Category Archives: General

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE IN A DIGITAL UNIVERSE

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE IN A 
DIGITAL UNIVERSE

GOING BEYOND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. The future is in technology, but the bigger future is in transcending it.

Right now we are experiencing exponential change with the term Digital Transformation re-emerging to what was a fuzzy and undefined topic where many talked about it but didn’t really understand its true meaning or purpose, to a newer more holistic model that is imperative for sustainability and going forward with purpose in this digital world. 

The word Digital in this context can be considered as a synonym for the pace of change occurring in today’s world driven by the rapid adoption of technology. Existing companies are put under tremendous pressure making many of them irrelevant as they are not keeping up with the changes. Because of rapid technology adoption, companies need to change how it operates to be able to create and sustain a competitive advantage of how users engage within the system.

There are two different types of organizations – Those that are just doing digital, and a new kind being digital innovators. These digital innovators are way out in front as they are disrupting every sector of the marketplace that is enabled by this new technology adoption.  The mistake many companies are making is they are just digitizing existing services or simply adding the technology and calling it digital transformation, but that’s not what digital transformation is now. 

 

So What Is Digital Transformation? 

Digital transformation was previously understood to be when a company went paperless, or when a brick and mortar company gets a website or starts a Twitter account, but it’s much more than that now. 

Digital transformation is a journey of strategic, planned organizational change that starts by empowering individuals and teams with new methods to create highly responsive strategies that are predominantly data-driven and a courageous culture of innovation. 

It is the right leadership that creates a high performing, innovative organization that is delivered by marketers and technologists primarily. It is transforming innovation, teams, and culture enabled by technology allowing collaboration, new levels of efficiency, and adding more value to users’ interactions and engagement. 


Image credit Brian Solis

“Business As Usual” Is No More

Once upon a time, business as usual” was often good enough, but now with technology advancing exponentially, “business as usual” is dead. In a world where everything is connected, considered to be equally excellent and performance is reaching perfection, the biggest innovation is yet to be realized. We as human beings are the central point fuelled by digitization, mobilization, augmentation, disintermediation, automation, and more. 

The way we work will never be the same and the skills we need will be dramatically different. So how do we discover new opportunities in one of the most transformational times in human history?  Are you driving change or are you being driven by it? 

Disruption is ever-present in this new normal. Change has stopped happening gradually and it now happening exponentially as everything that was dumb and disconnected is now wired and intelligent. The next 20 years will change faster than the last 300 years.  

Increasingly, science fiction is becoming science fact. Exponential technologies are rapidly changing our lives and societies, every day and everywhere. Everything from smartphones to home appliances, cars, cities, and ports, even our bodies will be wired. 

One such example is that Elon Musk believes he can merge our minds with machines. His new venture called Neuralink is a thin mesh device that is inserted into the skull that is then connected to the internet so we can upload our brains and become superhuman. Really! He’s done some great things but I’m not sure this is a good thing for humanity. 

Musk suggests it’s a way of gearing up, but we don’t have to compete with technology in becoming technology. We can embrace it and as Gerd Leonhard, a futurist speaker says, “technology is not what we seek, but how we seek it.” 


Adapted by Gerd Leonhard

Two Primary Keys Go Hand In Hand

So this has created a new paradigm. The biggest innovation needed to be realized is that we need to go from dehumanization to re-humanization and have a different purpose. Not just profit, growth, jobs, and GDP, but people, planet, purpose, and prosperity. Technology is the key to this and the other key is ethics. 

Technology can do great things but someone has to decide what those great things are. Technology drives our future, but ethics defines it. I think it’s safe to say algorithms know the logic of everything but the feelings of nothing. It can’t comprehend emotional intelligence, so we need to invest as much in humanity as we do in technology.

