Posted by cheryldraper This conference season feels a bit different, doesn’t it? Where we’re usually globetrotting from event to event, this year most conferences have either postponed their dates or switched to online, remote-friendly formats, offering video sessions by top-notch speakers or live streams with open chats. But what about everyone’s favorite bonus during conference season — networking? Thankfully, all is not lost! With a little ingenuity and virtual elbow grease, you can still forge new professional relationships over an internet connection rather than a cocktail. (And hey, nothing’s stopping you from enjoying a nice, frosty Mozcow Mule or tasty mocktail in your home office space, right?) In our current reality of social distancing, marketing conference networking will look different, but it’s not going anywhere. Read on for tips on how to effectively network while remote! Step 1: Look for networking opportunities Depending on which virtual event you attend, the networking opportunities will look different. Keeping a creative eye out for opportunity is key to your success! Live chats Much like during regular conferences, there are bound to be live chats happening. They may happen on the actual event platform, or they may take place on social media. Some events will use a platform like Zoom that allows viewers to chat with each other within the platform, while others may have more of a broadcast format where chats happen on Twitter with a hashtag. Joining Q&As A super valuable aspect of conferences is being able to speak to presenters after they give their talk. Sometimes this happens during a predetermined time slot, such as right after the presentation, or it may happen when you catch them in the lobby or at an event later on. Either way, this time to ask questions about their expertise is a huge value-add to the experience. With conferences going virtual and live chats happening publicly during the presentations, this Q&A time has shifted a bit. Instead of having to wait for the presentation to be over, in some cases, presenters will reply to questions from the live chat as they’re speaking. Some panels are pre-recorded, giving speakers a chance to interact on various platforms during the event itself. Some events will even have specific “presentations” that are more like facilitated Ask Me Anything-style interviews or panels where questions are taken from the audience and posed to the speaker(s). Birds of a Feather discussions Many conferences will offer some sort of industry or concept specific conversation facilitation. For instance, at MozCon, we host Birds of a Feather discussions. These discussions are headed up by an industry professional and have predetermined topics such as EAT, AI, Gutenberg, etc. Other times, these conversations may be organized and headed up by attendees. In a virtual setting, these will likely be smaller breakout groups using some sort of video chat software. Zoom, specifically, has created a way for conferences to organize these “breakout sessions” in advance. Birds of a Feather conversations are one of the best ways to connect as there is a common ground established from the get-go. These. Are. Your. People. Connections here will likely be the most valuable. Step 2: Get active No matter where the chats are happening, be sure you’re a part of them! The more you interact, the more likely people are to recognize your name when you reach out after the event. The only caution here is that you have to be sure your interactions are meaningful — don’t just comment clapping hands. Add something to the conversation. Add insight The best thing about people is that we’re all different and have fresh perspectives to bring to the table. Don’t be afraid to add on to someone’s thoughts. Let’s use a fun example. If someone says that the best mascot hug ever was from Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, you may jump in and ask if they’ve ever met Roger MozBot, famed hugger and robot dancer extraordinaire. Or you could build on the thought by saying something like, “Mickey is a great hugger, I think it’s because he goes over instead of under!” In both of these instances, you’ve joined the conversation and added value. Add clarification Speakers often try to fit a lot of information into a relatively short timeframe. That said, questions will likely arise in the live chats. This could very easily be your time to shine! If you’ve got knowledge to share, feel free to answer the question to the best of your ability and try to add clarification. This is absolutely one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert and form a relationship with someone you’ve never met. It allows you to prove you’re knowledgable and give the person something they value for free. Add sources Whether you are asking a question, answering a question, or just chiming in with added insight, adding resources in conversation is extremely beneficial. This could mean that you recommend a tool, a person, or an article link. These resources for the other viewers can be extremely beneficial and help you establish your credibility. Now, we don’t suggest trying to come up with a source for everything, but if you have one right off of the top of your head, dropping a link in the chat may really help someone. BONUS: Add people on social While this one’s not necessarily about adding value per se, it is about adding. Adding influencers, presenters, or other attendees after interacting with them (even if briefly) may increase your chances of getting a follow-back or accepted request as you’ll still be top of mind. Try to add people no later than 24 hours after your last interaction, and consider sending a friendly “hey!” with a note about what you spoke about to keep the connection fresh. Step 3: Perfect your follow-up After connecting with people during the online conference, you’ll want to follow up with them and stay in touch. The most important part of following up is the first impression. You don’t want to come right out of the gate with a request of any sort.

