The Infographic

I've been working with infographics quite a bit recently, it's a great way to communicate with your audience.  Here's a few things you should know:

65% of people are primarily visual learners. 

The brain also processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text!  If you can express your message in a graphical way you make it easier for people to take the information on board - and we're all about making it easy for the customer!

Infographics should tell stories

Good Infographics are hard to produce - you can't just dump a few icons and colors on a page and hope people will be wowed by your design skills.   If you removed the text from an infographic would you still have an idea what it was about?

They're Images!

You should already be familiar with the idea that "an image is the sail that moves your content through the sea of Social Media."  People share images way more than they do text articles - an infographic  is the perfect content type for the social media world.

They're fantastic for SEO

Because people are more likely to share your infographic you tend to generate more links, more social shares, more interest in your content and visits back to your website and that's what it's all about isn't it!

They can be about anything

Here's one we just commissioned for my parents 50th anniversary from UK designer Adam Richardson.  It's unique, tells a great story and is eminently shareable!  Click the image to see it in its full glory!

View fullsize

What kind of infographic do you think would work for your business?  Call me on 310 980 2499 or email me and let's chat.

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Written while listening to: Study music Playlist - music2work2

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Outsource Your Writing With Nico New Media

Today's It's Friday is by Nicole Paulus from Nico New Media:

Just like buying a guitar off Craigslist doesn't make you a rock-star, knowing the alphabet doesn't make you a great writer. If writing isn't a strength of yours, then stop haphazardly handling your content.

Your content represents your brand and your brand brings home the bacon.

You like bacon, don't you?

A Writer

In elementary school, I used to come home and "grade" my days in my Tweety Bird diary.

As I approached my teen years, I traded that in for a more sophisticated "journal." It was there that I divulged my crush of the week as well as invented my own code to conceal my deepest thoughts from any intruders, (aka my older sister.)

Writing was the way I made sense of my own world. It wasn't until I was an adult, however, that I realized I had the power to help others make sense of complex ideas, thoughts and processes via easily digestible sentences and colorful word choice.

Writing was and still is my passion.

Make Your Life Easier

Outsourcing content strategy and execution will not only enrich your brand's content, but it will free up more time for you to do the things you're actually good at, like running your business and buying cart loads of bacon.

Mmm, bacon.



Examples of Nicole's work:

• company bios
• founders bios
• blog posts
• newsletters
• press releases
• social media posts
• product descriptions

Andrew's note:
I've worked with Nicole on a number of projects and am very happy to recommend her to this list,  You can reach her at http://NicoNewMedia.com or just reply to this email.

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Edited while listening to: Caustic Love by Paolo Nutini

Image Credit:  Bacon by Cookbookman17 on Flickr

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Let me tell you a story

The Need

Once upon a time there was a brave young woman who was in need of a weapon.  Her beloved broadsword, Bowel Scraper, had shattered when it crushed the razor dragon's skull. 

The original bladesmith was long dead and she needed to find a new purveyor of death!

The Marketplace

There were so many merchants, their expansive stalls filled with vast arrays of swords and scantily clad maidens wrapped around the steel like twisted caducei. 

The thought of interacting with one of these people made our heroine shudder and she was about to leave when something caught her eye.

The Opportunity

A well made tent, tastefully decorated and full of light seemed an oasis of calm.  On looking further she was struck by the space - instead of a hundred different swords there were just five but it was the pictures that drew her in.

Each sword was surrounded by the most wonderful paintings, images of heroes on horseback wielding the weapon, and not just the typical barbarian types but damned if they didn't show female heroes too!

The Sale

Drawn to a picture of a woman resting on the hilt of a sword that was neck deep in a sea troll, our heroine read the description engraved on the plinth.

Hand folded steel, perfectly balanced, built for speed rather than blunt force and yes, they could take your measurements and have it custom made, all you needed to do was ring. The only other thing in view was a bright shiny bell sporting a big green handle.

With the ease of a skilled campanologist, she reached out and as if by magic...

...the shopkeeper appeared.

I know

You're not in the sword business but if you'd like more customers to ring your metaphorical bell - email me or call on 310 980 2499

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Written while listening to: Vintage music2work2

Image Credit: Endurance, Kathryn Denamn, Flickr

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Terrible News for Fly By Night Businesses!

“Until and unless you’ve failed for years in a row, and poured in effort again and again, you haven’t truly invested in content.”

— Rand Fishkin, CEO Moz.com

Depressing huh?!

Well - not really.  How many people on this list are in business for the short term - say the next couple of years and then you're off to something else?

Just me then? ;-p

Most people here run their own business and will be doing so for the next 20 years - some will even pass it on to their kids.  The effort you put into content doesn't go away - it is the ultimate long term investment in yourself!

