Web Ink Now

Twitter launches header photos. Time to add yours.

This week Twitter launched an important new feature: the ability to add a header photo to your profile.

As usual, HubSpot was on top of the news in real-time and quickly wrote this "how to" post: Twitter Rolls Out Cover Photos: How to Add Yours Today.

I conferred with my go-to designer Doug Eymer on what I could do with mine and updated my @dmscott Twitter profile page in just a few minutes.

Facebook has had a feature like this for some time, so the concept is not new. But I'm surprised at how few people use it.

A header photo is a great way to show your personal brand.

Don't try to sell

I suspect many sales & marketing types will add an advertising message to this real estate. I'd recommend resisting this tendency. Adding your messages or heavy-handed branding to the header, in my opinion, detracts. Sure, I could have used an image of, say, all my book covers for my cover. Instead I chose an image I really like of me speaking at the NAMM conference earlier this year shot by Jay Blakesberg earlier this year.

Your header photo will show up on your Twitter web page as well as on mobile devices. On my iPhone, it looks fantastic, greatly adding to my personal branding.

Time to add your header photo, don't you think?

If you're inclined, please leave a comment with a link to yours so we can see some examples.

How to create awesome web content and achieve top search engine rankings

This blog post highlights a very successful marketer - Larry Waight of The Lodge at Chaa Creek, an eco-resort in Western Belize - who has achieved high search engine rankings for many important keywords. This content marketing effort generates a remarkable 80% of new business for the Lodge. This important case example is among the best I've seen if you want to learn how content drives business. This is brand journalism at its finest.

As anyone who has built a web site knows, there is much more to think about than just the content. Design, color, navigation, and appropriate technology are all important aspects of a good web site. Unfortunately, in many organizations these other concerns dominate. Why is that? I think it’s easier to focus on a site's design or technology than on its content.

One of my favorite examples of sites with poor content but big budget design and technology are the global hotel chains. Go to any hotel property from the majors: Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott, or any others from around the world. They all look the same! They have almost no original content about that property!

Yes, appearance and navigation are important. But the best sites focus primarily on content to pull together their various buyers, markets, media, and products in one comprehensive place where content is not only king, but president and Pope as well.

Content drives action

Contrast the vast majority of hotel sites with that of The Lodge at Chaa Creek. I had an opportunity to stay at Chaa Creek a few weeks ago and I interviewed Larry Waight about how he creates his awesome content.

Direct link to the video How to create awesome web content and achieve top search engine rankings on YouTube.

Larry researches what people are searching on such as Belize honeymoon and Belize all inclusive. He then created content on his site or Belize Travel Blog specifically for these phrases which are ranked highly in the search engines.

Solving buyers problem with content

Most interesting to me is how Larry creates content that is about Belize, not just about the hotel.

This is an essential element of Chaa Creek's marketing success. Search terms such as Belize winter solstice 2012 and bird watching in Belize drive people to the lodge who were searching on general travel information. Brilliant.

On his Belize Travel Blog, Larry also writes not about the lodge itself but about Belize travel such as Ten reasons why Belize makes for Honeymoon Bliss.

Brand Journalism

One of my favorite examples of this technique of writing about the things people are interested in is how Larry has created a bunch of content about the local Mayan sites nearby the hotel such as Xunantunich Maya Temples. And, get this, he even writes about the Tikal Mayan site - which is in Guatemala – another country! - about two hours from Chaa Creek.

All this content drives people to the hotel site and blog through the search engines and many people will then choose to stay at The Lodge at Chaa Creek. Indeed, some 80% of new bookings to the Lodge are from this content marketing effort.

This is one of the best examples of content marketing I've seen. If you want to learn more about how Larry creates content, do take the time to watch the video.

It was Larry's introductions that got me to Belize which shows the power of connecting with people via social media. Thanks Larry! I'm planning on returning, with my family next time.

Disclosure (updated September 12, 2012): I connected with Larry several years ago through both Facebook and Twitter. This year we communicated via Facebook about a visit to Belize. To facilitate that, Larry introduced me to the Director of the Belize Tourism Industry Association who invited me to speak in Belize at the Belize Marketing Summit. Because I was going to be in Belize anyway, Larry invited me extend my visit and stay to The Lodge at Chaa Creek for a few days, covering part (but not all) of the costs of my hotel stay. However, this blog post is in no way a paid endorsement. I chose to write this because I truly believe the Lodge at Chaa Creek is a terrific example of success.

5 ideas for marketing and communications professors success in the classroom

Here in the United States, we’re just about to embark on a new academic year and therefore this is a good time for me to provide some ideas for instructors. If you know a professor who teaches marketing or communications (or a student taking a course in these areas), please pass this on.

