In 1970, Citibank set in motion a series of events that eventually gave birth to a movement dedicated to simple, clear writing. Now called the plain language movement, Citibank’s efforts resulted in legislatures across the country passing laws requiring documents like insurance policies and consumer contracts to be written simply.
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Redesigning a large corporate or law firm website is no simple task. Between multiple department heads, vendors and extensive service or practice listings, it’s difficult to keep things moving in the right direction. In an attempt to make your project run as smoothly as possible, here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the (hard) way:
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Friday is finally here! Is it just me, or was this a long week? Rep Ink is here to help you usher in the weekend with a look back at some of this week’s noteworthy stories you may have missed.
On Monday, Duff Watson, a Southwest Airlines A-List Member, tried to board a plane flying from Denver to Minneapolis early, which is a perk of being a A-Lister, but was told his two children couldn’t join him. Watson then tweeted a negative comment about the Southwest agent that included her first name, last initial and gate number.
When all three finally arrived at their seats, they were asked to deplane because the agent, Kimberly S., felt threatened by the tweet. Watson was forced to delete the tweet in order to get back on the plane and head to Minneapolis.
He did so, then tweeted again later about his experience. Although Southwest apologized and gave Watson and his children each $50 vouchers, the bad press is sure to cost them much more than that.
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With all the talk about content marketing lately, it’s surprising how many companies tend to skip right over the “content” part and focus all of their efforts on the “marketing” end.
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Another week is almost in the books! We hope you had a great week. Some brands had better luck than others this week when it came to PR, content marketing and social media. We’ve rounded up the good, the bad and the ugly….
LinkedIn’s acquisition of Newsle gives you the power to stay in touch
It’s easy to send that first email to a new contact saying it was nice to meet them, but how do you find excuses to stay in contact? Newsle makes it easy by allowing you to receive alerts when the person is mentioned in the news or in articles around the web. With LinkedIn’s acquisition of Newsle this week, you can automatically start following alerts for all of your LinkedIn contacts. A similar capability exists for Facebook and your email contacts in Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook and more. You can also add contacts manually.
Newsle is like Google Alerts on steroids. Not only does it have the capability of integrating your current connections automatically, but instead of delivering email-only alerts you can view updates in a user interface that looks and feels like a social media dashboard.
The fine line between “trendjacking” in social media and breaking the law
A couple of years ago, Tide missed out on a great social media opportunity during the Daytona 500 to capitalize on its product being used to clean up jet fuel that leaked on the track after a crash. The Proctor & Gamble brand has upped its social media game since then, but has it crossed a line?
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Creating high-value content is no easy task. Once you’ve taken the time to carefully select a topic your prospects will appreciate, research your topic and write it specifically for the appropriate persona, should you call it quits?
If you’re like most content marketers, brainstorming fresh topics can become laborious after a while. The good news is your posts don’t have to face a “one and done” fate. There are several tips out there for repurposing content, but many of them seem a little overwhelming for those of us who aren’t geeks (no offense, geeks).
Here are a few simple ways non-techies can revamp, recycle and repurpose content to keep the momentum going:
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Don’t put all your marketing eggs in one basket
Remember when traditional marketing was dead?
It was only a couple of years ago that everyone from the Harvard Business Review to Forbes magazine was trumpeting the demise of traditional marketing and public relations strategies. In a world of social media and online marketing, they contended, old-school tactics for connecting with customers just wouldn’t cut it.
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Congratulations! You made it to Friday. As Germany and Argentina prepare to face each other once again in the World Cup finals, it’s time for INKsights’ look back at the week’s winners and losers in the world of PR, content marketing and social media.
First, the losers: “Insensitive” was the word of the week, as major retailers got raked over the media coals for using images of historic tragedies in their sales and marketing efforts.
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I’m an attorney, and I’ve been blogging for more than 10 years. I’ve started several blogs over the years, including ones on law school, the Atlanta Braves, the business of baseball, career advice for aspiring sports professionals and the business of college sports. Now I work with attorneys and law firms on blogging and social media strategy as part of my job as a content marketer, and I find many legal blogs have the same common mistakes.
I have a law degree, and I practiced law for four years, yet I still don’t understand many of the law blogs I read. For most of you, your audience is clients and potential clients. No matter how sophisticated you think your clients are, if they’re not attorneys they aren’t going to understand legalese. In fact, even if they are attorneys, if they don’t practice in your area they likely still won’t understand you.
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Before you even go down this road, the first question you should ask yourself is, “Do I really need to outsource content marketing?” From Moz to HubSpot, there are plenty of useful tools and platforms to accommodate in-house marketing teams in publishing and promoting content. But remember, quality is king when it comes to content.
According to a report by the Content Marketing Institute, the biggest challenges b2b marketers face are lack of time and producing enough content. Combine that with the fact that most in-house teams are more focused on strategy and project management than writing, and outsourcing may seem like the ideal solution, given you find the right fit. Here’s what to look for in a content marketing agency:
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