Personally, public speaking scares the crap out of me. People staring at me for almost an hour, trying to not stutter or talk too fast, and striving to meet the expectations of a session description would turn me red and shaky for hours. Apparently, none of the MN Search Summit speakers are subject to those nerves (or if they are, they hid it with the skill of a magician). Since early this morning our team has been bustling around the University of St. Thomas listening to speakers from brands like Moz, Distilled, LinkedIn, Dell, and several others. Each session was full of advice, tips, tools, and laughs—no shaking or red faces. Our team ended the day feeling empowered to take our digital marketing to the next level; eager to get back to client work on Monday. Below are some of the key takeaways from the afternoon speakers that we just couldn't wait to share: Rand Fishkin's "Why Content Marketing Fails" - If you forget about the community behind your content, good luck getting shares, traffic, and viral status! People share what’s close to their hearts, ignites passion, and/or lands within their personal interests. Your content, done properly, can reveal the community behind it. And that is what will buoy it to the top. –Brooke Furry
- The vast majority of content marketing efforts fail. Content marketing is not about a conversion on the first visit. Or the second. Or the third. It’s about building a relationship with your customers. Content marketing fails when unrealistic expectations regarding a conversion have been set. – Alexis Hall
- “Good enough” content often performs well when a community is behind it. If you know your community and target them in your content, you will receive more likes, shares, etc. –Kate Heithoff
- Setting the bar for good content should be settled at "good enough.” Focusing content on an audience will slowly build a community. That community will then determine on their own which of the "good enough" posts, which could be 1 in 1,000, are worth going viral. – Andy Thomson
- Before you create content, ask the question “Who Will Share and Amplify This and Why?” Even great content marketing efforts fail if there is no community that is interested in and invested in sharing the content. –Alexis Hall
Adria Saracino's "How to Match Your Marketing Efforts with Customer Emotions" - People are not robots. Don’t discount the role of emotions in content consumption and purchases. Consider where your prospects sit on the “consumption matrix” – do they love or hate the process? Is it a low or high investment? Is there potential for analysis paralysis somewhere along the way? Be a sensitive marketer. Appeal to emotions, happy or sad, because content that summons emotion performs better. –Brooke Furry
- People share because they want to feel involved, or they want to educate others, nourish the bonds they share with others, support a cause, or define oneself. How does your content help them do that? – Eliza Steely
- Some of the questions you have to ask throughout your efforts aren't customer focused—they're you or brand focused: what do you stand for? What problem are you trying to solve? What defines success? Why do you go to work each day? –Eliza Steely
- We feel before we think, so make content that triggers emotions – Kate Heithoff
Connie Bensen's "Creating a Culture for Social Marketing" - A social business integrates social into the workday. To do this, a company must provide the team with the resources, training and certification to do so. Connie Bensen describes the Dell Playbook for employee social participation to include not just brand guidelines, but also organic keywords, content optimization guidelines and value proposition messaging. This resource gives employees an oppotunity to integrate social into their workday in a way that is very beneficial to the business. – Alexis Hall
- Companies should integrate social media into the workday and create brand advocates for yourself – Michael Bak
- We need real-time marketing! With intelligent technology, solid strategy, and bold marketers, maybe we can improve the rate of successful content. – Andy Thomson
- In order to embed social into the fabric of your company, encourage collaboration among your team. Connie Bensen describes creating a core weekly team to drive change at Dell. She also recommends using early adopters to share best practices. – Alexis Hall
Jason Miller's "Welcome to the Funnel" - “Take your content and treat it like leftover turkey. Slice and dice it and use it in as many ways possible.” Repurpose it! – Ryan Rutz
- If you’re not promoting your “Good content,” you’re missing the boat!!! The visual is the new headline!!!!! –Michael Bak
- You need to pay to promote your own “good content.” If you do not set aside money to do so in your marketing plan, your content will not do as well. Setting aside a budget to promote your content on social media channels can help it gain more visibility and reach a larger audience. – Kate Heithoff
- Think of your content as “Leftover turkey” . . . it can stretch for days into almost anything! –Michael Bak
- Encompassing the content lifecycle, Jason illustrated the process of creating a focused piece of content which, once it shows merit, can be sliced and diced like a turkey. Those pieces of turkey should be utilized over and over until no one wants the turkey anymore. –Andy Thomson
Today was an incredible inaugural MN Search Summit. The speakers were dynamic and insightful, the food was nice and summery (brats and burgers are wonderful even if the sun isn't out) and the crowd was the expected Minnesota-nice. A HUGE thank you to all of the volunteers, sponsors, and MN Search Board Members that put on the event. It was amazing, and you should be proud! We definitely can't wait to come back next year!