Quantum computing fuels big data and the internet of things (IoT) fuels artificial intelligence and deep learning which in turn fuels robotics, however anything that cannot be digitized or automated will become extremely valuable. Human-only traits such as creativity, imagination, intuition, emotion, and ethics will become more important in the future because machines are very good at simulating, but not good at “being”.

Robots and software will take over some of our work, but this allows us to focus on things that cannot be automated. Technology is defined by automation, even knowledge is automated… just need to Google it. But what cannot be automated is understanding that knowledge. That requires human perception.  If we go beyond technology and data to reach human insights and wisdom, only then, will we have a perfect balance. 

How And Why = Holistic

Technology represents the “How” of change and humans represent the “Why”. The future is about holistic business models and the opportunity is to be liquid, learn, and be one step ahead of the inevitable. This will take complete transformations, not just single improvements, with a focus on new ecosystems, not individual systems.

The future is in our hands today, it’s not tomorrow. The future is not a time frame, it’s a mindset. There has been a boom in technology over the last 4 years and it seems in the last few months technology has come out on top, given the COVID-19 situation with the surveillance tools now being implemented. This crisis is a test of our humanity. The more we connect with technology the more we must protect what makes us human. 

Humanity is where true and lasting value is created as we engage, relate, and buy things because of the experiences they provide. The new way to work is to embrace technology, but not to become it. The future is in technology, but the bigger future is in transcending it.       

As I said before, technology drives our future, but ethics defines it. This is what went wrong with Facebook as it has been ethically irresponsible and said to be destroying the very fabric of human relationships by inciting anger amongst the users due to the threat of democracy and its censorious nature. The real damage being done is to people’s mental health, to a cohesive and functional society, and to free speech itself.  

Also, it has been documented that “data is the new oil”, but given the lack of ethics with data harvesting, it can also be addressed as “data is the new plutonium”. It can be used as a weapon. 

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right (or the power) to do and what is the right thing to do.”Potter Stewart

 

The Heart Of Digital Transformation

We need different skills, and we need to be comfortable and effective with driving change, or we will be driven by it. One company that is driving transformational change in the social media, marketing network sector is Markethive.  Here we get to enjoy our autonomy and free speech along with a sustainable balance between technology and humanity. 

Digital transformation is a process, not a destination. It’s not a workaround adding technology on top to an existing company, it’s a total re-work. It’s where systems and infrastructures are designed to be digital and can scale seamlessly and thrive in that domain. Markethive has been built and rebuilt from the ground up, starting off with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

The very fabric of Markethive is it’s collaborative and entrepreneurial nature of the community. Markethive’s culture is not fixed, but a decentralized, autonomous, fluid environment that is founded, built, operated, and used by entrepreneurs. It is self-governing, independent, and sovereign by design with a culture of innovation. It is the personification of Digital Transformation. 

Integrated with state-of-the-art blockchain, cryptocurrency, inbound marketing, and decentralized database technologies, Markethive has constructed a social market network that provides a “Universal Income” created exclusively with entrepreneurs in mind and will benefit greatly from its ultimate success. 

What to date has become the “norm” of social platforms having full access to your private and other data to use for their benefit is over. Your voice is yours, and yours alone, and you should benefit from it as well as your work and success you achieve through the Markethive platform. 

There are so many facets to Markethive. This is a mammoth undertaking and a continuous one. For as long as technology evolves so will Markethive along with the humanity within it. Check out the Markethive Blog Section which segments the many components of this complete Entrepreneurial ecosystem to understand what we have here.

 From the Visionary, Founder and CEO and of Markethive, Thomas Prendergast,

“Look beyond the looking glass. Markethive is not just this Newsfeed. But this Newsfeed is unique and the portal to the unlimited power of Markethive.”

 

Conclusion

Markethive’s continuous objective and mission are to provide a social environment, complete with an arsenal of technology, that champions the rise of the entrepreneur. We should embrace technology but not become it or be overcome by it. Anything that can be digitized or automated, will be, and anything that cannot be digitized or automated will become extremely valuable. Markethive with its collaborative community goes beyond technology and defines the real human values in this new digital ecosystem. Digital ethics is Markethive’s key differentiator. 

