Regardless of what industry you are in, your audience is seeking information and it’s in your best interest to be the place that provides it for them. High-quality educational content has many great benefits.

However, is it better to keep the content on your site, or push the content to other sites in an effort to get the most bang for your buck? The best strategy is a mixture of both.

I’ll explain the benefits of each.

The benefits of keeping the content exclusively on your website include:

1. If the content is placed solely on your site, this can help attract new site visitors. If you push your content to multiple sites, you are essentially competing with yourself in terms of search results. Unless you have a very authoritative site in the eyes of the search engines, you may find your site ranking below others.
2. If your website consistently has fresh content, search engines will crawl your site on a more regular basis. Failing to add fresh content to your site regularly, the amount of time between visits by a search engine increases. Keep them coming to your site.
3. Fresh content also encourages your current customers to return to your site. A regular content schedule promotes return visits. Think of it like a television series. You know your favorite show airs on a certain date and can make plans to watch it. Make sure that your audience gets used to seeing your content on a regular day so that they can anticipate and look for it.
4. Prospects most likely visit your site on a regular basis. These prospects could be potential customers, or future employees. Good educational resources and fresh content can help to show these visitors that you care. This can provide a sense of who you are as a company beyond just the information about your products and services.

The benefits of publishing your content off-site include:

1. The ability to reach new people. By regularly publishing that content on community sites within your industry, or in trade magazines, you’ll stay top-of-mind with potential future customers. This can help build familiarity and brand you as an expert in the industry – someone who knows what they are talking about and is worth listening to. While readers may not be in market for your service now, they certainly may be in the future – or know someone who is. If you’ve been visible to them on a regular basis, the chances increase that, at the very least, they consider you.
2. It is in the best interest of these sites to promote their content by syndicating it to members. Oftentimes, these communities or trade magazine’s websites are ad supported. That being said, they cannot simply e-mail ads to their members or subscribers. They need content as well. In most cases, they also need the help of industry experts to provide it. They appreciate your content and provide you with an opportunity to reach a huge database of people in your industry.
3. In most cases, these sites allow the author to include a bio in the content as well as a link to the company website. This can increase your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines.

The solution that seems to work well is to keep long form content exclusive (white papers, case studies, etc.) on your website. Many companies require an e-mail address to access the content. This can help increase any database for future marketing.

Short content, such as blogs, seem to perform well when shared within communities and/or with trade magazine’s or news sites. Keep a good mix of both and you’ll be on your way to a rewarding content marketing strategy.

In B2B marketing, there’s no scarcity of brand messages from vendors to dealers. Increasingly, those messages now tend to market how the vendor’s products and services help dealers create a better customer experience, rather than focus on the products or services themselves. But is that a good thing? Certainly dealers now recognize that customer experience is the battleground of today and will increasingly become more important. But, at the end of the day, the features that ultimately sell dealers aren’t how your solution helps their customers, but rather, how it helps them.

Let me explain:

Dealerships are businesses and the idea that customer experience will be the differentiator is accurate and important. However, what ultimately matters is the bottom line. Some dealers are content to invest in a service knowing that the financial benefits from that service could take some time to materialize – such as customer loyalty and retention. Others, however, simply cannot afford to shell out money on a monthly basis without seeing an immediate return on their investment. Dealers don’t buy leads because they think they’ll sell a car to someone in 3 months. They buy leads because they want to sell those customers cars NOW. They invest in products and services that solve THEIR problems, not necessarily their customer’s problems.

While there are certainly products and services that overlap that area between solving a dealership’s problem as well as a customer’s, typically the products and services aren’t designed to work that way. The typical solution is designed to solve a dealership’s problem and, as a side effect, enhance the customer experience. Yet, many vendors focus solely on how their service will enhance the experience for the customer.

In the past, it was the exact opposite. Marketing focused on ROI and solving problems. The foundation of closing any sale with a dealer was based on the correct answer to the question, “will your service help me sell more cars?” If you could do that satisfactorily, chances are good the dealer would sign up with you.