Here's how to win

Take the long term view and don't give up.   Adopt content marketing as a core part of your business' operations and learn how to get good at it.

Content is really hard and your situation is unique.  No guru can come in and tell you what to do and predict whether it will work or not.  You have to do it yourself - it's only when you're deep in the trenches do you develop the necessary chops to recognize what works for your business.

It's the truth

The quote at the top is from a guy called Rand Fishkin, one of the few universally respected people in my world.  I read what he produces because over the last ten years he's grown a multi-million dollar operation by being right about digital marketing.

Content is your business' future - if you'd like help getting good at it, email me or call me on 310 980 2499.

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Written while listening to: Music to Create Flow Playlist - music2work2

Image Credit: Cubicle worker FAIL. by slworking2 on Flickr

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Your Website is Not a Chicken!

…or a Ronco Rotisserie Showtime special for that matter.

Oh I know – you paid enough money to have it look good and have the copy all “SEO’d” and everything, and yes, your designers have made it really easy to add content and even talked to you about a content strategy, but you're busy - and now that it’s done can’t you just Set it and Forget it?

NO!

Well – you could of course, but then after 6 months you won’t have generated any leads and you’ll have confirmed your inner suspicion that this whole blogging content stuff is nonsense and you'll go back to spending money on feel good marketing that doesn’t work – but you’ll feel better.

Don’t believe us?  Just ask Eric Smilay of Smilay Properties who started a content strategy on his website a year ago – his year on year figures are up over 500% - page views per month have moved from the hundreds to the thousands – did he Set it and Forget it?  No!

We'll be chatting to Eric in the next couple of weeks and will post about how he overcame the inertia that often kills the execution of a small business content strategy.

It’s not just about the blog posts

Yes – the core of your content strategy is going to be writing new posts – adding new video, images etc – and yes you’re going to be thinking about who the audience is and what they want to hear.  However, there is something that is even easier to do and often time more effective

Recycle and improve your existing content

When you look at your weekly stats (you do look at your weekly stats don’t you?) you’ll notice that there are certain pages on your website that always seem to get traffic.  Could be that post you wrote about the decline in the Bolivian talcum powder industry or that insider’s look into the world of extreme Lego.  Whatever – there are people out there who are regularly finding that article and are enjoying it.

Revisit it – can you improve it – can you make it read more easily, add an appropriate image, should you offer a translation, what can you do to make the experience for the reader better?  Not only that – can you add a link to another relevant article on your website, do you have a service or product that would be useful to people who like this kind of content?

It’s a living thing

The days of Set it and Forget it are long gone and even though there will always be hour long infomercials on products that you really don‘t want but that seem too good to pass up at 3 in the morning – switch that shit off and go and look at your website.  If you're not treating it with a little love and content, you'll lose any benefit it might have provided.

In the immortal words of Jeff Lynne:

It's a livin' thing,

It's a terrible thing to lose

It's a given thing

What a terrible thing to lose

When You Don't Want Your Video To Go Viral

You're an attorney, a Pizzeria owner or perhaps you run the local bike shop, doesn't matter what your market is, you're looking for new customers.

Your Social Media Guru has told you that you need to “get into video” so you’ve bought your flip camera, a gorilla stand, you have a basic understanding of lighting and editing and you’re ready to go viral

Stop for a second and consider

There are 35 hours of video loaded to YouTube every minute - the competition for eyeballs is insane.  People latch onto the latest meme: Evian babies, the Old Spice dude, Rebecca Black’s dignity, that amazing VW super bowl ad.

Viral videos are funny, surprising, unorthodox and generally entertaining.  They’re passed around by people as little gifts of humor and interest to one another; when they’re good the views go through the roof.

What if your business is inherently unfunny?

What if you're the best personal injury attorney in the State, what if you know more about accident re-construction than anybody else?  Should you try and inject a little humor as you jokily relate how that poorly constructed armature sheared off your previous client’s arm?

We’d advise against this – sure you might go viral but you’re unlikely to land any new clients.

Non-viral content

When you’re landing a new client you want to present video content that is not funny, not surprising and often times not terribly entertaining.  We’re not saying it should be boring but when people are making decisions about their well being, their wallets and their future, they prefer to get their information served straight up.

Video on your website should actually be the exact opposite of what makes up a viral video.  Once you get your head round this it is a huge relief and makes the job of producing video content for your business a thousand times easier.

Yes, you should get into video

A video of you explaining, with compassion and brutal competence how you do what you do, is worth a thousand images (and remember – they’re worth a thousand words so you just saved yourself a crap load of writing!)

Video content is not about you being a YouTube superstar; it is about you representing your business in the stickiest way possible.

If you’re not sure where to start with a Video content strategy, give us a shout and we’ll show you how to get started

Image Credit: Alone at the Taj - Stuck In Customs - Flickr