Join us at our weekly webinars on Sundays at 10 am (Mountain Time) to stay informed of Markethive’s evolvements as they happen. Witness the true collaboration and heart of Markethive and its members. The link to join the meetings can be found in the Markethive calendar.  See You there! 

 

Resources: Ionology, Gerd Leonhard

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

Deb Williams
A Crypto/Blockchain enthusiast and a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech. I embrace "change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept, and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

 

CRYPTO AD NETWORKS Overcoming The Adversities Of A Nascent Industry

CRYPTO AD NETWORKS
Overcoming The Adversities Of A Nascent Industry

The cryptocurrency sphere is no longer considered a craze only supported and bolstered up by tech geeks and anarchists. Cryptocurrencies have become a whole new financial class by themselves and Blockchain technology is at the forefront as we move into a new world where the recent events have seen complete economic chaos and we are now recession-bound on a global scale. 

Whether it’s a mining collective, a crypto exchange, an ICO or ILP with a specific use case,  or plain old marketing – inbound, affiliate, referral, the whole gamut, a myriad of opportunities has opened up for companies, and the individual, that is focused on cryptocurrencies and blockchain, in order to create an ecosystem of self-sovereignty, financial and otherwise, along with transparency, and a trustless environment where society isn’t at the behest of the powers-that-be.    

However, getting the word out to the people en-masse has been inhibited and a hindrance to this emerging industry which is a concern to the advertising and marketing of the blockchain and crypto businesses.

  
Advertising Network Adversities

Traditional ad networks and social media giants like Google, Facebook, Youtube, et al have either outright banned any type of advertising/marketing content relating to crypto, or have placed unreasonable conditions such as requiring a license from a governmental authority. 

Also, their policies could change in the blink of an eye without any warning, such as YouTube banning cryptocurrency channels, or Facebook’s constant run-ins with blockchain ads.  
                                                                         
And even if you somehow do find a way to run crypto ads, you’ll be restricted in a variety of ways that would severely impact the success and reach of your campaigns. For instance, 

  • Everything is dependent on whims and fancies of the network, and its changing policies towards crypto. 
  • Little to no targeting options on the audience you seek to engage
  • The requirement to share a lot of personal information.
  • Campaigns will be put under stricter scrutiny, and go through a longer review period
  • Restrictions on the type of payment methods you can employ
  • Limited number/type of websites where you can advertise

Furthermore, as technology keeps evolving, it is crucial for businesses in the sector to keep pace and grow along with it. This is why it’s become vital for advertisers, and publishers, to seek out alternatives. 

A Real Need For Cryptocurrency Ad Networks

Cryptocurrency ad networks are niche online advertising platforms connecting advertisers and publishers who share a common objective of promoting cryptocurrency marketing campaigns. Like with any other ad network, publishers offer their ad space and advertisers pay to use that. 

Crypto ad networks offer a myriad of benefits, such as:

  • Connecting predominantly with advertisers and publishers from the Crypto sphere. 
  • Multiple ad options like banner ads, sponsored articles, press releases and more          
  • Targeted audience of a younger generation and people already interested in crypto 
  • A requirement of little to no personal information
  • Faster campaign approval process.
  • Custom-designed crypto banners
  • Dedicated customer support 
  • Cryptocurrency payment methods

 

 Below are 3 prominent Cryptocurrency Ad Networks helping the industry grow. 

COINBOUND

While Coinbound’s ad network is one of the newer entrants in the field, the company backing it is a renowned name in the crypto marketing world that manages marketing for top cryptocurrency companies. Coinbound offers prime personalized services with a high degree of flexibility and one of the lowest CPMs of all networks.

