If you haven’t heard, this week bills were halted both in the House and Senate that could potentially heavily censor the internet. As a Denver online marketing company we found this a subject of great interest. After sitting back and watching the storm of online changes we have compiled a list of lessons that can be learn from what happened this week and be applied for years to come.

Internet Users are a Majority

We could camp here for the entire post but there is more to this subject. However, the online world showed that they are a force that can persuade through majority opinions when united under a cause. It’s been a while since Internet users were in the minority but this is one of the largest movements that has been successfully organized and implemented in America. It really shows the power of the Internet currently.

Internet Users are well Informed

The majority of these pieces of legislation were meant to be passed in order to crack down on pirated music, movies, and other media. These things should be cracked down on — however Internet users quickly realized SOPA was more than that.  SOPA allowed for a looser interpretation of what is deemed as copyright infringement enablement, allowing potentially any website with user comment or user-uploaded content functionality, such as ours, to be automatically liable for copyright infringement by default. Internet users, through being able to share and analyze the bill online, were able to discover and publicize this game-changing legal liability.

Internet Users are Redefining

What can be taken from this overall is that through the power of the internet, legislation can be once again swayed through the power of the people. Previously there hasn’t been an efficient way for legal information to flow to the people in order for them to be educated and follow politics properly. Now the Internet has provided that. The American government has seen how other countries have been shaped recently through online media and the most recent opposition to SOPA shows that Americans aren’t afraid to use the power of the online community either.

Conclusion

As the Internet expands there will be even more legislation regarding it.  In the way the American government is shaped, we have the opportunity to voice our opinions. So we should stay informed on government proceedings in order to make sure that our liberties surrounding the Internet stay protected. If you have any questions or comments about SOPA feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Keeping the conversation open on the subject will help us further our knowledge of this situation and how to approach it in the future.

View this info graph on the SOPA movement from Google. Click the image for more information on how you can continue to support the movement.

Inbound Marketing Plays into all of this

The new power of the internet and internet users has not only changed politics, but marketing as well — companies increasingly need to focus on inbound marketing rather than outbound marketing. Come read our inbound marketing success stories and how you could benefit from our marketing services yourself.

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As a Denver Marketing company we spend time writing blog posts.  After many years of typing up posts on a weekly basis we began to wonder how other people continue to come up with weekly blog topics.  We even took to LinkedIn and asked three different professional groups how they continued to generate blog topics and keep readers coming back for more.  Sadly, no one took the time to answer any of the questions we asked, so we will be putting this article together on our own.  However, we believe that we have a relatively comprehensive guide here that can help generate post content for years to come.

Blogging about updates

One of the easiest things to blog about are updates in relation to your business.  Whether it’s technological updates, pricing updates, or government updates, updates allow for instant blog topic material.  The great thing is that as a person blogs about updates they become even more highly recognized as experts in their field.  This causes people to continue to return to the blog every time there is a new update, leading to more traffic coming to your site.

Blogging about your expertise

We are all in business for a reason.  One of the best ways to avoid typer’s block is to blog about what we know best.  Not only does this  make a business seem more reputable, but they also can stand out as an expert in their field.  This definitely makes it easy to come up with topics to blog about and it also can help generate leads for business.

Blogging about your services

Yet another great topic of knowledge for a business is the services they offer — very easy to write about and a great way to keep customers updated whenever services change.  Being open about the services offered allow for potential clients to feel that the company is going to work well with them and not hide anything from them.

Blogging about lessons learned

The saying “You learn something new everyday” applies here.  We are constantly learning in business.  If there is a certain aspect of your job or company in which you learned a lesson, share it.  Even though “history may repeat itself,” posting lessons learned can help shorten the learning curve.  Being able to relate a lesson learned back to a particular aspect of business or experience can also help people remember the lesson learned better because people remember things better in story form.

Blogging about research 

We all do research in business.  Granted, some research we want to keep to ourselves, but some research is great to share with the online community.  Sharing research can be a great conversation starter.  It can also help readers see that your business is dedicated to staying current as well as continually searching out the best way to do business.

These are five great ways to generate blog topics. Are there ways that you generate topics that we didn’t list here?  Please share them with us in the comments below!

Take it to the next level!

Now you have a great blog, full of great posts.  Now it’s time to spruce it up with bleeding-edge web typography. Come find out how in our new e-book:

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As a Denver internet marketing company, we are constantly looking for the most effective way to spread the message about ourselves and our clients.  This is the main reason why we post questions every week day to our Facebook and Twitter accounts.  However, we also do testing behind the scenes as well.  This month we ran a test to see which email newsletter title was the most effective.  Here are some things we learned from it:

For version A, we sent our email newsletter out with the traditional title style, which states the Month and then the newsletter. As seen below:

• A: May Newsletter: Modern Lessons from Ancient History, Facebook Events Upgrade, and More

Then for version B, we removed the date and “newsletter” and just went with the main subjects covered in the newsletter.

