Don’t get me wrong: on-page optimization is still vital. If your content foundation isn’t solid, no one’s going to engage on your site, least of all Google. And inbound links are still a big part of good SEO. But they can no longer be bought – they must be earned.

We’re seeing SEO departments stuck with the same limited resources when what they really need is a collaboration with and between social and PR teams. We know by now that good content – I mean really good, knock-your-socks-off, top-notch content – is what drives SEO.

Why? Because knock-your-socks-off content is engaging. People are naturally inclined to read and re-read it, post it, tweet it, link to it, pin it and comment on it. And search engines love this. Big-name brands and publishers that already have a massive audience to interact with their content in such a way, admittedly, have a little easier time getting this organic promotion.

But what about brands that are new to the content marketing game – brands that have yet to establish themselves as creators of top-notch content? These brands need a little extra push when it comes to promotion – to gaining not only attention but leads, through their content.

Enter social media and digital PR, stage right.

Digital marketing teams are getting wise to the game of merging these three departments – social, PR, and SEO – for the best results. Shares grow traffic grows awareness grows shares… and so on.

So what can SEOs do to make the most of the content their teams are building? Focus on collaboration. It’s as simple as that. We know that good SEO demands great content, so content marketing became the norm. Now we’ve found that great content doesn’t accomplish much if no one is engaging with it.

So SEOs, get with your PR and social teams. Get outside the box of content for content’s sake. Create and share your awesome work so that your audience can get to know you. Because when people are engaging with your digital content, you can be sure that Google will too.

Image Source: Death to the Stock Photo

The post Collaboration is Key if You Want to Win at SEO Today appeared first on RELEVANCE.

In our last two posts, we discussed the importance of addressing the full spectrum of content. You can view the past blog posts here: Developing Relevance Using a Full Spectrum of Content and Conquering the Full Content Spectrum to Increase Content Relevance. Today, we’re digging deeper and talking about getting the most out of the commercial content you have.

Why should I care about commercial content?

Commercial content is the foundation of your business offering. The way you choose to describe your new product or services is an opportunity to share a high-quality, meaningful, and unique message to your customers about what you have to offer.

To get the most out of your commercial content you need to take the following three steps:

1. Build Rich Content

How do you want to sound to your customers? Do you want them to come to you and find value in your offerings, or to bounce when they realize your offerings sound generic?

To signal to your users – as well as search engines – that you have what people are looking for, you need to create rich content. Rich content identifies what is important for your buyer and answers their questions.

The good news? You are an expert in your field and all you need to do is display your expertise on your site.

If you are selling a refrigerator, do you include unique descriptions describing key features like the capacity, the type of freezer and the adjustable shelving? Every additional detail you add is a chance to demonstrate your expertise and inspire confidence among your users.

2. Build Content Relationships

High-quality content is your greatest asset, and you can amplify its positive effects on your business by appropriately connecting it across your site. One way to use content across your site is by placing related content text and links together on your pages. That way you’ll have more signals that you can use to inform your users and search engines about the meaning of your site’s pages.

Let’s say you’re an auto dealer. You have content around all of your newest car models, but you are trying to help your users find you even if they don’t know the models you offer. On the page featuring your newest convertible, you could add information about your two-door coupe. The combination of those two pieces of content could help your users understand that you sell “sporty cars.”

To get the most of your content, identify the relationships among the offerings you have and identify the right pieces of content that support each other. Then bring those pieces together across your site to develop more relationships and build deeper understanding of your pages.

3. Structure for Findability

Getting your content found by your favorite search engine is heavily influenced by the structure of your site.

A brief reminder about how search engines explore your site: search engines send out crawlers that have the gargantuan task of reading all the content on the Internet, understanding it, and then indexing it. Therefore, if you aren’t crawled and indexed, you don’t “exist” on the Internet.

A little wrinkle: search engines cannot crawl everything, and they only have a limited crawl budget to spend on your content. That means that it’s important for you to make it easy for a search engine to crawl your site.