  • Geo-targeting of the audience with specific interests, and other demographic data.
  • Multiple display ad-options.
  • Connecting only high-quality publishers, and advertisers in the crypto industry.
  • Free crypto banner Ad designs by an award-winning in-house design team.
  • Low CPM rates with high conversion and click-through rates.
  • Ability to target audience for specific sites and pages.
  • 24/7 support.
  • Press release issues and accessibility across top media publishers. 
  • Alexa Rank 248,912 at the time of this publication.

 

COINZILLA

Another ad network making its mark is Coinzilla. It was founded in 2016 and has strict rules regarding the quality of websites and content used in its network. It currently promotes over 200 brands with 500 publishers in its ranks. 

  • Multiple advertising options such as native advertising, CPM, pop-up/under, etc.
  • Only high-quality websites, older than 3 months, with optimal site speed and Alexa rankings.
  • Strict adherence to rules on ads, with instant bans to faucets, giveaways, false promises, etc.
  • Allows casinos, ICOs, exchange promotions, affiliates, etc.
  • Alexa Rank 27,739 at the time of this publication.

 

MARKETHIVE

To add to the mix we now have a decentralized option, and that is exactly where Markethive trumps the other ad networks. Taking away the middleman, the social market network connects advertisers and publishers directly to offer a transparent, cost-effective, and censorship-resistant ad platform. 

  • A complete ecosystem that is free to join.
  • Decentralized with delivery to multiple domains.
  • Markethive blockchain capable of managing a global advertising industry and instantaneous micropayments.
  • Payouts in MHV coins.
  • Censorship resistant, with publisher retaining full control on what to display on their website.
  • Suited for both big and smaller players due to low barriers of entry, yet safe and reliable network.
  • Banner Impressions eXchange – (BIX). First of its kind where you can purchase impressions from a Markethive associate at very low CPM rates. 
  • Detailed and reliable analytics.
  • Alexa Rank 5,649 at the time of this publication.

 

Coming Up In Markethive… 

Markethive is making great headway to incorporating a press release and sponsored article platform as well as social newsfeed boost, newsletter sponsorship, and gamified video advertising which enables you to build powerful campaigns. These are all part of the cottage businesses within Markethive that are designed to be facilitated by the members, not the corporate body, with the purpose of generating an income for the users. 

CEO and Founder of Markethive, Thomas Prendergast is behind the scenes working tirelessly along with the engineers preparing to launch these unique platforms;

“So we have just made a major turn in our system and have a lot of work to do. A landing page to sell/buy our impressions from an exchange, to make that page a template in the Page Maker for your use, and gearing the system for the next Entrepreneur Two direction building the Press Release exchange. Producing several Press Releases to promote our new Digital Media Impressions Exchange. This is also a time for you to get a head start sharing this.”

 

A Perfect Opportunity

Markethive Entrepreneurs have a perfect opportunity right now to reach out to 3rd party sellers to meet with and discuss getting their impressions listed on their sites. Sites like the ones mentioned above. Collaboration will result in creating a monster of an ad network that will be immune to the idiosyncratic and censorship behavior of the tech giants. 

Also, in the interim and as an introductory offer in celebration to the newly launched BIX, you as Markethive Entrepreneurs have the ability to advertise your Markethive referral page and offer free banner ad impressions for joining you at Markethive.

 

The Prime Objective Of Alexa Ranking

The Alexa ranking measures traffic on any given website from subscribers and visitors that have the Alexa Extension installed. Alexa rank is a measure of website popularity. It ranks millions of websites in order of popularity, with an Alexa Rank of 1 being the most popular. 

Alexa rank is calculated using a proprietary methodology that combines a site's estimated traffic and visitor engagement over the past three months. Although every website’s goal is to achieve a low Alexa ranking, it has no bearing on the number of digital impressions a site generates so there is no negative effect on banner impression sales.

Sites that have Alexa ranking like Chronicle of around 16,000, charge $66 CPM, and estimating their impressions from Worth Of Web, we can estimate they are receiving 13 million impressions per month with a potential income over $8.5 million. 

