I blogged recently about creating quality content. Once you’ve gone to the trouble of creating great content, that people actually want to read, it makes sense to get the most out of it, so here are some suggestions for how to do that.

Syndicate your content

It seems obvious, but it’s surprising how often it gets forgotten in the rush to move onto the next item on your to do list. Whether it’s a blog post or a new page on your website make sure you share it with as many different people as possible. Tools like NetworkedBlogs make this easier by automatically sending your blog posts out to your Twitter and Facebook feeds and save you having to remember.

Social bookmarking is another good way to get your content out there. Sites like Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon are all useful, as well as niche bookmarking sites that relate to your industry. Just make sure you follow the guidelines and don’t only bookmark your own content.

If you write an email newsletter then you can also use this to point subscribers towards content that they might find useful too.

Make it easy for others to share

Getting others to share your content is even more effective than doing it yourself as it will then be read by people out of your network too. Hopefully you’ve already got social media buttons added to each of your web pages and blog posts to make it easy for others to share them on their favourite social networking sites. An occasional little nudge or reminder asking people to share a particular article if they find it useful won’t do any harm either.

Internal linking

If you’re referring to a topic already covered in a previous blog post or on another website page then link directly to it to make it easy for people to find other relevant content. Internal linking is important within your website and blog and helps both search engines and readers to find more of your content.

Recycle content

If you’ve written a good article or blog post it won’t take you long to rewrite it (to avoid duplicate content which the search engines frown on) so that it’s suitable for use on another website or blog. Writing guest posts on another blog or articles for another website is a great way to get more exposure for your own website as well as a link back. Using existing content and rewriting it saves you from having to come up with another idea or having do any additional research for a brand new article.

Do you know of any other great ways to get the most out of your content? Please add a comment to share your suggestions.

The ideal strategy for a company is to have a fully integrated marketing plan, this means having a consistent objective and message across all forms of medium, some examples of how to do this are:

• Ensure your logo is the same on everything from business cards to your Facebook page
• Use the same colour pallette for all of your marketing material
• Include your web and social url’s on your offline marketing material
• Keep people informed of your offline activities via your website or blog
• Keep the voice of your business the same

These are just a few ways to ensure that you take a full approach, it is easy to see your online activity as completely seperate from everything else, but they really should be treated as part of the same plan.  In many businesses their marketing professionals are often highly skilled in the more traditional forms of marketing but don’t always have as much knowledge about the internet.

The way that you need to tackle your marketing online is very different, for example, people read a web page in a different way than they might read a leaflet or advertisement in a newspaper.  It is important if you don’t have the skills inhouse to get some external help with this.  This could be a case of out-sourcing everything to an agency who can look after the whole piece for you, or it could mean working with an Internet Marketing Consultant.

An Internet Marketing Consultant will help you to form your strategy, advise on implementation and offer ongoing advice and support whilst still allowing you to retain a tight controls on the where’s, what’s and how’s.  By out-sourcing everything you don’t have the hassle of dealing with the finer detail but have less control.  Either way can work, it really depends on your individual company, the scale of your marketing activity and the level of resource you have in-house.  If you are unsure then speak to a marketing professional who will be able to advise you on the best way forwards for your business.

When Google +1 launched as a feature for websites to allow their visitors to easily share their website on Google+ it was unclear as to whether this would be used.  There are so many sites in the social world already and so no one really knew how this feature would be used and also the impact that this would have on your overall internet marketing efforts.

The feature looks very similar to that of a Facebook Like, but the big difference is that the results are incorporated into Google search and integrated into Google’s new social network Google +.  Google + has just been opened up to the masses and like many other social networking sites it allows you to share content and post to your public profile, creating interests and actually providing a lot of information to the rest of your network.

So how does Google + effect search engine listings?

If people start to use the Google+1 button in any great quantity, this could have a big effect on both SEO and Social Media Marketing.  As this is a personal endorsement of a site, it is much more powerful than anything else, research tells us that we take much more notice or peer recommendation that we do from companies trying to promote themselves.  If people in our networks have had good experiences with a business then we are far more likely to place our trust in them.

Interesting times ahead for internet marketing

With Google taking these recommendations into account in the search results we may see a massive change in the way results are displayed.  We are of course a long way off of this at the moment and it will be interesting to see how this feature is used over the next months but it will certainly change the face of online marketing if it is widely used.  Watch this space as no doubt Google + is something that will no doubt appear on these pages in the future.

This has been one of those weeks where it seems that spam is taking over my life. It’s in my email inbox, on my Twitter account and on our Facebook page, not to mention on our blog and on those of our clients.

I seem to spend an unreasonable portion of my day deleting spam mail and moderating spam comments and I am truly sick of it.

I’m assuming that the spammers do get some results, otherwise they wouldn’t bother, but the majority of people hate spam just as much as I do. It’s important therefore to avoid coming across “spammy” in any of your business’s online marketing efforts in order not to alienate potential customers.

So what are some of the things that ordinary businesses do that are or can verge on being spammy?

• Sending out too many emails to subscribers – they want to be updated, not inundated
• Only including self promotional material in online content, nothing of value
• Making inane comments on blogs or social media portals purely for links, etc instead of having actual conversations
• Paying dodgy companies to get you more friends/Likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter instead of creating content that is actually worth liking or following
• Promoting your own business on other people’s walls or blogs

Basically if you spend the majority of your time talking at people instead of conversing with them on social media, you’re probably guilty. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and think how you would feel getting that message – would you be grateful or irritated? Be honest!