Imagine a search crawler as a person walking through a maze. Do you give them only a fixed number of paths to get to their goal, or do you offer doorways and shortcuts? And if your person can only make 1000 steps in your maze, could they see most of your content in those steps or would they spend time back-tracking over the same paths?

To help create a search-engine-friendly site, identify where you are not being crawled and make it easy for a crawler to make it from a page that is being crawled to the ones that are not. Get rid of the set paths in your site (B) and replace them with a web of shortcuts and doorways (A).

To do this, start by identifying the pages that you know are crawled using tools like Webmaster Tools as well as searching on search engines like Google with the query “site:yoursite.com” to get a sample of the pages that are indexed. Next, identify the pages that are not. Finally, figure out which of those pages are related to each other and then build in a connection pathway that makes sense for your site.

Once you have created high-quality content, shared it across the site and built a site structure that supports your findability, you’ll be ready to make the best use of the assets you have and put your best foot forward with your commercial content.

Photo of maze by Niki Odolphie under Creative Commons license.

This is a guest post from Ailian Gan at BloomReach.

The post 3 Steps to Getting Your Commercial Content Found Online appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Because of this, knowing the qualities of a successful PR campaign is just as important as being aware of the mistakes you might make along the way. If you find your campaign isn’t experiencing the success you want it to, below are some possible actions you are not taking.

1. You don’t understand the “why”

Brands exist to solve problems. One of the basic issues in promotion is ignoring the brand’s “why” which can be translated as “Why are they in business?” or “Why do they perform their service?” or any number of questions that begin with this particular interrogative. In content promotion, the same question needs to be asked. Content that seeks to answer questions for an asking audience inherently serves that audience. In this, the brand provides something through its content that helps the customer relate to the “why.” This act of service begins to build a relationship that leads to conversion.

2. You don’t understand the customer

This goes for both B2B and B2C clientele, and is hand-in-hand with the “why.” The next steps include finding the people who actually have the problem, creating content that serves rather than sells, and promoting it properly. If social media has taught us anything it’s that people are different, and knowing these differences are the key to reaching the intended audience.

For example, different age groups use Facebook more than Twitter and, depending on the time of day, those age groups will be more engaged. Get to know your customer through audience, content and trend assessments. Find out where they are online and what compels them to interact and engage. From there, serve them with the content that can help solve their problem.

3. You aren’t using your content correctly

Content is the mode by which the brand solution can be communicated. Over 70 percent of customers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads, and 68 percent are likely to spend time reading content from a brand in which they are interested. Below are some questions to ask yourself before you start creating content:

• Does your content work to solve the problem of the targeted audience?
• Does the content add value to the outlet you are pitching?
• Is the subject matter of the content something your contact will even be interested in?
• Has this topic already been covered and if so, what new angles need attention?

4. You don’t research the outlet

Journalists, editors and bloggers are busy people. Pitching content that does not interest them, both personally and professionally, not only wastes their time but makes the rest of us in the industry look bad. Research the outlets you are pitching and the individuals who will receive your pitch. Follow them on social and interact with them. Does what you intend to promote provide value to their readers? Engagement them with that mindset. Tools like Cision, Buzzsumo and Followerwonk will help get you started.

5. Your pitch is too long

Pitching is a subjective science ruled by the whim of the writer and reader, where the most perfect pitch could be outright dismissed by the latter because they’re “having a bad day” or “it wasn’t the right time.” This means it’s important to get to the point. Most media contacts won’t care how well your pitch is crafted if you aren’t upfront.

Generally, the subject line and first two sentences should clear about why you are contacting them. If you’ve done your research, then the reason you are pitching them should align with their interests and they will read on. In the latter part of the email, you can include the information about the content and who it will help, citing a past article they have written to support your claim or just simply confirming that because they are a subject matter expert, you think they will be interested in the content you are trying to promote. Use ego-stroking where appropriate, but be sincere about it.

Digital marketers are not content peddlers. We should not be blindly sending out poorly crafted, long pitches to outlets that care nothing about the content promoted. We care about the brand and the content that it uses to engage the right audience, with the right problem in order to offer a solution. The “why” of what we do should always be the reason we do it.