• B: Modern Lessons from Ancient History, Facebook Events Upgrade, and More

This is traditionally referred to as A/B testing.  When running an A/B test the “control” or usual specimen is offered and then a new specimen is offered and then the results are tracked.  We learned from this A/B test that removing the “(Date) Newsletter” language is extremely instrumental in the amount of click-thru’s that are seen.  The unique thing about this graph is it only runs just past mid-day.  To see the spread over the span of time, we would see a gap widen between the two.

This not only shocked us, but also gave us a stark reminder that we should be taking the time to test how we market ourselves in order to reach the greatest number of our followers.  This is something that we believe every company should do, in order to assure that they are maximizing the potential of their marketing campaigns.

We also do this with our social media posts as well.  On a bi-monthly basis we assess our post response and determine if we should continue to post at the same time or see if there is potentially a better time to post our daily questions.

As a continued reminder we use answers to those questions to help shape what we do, so if you have an opinion feel free to enter the conversation.  This week we learned from one Facebook fan that he is subscribed to six email newsletters and at least skims through each of them. We learned from a few other Facebook fans that the only reason why they sign up for newsletters is because of free gifts promised with the sign-ups.

So please enter the conversation on our Facebook or Twitter pages.  We’d love to hear your opinion! It helps us better ourselves, so that we can better serve our clients.

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Lab beaker image courtesy of Svengraph, released under a CC By 3.0 license.

In both January and March we held two separate contests, in each giving away an iPod Touch.

In January our contest was promoted through our various social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and this blog) as well as through a social media company called IWearYourShirt.

Then in March we hosted a similar contest with our same social media accounts, which correlated with promotion from The Adventurous 500.

Not only did we net some great videos from both IWearYourShirt and TheAdventurous500 but we also gained some serious audience member numbers as well.

Since January our Facebook fans have increased 590%, our email list has grown 363%, and our Twitter following has seen a 320% increase.

Now obviously we gained an increase from using IWearYourShirt and The Adventurous 500 but we can also correlate this back directly to the contest as well.  There’s something about giving away free gifts that draws the masses.  The unique thing about contests is that it draws in people who hadn’t even thought that they may need to use your services.  Traditional advertising works because people have a need and so they see companies who fulfill that need.  Contests work because they build rapport with consumers as well as connect with them on a more personal level.  When consumers make this connection they are more likely to recommend your services to friends in need.

When a company considers running a contest there are three steps that should be planned out beforehand.

1. What are the goals to gain from this?

Are you looking to gain a Twitter following, Facebook Fans, Blog readers, or subscriptions to your email list?  Maybe you want to gain all four. The thing is to make sure you have concise goals on what you expect.  If you make sure that the other two steps fall in line with your goals, then you should set yourself for a great return on your contest investment.

2. Is the giveaway relevant to the audience?

First, think of giving away your product or services, or at least a discount.  People are following you for your services (unless they’re a personal friend) so give them something that they can relate to.  One thing that will surely increase your social media following is to get your current followers excited about a contest so much they they are sharing with friends.  This can also be accomplished through giving away things that people like, whether it’s a gift card, electronics, or even random gift baskets.  The main thing is to make sure that the giveaway is something that appeals to the audience, otherwise the contest will fizzle.

3. How should it be promoted?

The promotion style should line up directly with the goals set out for the contest.  If you are looking for more Facebook Fans then have something requiring “Likes” on Facebook (you may even consider running Facebook ads to your target audience).  If you are looking for more followers on Twitter, require ReTweets and people to follow you, as well as think about adding multiple #hashtags to create a universal reach.  The key is to promote it heavily, but not to the point that it seems like SPAM.

We have found that contests are a great way to increase a company’s social media following.  The key to is be active in the contest and communicate with new audience members.  Contests are a great, low-budget alternative to online advertising.  A company can gain a significant following without the costs of traditional web advertisement, because the community is doing all of the sharing.

We hope this gives you some good ideas on how to effectively run a contest to increase your marketing audience. As always if you have any questions about online contests or any other web needs, please drop us a line, and we will be happy to help you.

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Dakota Farms is a cooperative of family-owned bison and beef ranchers in several midwestern states in the US, along with several provinces in Canada. They hired us to build a consumer-facing website with information about the families on the ranches that produce their meat products, along with recipe and cooking information for bison and beef. We built the new website in the Drupal content management system. With this new site, Dakota Farms can create a page with a biography and photo collage for each of their participating ranch families, accessible to end users through a menu page listing all the participating ranch families.

A page for one of the participating ranch families

In addition, we also created a section of the website for listing various bison and beef recipes, along with cooking tips and instructions.  The recipe pages are entirely jQuery-powered, with an accordion menu in the left-side dynamically updating the recipe displayed on the page, all without needing a page refresh. Since these pages are also powered by the Drupal platform, Dakota Farms can add, edit and manage recipes, images and cooking tips as easily as they can manage the pages for their participating ranch families.

The Bison Info & Recipes page

We launched the website in April. You can find the newly-launched website here: www.YourRancher.com. Come check it out!

If you’re interested in our help in building a website for your own company or organization, contact us and we will be happy to talk with you.

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