It's exciting how far we've come in the area of marketing and public relations education at our colleges and universities worldwide. Just two years ago I found the state of university instruction generally so poor that I wrote a post titled Many marketing and communications professors are criminals. While I'm nowhere near as pessimistic as I was then, the academic world is very resistant to change (especially those with tenure), so there are definitely people who still resist teaching the new rules of marketing.

Here are some ideas I've learned from professors around the world that you might use in your classroom.

1. Care about your students

Take a look at this post from Bill Sledzik, Associate Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Kent State University: Why we teach: Reflections on 20 years in the classroom.

Bill is someone who understood very early that we're going through a change towards digital. Because he cares about students, he implemented the ideas in the classroom before almost anyone else.

Here's an interview I did with Bill to learn more about what he does so well.

Direct link to Bill Sledzik discuses modern Public Relations education on YouTube.

2. Show, don't tell

One of the best ways to get students active with social media is to use popular platforms as tools in class. For example, you can use a blog as the course syllabus. Twitter could be the way people ask questions outside of class (longer answers could be posted somewhere with a link). Other platforms that could be used include Slideshare for presentations and Pinterest for links.

3. Encourage students to get away from the CV and resume

One of the most important things you can do for students is prepare them for the real world of job search. Starting right from the first year, students need to find internships. Upon graduation, they need full time work. Sadly, the vast majority of marketing and communications students still focus exclusively on the boring old plain text CV.

You should encourage students to start a personal blog as part of class. The blog will serve as a way to get them known to potential employers. For example, here's new Tufts graduate Lindsey Kirchoff's blog.

4. Pick a local nonprofit and do a pro-bono makeover of their online marketing

Having students work together to help a local organization is a good way to actually implement ideas. You can see the results in just one term and it will help a worthy cause.

5. Choose the right classroom materials

My book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, now in its third edition, is used in many hundreds of universities around the world. It's a primary or supplemental text in Marketing courses and Public Relations courses as well as MBA programs, entrepreneurial offerings and journalism classes.

My publishers, John Wiley & Sons, have put together a special resources page, which includes free instructor materials that you can use in class to supplement The New Rules of Marketing and PR. The materials are free, however, you need to register on the site to get access.

Are you a professor? What techniques do you use?

If you’re a student or recent graduate, what were some of the effective ways you were taught?

In our digital world analog communications breaks through the clutter

As more and more people use social networks to communicate and companies use online channels to market, its important to remember good old analog.

When we get hundreds of email messages a day, taking the time to hand write a thank you note and put it in an envelope with a stamp and mail it shows you care.

When everyone says "your business is important to us" and then puts you into phone tree hell when you call, a personally answered telephone is a surprising bonus.

I've been thinking about how quickly digital communications has become a dominate medium and how, sometimes, the good old analog approach works.

The best companies seem to have a combination of both excellent online and offline marketing and communications.

It's not just marketing either. With the rise of Electronic Dance Music, a combination of new EDM techniques with good old analog music makes for an great tunes.

Earlier this month I attended the terrific Gathering of the Vibes music festival and say the analog and digital music worlds collide in some fascinating ways. I wrote about it for the Huffington Post: Electronic Dance Music and Jam Bands Tap the Same Fan Vibe.

One musician who sits squarely in the middle of digital and analog music is Mickey Hart, percussionist for the Grateful Dead from 1967 until the band stopped touring upon Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. He brought his Mickey Hart Band to Gathering of the Vibes. His newest album, Mysterium Tremendum, fuses elements of the jam band scene he lived in for decades with today's electronic music.

"I live in two worlds," Mickey told me. "One, the archaic world of drums and drumming -- I'm strongly embedded in it, I love striking a membrane and hearing its report and playing real rhythm. And I have one foot firmly planted in the digital domain. This is such a wonderful time where science and art are now handshaking and becoming one. I am embedding the electronic worlds in which I feel comfortable into my music. I'm into pulsing and throbbing. What you're seeing now is a wonderful groundswell of binary and acoustic information coming together into new music."

You can see Mickey riffing on this theme for me in this video. He had just finished his set and was quite animated, speaking for four nonstop minutes on my question of digital vs. analog music. You might notice beer bottles around Mickey. He had set up 70 beer bottles for Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday and had been playing them with his drumsticks.

Direct link to Mickey Hart on fusing percussion and digital to make music on YouTube.

Like Mickey Hart and his fusing of analog and digital music, how are you fusing analog and digital marketing and communications?

Photo: STS9 at Gathering of the Vibes, July 21. 2012. Credit: Richard Gastwirt

The secret to awesomely successful B2B marketing

The secret is to communicate to people.