Image credit: Hans Gerwitz

The post 5 Reasons Your Digital PR Campaigns Fail appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Hint: It isn't the headlines.

The Upworthy philosophy

Upworthy's mission statement, from the very start, had nothing to do with headline writing. When Peter Koechley, former managing editor of The Onion, and Eli Pariser, former executive director of MoveOn.org, came together to create Upworthy, they had loftier goals in mind. In his introduction to the site, Koechley writes,

Hi, we're Upworthy, a new social media outfit with a mission: to help people find important content that is as fun to share as a FAIL video of some idiot surfing off his roof.

The keywords here are important and fun, and they relate to the content, not the headlines. Upworthy isn't in the business of promoting thin content that no one cares about, or about gaining clicks for the purpose of selling ads at the other end of the link.

Koechley says it better than I can:

[W]e believe the things that matter in the world don't have to be boring and guilt-inducing. And the addictive stuff we love doesn't have to be completely substanceless.

From philosophy to practice

For years, marketers focused (and still do) on trying to make their content go viral. Upworthy refocused, asking instead, "What content deserves to go viral?" The question is easy enough to answer — meaningful content that can help make the world a better place — but finding that content is no mean feat.

The Internet is awash with schemes to make your waist smaller, pills to make other body parts larger, lolcats, Ryan Goslings, and what statisticians refer to as "utter crap." Upworthy makes a concerted effort not to contribute to that crapflow, spending more time than you'd probably expect to find just those important stories that people will want to share:

Our top curators comb through hundreds of videos and graphics a week, looking for the 5-7 that they're confident are super-shareable. That's not a typo: We pay people full-time to curate 5-7 things a week.

They don't just find stories and rebroadcast them, either. Upworthy states plainly that they're "curators, not journalists," but every story that Upworthy publishes undergoes a rigorous fact-checking process that could put many so-called news sites to shame.

Sure, they occasionally make a mistake — that's true of any website. But when they make a correction, it doesn't get buried at the bottom of an interior page.

So what do you call it when you take time to find interesting, shareable stories that matter to people and then double-check the facts of the story to make sure you aren't spreading misinformation?

I call it high-quality content.

Sharing is caring

At the heart of Upworthy — behind the outrageous headlines that tickle our curiosity — is quality content. And it's that quality content, not the headlines, that earns Upworthy its success. Sure, the headlines are noteworthy, but if the headlines were the only story — if there was no substance to back them up — they wouldn't be shared as widely as they are.

And oh boy, are they shared.

According to the February statistics from NewsWhip, based on total Facebook interactions, Upworthy was ranked number 10 on the list of top Facebook publishers, far behind #1 Buzzfeed and #2 The Huffington Post. But a closer look at the numbers reveals something noteworthy: Buzzfeed published more than 10 times and HuffPo published over 66 times the number of stories that Upworthy published. If you look at the average number of shares that an individual story garnered from Facebook (see the chart below), Upworthy comes out way ahead.

Although Upworthy doesn't publish nearly as many stories as the top Facebook publishers, each story enjoys a greater reach.

(Hot on Upworthy's heels is Viral Nova, a more recent content curation site attempting to emulate Upworthy's successful headline style and apparently having some success at it.)

Imitation is the sincerest form of facepalming

If you're confident you've got high-quality content and you're just champing at the bit to use Upworthy's headline style to start growing your following by leaps and bounds, heed these warnings:

Upworthy headlines violate almost every guideline for optimized page titles: Upworthy couldn't care less about SEO. Why? Because they are built for social. Upworthy headlines are designed to exploit human curiosity; web-crawling robots have no curiosity. In order to emulate Upworthy's headline style, you must be willing to ignore everything you know about optimizing titles for search.

Upworthy headlines don't work everywhere: Upworthy is huge on Facebook, but they don't make such a splash on other social sites. There's something about Facebook's setup and users that makes it the perfect petri dish for growing Upworthy shares. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit, not so much.

Upworthy-style headlines won't work for every story: There's a certain playfulness and irreverence behind these headlines. As CNN found out the hard way, some stories require more delicacy.

