: Archive

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Pinterest And SEO: Keeping The 'Juice Suckers' At...

I’m not an SEO expert, and I never will be. Since we just published a new feature on DemandGen Report, however, dealing with how B2B marketers are using Pinterest, there’s an interesting SEO-related angle to this story that’s worth mentioning here. [[MORE]] Here’s the deal: Since last March, Pinterest has used “nofollow” for...

May 22nd

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Is Writing A Business Blog Still Worth The Effort?

Is blogging over the hill as a content marketing tool? You might think so, judging from this University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth study. For the past five years, the study has tracked how enterprises are using social media. Two groups are included: The Inc. 500, which compiles the fastest-growing private U.S. companies; and the Fortune 500, which is based on revenue. The banner finding:...

May 21st

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This Week's 3 Big Things: Why Facebook Brand Pages...

Maybe it’s because I’m looking harder these days, but I’m more impressed than ever with the quality of the content I see on many marketing-related blogs. Case in point: Jessica Malnik’s excellent post on “The Five Reasons Why Most Facebook Brand Pages Aren’t True Communities.” The numbers, Jessica explains, tell the story. Only 1% of the...

May 18th

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The Best B2B Content Format: All Of The Above

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor The results of our 2012 Content Preferences Survey are now available via SlideShare. We asked scores of executives at top B2B companies to tell us how they find, use, share and evaluate marketing content, and they gave us some fascinating answers. I won’t rehash the entire survey here – the SlideShare presentation tells the story. But here’s...

May 17th

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Bootstrap Blogging 101: 5 Tips For Guest-Blogging...

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Contributing guest posts to other blogs can be a great way to bootstrap your own B2B blogging strategy. It gives you a great chance to build an audience by getting exposure on blogs that already have a strong following. The idea is simple: When readers love your guest post, they’ll want more. When they want more, they’ll go looking for your web...

May 17th

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B2B Communities & Buyer Engagement: Does Size...

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Last week, I had a chance to hear Forrester Analyst Lori Wizdo speak at an online seminar: “Integrating Social in the Lead-to-Revenue Process.” She offered lots of great statistics about social media and B2B buyers, and quite a few useful tips. When I listen to these things, however, there are always one or two points that stand out from the...

May 15th

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This Week's 3 Big Things: Crafting A Perfect Call...

We’re big readers here at C4D. We’re especially fond of the blogs that we see lately covering content marketing in general and the B2B space in particular. It’s amazing how many smart people are thinking about – and writing about – these topics. Each week, I’m going to highlight three of the best content marketing-related blog posts that I come across. Cut me some slack if...

May 3rd

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Could Amazon's Kindle Be The Next Frontier For B2B...

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Content marketers often gate their content. But they almost never sell it. The very idea seems crazy. Yet it’s possible that one very popular distribution platform doesn’t just allow marketers to sell their content – it practically demands selling content. I’m talking about publishing for the Amazon Kindle. There’s a fascinating post...

Apr 30th

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3 Reasons Why Mobile-Ready Content Is A Do-Or-Die...

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor This week’s Content2Conversion event in New York City was a huge success. I’m not saying that as a DemandGen Report editor – I’m saying it as somebody who has attended a lot of events over the years. It’s insanely hard to pull off these kinds of events, and this one went off incredibly well. Some of the best sessions focused on two...

Apr 25th

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5 Tips For Hosting A Successful Webcast

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor I have been told that I’ve got a voice for print — and a face for radio. In spite of that, I sometimes get asked to host live webcasts. The fact is, webcasts are important content marketing tools; they’re great for engaging with your prospects, sharing quality information in an exciting format, and driving qualified leads. Yet webcasts...

Apr 19th

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Study Reveals 5 Hot Trends In Social Media...

Social Media Examiner just issued the results of its fourth annual Social Media Marketing report. There’s a lot to digest here, but it’s well worth the effort with more than 3,800 marketers participating in the study. Here are some of the highlights from the 2012 study: Everybody is doing it. Well, almost everybody: 94% of marketers said they use social media to market their...

Apr 17th

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Custom Content Survey: Variety Is The Spice Of...

by Matt McKenzie, Contibuting Editor The Custom Content Council just released the results of its 2012 Industry Characteristics Study. Here’s the most important takeaway: Content marketing isn’t a battle between print and digital. This isn’t a zero-sum game, and in fact the custom content landscape is more diverse than it has ever been. Case in point: Nearly 90% of the companies...

Apr 16th

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3 Bad Habits That Will Cripple Your Content – And...

You already know that typos are the kiss of death for B2B content marketing. They make your content – and your company – look sloppy and disorganized. That’s especially true for long-from content like white papers and case studies where every detail counts. Yet there’s another class of content errors that slip under the radar. In some ways, they’re even worse than typos because...

Apr 16th

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5 Point Checklist To Create Content That...

by Amanda F. Batista A couple of weeks ago, The New York Times published an Op/Ed piece, a first-hand chronicle of a Goldman Sachs executive’s resignation. The article underscored why Greg Smith, now a former executive director, could no longer in good conscience be a part of the firm. “To put the problem in the simplest terms,” Smith wrote, “the interests of the client continue to be sidelined...

Apr 16th

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[INFOGRAPHIC] Email Hosting Puts Businesses on the...

Email is a mission-critical function in most businesses today, and efficient management of email services is vital to ensuring maximum uptime and productivity. Hosted email platforms can have a profound impact on the accessibility, mobility, and productivity of organizations of any size to enable employees to focus on high value tasks that drive competitive advantage....

