Social media, content marketing and their integration with novel, open technologies opens channels for direct communications with customers, says Christine Beardsell of Clickz.com.  Read more

What is Google Sidewiki?

Google Sidewiki is the latest Google offering that can be developed into a potential touch point between marketers and customers. This Google toolbar application enables you to put in helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. Anyone who uses the FREE Google toolbar with Sidewiki enabled can use this application. You can also download this application from the following URL:

http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/install.html

How Can Marketers Leverage it?

By writing Sidewiki entries that are informative and relevant, marketers can leverage the space for interacting with their customers and prospects. Moreover, since Sidewiki allows visitors to submit their comments, it becomes an excellent platform for promoting a service or products and gaining feedback at the same time! In addition, the Sidewiki space can also be used for guiding visitors about your website, upcoming events/offers, industry trends and much more. Another advantage is that the comments or information that you share vie Sidewiki can be directly promoted through Twitter and Facebook. The way you use Sidewiki would vary with the type of website or blog you have, however, the application certainly presents a unique opportunity for interacting with your audiences directly from your websites.

How Add Google Sidewiki to a Website?

Here are a few simple steps that would guide you through the process of adding Google Sidewiki to your website:

Install the latest Google Toolbar with Google Sidewiki. The tool bar would look something like this:Visit your website or the web page where you want to run Google Sidewiki.

Ensure that Google Sidewiki is turned on in the Google Toolbar. You then need to log in to your Google account to be able to see the Google Wiki sidebar on the left side of your web browser.After signing in, you will see the name of your site, as well as the field to “Edit your name”. You can modify your display settings or add relevant keywords etc. here if you wish to.

Next, you make an entry about what ever information you wish to share with your audiences and click the Publish button.

The entry can now be seen on your website.

From instigating discussions, to prompting offers, marketers can utilize the Google Sidewiki space in multiple forms to spur interaction with their audiences directly from the website. The application promises not only increased web traffic, but also ensures multi pronged benefits for marketers.

Twitter presents a great opportunity for smart marketers to meet the needs of information hungry customers. By sharing relevant and convincing content through Twitter, marketers can succeed in creating strong brand relationships with their prospects. But, Twitter is vast and if your content is not strong enough, it may easily get lost in the crowd.

Here are some easy tips to strengthen your content marketing efforts on Twitter:

Scribe Concisely

Tweet with brevity to deliver greater value. Remember that you have only 140 words to express yourself. Share your best ideas with brevity and clarity.

Get Talking

Be a part of all relevant discussions about your industry, products and services. Twitter provides tools like TweetGrid and TweetDeck which can be used to monitor ongoing conversations in real time and respond to them instantaneously.

Go Trendy

Staying current is critical. By using Twitter Search and Monitter you can keep an eye on what’s happening right now in topic areas that are relevant for you.

Form Groups

Create and become member of groups that are relevant to your business. Within the group, you can focus on specific topics that are important to your prospects and customers. You may use Tweetworks to create ad hoc groups on Twitter.

Tweet Your Blog

Promote your blog posts on Twitter through Twitterfeed, a tool that can seamlessly publish your latest blog post to Twitter.

Follow the tips and leverage Twitter to communicate with your customers and prospects differently. It’s time to move beyond simple selling of products and services and deliver tangible benefits to your target audiences through content that matters to them!

Fonts are an expression of a designer’s ingenuity. However, hunting around for appropriate fonts is a tedious task. Here is a selection of some of the most popular free website fonts that you can use to adorn your websites.

Resonance Bold

Nilland

Nadia Serif

Mayberry Pro SemiBold

Layer Cake

Junction

HVD Comic Serif

CartoGothic Std

Birra Stout

Whiteboard Modern

Professional, responsible and sophisticated- are the key factors that define corporate blogs. Different from generic blogs, corporate blog designs are more classy and uncomplicated.

Here is a collection of ten most popular corporate blog designs that are a perfect blend of style, simplicity and branding:

Yahoo

Google

Nike

Dell

Cisco

Walmart

Design Matters

Johnson & Johnson

McDonalds

GM

‘What is content marketing?’ – A general user of Internet, after hearing the words ‘content marketing’ will have this first question in his mind.

” Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action. “ As described under  Wikipedia entry for content marketing.

In a layman’s language, whenever you read, see or listen to something that interests you, the content that engages you, whether it be a post on a blog, an article published on a magazine, an informative video, an interesting menu card in a restaurant, the striking headline in your local newspaper that fetches your interest, the newsletter or the content in a website, is a form of content marketing.

Importance of Content Marketing: The USP (Unique selling point or quality) of content marketing is, its unique and your very own engaging content, that talks distinctly about the entity whether it be you, the company, or the product/services you want to sell. This USP really is important as well to engage your customer/visitor reading something new & interesting and making you stand out of the rush of other related product/service providers. The content marketing, if its USP is retained, helps you positioning your business as the trusted resource in you niche.

“ Marketers may use content marketing as a means of achieving a variety of business goals, such as thought leadership, lead generation, increasing direct sales, improving retention and more .” says Wikipedia page for Content Marketing, this itself shows the importance of content marketing in retaining your customers.

Another important USP of content marketing is that it is permissive not disruptive to consumer. Unlike the old interruption marketing, content marketing is based on the user permissions, if a user want, he/she reads or uses the content that might be on your blog, website, e-zine, magazine, newsletter, white-paper, email, social media content or elsewhere.

Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

Yes, you really can create marketing that is anticipated and truly makes a connection! You can develop and execute “sales” messages that are needed, even requested, by your customers. To retain your customer, you need to have a successful content marketing in place and to market your content successfully either you should write content yourself, keeping in mind your targeted readers, customer base, or should take  content writing service  from such experts who really understands and knows your niche and knows what interests your customer base. The intriguingly written, unique content can help retaining your business customers as well as building the new consumer base.

Author: Kitz S