Nothing in sales today has changed. Dealers still want the answer to that question. Sure, if the sole purpose of your product or service is to enhance the customer experience, then by all means create a compelling message designed to convince a dealer that by doing so they will sell (or service) more cars. Ultimately, however, dealers still care how it will help increase revenue for their dealership. Bombarding dealers with a single message can result in your message being ignored.

It’s OK to brag. There is nothing wrong with telling the world how great you are. Include marketing messages that show dealers how your product or service will sell more cars or increase service business. Customer loyalty and retention are extremely important. But, it is important to be able to first and foremost illustrate to dealers how your service is going to help them NOW, in order to win that business. We all know that the auto industry is a business of immediacy. No dealer in the universe is going to tell a customer to go home and think about it before doing everything in their power to earn that sale at that moment.

Take a page from sales 101 and include messages of solutions for pain points and ROI in addition to your messages of customer experience. You may well find that dealers will be more receptive to your message and, perhaps, easier to close.

In B2B marketing, there’s no scarcity of brand messages from vendors to dealers. Increasingly, those messages now tend to market how the vendor’s products and services help dealers create a better customer experience, rather than focus on the products or services themselves. But is that a good thing? Certainly dealers now recognize that customer experience is the battleground of today and will increasingly become more important. But, at the end of the day, the features that ultimately sell dealers aren’t how your solution helps their customers, but rather, how it helps them.

Let me explain:

Dealerships are businesses and the idea that customer experience will be the differentiator is accurate and important. However, what ultimately matters is the bottom line. Some dealers are content to invest in a service knowing that the financial benefits from that service could take some time to materialize – such as customer loyalty and retention. Others, however, simply cannot afford to shell out money on a monthly basis without seeing an immediate return on their investment. Dealers don’t buy leads because they think they’ll sell a car to someone in 3 months. They buy leads because they want to sell those customers cars NOW. They invest in products and services that solve THEIR problems, not necessarily their customer’s problems.

While there are certainly products and services that overlap that area between solving a dealership’s problem as well as a customer’s, typically the products and services aren’t designed to work that way. The typical solution is designed to solve a dealership’s problem and, as a side effect, enhance the customer experience. Yet, many vendors focus solely on how their service will enhance the experience for the customer.

In the past, it was the exact opposite. Marketing focused on ROI and solving problems. The foundation of closing any sale with a dealer was based on the correct answer to the question, “will your service help me sell more cars?” If you could do that satisfactorily, chances are good the dealer would sign up with you.

Nothing in sales today has changed. Dealers still want the answer to that question. Sure, if the sole purpose of your product or service is to enhance the customer experience, then by all means create a compelling message designed to convince a dealer that by doing so they will sell (or service) more cars. Ultimately, however, dealers still care how it will help increase revenue for their dealership. Bombarding dealers with a single message can result in your message being ignored.

It’s OK to brag. There is nothing wrong with telling the world how great you are. Include marketing messages that show dealers how your product or service will sell more cars or increase service business. Customer loyalty and retention are extremely important. But, it is important to be able to first and foremost illustrate to dealers how your service is going to help them NOW, in order to win that business. We all know that the auto industry is a business of immediacy. No dealer in the universe is going to tell a customer to go home and think about it before doing everything in their power to earn that sale at that moment.

Take a page from sales 101 and include messages of solutions for pain points and ROI in addition to your messages of customer experience. You may well find that dealers will be more receptive to your message and, perhaps, easier to close.

The web provides a plethora of content including articles, editorials, infographics, images, videos, and photographs.  While this content creates a great visual experience for web browsing and researching, it’s important to keep in mind copyright and intellectual property right laws if you wish to utilize any content on a website, blog or online channel.

Many people still believe they can just “right click” and copy whatever they want and use it on a blog, website, presentation, or podcast. That is certainly not the case.