Many marketers make the mistake of treating business-to-business marketing as somehow different. For some reason, marketers turn off their brains when they are trying to reach, say, Chief Information Officers in a way they never would when they are trying to reach, say, surfers. They vague up the language with mission-critical, cutting-edge, best-of-breed gobbledygook. They get all serious, forgetting to create something engaging and interesting. They prattle on about their products instead of educating and entertaining.

Many people ask me about B2B marketing as if it is different from "regular" marketing.

No, B2B is not different.

In all marketing, your job is to understand your existing and potential customers and create compelling experiences for them!

Your employees as a terrific marketing asset

I really enjoy doing business with companies whose employees are friendly and who treat me with respect. Isn't it different than those companies whose people who go through the motions, treating you like you're intruding on their life, counting the hours till quitting time?

Late last year I travelled to Lapland, in northern Finland to experience what it was like above the Arctic Circle in wintertime (fascinating!). On the first leg of the return trip, we traveled via Finnair from Ivalo to Helsinki. As we climbed up the stairs, I composed an awesome photo in my mind of the plane's cockpit with the terminal in the background. I thought it would be a great way to show what midday looks like in a place where the sun doesn't rise in mid-winter.

I quickly got my iPhone out for a snap and at that moment the Captain turned and saw me.

Finnair's friendly pilots

What could the Captain have done? Well, he could have made a signal indicating "no photos". He could have pretended to not see me and turned away. Or he could have simply waved hello.

But this Captain took a moment to open the cockpit window and flash a thumbs up and smile. Fortunately, I got the shot, which I tweaked with Instagram. When I tweeted it, @Finnair social media people responded in real-time. Perfect.

Employees as a marketing asset

Most pilots do what the handbook tells them to and nothing more. They say: "Your business is important to us" over the loudspeaker at the moment prescribed and that's it.

It's not just pilots of course. In all businesses, many employees just don't care.

I think that a culture of caring comes from the top. It starts with how the CEO treats employees and customers. It comes from how people are hired, what skills are valued and how people are promoted.

No matter how such a culture develops, it is a terrific marketing asset.

Obama says his biggest mistake as president has been communication

Yesterday, President and First Lady Michelle Obama spoke with CBS This Morning anchor Charlie Rose in the White House Blue Room, where they discussed the failures and successes of his administration as he heads into another election, among other things.

Rose asked President Obama about his biggest mistake as president.

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president said, "the mistake of my first term - couple of years - was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Direct link to Obama reflects on his biggest mistake as president on CBS.

After the election in 2008, I wrote a post Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama presidential campaign. My number three was: "Clearly and simply articulate what you want people to believe."

It's fascinating that Obama has identified his failures in this area as president. (While the President used the phrase "tell a story" in the interview, I am expanding it to "communicating" in this post.)

While I think he did an excellent job during the 2008 campaign, I certainly agree with the president that he hasn’t done a good enough job communicating over the past three and a half years as president.

Learning from the President Obama's mistake

These lessons are applicable to all. Many companies don't do a good job communicating. They don't focus on buyer personas and use the techniques of brand journalism and content marketing to tell a story.

Or, like the president, CEOs communicate during a product launch to make sales (the election cycle in Obama's case) but not once the product is released and used by customers.

Unlike the President however, many CEOs don't recognize this as a failure. Often, the people at the top think a good product is enough.

What can your organization learn from the President's mistake?

Note: This is a marketing blog, not a political blog. These are not political observations, but thoughts about marketing and communications.

Salespeople's brains vs the public web

Prior to starting my own business speaking and writing about marketing strategy, I ran several global B2B marketing teams. This was in a world prior to the ability we have today to create content on the web and have it be indexed by the search engines and shared via social networks.

Prior to the web, salespeople were in power positions because they were keepers of information.

With B2B products and services in the old days, the only way for buyers to get detailed information was from salespeople. Buyers had no choice.

To illustrate the point using an expensive consumer product example, think about the process of buying a car in, say, 1995. You'd be exposed to television and magazine ads. Perhaps you'd purchase a buyers guide such as Consumer Reports. You could ask friends and coworkers for advice. But to get detailed information on models and options and pricing required the dreaded visit to the dealership to "talk" to the salesperson, who smugly knew he had all the information power.

Today, buyers find information on the web

When researching a B2B purchase today, buyers just hit a search engine and their social networks. Tons of information is available.

Now how do you buy a car? Do you blindly go to visit the dealership to ask the salesperson? Or do you spend hours on the web learning as much as you can and only visit the dealer when you are ready to buy?

Are you still forcing your buyers to interact with salespeople?

The problem I see is that nearly all B2B companies are still operating in a world as if the salesperson is the king of the information kingdom. Companies insist on driving all online interactions to a salesperson.