They say, “The best things in life are free.” Which I never thought was necessarily true. I mean some of the best things are free — love, sunshine, fireflies, and whatnot. But there are a lot of awesome things that cost money — nunchucks, BMX bikes, DVDs of the movie Kung Fu Panda 3. So the line is kind of muddled when it comes to establishing whether free stuff is better than things that come at a cost — and the case of social media marketing is no exception. The debate between organic vs. paid social media isn’t exactly cut and dry. Both options have their strengths and weaknesses. Here, we’ll get more perspective on the difference between both kinds of social media and some pros and cons that come with each. Organic and paid social media each have their own benefits and pitfalls. Here are some pros and cons of each type of social media marketing. The Pros of Organic Social Media It’s more cost-effective. Maintaining an organic social media presence can technically be free. It doesn’t cost anything to post on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Any costs you incur would come from the work it takes to engage with your community and create content to populate your social media feeds — whether that be through dedicated team members, outsourcing to freelancers or agencies, or having some employees incorporate those tasks into their day-to-day responsibilities. One way or another, organic social media plays don’t require immediate payment to implement. If your business is running on a tight budget, and you’re confident you can create thoughtful content, organic social media might be the right avenue for you. It allows you to directly engage with and assist your customers. Social media is an excellent forum for ongoing customer service and interaction. A well-maintained, active social media profile gives customers a legitimate, accessible location to post concerns, complaints, and compliments. If you can dedicate the time and resources to consistently respond to most — if not all — of them, you’ll get a lot of mileage out of your organic social media efforts. It can help you establish a brand identity. Your social media profiles allow you to project some personality. They can provide another layer to your marketing efforts with a solid sense of humor, consistently sound advice, or any other qualities you’d like prospects and customers to associate with your brand. For instance, Taco Bell’s Twitter page is notorious for the brand style it has established through its audience interaction and funny content. Image Source: Twitter The Cons of Organic Social Media It can be time-consuming. Consistently creating excellent content and actively interacting with your audience aren’t exactly quick fixes you can expect to churn out over lunch. They’re full-time pursuits that take considerable energy and effort. If you don’t have dedicated team members or outside help, maintaining your organic social media efforts can be a massive time-drain. Algorithms can be volatile and difficult to understand. What content your audience will see on social media is dictated by algorithms designed to sort posts by relevancy and potential enrichment instead of when it was published. The success of your organic social media strategies rests on your ability to get your content in front of current and potential customers, so understanding the algorithms supporting these platforms is crucial. But that’s far easier said than done. Social media platforms’ algorithms aren’t always easy to grasp and master, and if you do figure them out, there’s a good chance they might change. It can take a lot of effort to learn and stay on top of these algorithms to support effective organic social media efforts. It offers less flexibility when it comes to immediate reach. The immediate reach of your organic social media efforts extends as far as your followers take it — meaning you can only expect your organic content to reach your immediate audience and the people they share it with. You can’t zero in on and distribute your content to specific demographics or types of users like you can with paid social media. The Pros of Paid Social Media You can target specific users to expand your reach. Paid advertising on social media allows you to pinpoint and reach the specific demographics that will be the most receptive to what you have to offer. You can sort users by categories like location, age, gender, or interests and place targeted advertisements on their social media feeds. It gives you reach beyond your followers and the ability to touch base with specific audiences that will be receptive to your messaging. Its payment model works for any budget. Paid social campaigns are structured to suit virtually any budget. They generally charge on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis, meaning you only have to pay if users interact directly with your paid social media materials via impressions or clicks. Many platforms allow you to establish a spending cap on your paid social efforts, so your budget is never exceeded. And certain target audiences cost less to reach than others, allowing you to strategically place your advertisements to cater to different, potentially lucrative niches. You see more immediate results Organic social media efforts are a long-term play that requires considerable effort and strategy. With them, you have to create content that will abide by social media algorithms, rein in the potential customers that happen upon it, and actively work to retain your followers once you have them hooked. Paid social media foregoes that process by immediately placing your messaging on potential customers’ feeds. The Cons of Paid Social Media You might not see meaningful returns on your investment. Paid social media is just that — paid social media. No matter the size of your investment, you’re still spending money that might go to waste if your efforts are ineffective. If you’re constantly experimenting and failing with your paid social media, you’re essentially burning money. And that’s an easy cycle to fall into. If you’re a small business,