And here's the most important part:

The story, not the headline, is the most important thing: Upworthy headlines are a gimmick, a means to an end. Yes, they get a lot of attention, but behind each headline is a piece of verified, high-quality content that, even without the headline, is worth sharing. There's no bait-and-switch here.

Upworthy doesn't use its headlines to trick people into clicking through to weak content, privacy walls or product pages. If you find yourself using your headlines to trick people onto your site — regardless of whether those headlines are modeled after Upworthy's — you've already started disappointing and alienating the very people you are trying to attract.

And in spite of all the "utter crap" to be found on the Internet, people still recognize dishonest marketing practices when they see them. And they talk.

My gratitude to Niko Dugan (of Champaign, Illinois' The News-Gazette) and Todd Kistler (of The Sacramento Bee), whose presentation at this year's annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society got me to look past the headlines at what is really good about Upworthy.

The post How to Emulate Upworthy, and Why You Probably Shouldn't appeared first on RELEVANCE.

On January 20, Google’s Matt Cutts went public on his personal blog with the confirmation of a long-foreseen omen for internet marketers—the decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO. “Guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy,” Cutts proclaimed as the dismal wails of SEOs could be heard far in the digital distance. In the apocalypse that ensued, many big brands were penalized by Google for embracing guest blogging as a link-building practice. But now, less than three months later, Cutts has rescinded his previous statement, prompting joyous cries from link-spammers both foreign and domestic.

Rising from the ashes

As the majestic phoenix rises from the mythical pile of ashes, so too will guest blogging return to prominence in the coming months. With Google backing down on its threats to penalize offenders, the recently-forsaken practice of guest blogging will likely garner exponentially greater returns in the future as spammy links can be built to scale across even wider networks of online publications than ever before.

An inevitable battle royale will ensue as prominent online brands fight for their spaces at the recently-downsized and formerly-reliable SEO agency food trough. Those with the deepest pockets and widest wallets will win—survival of the fittest. The rest will turn to foreign link spam syndicates, only to eventually diminish into irrelevance as language barriers cut credibility with editors.

Return to the Stone Age

No longer will brands be forced to optimize content for humans instead of search algorithms—that was just a fool’s errand anyway. No longer will brands have to bite the bullet and climb the learning curve to understand the value of earned media. No longer will marketing executives have to lend an ear to the advocates of content promotion and distribution, the foreshadowed future-proof SEO saviors. With the prominent return of guest blogging for SEO benefit comes the return of brands to the SEO Stone Age. There will only be one currency for the future of SEO… and that’s links.

Ready, set, go!

So, get after it, already! If you’ve read this far in the post, you’ve already lost valuable time for locking down your next major guest blogging contract.

Oh, and one more thing… Copy and paste the following code into www.binarytranslator.com to get your discount on that link-building campaign!

01000001 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101100 00100000 01000110 01101111 01101111 01101100 01110011 00100001

The post Google’s Matt Cutts: “Guest Blogging is Okay Again. My Bad.” appeared first on RELEVANCE.

2. Cord Buddy » thegrommet.com
Because if your marketer is anything like me, there is currently a nest of half a dozen cords tangled on the desk.

3 » Mobee Magic Charger for Apple Magic Mouse » apple.com
No more hunting for AA batteries! Just don't buy this for one of those Apple haters.

4 » Crop It Like It's Hot » theunrefinery.com

You can never go wrong with a little design humor.

5 » Surge protector/USB adapter » amazon.com
Perfect compact stocking stuffer for those marketers who are always on the go.

6 » Lord & Taylor TRIPLE C Smartbudz Ear Buds with Mic & Magnet » shopstyle.com
In addition to the mic and magnet, the wires are also retractable. No more tangled mess for the marketer on your list!

7 » Touchscreen Gloves » etsy.com
At $10 and with free shipping, what's not to love? Or if your favorite marketer is also obnoxious, you could opt for these Bluetooth gloves instead.

8 » USB Hub Dog » theliteracysite.com
Because sometimes you just don't have enough USB ports to do it all. This gift will also help those in need — a portion of the funds go to supplying books for children who can't afford their own.