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© Online Marketing Blog from TopRank®, 2014. | 18 More Amazing Takeaways from #MNSummit | http://www.toprankblog.com  
HOOOOOOOOONK. That's how our morning started—honking cars as we inched our way through the rush hour traffic moving towards downtown Minneapolis. The gorgeous peach-colored sunrise coupled with the intoxicating smell of coffee helped us relax despite the stress of a morning commute. Today's drive was different than the rest. Instead of driving to our offices with views of Lake Minnetonka and the occasional deer, we headed into the bustle of the University of St. Thomas to attend the MN Search Summit—an event focused on search, social and digital marketing. Fourteen of my TopRank coworkers and I are spending the day hearing advice from local experts, gleaning insights from industry thought leaders, and networking with some of Minneapolis's savvy marketers. So far, we're halfway through the day. Caffeine has kicked in, the tweets are flying, and the gift bags have been opened. And TopRank is impressed. Between the two speaking tracks, we've already learned several new things about landing pages, search, analytics…the list is endless. Well…not endless. Check out the list of advice and tips our team found helpful below—and stay tuned for the rest! Oli Gardner’s “Advanced Landing Page Optimization” - In order to create “delightful” landing pages, don’t break the “scent trail.” If a person’s searching for something specific, keep the scent trail strong from search engine to your landing page – so they find what they originally searched for (smelled!) and don’t get frustrated and start the search over again. -Brooke Furry
- “If you give me cause to pause, I might not convert.” -Brooke Furry
- People like to be led, so tell them what to do. For instance, after someone signs up for your webinar, ask them to join your email list. Always go for the extra point. -Emily Bacheller
- Our goal as marketers should be to delight and convert our customers. Oli Gardner describes the Attention Ratio as the ratio of interactive elements on a site (links) compared to campaign goals (you campaign goals should always be one). As the Attention Ratio decreases, conversion ratio will increase. Give people one thing to do – your campaign goal (i.e. watch a video, download white paper, etc.). For the ideal landing page experience remove extraneous elements, including social buttons, links to other relevant content and your top navigation. This will increase your conversion rate. The Attention Ratio is more important than button color, short forms or an above-the-fold CTA. -Alexis Hall
- 8% of men are colorblind–so don’t rely on colors -Michael Bak
Lee Odden’s “Where Does Search Fit in the Digital Marketing Mix?” - Your customers can be a gold mine of information. Ask them questions, talk to your sales team–learn what questions are being asked and map those to the stages of your buying cycle. Then create and curate content to address those things in order to optimize user experience. -Eliza Steely
- A multichannel customer is worth 2x as much as a customer that shops in one channel. Be sure to create a consistent experience throughout your channels to ensure you’re optimizing all experiences possible. -Kate Heithoff
- People ask their friends for advice on social channels because social is a discovery tool. Search is a validation tool where people cross-check their friends’ suggestions in order to validate the information. -Emily Bacheller
- Be eternally curious. Be an eternal student. Set objectives and goals for yourself to learn every day and there's no better way to learn that to connect with people who are solving similar problems or problems different than you -Eliza Steely
- Bacon and kittens are not the best approach to digital marketing – Eliza Steely
Justin Cutroni’s “Moving to User Centric Measurement” - You can’t create unique experiences without segmentation. Create segmentation in your analytics and use that as your remarketing list, customize everything for them. Incorporating behavioral data is essential to reach the right type of audience -Eliza Steely
- Opportunities to engage with customers are growing exponentially, so analytics must grow too – what you measure must become more intentional and people-based. -Brooke Furry
- We want to thing about the user and the value they bring our company for years to come. For years we’ve been focused on the singular moment of conversion rates. We need to start looking beyond that to help us decide where to allocate funds based on the lifetime value of a customer, not just their singular purchases. -Eliza Steely
- The secret sauce is identifying your customers through IDs and inputting that into Anaylytics. You can then create a single user profile to identify their interactions through time. -Ryan Rutz
- In one example Justin shared, Google remarketing campaigns that included a behavior signal were 1300% more effective than standard campaigns. The takeaway? Any time you can gain insights (such as affinity) and use them to personalize the experience, do it. – Jesse Pickrain