Whether you’re providing social media management, marketing, or consulting services, the crucial step in winning a client is sending out a business proposal. A business proposal can help you prove to clients’ that you’re the most well-suited to meet their needs, and help you stand out from the competition. And, if you’re particularly interested in providing social media-related services, you’ll need to create a social media proposal. Here, we’ll explore best practices for creating a social media proposal that will enable you to exceed client expectations and expand your portfolio. But first, let’s zoom out and take a wider look at the social media sales process. There are quite a few stages you have to successfully complete — and things to do right — before even starting your proposal. Let’s dive into that, now. A Brief Overview of the Social Media Sales Process There isn’t a one-size-fits-all sales workflow that you should follow to win a social media job, but most of the times you’ll go through the following stages before closing a sale: Prospecting Discovery Proposal To ensure that all your prospecting efforts don’t go to waste, it’s super important to get as much information from a discovery stage as possible. One thing to keep in mind – a business proposal is just a presentation of the things you’ve discovered. If you skip this step, you won’t have anything to write about in your proposal. The discovery session could be a video call or an actual meeting at a hotel lobby as long as you get to chat with the prospect and understand what it is that she really needs. This task may sound simple at first, but in fact, you may realize the client doesn’t understand why she needs social media services, or across which platform(s) she needs those services distributed. This is where I suggest becoming a psychologist for an hour, and asking the following ‘Why’ questions: Why did you choose Facebook over Twitter for your social media activities? Why did you stop running Facebook ads? Why did you change your LinkedIn posting schedule two months ago? Clearly, you’ll need to do your homework prior to a discovery session, reviewing and analyzing the client’s social media profiles (as well as their top competitors), and what they’ve done on their social channels so far. If you can’t get to the root of the problem, you may use the 5 Whys analysis which involves even more ‘Why’ questions. Eventually, if you understand your clients and how they think, you’ll be able to write a proposal that speaks your clients’ language, addresses their needs, and presents the exact solution to their problem. That is the proposal that is very likely to win a client. The Anatomy of an Effective Social Media Proposal Next, let’s move onto the actual structure of an effective social media business proposal. You can create a proposal from scratch or simplify your life significantly by using a free social media proposal template that already has the pre-written texts and is broken down into sections. One way or another, it wouldn’t hurt to get familiar with the must-have social media proposal sections: 1. Introduction. Nailing the proposal introduction is winning half the battle. Remember the discovery session where you should find out the true meaning of what they’re after? Introduction is the place where you will repeat the exact words used by your client to describe their problem. No matter how tempting it may be, this is not a place to speak about your company and its history or mission. Introduction isn’t about you — it’s about your clients’ needs described in their language. 2. Scope of work. A well-written detailed scope of work leaves very little room for future misunderstandings. Here’s where you specify the exact list of activities that are meant to solve the client’s problem. Explain how your service is going to help tackle the issue and outline the scope of work required for that. Speak of the social media goals that you’re going to achieve with your service, and list the social media activities you’re going to be working on. Depending on the social media services you provide, you may want to mention: Content creation. Specify what kind of written and visual content you are going to create, how often and how it’s going to be approved by the client. Publishing schedule. Let your client know when, where and what time the pre-approved posts will be going live on different social media platforms. Launching social media special offers. Let the client know the nature of the special offer you are planning to launch whether it’s going to be a contest, special discount, giveaway or else. Specify the timing, frequency, assets and media budget required. Monthly strategy sessions and weekly calls. Plan out the one-to-one calls to review the last month’s activities and plan the month ahead. Let the client know if you are going to sync up every week to make sure you are on track. Monthly KPIs and reporting. Depending on the client’s goals, outline how you are going to measure the social media progress and which metrics you’ll use as indicators. Additionally, don’t forget to speak of the benefits your customer should expect. As Kinga Odziemek, CEO at social media marketing agencyBrainyBees, says: “Your clients need to understand not only what you will deliver, but also what’s in it for them.” Odziemek adds, “What does it mean that you will do A, B or C for them? How will this be reflected in their business? What are the benefits? Showing the benefits will encourage potential clients to take the next step more quickly than you might expect.” For greater clarity, finish up the scope of work with the timeline where you specify the exact steps you are going to take over the first month. This way it’s clear what a client can initially expect from you, and when. 3. Case studies. Prospects want to see what you have accomplished in

When I sit down to write a blog post, I stick to a routine that has some flexibility. The way I write changes from time to time, but two things never change: who I’m writing for, and how to deliver the best experience. When you sit down to write, what are some of the questions you ask yourself? Are you keeping your audience in mind? For example, if you are writing for enterprise audiences, how are you framing that content to achieve your goals? If you’re writing for the professional who is part of a large organization, how does your blog cater to their needs? Though an enterprise audience is a smaller number of people to reach, blogging for those customers can be a huge driver for ROI and acquisition. Many marketers agree — blogging is an important part of their content strategy. Blogging does way more than populate your website with content. Did you know that B2B marketers obtain over 70% of their leads from blogging? Or that businesses that prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI? When you blog for customers, you’re not only providing useful content. Properly optimized posts lead to an increase in brand awareness and conversions. Enterprise customers have their own set of unique needs and challenges, separate from customers in a startup. Your blog can assist with these needs, like how to manage a positive scale within a company. However, a successful enterprise blog stems from having a successful strategy. Implementing a process for writing makes your content stick to business goals. 