AMBcrypto has an Alexa rank of 53,893 and charges $5,500 to run a banner duration for a month. They average about 100-200 banner ads per month displayed based on IP address, time, and random rotation.

However, if you have not installed the Alexa Browser extension, please do so. It does help to give Alexa more accurate data with visitors.
https://www.alexa.com/toolbar

 

Crypto Advertising Market Growing

There are quite a few more crypto ad networks catering to the crypto sphere such as Bitmedia, Ad Shares, Cointraffic, Ad Dragon, Coin Ads, Mellow Ads, Propeller Ads and now we can add Markethive to the list with its Banner Impressions eXchange operating live now.

Markethive with its BIX Banner Impressions Exchange has created a non-fungible impressions token that is now traded in an open market assuring all purchases and set by the free market insuring you pay the right rates for advertising. You might call it free enterprise we call it a fair market for the entrepreneur from Markethive.

Conclusion

Connect with entrepreneurs, techies, crypto nerds, artists, innovators, musicians, and professional members both subscribers and traffic. You can get the first-mover advantage by advertising your product or service on Markethive and Markethive subsidiaries. The average user comes to Markethive to learn how to build an Inbound Marketing campaign, promote their services, connect with other members, and discover services to purchase.

Markethive, the complete market network on blockchain, provides a valuable inbound marketing platform, commerce portals, and a social network where users can learn, engage, expand markets, and be introduced to trusted providers. Markethive provides education, mentoring, direction, and professional services all the while earning MHV coin through its micropayment faucet system. This is just the beginning of the next-generation network built for the crypto-preneur.  

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

 

Deb Williams
A Crypto/Blockchain enthusiast and a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech. I embrace "change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept, and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

 

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE ON YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS?

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE ON YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS?

MARKETING HAS EVOLVED OVER THE LAST 100 YEARS, SO WHAT'S NEW?

I came across an interesting theory by Mark Schaefer, Blogger, and Keynote Speaker of all things marketing, and I thought it was quite on point. This puts a broader perspective on how we conduct our marketing efforts and how things have changed over the last 100 years. 

The role of marketing is changing dramatically. We are in the third rebellion where consumers are now in control. The customers are telling our stories. The customer is the marketer.

Back in the 1950s, advertising was a promise to consumers. An extraordinary promise and generally people just took the advertisers at their word. They’ve believed their claims. Advertising started to heat up and as the competition became more fierce, these claims became more remarkable until they became just lies. So the first consumer rebellion was "the end of lies". 

 

The advent of the second rebellion came around the mid-’90s by the sound of a phone line dial tone connecting to the internet signal. It was the dawn of the information age and enabled by technology, where anybody could gather info on any company or government that left the companies terrified. Now the consumers can do their own research, compare products and claims. This was the second rebellion, led by technology, "the end of secrets".

Now we’re in the third rebellion, "the end of control". Today we are experiencing that consumers are now in control. They are a lot more skeptical about what they’re are being told through bold advertisements, so now what? What does a business do to win over a customer these days? 

Before the internet, we mostly kept our brand experiences to ourselves. Maybe we told a few people in our innermost circles. Only a minority of people were motivated to complain or compliment the brand, wrote, or called the company. Once the internet arrived, a few more emailed companies their thoughts.

Then came social media.

Image by contentgroup 

 

In the mid-2000s as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube launched, marketers discovered that not only could they advertise there, but consumers could express their feelings and share their experiences with brands there. Suddenly consumers had the same kind of broad media platform that brands had enjoyed for years. Social media reversed the communication flow of brand messages and turbocharged it.

Social media is producing little pockets or groups of consumers engaging and sharing positive or negative information about their experiences of any given brand or company.  Markets are now conversations and customers are in control of those conversations. Businesses can no longer buy their way in, they need to be invited and that’s what marketing is about today. 