The internet is a fantastic place so let’s not ruin it by polluting it with yet more spam. There are more than enough true spammers out there already, without the rest of us getting involved.

I know, throw something at me if you like, but before you know Christmas will be here and we’ll all be overindulging in too much of everything like we do every year.  So why is this relevant I hear you ask?  Well, now is the time that as a business you should have your marketing plans in place ready for the season.  If this is your boom time, then you will thinking about how to capitalise on it and if you go quiet over this period, then you need to be thinking up how to fill your sales funnel.

For a lot of businesses, things are a little bit tough out there at the moment, people are more careful about how they spend their money and who to spend it with, but there are still customers out there, they are just more cautious about making the decision to get their wallets out and spend.  So what can you do?

Well, many businesses are having a far more focussed approach to their marketing.  Understanding what they are really looking to achieve and then putting together a campaign that encompasses all elements of marketing so that they are demonstrating a consistent message and adding weight to it by coming at it from all angles.  Now is the time to invest more in marketing, not put your head in the sand and tighten your belts hoping that the ecomony will hugely improve overnight.  In fact many of the most successful businesses do really well out of a recession, they even increase the amount of money on marketing during this time, because they know that once things improve they will be in the best possible position.  Let’s face it Christmas is the time when people are much more likely to make the decision to buy, I do appreciate however that not every business reaps the rewards of the Christmas season.  But if you do, then you need to make the most of it.

The key to integrating online marketing into your strategy is firstly, not to do nothing, secondly don’t just build a website and let it sit there, it won’t help you grow sales or build your brand if people don’t know you exist.  You need to shout about yourself, spread your message through using a range of techniques such as SEO, social media, email marketing and PPC, starting now will give you a good run at it as there will be more people online searching ready for the season of giving and eating and drinking etc..

It’s not all doom and gloom, see this time as an opportunity to get your house in order, tighten up on what you are doing with your marketing budget in terms or really understanding what is and isn’t working and then go for it, in the longer term it will bring you the new business you are looking for and in the shorter term it will help you utilise on the Christmas period and increase your sales and let’s face it, that’s what most companies are looking for.

There has been a lot of press regarding privacy and confidentiality concerns recently. I’m not going to delve into the rights and wrongs of Facebook’s, Google’s and Twitter’s privacy policies, but thought it would be a good idea to go over what is and isn’t a good idea regarding privacy and confidentiality when marketing your business online.

Good practices

• Make sure your business has standard privacy and confidentiality guidelines and that all employees are aware of them.
• What you publish online is accessible to almost anyone and will be there for a long time, so be intelligent about protecting your privacy as well as your business’s proprietary and confidential information.
• Ensure that you and your employees respect brand, trademark, copyright, fair use, trade secrets, confidentiality and disclosure laws.
• Get employees to us a disclaimer when posting on other sites that is something along the lines of “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Your Business’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Practices to avoid

• Publishing, reporting on or even just mentioning conversations that are intended to be private or kept within your business.
• Sharing client specific information without their permission, e.g. case studies, testimonials or quotes.
• Writing disparaging remarks about other people or businesses.
• Posting anything that makes you feel at all uncomfortable. If you’re not 100% sure it’s appropriate, take some time to think it over or discuss it with someone if necessary.

Sticking to these simple guidelines, especially when making use of social media, could help keep you out of trouble.

Last week I discussed online reputation monitoring, but knowing what people are saying about your business is just the beginning of managing your online reputation. Whether positive or negative, you need to take action based on what’s being said. You may also find that no one is saying anything about your brand at all, in which case you need to start building your online reputation.

In order to do this you need to start influencing positive conversations related to your brand, products or services.

Here are a few ways you can do this:

• Answer questions and offer helpful advice when consumers ask questions about products or services that your business provides.
• Respond to negative comments with a positive one by publicly thanking the customer that complained for their feedback and letting them know what you are going to do about it.
• Implement a service recovery strategy if possible to earn back customers and create loyalty.
• Start conversations yourself by creating and publishing interesting information that is of value to your audience and which provokes meaningful discussions.
• Get loyal and satisfied customers to provide positive reviews and testimonials online, perhaps by offering them an incentive.
• Keep conversations going by communicating regularly, following up on previous conversations and providing regular updates, especially when an issue is being resolved.

Best practices when building your online reputation:

• Protect your name by reserving it even on social media sites you’re not using yet.
• Keep your branding consistent.
• Continue building your community.
• Establish authority and credibility by sharing your expertise and offering helpful advice.
• Be accessible and respond to questions or feedback immediately.
• Keep users engaged with valuable, interactive content such as videos and podcasts that they can comment on.
• In addition to giving information on your own blog and social networks, actively participate in conversations taking place on blogs and forums related to your industry.

All of this will take time and you will need to keep at it even when it seems you’re not having much effect. Eventually, with consistent effort, you will reap the rewards and build an online reputation to be proud of.

Over the last year we have seen an marked increase in businesses using internet marketing.  More traditional forms of advertising have seen much less focus and are continuing to decline in terms of usage and overall marketing spend.

So as a business looking to either generate leads or retain existing customers I should really be looking to internet marketing to reach my target market.  The reason is incredibly simple, it’s because this is where people are spending much of their time.  The way people look for products and services has changed, people are actively looking and it is important that when they look they find you and not your competitors.