1. Come up with the purpose of your enterprise blog. The good foundation of any strategy is to define the purpose of your goal. So, think about why your blog is going to exist. Are you aiming to build brand awareness and increase conversions? Content that serves a purpose is easier to write because it has a focus. For instance, if the reason for starting your blog is to increase the number of enterprise leads you earn, all of your content should support this goal. Having a clear purpose will also help you fill in some of the blanks for the rest of your blogging strategy, like distribution and topic research. To get started defining your blog’s purpose, think about the goals of your company and identify how your blog can contribute. For instance, if one of your goals is to bridge the gap between the awareness and delight stages for leads, think about how you can create content that gets customers thinking about the value of your company on a deeper level. Blog posts can be highly engaging vehicles to entertain and inform the reader, and with the addition of widgets like calls-to-action, offer your customers more ways to familiarize themselves with your company. Once you identify the purpose of your blog, you can finalize a goal that will allow you to create content that reaches them. 2. Determine your persona. Your business already has a buyer persona — a fictionalized idea of the perfect customer. Keep that customer in mind when you’re writing. If it’s appropriate, you might want to come up with an entirely different persona, one that’s solely based around your enterprise audience. If you’re creating a persona from scratch, ask yourself what your enterprise customer will find the most useful about your blog. What stage in the buyer’s journey do you want to target with your content, and how will a blog help you get there? When you have a persona to reference for your blog content, you’ll have an idea of how to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and focus on writing that’s going to serve them the best. For example, let’s say you create a persona called “Enterprise Ernie.” When you created Ernie, you identified challenges and pain points that keep him from doing his job better, like roadblocks that come up from being a marketing team manager for an enterprise. When you create content, then, you can focus on how to help Ernie be a more effective marketing team manager. You’ll brainstorm topics that solve those challenges and offer resources to reinforce that message. 3. Conduct keyword research. Optimizing your blog for SEO shouldn’t be the extent of how you’re using SEO for your blog. SEO can help inform better business decisions, including better blog topic development. This happens through keyword research. Keyword research is an SEO tactic that identifies possible words and phrases on the minds of your target audience. This is done by referencing the search queries your customers type in on Google. At HubSpot, keyword research informs the topics we write about each quarter. Use this process, with a tool like Ahrefs, to understand what to write about to better serve your customers. If, by performing keyword research, you find the phrase, “customizable chatbots” a common trend among audiences. You’ll be solving questions that are common among your audience. That way, when people in your audience use keywords in Google, your content has a high chance of ranking highly and driving traffic. 4. Think about possible topics. After conducting keyword research, you’ll have an understanding of what enterprise customers want to read. Come up with a log of topics your keywords will fall under, such as “Marketing Automation,” “Marketing and Sales Alignment,” and “Product Launches.” This does two things: First, it’ll help you organize blog ideas, and second, it’ll keep your content diverse. Diverse articles solve for your customer at every stage of the buyer’s journey. When you have your topics down, you can refer back to your list if you think of more or need more ideas. 5. Determine how to structure your posts. Keep the structure of your posts consistent. This aids your writing process and keeps the look of your blog aligned. An effective post format guides readers through your content. Use the tools available with your blog software to come up with a structure that fits your needs. When I first

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two. But of course, that was ages ago. Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results. But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed. What should you do? Just forget about SEO? Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort. Let’s dive right in. Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO? Chances are you don’t. So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort? You set up a project in Ubersuggest. As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues. With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix. Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically. More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic. All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.” It’s as simple as adding in your URL. Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from. Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after. And of course, set up your traffic preferences. And then you’ll be good to go. Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix. That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time. Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in? And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at? And if you do, do you know what to do with that data? Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results. But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time. If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place. Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing. Tool #3: Trello You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool. And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster. I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections. To do – what needs to be done over time. Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important) Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right. It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team. Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too. If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well. The columns I use for content writers are: Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about. Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval. Draft – writers submit their rough draft. Draft review – editors review each draft. Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress). Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live. Done – the content is now live. We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once. Tool #4: Content Decay Tool Can you guess how many articles I write each week? 1. Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month). And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week? 21. That’s roughly 90 a month. Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week. It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content. But what content should you update? The content decay tool will tell you that. It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most