If it is not originally produced in-house, images and videos must be licensed from the image owner or a stock photo source. There are numerous providers that offer photos, images and videos. However, be careful, as there are often limitations to how, when, and where these images may be used.

Currently there are two types of licenses available for images:  Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. 

Royalty-Free images are low in price and can, in most cases, be used for digital and print projects without any further expense. Print projects do require a higher resolution image and, depending upon the purchase source, are more expensive than a small lower-resolution image for a website. 

Some popular sites for these images are Bigstock Photo, iStockPhoto, Fotolia, and Shutterstock.  These offer either monthly or annual subscriptions, or a pay-as-you-go model. The images in these collections change based on seasonal themes. Their low price means the image may pop up on a large number of projects, advertisements, eBooks, etc. 

There is also the risk that a competitor will use the same image in their ad campaigns. In 2004 Dell and Gateway used the same image in their back-to-school ad campaigns.  

Rights Managed (RM) images are utilized when companies don’t have a budget for a photographer to shoot photos for their projects, but would prefer something more exclusive than the Royalty-Free option. The license is worded in such a way that it protects the buyer for a set period of time, in select media channels, so as to avoid brand confusion.

For example, if a company were to run a Spring Cleaning event, it could license the image for a 60 day period, during the promotional campaign. After that time period it no longer has use of the image without renewing the license. These licenses can run over $1,000 or more, but can be less expensive than custom photography.

Popular RM sources include Corbis Images, Getty Images, and SuperStock, which all also offer royalty-free images. The quality, selection, and price of images varies widely based on the company utilized and the use of the image.  It is important to read the license agreement to know the terms of usage and what is legally allowed. 

Earlier this year an associate built a website and just “grabbed a photo” off the Internet and posted it on their website.  A few months later they were contacted by the legal department of Getty Images. Getty is very proactive in protecting their image library and the client was sent an invoice for un-authorized use of the image.  The penalty was $1,200, as the image was from a Rights Managed photo collection. Pleading ignorance, or that “someone else did it,” is not a legal excuse for copyright violations.

Looking for totally free images?   Yes there are a few sources offering unrestricted use. However, as you can imagine, they are somewhat limited in selection and might come with strings attached.

• Free images are available through WikiMedia Commons but the selection is limited and a credit line is required. 
• Unsplash.com posts 10 new photos every 10 days, but most are landscapes or other topics and may not be appropriate for business topics.  
• Gratisogrpahy.com also offers images of an eclectic nature with no strings attached.  The photographer, Ryan McGuire does invite users to “buy him a coffee” via Paypal 
• Free techy photos are available from Startup Stock Photos, and again selection is geared to startups, bloggers and other web developers.  

When creating websites, print projects and trade show materials, be sure to check that your images are legally obtained.  Ask the designer to provide validation of licenses. Or, have a contract in place that holds the agency, designer, or developer responsible for any copyright violations. 
 
Great images add power to great content and there are many images out there. Just be sure to play by the rules to avoid problems down the road.

The web provides a plethora of content including articles, editorials, infographics, images, videos, and photographs.  While this content creates a great visual experience for web browsing and researching, it’s important to keep in mind copyright and intellectual property right laws if you wish to utilize any content on a website, blog or online channel.

Many people still believe they can just “right click” and copy whatever they want and use it on a blog, website, presentation, or podcast. That is certainly not the case.

If it is not originally produced in-house, images and videos must be licensed from the image owner or a stock photo source. There are numerous providers that offer photos, images and videos. However, be careful, as there are often limitations to how, when, and where these images may be used.

Currently there are two types of licenses available for images:  Royalty-Free and Rights Managed. 

Royalty-Free images are low in price and can, in most cases, be used for digital and print projects without any further expense. Print projects do require a higher resolution image and, depending upon the purchase source, are more expensive than a small lower-resolution image for a website. 