9 » The Only Way To Do Great Work Is To Love What You Do Print » etsy.com
Every marketer has their down days, so a little piece of encouragement never hurts!

10 » I Don't Find Prospects. They Find Me. » hubspot.com
Every inbound marketer's dream — and reality when inbound marketing is done well.

11 » You Landed Your First Job Kit » uncommongoods.com

If the marketer on your list just got her first job, then this is the kit she needs to properly accessorize her office space.

12 » Highly Professional Business Cats Calendar » etsy.com
Because cats.

13 » Bacon Gift Pack » thinkgeek.com
For that marketer who really values snack time — and bacon.

14 » Portable Ping Pong Set » uncommongoods.com
Because we all need a reason to step away from our desks and do something fun.

15 » QRapping Paper » qrappingpaper.com
And don't forget to go all out when wrapping your marketer's gift! Each QR code takes you to an exclusive Christmas video — over 50 in all to see.

What other gifts do you think are great for marketers? Comment below to let us know!

The post 15 Gift Ideas For The Digital Marketer On Your List appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better Complement

According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), public relations can be broadly defined as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics." Although traditional and digital PR use different methods, they are ultimately trying to achieve the same goal. They shouldn’t fight over which can achieve those goals better or faster; they should complement one another in achieving them together.

Traditional PR tactics involve getting strategic coverage from credible news sources by important thought leaders or other external sources that help to promote a company’s reputation or its brand. As Walker Sand Communications describes, “Traditional PR is often a one-way conversation in which the brand presents key messages for consumption by core audiences.” Common forms of traditional PR—press releases, press conferences, news programs, and speeches—convey information from the company to its intended audience without getting much feedback in return from the intended audience.

Digital PR methods focus on using online methods of communication and distribution to convey important information or news about a company. Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are popular outlets for digital PR, but company blogs, direct emails, and all online news outlets are also great channels. This creates more of a two-way street with the audience since any information a company distributes online allows viewers to enter the conversation by commenting on the post, retweeting or sharing.

Why Traditional and Digital PR Should Be Used in Tandem

The two types of PR are likely to reach different audiences. Traditional PR strategies include traditional media, like newspapers and magazines, which reach an extended readership beyond their online counterparts. Digital PR coverage, which appears entirely online, takes advantage of search rankings and links within coverage to connect readers to a company's website and product pages – something print media can't do.

As mentioned already, digital PR also takes advantage of social media outlets and online channels of distribution to garner attention. This often takes the form of bite-sized information such as tweets or Facebook posts. As Ogilvy PR’s David Carlson said in a recent interview, “People’s attention spans are getting shorter, but there are a lot more ways to get your message out there.” Digital PR capitalizes on this somewhat recent phenomenon by making information convenient for viewers to read and discover more about the company. Many times, these tweets and Facebook posts link back to the more formal press release or blog post, which gives readers the opportunity to delve deeper into the information presented.

Thus, both traditional and digital PR are needed in today’s marketing environment. The digital method may have the advantage of capturing the intended audience’s attention, but traditional PR reinforces those online messages to lend credibility to its younger digital brother. Ragan’s PR Daily writes, “The smartest PR plans involve a mixture of new and traditional PR methods.”

The Inbound Marketer’s Guide to Earned Media is a useful tool for developing and defining the process of crafting a comprehensive PR strategy.

Image credit: flickr.com

The post The Hand-in-Hand Relationship of Traditional PR and Digital PR appeared first on RELEVANCE.

What is spray and pray PR?

The term “spray and pray” began as a combat term for firing automatic weapons without taking proper aim. This means that those with greater skill and finesse will more likely claim victory. Does this sound familiar?

Spray and pray PR embraces the idea of “the more, the merrier” where marketers mistakenly assume that everyone needs to know about their widget or their website in hopes that a few media contacts will feature it. What these scammers don’t always recognize is that the response rate diminishes as they send more poorly targeted emails – and their brand’s image suffers too.

