Inbound Industry Report: March 6, 2012

Top marketing news, articles and tips from the first week of March 2012.

Facebook Timeline Comes to Brand Pages

Last week, marketers were abuzz a

bout Facebook’s rollout of updated brand pages, allowing brand pages to look and function in “Timeline” style. The update is available for brand pages now, and will automatically roll out for every page on March 30. To help you make the transition, we’ve compiled the following starter resources:  

• The Basics: Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand by Victoria Ransom (@victoria_ransom), Mashable
• The Details: The Complete Guide to Setting Up the New Facebook Page Design by Pamela Vaughan (@pamelump), HubSpot
• The Work-arounds: Fan Gates Irrelevant; So How Do I Get Facebook Fans? by Brian Carter (@briancarter), All Facebook

Check out how Starbucks utilizes its three "above-fold" tab panels to promote areas of interaction. Since this will be one of the first things visitors see on your Facebook page, consider your placement carefully.

LinkedIn & PPC: Social Media for Personal Branding

What does the professional networking site and pay-per-click advertising have in common? Christopher S. Penn (@cspenn) advises LinkedIn users to “stop thinking about LinkedIn as a professional resume, and start thinking about it like a pay-per-click advertisement.”

Penn suggests the following areas to increase your LinkedIn profile views over time:

• Who will find you? Incorporate relevant, targeted keywords throughout your copy.
• Just as ads need to be eye-catching, so should your profile. Use a decent headshot.
• Include a compelling call-to-action in your headline.

*Penn uses his own profile as an example

Brush Up on Strategic Copywriting

Even veteran copywriters can benefit from the great reminders Amy Harrison (@harrisonamy) offers in the article, 3 Psychological Triggers that Can Move Your Audience from Indifference to Desire. Harrison’s three psychological triggers that pique and maintain curiosity are as follows:

1. Highlight a gap in knowledge in your headlines, and offer a solution that readers can’t live without.
2. Compel readers with a simple tease in effort to not lose them.
3. Don’t stop at the headline. Reveal information throughout the article’s entirety to not only keep attention, but also encourage action.

Once you master the headlines and grabbed your readers’ attention, improve sales copy by ditching the fluffy adjectives. Dee Leopold, managing director of Harvard’s Business School, says, “The best [letters of] recommendations have a lot of verbs. They say, ‘She did this,’ versus adjectives that simply describe you.”

Pump up your copywriting with verbs to successfully sell your product or service—action verbs are specific, persuasive and they increase credibility.

PR Tips

Chris Winfield (@chriswinfield) shares 92 Ways to Get and Maximize Press Coverage, which are applicable to organizations of any size. Winfield’s approach is integrated—going beyond traditional PR and media relations tactics, he encourages programs fueled by social, web and content. Below I've outlined his recommended process:

• Define—Know what defines your brand, and the kind of coverage you want.
• Research—Build a media list, and become familiar with target reporters and their work.
• Connect—Connect by email or phone; become sincerely interested in growing your relationships.
• Socialize—Be active on social media; interact with and attribute reporters.
• Attract—Use content development and other inbound marketing efforts to bring reporters to you.
• Share—Treat coverage like it’s your own content, and drive traffic to the stories.
• Measure—Track metrics and monitor analytics for referral traffic.

*Strong tip for relationship building

At PR 20/20, we take a similar approach, treating PR as a component of the larger, integrated marketing strategy. Media relations efforts are an ongoing relationship, conducted with professionalism and respect.

In the News

• Yammer raised $85 million in a new round of funding. The enterprise social network saw sales triple last year, gaining further interest of investors.
• Facebook explained its News Feed sorting algorithm, and how often posts are actually seen in pitches for its new advertising product, Reach Generator. On average, 16% of an individual’s friends or company’s followers see shared posts.
• comScore’s year-long research shows that Google+ is a “desert wasteland,” despite its 90 million registered users. G+ users spend an average of three minutes per month on the site, compared to seven hours on Facebook. The Wall Street Journal provides an in-depth look at the lack of engagement.
• LinkedIn rolls out its “Follow Company” button to keep customers, job seekers and prospects up-to-date on company news. Want to add it to your page? Follow these step-by-step installation instructions.
• HubSpot users can now customize performance goals in its updated Dashboard, comparing monthly traffic and leads numbers to previous totals. As a certified HubSpot VAR and partner agency, this update provides increased insight into inbound marketing efforts.

Bookmark of the Week

Kissmetrics (@KISSMetrics) defines the six essential elements of a landing page in the infographic, The Blueprint for a Perfectly Testable Landing Page.

What articles made your top list last week? We’d like to hear your opinions.

 Stay updated: Subscribe to the PR 20/20 blog, check us out on Facebook or follow the team on Twitter.