Some popular sites for these images are Bigstock Photo, iStockPhoto, Fotolia, and Shutterstock.  These offer either monthly or annual subscriptions, or a pay-as-you-go model. The images in these collections change based on seasonal themes. Their low price means the image may pop up on a large number of projects, advertisements, eBooks, etc. 

There is also the risk that a competitor will use the same image in their ad campaigns. In 2004 Dell and Gateway used the same image in their back-to-school ad campaigns.  

Rights Managed (RM) images are utilized when companies don’t have a budget for a photographer to shoot photos for their projects, but would prefer something more exclusive than the Royalty-Free option. The license is worded in such a way that it protects the buyer for a set period of time, in select media channels, so as to avoid brand confusion.

For example, if a company were to run a Spring Cleaning event, it could license the image for a 60 day period, during the promotional campaign. After that time period it no longer has use of the image without renewing the license. These licenses can run over $1,000 or more, but can be less expensive than custom photography.

Popular RM sources include Corbis Images, Getty Images, and SuperStock, which all also offer royalty-free images. The quality, selection, and price of images varies widely based on the company utilized and the use of the image.  It is important to read the license agreement to know the terms of usage and what is legally allowed. 

Earlier this year an associate built a website and just “grabbed a photo” off the Internet and posted it on their website.  A few months later they were contacted by the legal department of Getty Images. Getty is very proactive in protecting their image library and the client was sent an invoice for un-authorized use of the image.  The penalty was $1,200, as the image was from a Rights Managed photo collection. Pleading ignorance, or that “someone else did it,” is not a legal excuse for copyright violations.

Looking for totally free images?   Yes there are a few sources offering unrestricted use. However, as you can imagine, they are somewhat limited in selection and might come with strings attached.

• Free images are available through WikiMedia Commons but the selection is limited and a credit line is required. 
• Unsplash.com posts 10 new photos every 10 days, but most are landscapes or other topics and may not be appropriate for business topics.  
• Gratisogrpahy.com also offers images of an eclectic nature with no strings attached.  The photographer, Ryan McGuire does invite users to “buy him a coffee” via Paypal 
• Free techy photos are available from Startup Stock Photos, and again selection is geared to startups, bloggers and other web developers.  

When creating websites, print projects and trade show materials, be sure to check that your images are legally obtained.  Ask the designer to provide validation of licenses. Or, have a contract in place that holds the agency, designer, or developer responsible for any copyright violations. 
 
Great images add power to great content and there are many images out there. Just be sure to play by the rules to avoid problems down the road.

At the recent Content Marketing World 2015 event, many of the speakers highlighted the evolution of content marketing and how new interactive technologies create new engagement opportunities.

As more content is posted online, in emails, and presented in webinars to clients every day, it is becoming quite a challenge to reach and create an impact on any target audience.  Companies need to work closely with their communications teams and agencies to make sure the solutions they implement are right for their particular needs. 

We would like to share with our readers some of the new functionalities that are emerging in the market.

In this issue we highlight five interactive content components:

* Surveys

* Interactive White Papers

* Configurators

* Quizzes

* Lookbooks 

Surveys

Surveys are showing up more on websites, Facebook, and in webinars. Market changes, media reports and a customer’s past experiences can all influence your audience’s perception of the industry. There may be an opinion that is widely held that could either prevent or drive involvement with retail automotive industry brands. Knowing these views can be vital to your marketing strategy when creating new content for your site.

Through surveys, you can gain insight into the choices people make when using services such as yours and what they may like/dislike concerning how the industry functions. Or gather information as to how they view different vendors or brands.  Responses gained from surveys can influence website copy, help determine blog post content and flesh out your FAQ page. Making simple content changes to important pages on your website could help increase sales and leads.  We have also had great success pulling trends from surveys and using them for press releases that help to create a lot of attention and further drive traffic to the company’s website. Surveys do not have to be expensive. A service like SurveyMonkey makes the process quite simple, at very little cost.