 

How Can We Connect With Potential Customers?

We can go to the core of where our customers are who are sharing their thoughts or grievances with their peers. By listening and engaging more on channels such as social media, customer support, forums, and the like, we can experience and understand the consumers’ point of view. 

Connecting with them through writing blogs and articles, consistently, of interesting and relevant information will create an authoritative presence, perhaps meet a customer’s need and provide a solution that perhaps can’t be recognized in a short advertising message. This is otherwise known as content marketing which can create conversations and is a good way to be invited into the consumers’ hearts and minds. 

We can’t always control what people think of our brand, but we are able to influence it and reduce any negative experiences by being present and mindful of consumers’ perspectives. It’s a known fact that solving problems can have a greater impact on the individual who will sing your praises and even become a loyal advocate. The humanity that causes consumers to brand experiences also promotes understanding, forgiveness, and enthusiasm. 

BE MORE HUMAN in everything you do and every engagement you make. It’s about building relationships and connecting at an authentic and genuine level. The most human company wins. 

  • It’s not just about our “why.” It’s also about their “why.”
  • What is their “purpose”? Many people only buy based on their beliefs.
  • Technology should be used to help your company be more compassionate, receptive, fascinating, and useful.
  • Marketing isn’t about making promises. It’s about keeping promises.

 

Content Marketing Of All Types Still Rule

There are many different forms of Content Marketing, such as blogging, video tutorials, digital media, email newsletters, white papers, free reports, etc, and yet many people are confused about the entire concept. 

Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers or loyal followers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell, whether it’s a product, a belief, a cause, or a corporate or personal brand. In other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. 

All businesses are now coming online as part of the next normal searching for different and various ways to not only make their presence known but also to offer the best experience for their prospects. Content marketing is a proven way to build an audience that builds your business. Here are some basic principles to note;

  • People generally don’t want “advertising” when making purchasing decisions, they want valuable information. 
  • It’s content that people desire and seek out, and it’s great content that Google wants to rank well in the search results so those people can find your business. 
  • It’s content that spreads via social networks, generating powerful word-of-mouth exposure for savvy content marketers. 
  • It’s beneficial content that is the best way to achieve what advertising is supposed to achieve but doesn’t do so well online getting people to know, like, and trust your brand.

 

Remember, content drives the Internet, and consumers are looking for information that solves a problem, not an immediate sales pitch. Think about how to create content that makes your customers’ lives better, then the trust, credibility, and authority that content marketing creates knocks down sales resistance, all while providing a baseline introduction to the benefits of a particular product or service. 

If your content looks like an advertisement, it will be overlooked or thrown away. Make your “advertising” too valuable to throw away by wrapping it in wonderfully beneficial, readable content.

The individuals and businesses that are having the most success online tend to have a high ratio of valuable content that seemingly has no sales agenda, and mixed with periodic promotional messages. They tend to build on a number of blogs answering any questions or allaying any objections they feel a reader or prospective buyer might have even before they realize they need or want to buy a product or service. 

You will still need a strong call to action to close the sale, the trick is to keep the balance right. Use your content to build a desire for your product and create a steadfast relationship with your audience, then ask for the sale. 

Producing stellar content for your marketing is great, but that’s only one part of the equation…

 

The Other Part Of The Equation

Your content must then be properly leveraged to help you acquire customers. Even great content doesn’t distribute itself. It needs a vehicle for people to pass it along or share it, discuss its merits, hash over its controversies, blog it, mash it, tweet it, and even swipe it. 

Social media is a prime platform to distribute your content along with digital media, and the vehicle to get your content out to multiple platforms across the internet is the next generation inbound marketing platform and social network, Markethive. But blockchain-driven Markethive is more than just a vehicle, it’s a place to call home when writing your content. It’s your property and cannot be confiscated.   