It’s been a great summit so far! More digital marketing tidbits are coming. Check back later this evening for more insights from the TopRank team. Follow along on Twitter with the event hashtag: #MNSummit
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The Marketing Industry According to Google Autocomplete - As you can see in the image above, Google has it’s ideas about what content marketing means. While we obviously have our own ideas on what online marketing, blogging, and other terms mean, here’s a look a what Google Autocomplete thinks of some common marketing words and phrases. HubSpot With 1 Billion+ Travel Pins, Pinterest Gives Place Search An Upgrade - Forget the idea that Pinterest is all about fashion photos, cute animals and inspirational messages. The company says it's now hosting more than a billion Place Pins across four million Place Boards. Together, all this represents more than 300 unique countries and territories. Search Engine Land Google Removes Authorship Photos and Google+ Circle Counts From Search Results - Yesterday, Google’s John Muller made an announcement that broke marketers’ hearts: Google Authorship’s about to get a makeover. And it’s not the type of makeover that makes you say “ooo” and “ahh” and “how wonderful” — it’s the kind that could impact your search traffic. HubSpot What Happens In Just ONE Minute On Facebook [Infographic] - As thousands of new social media users log on every week, the numbers relating to the flow of information on Facebook become ever more staggering. This infographic from SumoCoupon illustrates just how much data is generated in a mere 60 seconds on Facebook. Social Media Today Social and Native Ads Are More Effective Than Email, Study Says - Marketers say that social media ads and native promotions are better for brands than email, according to Millward Brown Digital’s study for MediaBrix. AdWeek Study: 56% Of Viewers Skip Online Video Ads & 46% Say Any Ad Over 15-Seconds Is Too Long - After surveying viewer engagement with online video and video ads, data provider Adroit Digital found 56 percent of all its survey participants are likely to skip online video ads, while 46 percent said a video ad should be no more than 15 seconds in length. Marketing Land Facebook To Revamp Right-Hand-Side Ads Next Week; Warns Advertisers Of Price Hikes - Facebook announced that it will begin rolling out its redesigned right-hand-side ads early next week. The revamp of those ad units was originally announced in April. AllFacebook Videos Dominate Universal Search Results 65% of the Time [Study] - Since its inception in 2007, universal search results have have morphed to show a multitude of choices for searchers to choose from, like videos, images, maps, shopping results, and news. In its latest research, Searchmetrics studied the universal search results for millions of keywords over the course of one year (2013) to gauge what has recently changed, and how. Search Engine Watch Study: Teens heavily use Facebook, Instagram more often than Snapchat - One of the most pressing questions about Facebook's future revolves around teen usage. However, a new study by Forrester shows that maybe teens don't hate Facebook after all. Forrester surveyed more than 4,500 U.S. online users between 12 and 17 about their habits on social networks and apps. Among apps they use "all the time," both Facebook and Instagram finished ahead of Snapchat. Inside Facebook Owned Editorial Content Claims Majority of Media Spend on Mobile [Study] - A recent report from Sharethrough shows that branded editorial content on owned sites has attracted the lion's share, almost 70 percent, of editorial media spend. ClickZ Study: As Facebook reach drops, engagement rises — but not as much for brands - As both paid and organic Facebook reach become harder to come by, many page owners have discovered that engagement has risen or at least remained steady. Inside Facebook From our Online Marketing Community: In response to the post Curation and Repurposing to Extend the Life of Your Content Marketing, Ben Bradley wrote, “Great post Lee! I think you alluded to this but I am not sure if it was fully called out, one of the biggest benefits of re-purposing content is to get it to fit different distribution channels. For example, what performs on LinkedIn might not work well on Twitter, SlideShare, etc. I also think understanding which content types will fit each buyer persona, at each buy cycle stage, and on which distribution channel those people will be, can help make sure your re-purposing efforts are as efficient as possible.” On How SEO and Inbound Marketing Can Grow Your B2B Marketing Performance, Phil Smith shared, “Great post. In my opinion the prime reason businesses fail is because – as outlined in your post – they fail to understand how customers discover information on the web. Get this wrong and the whole inbound marketing process collapses.” And in response to the post 12 B2B Content Marketing Examples and Case Studies for 2014, UnveiltheWeb said, “I think the humor and videos are huge! People like to engage with content that either helps them solve a problem or entertains them.” What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
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