Interactive White Papers

White papers are a great way to convey detailed information. However, the standard format is a static PDF file.  An interactive white paper can be web based using tab navigation, animated graphics, infographics, and possibly a quiz or two.  This makes the experience both informative and enjoyable.  Offering a PDF version that incorporates some of the visual graphics of the online version is a good idea. This allows engaged readers to share or save the information presented.

Configurators

Configurators are popular as consumers enter the buying funnel.  Think about the “Build Your Vehicle” configurators on every vehicle manufacturer’s website.  They help an auto shopper view a virtual vehicle in a selected color and with all their preferred options.  Then the shopper can search to see if the “configured vehicle” is available in a local auto dealer’s inventory.  If a product or service can be customized, consider using a configurator.

Quizzes

An organization can take a small set of stats or facts and turn them into an online quiz to test the knowledge of their visitors.  These quizzes can utilize multimedia content and be embedded on most websites and blogs. Qzzr offers both a free and paid solutions for developing interactive quizzes.

Lookbooks

While Lookbooks originated in the fashion industry to highlight new collections, the concept has morphed into and been adopted in other verticals. Think of a Lookbook as a PDF on steroids that incorporates visual elements not unlike Pinterest. A company presentation or product demonstration created in a PDF file can be uploaded to a Lookbook publisher. This then converts it into a page-turning version that can be embedded on a website or newsletter.  It can be a powerful tool for a company launching a new product or service as it allows text and visual elements to be multi-device friendly.  Publitas.com is one provider which offers a free branded solution or a version without branding at a nominal price.  

It’s important to remember that using interactive content is not a gimmick. It must be part of the content that is shared with the reader. Keep it relevant, informative and compelling.

At the recent Content Marketing World 2015 event, many of the speakers highlighted the evolution of content marketing and how new interactive technologies create new engagement opportunities.

As more content is posted online, in emails, and presented in webinars to clients every day, it is becoming quite a challenge to reach and create an impact on any target audience.  Companies need to work closely with their communications teams and agencies to make sure the solutions they implement are right for their particular needs. 

We would like to share with our readers some of the new functionalities that are emerging in the market.

In this issue we highlight five interactive content components:

* Surveys

* Interactive White Papers

* Configurators

* Quizzes

* Lookbooks 

Surveys

Surveys are showing up more on websites, Facebook, and in webinars. Market changes, media reports and a customer’s past experiences can all influence your audience’s perception of the industry. There may be an opinion that is widely held that could either prevent or drive involvement with retail automotive industry brands. Knowing these views can be vital to your marketing strategy when creating new content for your site.

Through surveys, you can gain insight into the choices people make when using services such as yours and what they may like/dislike concerning how the industry functions. Or gather information as to how they view different vendors or brands.  Responses gained from surveys can influence website copy, help determine blog post content and flesh out your FAQ page. Making simple content changes to important pages on your website could help increase sales and leads.  We have also had great success pulling trends from surveys and using them for press releases that help to create a lot of attention and further drive traffic to the company’s website. Surveys do not have to be expensive. A service like SurveyMonkey makes the process quite simple, at very little cost.

Interactive White Papers

White papers are a great way to convey detailed information. However, the standard format is a static PDF file.  An interactive white paper can be web based using tab navigation, animated graphics, infographics, and possibly a quiz or two.  This makes the experience both informative and enjoyable.  Offering a PDF version that incorporates some of the visual graphics of the online version is a good idea. This allows engaged readers to share or save the information presented.

Configurators

Configurators are popular as consumers enter the buying funnel.  Think about the “Build Your Vehicle” configurators on every vehicle manufacturer’s website.  They help an auto shopper view a virtual vehicle in a selected color and with all their preferred options.  Then the shopper can search to see if the “configured vehicle” is available in a local auto dealer’s inventory.  If a product or service can be customized, consider using a configurator.

Quizzes

An organization can take a small set of stats or facts and turn them into an online quiz to test the knowledge of their visitors.  These quizzes can utilize multimedia content and be embedded on most websites and blogs. Qzzr offers both a free and paid solutions for developing interactive quizzes.

