading out of the office door. The worst part is when that time comes – it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it usually sucks.

It sucks because I realize how much of my life I am wasting, or at least wishing away.

The thought that usually follows this realization is, “I wish I could spend more time doing things that I truly love.” After thinking this a few times, I did the math. How much time do I have to dedicate to what I love? Not much. At least not a whole lot during the work week.

I try to sleep 7 hours a night. I’ve struggled with insomnia in the past, so now that I’m sleeping fairly well I take advantage of it. I wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready for work, and I leave just before 7:30 AM. A 30-minute commute to the office, followed by work for 9 hours, and another 30-minute commute home. That leaves me with 6 hours to have dinner, do some laundry, mow the grass, etc. It’s not hard to see how quickly mandatory tasks like these take over those 6 hours.

Yeah, it can be depressing at times but with some scheduling and prioritizing, it’s not too bad. What I find truly worrisome is how to balance all of that in the future, when I’m starting a family. At most, I’ll have 6 or so hours a day to split between mandatory tasks and spending time with my family – that sucks.

Maybe the next steps in my career should involve a more flexible schedule, the ability to work from home or ideally some form of passive income. Or maybe I just need to suck it up and stop watching the clock.

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PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day – Building Momentum

In April of 2013, I attended my first social media conference, Social Fresh. Attending the conference was an incredible experience and at the end of the two-day event, I remember thinking about how fun it must be to speak at conferences. I decided to make it one of my personal goals.

Just under a year ago, I nervously spoke at my first digital marketing conference, WordCamp. Shortly after, I was asked to be the social media marketing speaker at a real estate conference. I was so excited to have the opportunity to speak again. Unfortunately, the date conflicted with another larger opportunity, starting a new full-time position. I was disappointed that I was unable to speak at the event and naively worried that the small momentum of speaking opportunities I had would quickly halt.

Starting my full-time position, without a doubt, slowed the momentum I had on a lot of projects and personal goals. My calendar started to fill and my schedule quickly became more strict. I adapted to my new schedule and started working on my personal goals again, starting with the small and easy to accomplish. It took me several months, but I feel as though I’m building momentum again.

Not only does professional development play a large role in all careers, it also is the foundation for many of my personal goals. This Friday, February 26, is Career Development Day for PRSA St. Louis. I wanted to attend, so I started planning to take the day off work and it’s a good thing I did because I’ve since been asked to be on the young professionals panel.

Lately, I’ve been all about momentum because it is easier to keep moving than to start again if you stop. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this panel, and to keep building momentum to achieve my goals.

It’s short notice, but I’d like to invite you to join me and many others at PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day. Unfortunately, there’s only one day left to register. If you can’t join us in person, be sure to follow along on Twitter, #PRSASTLCD.

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