First, focus on quality

The first step in moving towards higher-quality pitches is to understand where you want to land on the spectrum of emails that people receive each day. Learn which subject lines spammers are using, and work to make yours personable and unique. Conversely, don’t assume familiarity by using slang or failing to open your message professionally – being overly casual is also a red flag.

The most important element of a pitch email is a specific and relevant point of interest for the recipient. Convey why their audience would be thrilled to hear about whatever it is you’re pitching – some even find it useful to provide recipients with options for angles or suggestions for how to feature the product. This relevance is essential, whether you are sending an individual email or you’re messaging 20 people at once.

But what about quantity?

Those who argue that PR isn’t a numbers game may end up with a seriously flawed strategy. Since you’re relying on others’ preferences and calendars, predictions for success are no more than educated guesses. Welcoming a higher-volume backup plan is an essential step in getting the word out.

Building lists may be time-consuming, but consider it an investment in your future efforts. Emailing segments of people all at once helps improve organization and following up. For a “mass” email to be successful, the list has to start small and continue to get smaller until the contacts so closely resemble each other than a blanket pitch would still read as highly personalized (a list of 20-50 contacts might be appropriate, depending on the angle you’re taking).

How to qualify lists

Here’s a handy list on lists:

• Define the list by the pitch or angle you intend to send (you can edit it later, but it’s important to have a solid starting point)
• Filter as much as you can in the search before manually checking each opportunity
• Set aside top tier sites (highly trafficked, dream placement opportunities) for one-to-one outreach
• Remove contacts with whom you have an existing relationship or have missing or incomplete information and contact them individually as well
• Finally, take the time to visit any sites you will be reaching out to – are they up to date? Are they spot-on to your niche? Are they likely to welcome your email?

Test your balance

So how do you find the happy medium between volume and value? Keep in mind these takeaways:

• Find a balance between general and overly familiar language – be a person, not a spambot
• Use small lists and go through them two or three times to ensure the contact quality
• Develop the pitch before the list – not the other way around – so that you can have solid guidelines for qualifying contacts
• Know when not to use a template: priority placements, friends, and those with missing information

While the ideal situation is to email each individual with a personalized, from-scratch message, deadlines can mean that isn’t always possible. Mass distributions of all sizes should be approached carefully and reviewed often for their effectiveness. Any reply emails that claim you’re spamming or that you’re reaching out to the wrong people should be red flags. If your pitch or your niche was off, reevaluate your plan of attack.

Just remember numbers matter, but at the end of the day, it’s relationships that really count.

How do you balance value and volume when pitching?

Image credit: James Cridland

The post How To Avoid Practicing Spray And Pray PR: Balance Volume and Value appeared first on RELEVANCE.

Here’s a list of my favorites:

1. Brand Chat

(#brandchat) features discussions about building and managing corporate and personal brands. This chat takes place every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to noon and is moderated by Maria Duron (@mariaduron) and Gary Nix (@mr_mcfly). Weekly topics and recaps can be found on their website, thebrandchat.com.

2. Social Chat

(#socialchat) follows the latest trends in social media. The chat usually features a guest to answer questions and contribute to the conversation. Social Chat is moderated by Search Engine Journal writer Michelle Stinson Ross (@socialmicheller) and Digital Always Media founding partner Alan K’necht (@aknecht). It occurs every Monday from 9-10 p.m.

3. Social Media Measurement

(#smmeasure) is dedicated to social media measurement and analytics. It is hosted by Marketwired (@marketwire) and occurs on Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m.

4. Tools Chat

(#toolschat) covers a wide range of marketing tools to help with your business or clients. It’s hosted by Michael Todd (@mqtodd), and occurs every Wednesday at 10 p.m. If tools, data, and research are your jam, you will love this chat.

5. Blog Chat

(#blogchat) covers all aspects of blogging and SEO for blogs. This chat occurs every Sunday from 9-10 p.m. and is moderated by Mack Collier (@mackcollier).

6. Media Chat

(#mediachat) discusses leveraging content curation to help achieve marketing goals. Each week, an expert guest is featured to teach attendees more about online media, apps, tools, and more. It’s hosted by Aaron Kilby (@kilby76) and occurs 10-11 p.m. on Thursdays.