Lookbooks

While Lookbooks originated in the fashion industry to highlight new collections, the concept has morphed into and been adopted in other verticals. Think of a Lookbook as a PDF on steroids that incorporates visual elements not unlike Pinterest. A company presentation or product demonstration created in a PDF file can be uploaded to a Lookbook publisher. This then converts it into a page-turning version that can be embedded on a website or newsletter.  It can be a powerful tool for a company launching a new product or service as it allows text and visual elements to be multi-device friendly.  Publitas.com is one provider which offers a free branded solution or a version without branding at a nominal price.  

It’s important to remember that using interactive content is not a gimmick. It must be part of the content that is shared with the reader. Keep it relevant, informative and compelling.

Today’s consumers look to social media as a prime way to reach out to businesses for customer service needs. From requesting help with a problem, to simple answers to product questions, many consumers take to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, Facebook upped the ante for businesses with a new way to communicate with customers that post to their Facebook wall. It comes with public accountability ratings to motivate businesses to pay attention to those customers and respond quickly.

In the past, when a business encountered a complaint on its Facebook page, it had to reply publicly and ask the customer to message the business to take the conversation into a more private setting. Of course, it was always the customer’s choice whether to comply, or continue to air their frustrations publicly on the company’s Facebook page.  The company could not initiate the private conversation – only the consumer could.

On August 5, Facebook began rolling out a new, more business-friendly way for companies to reply to customers. Now, when a consumer posts to a company’s Facebook page, the company can chose to either message the customer privately, or respond publicly. Presumably, this new feature is an effort by Facebook to allow businesses to communicate with unhappy customers without having to do so in a public setting. The trade-off is that Facebook will also hold businesses accountable for their non-responsiveness and make the results public.

Consumers visiting business Facebook pages will now know immediately if the company is paying attention and how responsive it is. Perhaps the page visitor is simply visiting to decide if they wish to do business with the company. It certainly won’t impress them if the business is labeled as unresponsive. To qualify for the “very responsive to messages” label, companies must respond to “90 percent of messages and have a median response time of less than five minutes.” That’s a pretty tall order for most companies. But, through the various notification tools and apps, isn’t impossible.

If a company chooses to message privately, rather than reply publicly, the customer’s post indicates to other visitors that “the business responded privately.”  In this way, other Page visitors can know that the business handled the request. There are certainly occasions when a company may find it more appropriate to respond privately, such as customer complaints, grievances or concerns. Facebook seems to recognize that some situations are more delicate than others and does not differentiate between public versus private replies when calculating a company’s responsiveness rating.

It is imperative to be responsive to your customer’s concerns. Not just because it’s one of the most basic good business practices, but also because it is one of the first steps in building brand loyalty. If customers see that a business is responsive to their (or others) needs, they can then gain the impression that the business cares about its customers. Being labeled as unresponsive to customers could make a potential customer think twice about doing business with you. It could also show your current customers that you aren’t paying attention and leave the impression that you don’t care.

If your company hasn’t been paying attention to customers who post on your Facebook page, now would be a good time to start.

Today’s consumers look to social media as a prime way to reach out to businesses for customer service needs. From requesting help with a problem, to simple answers to product questions, many consumers take to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, Facebook upped the ante for businesses with a new way to communicate with customers that post to their Facebook wall. It comes with public accountability ratings to motivate businesses to pay attention to those customers and respond quickly.

In the past, when a business encountered a complaint on its Facebook page, it had to reply publicly and ask the customer to message the business to take the conversation into a more private setting. Of course, it was always the customer’s choice whether to comply, or continue to air their frustrations publicly on the company’s Facebook page.  The company could not initiate the private conversation – only the consumer could.