Apr 12th

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Khan Academy: A Low Cost Lesson In High-Impact...

Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time with my Khan Academy iPad app. I had heard about Khan Academy before – who hasn’t these days? – but this was my first time actually using the course material. It has been a revelation. Partly because it’s a great way to learn about, well, pretty much anything. (I’m currently geeking out on credit default swaps and how they...

Apr 3rd

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Google Drops The Hammer On Shoddy Content

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Over the years, I have worked with companies that viewed search engine optimization (SEO) as a tool for promoting high-quality, original content. I have also worked with a few companies that viewed SEO as a way to sucker people into viewing worthless content. Google is determined to make life easier for companies that take the first approach to content...

Mar 29th

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Recent Webinar:

The Best Content For Short Attention Span Theater Traditional one-size fits all white papers, case studies and other collateral are struggling to break through the noise and be relevant to decision makers. A new approach, with more dynamic and personalized content is needed to better connect, stimulate and facilitate buyer decisions. Watch Here from the Content 4 Demand website

Mar 26th

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Study: The 'Mobile Web' Is Still Mostly a Myth

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Here’s an interesting nugget for B2B marketers trying to get a grip on when – or whether – to invest in mobile-ready content: Less than 10% of the Web is mobile-friendly today. These aren’t the guys putting big bucks into iPad apps. They’re the ones doing something – anything, really – to make their sites usable for visitors on mobile...

Mar 26th

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Twitter And B2B Content Marketing: The Keys To...

What can social media do to help – or hurt – your content marketing efforts? Not surprisingly, the answer is all about creating and maintaining your credibility. A recent research paper from Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University focused in particular on how Twitter users assess the credibility of tweets. Here are the top traits associated with a tweet that add credibility: Clearly,...

Mar 26th

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Why B2B Marketers Should Embrace Social Sign-In

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor Today, the Content Marketing Institute web site published an outstanding analysis of the pros and cons of content registration forms. It’s worth checking out – and if you follow just a handful of content marketing blogs, CMI would make a great addition to your short list. I want to drill down, however, and focus on an interesting nugget that turned up...

Mar 19th

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Bad Infographics: Is Do-It-Yourself a Dead End?

by Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor The backlash against infographics has begun. Actually, I’m late to this party. The backlash started quite a while ago. It’s just that the idea of a “backlash” is hard to wrap your mind around when so many B2B marketers are just starting to adopt infographics as part of their content marketing plans. I’m of two minds about this....

Mar 15th

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Watch

A recent survey conducted by DemandGen Report (DGR) showed that: More than 90% of B2B buying purchases start with content engagement. More than 40% of B2B buyers had their first contact with a solution provider after downloading content from their site. As these trends emerge, B2B marketers continue to struggle to stay above water with content development, content marketing strategies and how...

Mar 8th

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Content2Conversion is Around the Corner...

At Content4Demand, we are proud to be a sponsor of DemandGen Report’s Content2Conversion Conference, April 23-24 at The Times Center in New York, and we strongly recommend it for those of you who are looking for content insight and strategy that focuses entirely on the B2B market. Content2Conversion will present a variety of sessions focused on strategic and tactical elements of successful...

Mar 5th

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Infographics Emerge As Key Component of Content...

By Matt McKenzie, Contributing Editor B2B marketers already know content is king. Now, a growing number of them are getting acquainted with a new member of the royal family: the infographic. As more marketers get acquainted with infographics, the experts agree it’s important to understand the role they should play within a B2B marketing strategy. Infographics tend to be very effective...

Feb 27th

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Content Takes Center Stage at the...

As content marketing becomes an increasingly critical tool for B2B companies, Content4Demand’s sister publication DemandGen Report (DGR) has announced the launch and preliminary agenda for the first annualContent2Conversion Conference. The show will take place April 23-24 at the Times Center in Manhattan. DGR will host the educational conference in response to a growing need for progressive...

Feb 23rd

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Hot Off The Presses: iContact

Title: The Definitive Guide to Email and Social Media Marketing Format: E-book Objective: Nothing screams “we know what we’re talking about” than producing a guide that is pronounced to be “Definitive”. But despite the unabashed lack of modesty, “Definitive Guide”-style E-books have long been a successful way to take a pronounced stance in a space as a thought leader. If a potential customer...

Feb 13th

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Hot Off the Presses: Acquia

Titles: Various Formats: 2 E-books and 2 White papers Objective: Acquia is a commercial open source software company providing products, services, and technical support for the open source Drupal social publishing system. The company had several successful webinars in its content library and, rather than start from scratch, wanted to take advantage of these existing resources to create...

Feb 13th

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Content Marketing hits the PIPA/SOPA Debate

If you hadn’t noticed, the online protests surrounding the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress have spread full-scale today. Wikipedia, one of the world’s most highly-trafficked websites, shut itself down for the day, while major sites like Craigslist, WordPress, and Mozilla / FireFox are participating in a “virtual strike”, posting...

Feb 13th

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Hot Off The Presses: Citrix

Title: Marketing Matchmaking: The Strategies and Payoffs of Streamlining Webinar Data and Analyzing Within Marketing Automation Systems Format: E-book Objective: Citrix Online provides online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone: GoToAssist and GoToManage for remote support and IT management, GoToMeeting for online meetings, GoToMyPC for remote access, GoToTraining...

Feb 13th

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