7. Measure PR

(#measurepr) is a chat about all things measurement in PR. Each week they feature an expert guest. It’s hosted by Shonali Burke (@shonali) and occurs on Tuesdays 12-1 p.m.

8. PR Pro Chat

(#prprochat) occurs on the first Thursday of every month at 2 p.m. It’s founded and moderated by PR professional Carrie Morgan (@morgancarrie). Topics range from blogging, digital PR, social media, content curation and much more. A list of upcoming chats and agendas can be found on her site, rockthestatusquo.com.

9. Journ Chat

(#journchat) maintains an ongoing and open dialogue between journalists, bloggers, and public relations professionals. It’s organized by Sarah Evans (@prsarahevans) and occurs on Mondays 6-7 p.m.

Don’t have time to try all of these chats? Pick one or two each week and schedule them on your calendar to keep them organized. And once you’ve been engaged in the chat a couple of times, why not offer to be a featured guest?

For quick reference, here are all of the above Twitter chats, days, and times:

Any other favorite chats you’d like to share? Please let me know in the comments below.

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time.

Image credit: Ken Varnum

The post 9 Twitter Chats Every Digital Marketer Should Participate In appeared first on RELEVANCE.

But in the summer of 2012 when a DJ/producer by the name of Baauer released a track called “Harlem Shake”, an onslaught of meme videos that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual Harlem Shake went viral. Pop culture saw something funny and ran it into the ground. Suddenly, everyone was trying to get their piece of the pie. And Harlem didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as the rest of the country.

As marketers, we constantly search for the right angle from which to deliver our message. What will resonate the strongest with our target audience? What can we do or say to grab their attention amongst all of the digital chatter and noise? It’s easy to find quick answers to these questions in a viral video, meme image, or pop culture trend because it’s prevalent and hip. Newsjacking works when there is a real connection between your brand and current affairs, but try to present your overstuffed armchair company as being relevant to twerking and you’ll likely do more harm than good to your brand’s image.

By exploring the history of a viral theme within the context of marketing, a brand stands to make a deeper connection to consumer attitudes, tastes and buying behaviors, thus positioning itself to make a real contribution to the discussion without looking foolish. Every idea can be presented as a new idea, so long as it’s done with tact and respect.

If you understand the history of anything, you understand its story. And isn’t storytelling all the rage right now in marketing?

A brief history of twerk

Another cultural hijacking took place during the 2013 MTV VMAs. Miley Cyrus is getting a lot of credit these days for bringing twerking to the forefront of pop culture, just like Baauer did for the Harlem Shake. And not unlike Baauer’s story, Cyrus’ personification of twerking is nothing like the original. This is a problem not because what she’s doing is racy and controversial (go on and do your thing, Miley) but because pop culture is completely oblivious to the cultural history behind the original dance.

The origin of twerking can’t exactly be pinned down to a single person or date, but DJ Jubilee is widely recognized as being the first to command listeners to do it on record in 1993. Bounce music’s history begins around the same time as twerking—the late 1980s and early 1990s—in New Orleans, where it still thrives. Bounce is most prominent in Louisiana and other deep southern states but has recently gained mainstream exposure through bounce pioneers such as Big Freedia.

The cultural value of twerking might be up for debate, but the cycle of pop culture’s appropriation and dilution of a phenomenon is exemplified here. And just like Cyrus sings, it isn’t about to stop and we can’t make it. What we can do is make ourselves more informed citizens of the Internet—and help both marketers and audiences alike use pop culture responsibly. Brands that attach themselves to bogus Internet trends simply to attract views run the risk of losing potential customers—whether the trend takes off or not.

All memes and pop culture trends have history and deserve the courtesy of being used in an intelligent and accurate way. There’s an entire subculture that surrounds twerking, but its once-stable community has suddenly been elevated to unimaginable levels of fame… and ridicule. It’s our job to keep the treasures of the Internet fun, not to mock them for our own personal gain.

Image credit: Timmy Gunz

The post What Twerking Means To Marketers appeared first on RELEVANCE.