One manifestation of this behavior is the insistence by most B2B companies that buyers supply personal details such as an email address before they can get information such as a white paper. When I question marketers about this practice, they tell me the reason is that they need sales leads and that salespeople follow up on the information requests.

Circa 1995 calculus

The idea that you cannot give your information for free pre-dates the web. Requiring email registration is simply applying what we did in the past to the new realities of how people research products. This is not as effective as making information freely available to be downloaded and shared.

Are you managing your B2B sales and marketing process using 1995 calculus? Do you assume that salespeople are the fonts of all knowledge and all information flows through them? If so, I think you are less successful than you could be.

Assume buyers are already educated

Your salespeople should assume they are the last place a buyer goes, not the first. They must assume that very little of their knowledge is proprietary. They need to facilitate the sale, not control the information.

Think back to buying a car. How do you want the dealer to interact with you when you walk in? Do you want a confrontational relationship where they feel they have the information power? Or do you want the dealer to assume you have already done your research and are ready to close a deal?

photo credit: dharder9475 via photo pin cc

When free is not free

As consumers, we know that "free" does not mean free. So why do we forget those lessons as marketers?

Clearly, costs include more than just money:

The free mobile phone requires a one-year contract. Obviously the cost of the phone is built into the monthly fee.

Waiting in line to get a free ticket to an event requires an opportunity cost (the value of your time while waiting), and therefore the ticket is not free.

Filling out a form to get a free white paper means the company now has your email address and perhaps other personal details. You have given the company something valuable so the white paper is not free.

Make it as close to free as possible

I offer a free ebook library with downloads at no cost and no registration is required. Even this has a (small) cost because it takes a second to click a link and maybe two are three seconds of wait time for the 1MB file to download on a high-speed connection (more on slower speeds). But this is quite close to free.

As you work on your content marketing plans, push back on those who misuse the word free.

My research shows that a totally free white paper offered with no registration form will generate as much as 50 times more downloads as the same white paper with a registration form.

Which would you rather have: One email? Or 50 people exposed to your ideas?

Who do you compare yourself to?

As you create products and services as well as the strategies to generate attention for your business, who or what do you compare yourself to?

Most executives have a relentless focus on the direct competition and use that as a benchmark for comparison. They look at the competition's products, price, marketing and try to do the same but with an incremental increase.

But the strategy of comparisons to your close competitor means that you are likely to become a "me too" that’s just a little better, faster, or cheaper. That's no position to be in.

Microsoft tablet computer anyone?

Compare to people and companies in other industries

True leaders forget about the competition.

Many look to other industries to compare to.

For example, in highly regulated industries like pharmaceutical, healthcare, and finance, the competition is very likely to follow the pack and be fearful of engaging the market with compelling content and social media. Comparing to this market means you’d also be fearful and say "no". If all the hospitals in my area don't have a YouTube channel, why should we?

Smart marketers like Chris Boyer and companies like Inova Health System don't worry about other healthcare providers. If they did, they would say no to blogs, twitter, YouTube and the like. Instead, they look to the best of consumer products companies as their model for success.

Learning from outside your comfort zone

It's always fun when nonprofits look to for-profit businesses. Successful B2B outfits take a page out of B2C playbooks. Service business look to product companies for inspiration (and vice versa). A lawyer markets like a novelist. And a novelist communicates like a journalist.

Try to get away from the comfort of your own peer group and see what you can learn from those outside your industry.

As for me...

I'm a huge live music fan. I've seen nearly 500 bands live and am interested in how musicians and bands perform as well a how they market themselves. So that's who I compare myself to.

I've learned a great deal from people like Amanda Palmer and bands like the Grateful Dead.

When I go to a live show, I watch how the musicians interact on stage and I adopt some of the moves in my own live speeches.

As an example, at the top of this post is a photo I took (iPhone 4S tweaked with Instagram) of Tyson Ritter of the All-American Rejects at a recent Boston show (thanks to my friend Jodi who manages the band and invited me to watch from the photo pit). Tyson is way out front standing on a monitor and interacting with the audience.

The photo of me by Jay Blakesberg is at my NAMM keynote this year. I'm also way out front standing on a monitor and interacting with the audience.

I've got no musical ability but have always loved watching how rock stars move and interact. How cool that I can do the same but in a different business!!

I've never seen another speaker in the hundreds of events I've spoken at jump onto a monitor. I learned the move from someone outside my “competition”.

Another example: I looked to the Grateful Dead for inspiration about sharing content. Learning from the Dead, I give lots of content away for free (with no email address required).

I'm convinced that by learning from musicians and bands, I've developed a more personal style than had I just copied other business authors and speakers.

How about you?

Do you copy the direct competitors? Or do you look outside your industry for inspiration?