Too much talk about Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter ‘followers’ is dumming down your analytics. If you were asked for the most important metric you track related to your online marketing efforts, what would you say? What is the very first thing that came to mind? Depending on your responsibilities within your organization and the goals for your website, there are bound to be a variety of responses. Social media managers might say “share of voice” or “social mentions”. Or maybe they will point to traffic sent to the main website from their social activities such as Facebook pages, Twitter or YouTube videos. Let’s hope they didn’t say Facebook likes or Twitter followers as their core measurement focus. Content strategists might say they focus on measuring their most popular pages or possibly the most popular landing pages (there is a difference). This is good information and easy to obtain. I hope they didn’t say they measure the number of blog posts produced by their team each month as a measure...

Though it’s been said many times before, it’s worth repeating: If you have a website, then you’re a publisher, and you need to think like one. This means you need to produce fresh content on a regular basis. Developing a content marketing mindset means always being on the lookout for new content possibilities. Wearing the publisher’s hat Like most things, achieving the goals in a content marketing strategy takes some effort. For a business owner or marketing director to add publisher to the number of hats they already wear requires a commitment of time and energy. Unfortunately, most businesses today don’t have the budget to add more staff in order to tackle the objectives in a content marketing program, so it becomes a matter of juggling the resources they have. So, how can businesses make it work? Get executive buy-in For starters, getting top-down buy-in is critical, especially for small businesses. Key executives need to recognize that a content marketing strategy is crucial...