The Social Sandbox: Good news, bad news
Editor’s note: This the latest article in an occasional series covering the turbulent world of social media for businesses. We’re calling this series The Social Sandbox. This time we dig into the shifting perceptions of X and LinkedIn. There are some bullies in the social sandbox. These brats will ruin the day for the rest of us if they have their way. Fortunately, there are also some new faces coming in and some positive developments for everyone. How can we balance the positive and the negative? With an article that shares the bad news along with the good news. Let’s start on the dark side. The bad news: Time to axe X? Remember Twitter? At
Your brand channel
Have you ever watched YES? (We see you nodding, 368,000 Yankees fans.) How about the Magnolia Network? (We see you too, 170,000 Chip and Joanna Gaines fans.) Anyone binging on NFL Network? (Wow, you’re over 50 million strong, football fans.) Those networks are, at their essence, brand channels. Each one offers content targeted to a specific audience that’s all in on the brand or lifestyle they reflect. How many people are tuned into your B2B brand channel right now? Believe it or not, you have one. More importantly, you have a large audience of potential fans. You simply need to give the people what they want when it comes to content. For a little more clarity,
The AI to-do list
What will AI ultimately mean to humankind? According to business leaders, social influencers, legendary intellects and emerging thinkers, AI will: Put an end to work Change the world more than anything else in history Amplify human intelligence Reinvent the way people interact with technology Lead to the end of the world Challenge our ethics Optimize production Exploit workers Increase bias and discrimination Allow us all to be more creative Affect billions of people’s privacy Make mistakes Be the best or worst thing for humanity Those wildly disparate beliefs come from sources as varied as Stephen Hawking, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Kathy Pham, Elon Musk and Alan Turing. We won’t use this space
Six tips from expert editors
“Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.” - Ayn Rand “Editing is a lens to focus one’s words.” - Boomm If you have an editor on staff, please send them a thank you email. Their job is to make your writing more focused, accurate and effective. If you don’t have an editor on staff, this article is for you. That’s especially true if you must do your own editing. Let’s start with the most important insight: Editing is a mindset as well as a skillset. To ensure you’re in the right frame of mind to sharpen B2B content, here are six smart tips from expert editors. “Be bold” As an editor, your role
The Social Sandbox: Is it postworthy?
Editor’s note: This the latest article in an occasional series covering the turbulent world of social media for businesses. We’re calling this series The Social Sandbox. This time we dig into the challenge of uncovering fresh topics. How do you judge the value of a B2B social media topic? The obvious answer is to review post performance. That’s why there are metrics for almost every aspect of social media. You can track impressions, likes, shares, click throughs, web traffic, response time, audience growth rates, share of voice, sentiment analyses and virality rates. Those measurements will provide valuable insights and guidance after your post has been published. You can leverage them to help inform your engagement
5 journalism best practices for your content marketing
Journalism and content marketing are not identical twins, but they’re in the same family photo. Both are intended to tell an illuminating story using relevant facts and expert analysis. When they do so, journalism and content marketing serve to enlighten their readers, which frequently leads them to more informed opinions and better decisions. Given those similarities, content marketers can take a page from the journalist’s notebook to improve the focus and effectiveness of their work. The following are five foundational best practices of journalism that will take your content development from inception through the finished article. Create an outline A well-constructed outline leads to a good article. The outline does not need
A cure for the common chaos
By Randy Mitchell A wise client once confided that a little chaos was good for creatives. She believed it forced us to think in unexpected ways. That was an eye-opening revelation and I embraced her sage guidance. However, in today’s turbulent B2B marketplace with labor shortages and global supply chain challenges, the last thing marketing managers need is more chaos. That’s particularly true when it comes to planning a major initiative. If you have a significant project coming in 2023, a marketing RFP is the logical starting point. However, the marketing RFP process, particularly on the B2B side, is an inexact science. It’s a complex, time-consuming, high-profile assignment that is initiated out of necessity.
The Social Sandbox: Converting the haters
By Randy Mitchell “I hate social because my customers hate social. They’re engineers. They deal in facts, not fluff.” - Industrial Product Director “Social media is a popularity contest. We don’t need likes. We need leads.” - Entertainment Services Company Owner “Our products are SaaS. That’s a big investment. We sell to the C-Suite and they are not on Twitter.” - Technology Marketing Manager “Social is for branding. Social is for buzz. Social is not for B2B.” - Food Ingredients Regional Sales Director Sound familiar? If you believe social media is a waste for your B2B marketing mix, you’re not alone. Many B2B decision makers are devout social haters because they think it’s not substantial, serious and it doesn’t drive
Reimagining the quadrant
By Randy Mitchell Boomm works with many diverse technology companies. Some are clients others are partners. They come from multiple practice areas, including data management and marketing automation. And they range in size from startups to industry leaders. However, despite their many nuanced differences, these technology companies have one trait in common. They all dream about getting their platforms into the Gartner Magic Quadrant. If you’re not familiar with the Gartner Magic Quadrant, let me do my best to give you a creative person’s rudimentary definition. The Quadrant provides a graphical representation of where companies and their tools rank on a simple Cartesian grid. The Quadrant is influenced by key criteria such as “ability to
How to Create an Editorial Calendar You’ll Actually Use
by Kathryn Brill, Social Media and Content Marketing Specialist The end of the year is fast approaching, which can only mean one thing. No, not holiday food—planning your content marketing for 2019. This crucial activity involves budgeting, taking stock of the successes and failures of the past year, and often, putting together an editorial calendar. These shiny documents often represent sincere hopes for the next year and a genuine desire to follow a strategic plan for content marketing. However, putting one together can be overwhelming, and frequently these calendars are abandoned quickly after hitting snags in the new year—or never used at all. But when used right, editorial calendars are some of the