News on Twitter Marketing, according to TechCrunch: Joel Lunenfeld, Twitter’s vice president of global brand strategy, said that 88% of Twitter users follow at least one brand and that six or more brands are followed by more than half.
The study also shows that freebies and discounts are the reasons why someone follows a brand although according to Lunenfeld, getting access to exclusive or promotional content is also a factor.
Lunenfeld’s presentation at the IAB MIXX advertising conference encourages advertisers to understand that advertising on Twitter isn’t separate from regular content. A lot of examples as to what brands are already doing were presented at the conference and it shows that the brands themselves are talking to each other.
Although Twitter isn’t getting revenues from that kind of conversation or from some of the other examples in his presentation, Lunenfeld said that he is not worried about this, since their main objective is education, like helping brands understand how to get the most out of Twitter.
When asked if it is challenging to get those brands on-board with the idea of conversational ad campaigns, Lunenfeld said that they are still working to understand “the conversational aspect,” both on Twitter, and in general. He noted that as a broadcast medium for other types of content, like a promotional video, Twitter works well. More and more ways are being developed by Twitter to get a message across inside a tweet, he said.
Read more at Twitter Says More Than Half Its Users Follow Six Or More Brands
News on Content Marketing, according to B2B Marketing Blog: the annual B2B content marketing survey with the 30,000+ members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn was conducted earlier this year to learn more about the latest trends in content marketing.
By going to Slideshare, and using the social sharing feature, you are able to share brand new report “B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012” with friends through Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
The top 5 most important trends in Content Marketing:
1. There is significant growth in content marketing in terms of tactics, forms and volume of content
– according to 84% of marketers, content production is increasing
– More than half of the respondents are using 10 or more formats and tactics which they consider “effective”
– Similar individuals are spreading content creation across 6 different functional roles
2. Content is at the heart of B2B marketers top 3 goals—lead generation, market education and brand awareness
3. Infographics is the fastest growing content format, seeing a 1.5x increase from last year
4. The biggest challenge for marketers is time and bandwidth to create content
– new content is created by 94% of B2B marketers from scratch
5. Content engagement is being measured by majority of B2B marketers
– The top 3 measurements are web traffic, views & download and lead quantity & quality
Read more at New Report: B2B Content Marketing Trends
News on Social Marketing, according to eMarketer: a study from Holger Shulze, author of the blog Everything Marketing Technology, showed the increasing number of B2B technology marketers’ worldwide turning to content marketing for more brand-based goals.
Additional content marketing objectives commonly followed by marketing professionals and the top three objectives were identified by both BtoB Magazine and Holger Shulze. Twenty nine percent of respondents cited both sales and customer acquisition, 26% of marketers think customer retention and loyalty as important content and engagement was only cited by 20% of respondents. BtoB Magazine found that to foster greater audience engagement, content marketing is used by 56% of US B2B marketers. The ability of content marketing to establish brand trust and offer marketers a way to create faster, more frequent touchpoints with customers and prospects are the other top reasons as to why B2B marketers turned to content marketing, achieving 47% and 33% of respondents, respectively.
The study also found that 94% of B2B technology marketers produced their own content from scratch, 39% of respondents curating third-party content, 32% are reusing existing content and 30% encouraged user-generated content.
A common result when generating content from scratch is engagement with 81% of respondents citing engagement and compelling storytelling as the most important elements to have an effective content marketing.
Read more at B2B Content Marketers Prioritize Lead GThe key to lead generation and sales? Creating engaging, compelling content
Other Social Marketing Articles of Interest
Facebook’s new pitch to brand advertisers: forget about clicks
6 Simple Tips to Rank High in Google’s Search Engine