On August 5, Facebook began rolling out a new, more business-friendly way for companies to reply to customers. Now, when a consumer posts to a company’s Facebook page, the company can chose to either message the customer privately, or respond publicly. Presumably, this new feature is an effort by Facebook to allow businesses to communicate with unhappy customers without having to do so in a public setting. The trade-off is that Facebook will also hold businesses accountable for their non-responsiveness and make the results public.

Consumers visiting business Facebook pages will now know immediately if the company is paying attention and how responsive it is. Perhaps the page visitor is simply visiting to decide if they wish to do business with the company. It certainly won’t impress them if the business is labeled as unresponsive. To qualify for the “very responsive to messages” label, companies must respond to “90 percent of messages and have a median response time of less than five minutes.” That’s a pretty tall order for most companies. But, through the various notification tools and apps, isn’t impossible.

If a company chooses to message privately, rather than reply publicly, the customer’s post indicates to other visitors that “the business responded privately.”  In this way, other Page visitors can know that the business handled the request. There are certainly occasions when a company may find it more appropriate to respond privately, such as customer complaints, grievances or concerns. Facebook seems to recognize that some situations are more delicate than others and does not differentiate between public versus private replies when calculating a company’s responsiveness rating.

It is imperative to be responsive to your customer’s concerns. Not just because it’s one of the most basic good business practices, but also because it is one of the first steps in building brand loyalty. If customers see that a business is responsive to their (or others) needs, they can then gain the impression that the business cares about its customers. Being labeled as unresponsive to customers could make a potential customer think twice about doing business with you. It could also show your current customers that you aren’t paying attention and leave the impression that you don’t care.

If your company hasn’t been paying attention to customers who post on your Facebook page, now would be a good time to start.

As far as content marketing goes, the most popular types of content educate and help your audience make informed decisions. It’s not enough, however, to simply write a blog article and slap it on your company’s website. All content (great or otherwise) needs syndication of some sort. This could be through newsletters, via social media, or other avenues.

What some people miss, however, is the power inherent in publishing content written by company executives traveling to conferences educating attendees. There is a huge additional audience that may be unable to attend these conferences. In fact, some within the automotive industry estimate that just 5 percent of auto dealers have conference expenses in their budgets. If 95 percent of your audience isn’t attending the conference you are presenting at, how then are you planning on reaching them?

As social media reach continues to decrease and becomes more of a pay-to-play model, there is still one platform that is free - and actually increasing in popularity - LinkedIn. In the B2B world, there has never been a better platform for exposure and connections. Since LinkedIn has adopted a Facebook-style newsfeed and opened up its publishing platform to everyone, rather than just its top members, it has exploded for content marketers.

Daniel Roth, the Executive Editor at LinkedIn, shared in a recent article that LinkedIn now has over 1 million unique writers publishing more than 130,000 posts a week. In addition, he stated that about 45% of readers are in the upper ranks of their industries and the average post now reaches professionals in 21 industries and 9 countries.

Many companies have LinkedIn company pages. These pages are great for sharing relevant product announcements, press releases and other general news. The problem is that the reach is limited to how many followers your company has. Many start-ups, and even larger companies, don’t have significant follower bases. And, even when they do, not many are paying attention.

However, what DOES get attention is articles published under a company executive’s personal LinkedIn account. These aren’t filtered. These are shared. All of that executive’s contacts are notified that they published an article. I’d be willing to bet that most company executives have quite a few personal (or business) connections on LinkedIn. While that post on your company page may go unseen, the articles published by a company executive has a much better chance of being viewed - and not only by their connections. LinkedIn offers the ability to “tag” articles with up to three relevant categories. Think of this as LinkedIn’s version of a hashtag. This allows people to search out content relevant to their industries and provides increased reach. In addition, the way the articles are set up invites readers to comment and can be a catalyst for great discussions and interactions.

Keep in mind, however, that if the content being published strays too much into promotion, there is always a chance that the author gets tuned out. By maintaining some great strategies of content marketing and writing and publishing content that is industry relevant, educational and topical, LinkedIn has now proven to be a very viable platform on which to reach your audience.