As Markethive moves forward with its integrations, and upon joining, you receive a (CPanel), control panel, and WordPress system built into your assigned domain, a subdomain of hivesfeed.com AKA username.hivesfeed.com. This way you control all your content, without the worry or hassles of government overreach, and anti-freedom regulations designed to stifle the start-ups and the small entrepreneur. And let’s not forget digital sharecropping…

Digital sharecropping is a term coined by Nicholas Carr to describe a peculiar phenomenon of Web 2.0.

“One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.”

In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, but that content effectively belongs to the company. The more content we create for free, the more valuable the company becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit. So effectively, these companies become your landlord.

What if you moved all of your marketing to a site like Facebook? It’s local, it’s free to sign up, and it makes businesses feel like they’re doing something avant-garde.

But what happens when Facebook thinks you’ve done something that violates their terms of service and deletes your account? Or changes the way you’re allowed to talk with your customers?

“If you’re relying on Facebook or Google to bring in all of your new customers, you’re sharecropping. You’re hoping the landlord will continue to like you and support your business, but the fact is, the landlord has no idea who you are and doesn’t actually care.”

 

Build Assets You Can Control

Many content creators and bloggers have put millions of hours into their craft only to find it deleted and their internet presence and followers wiped out… myself included. But providing you have a safe haven to create and publish your content, then platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more search and social sites are all superb tools to add to your marketing mix.

The thing is you will want to spend most of your time and creative energy building assets that you control.

 There are three assets you should be building today and should continue to focus on for the lifetime of your online business or creative passion you want to share and continually build a following, which Markethive can help you with…

  1. A well-designed website or storefront with your own domain.
  2. An opt-in email list with a high-quality autoresponder
  3. A reputation for providing impeccable value

 

Free System – Free Speech – Autonomy

What makes Markethive different is that it’s built on a transparent blockchain system, the platform is completely decentralized delivering on our principles of privacy, transparency, autonomy, and free speech. Markethive is not spying on you, shadow banning you, or terminating accounts because of your opinions or beliefs. 

Whether you’re a Trump supporter or cryptocurrency enthusiast Markethive has no hidden agendas. We are a collaborative community that wants everyone to succeed in their own right. Furthermore, with the KYC and wallet coming into play soon, fake and hacking accounts that can result in the termination of an unwitting and innocent individual along with years of their hard work, will be a thing of the past and left behind with the social media of Web 2.0. 

 

Monetizing Your Personal Brand On The Internet

Monetizing your personal brand can take a considerable amount of time. Many aspiring bloggers and podcasters have the misconception that they can make money from their newly created blog or podcasting platform in a matter of weeks or months, but you need to build a sizable audience that cares about you and that just can’t happen overnight. 

Successful people across a wide range of industries have stated it takes tenacity, persistence, and resilience and you need to adopt a three-year mindset to achieve meaningful success with your personal brand. You just establish your voice, create that content, and keep grinding it out, year after year. Eventually, if you work hard and stick with it, you can gain enough critical mass to monetize an audience. It’s not that easy.

 

Monetizing Your Personal Brand On Markethive

By utilizing Blockchain Technology, Markethive is able to reward the hardworking content creators by paying you for writing and publishing your blogs instantly and continuously. This is all part of the micropayment faucet system within Markethive. Additional benefits include receiving MHV Coin by your readers which adds more value to bloggers who have increased subscriber levels.

Furthermore, Markethive pays you to sign up, it pays you to use the social media platform with every post and activity you perform. It also pays you to promote it. Remember Markethive is built on the Blockchain and this is why they can pay you and offer you the security and privacy other platforms don’t. This makes it so much easier to earn an income online while furthering your influence and building your personal brand with no fear of ever having it taken away from you. 

Go sign up, it is free to use all the marketing and blogging tools, get paid 500 MHV Coins on joining and enjoy the tipping feature. Yes, that’s right, we at Markethive “Tip” Instead of “Like”. It stands to reason if they tip you they like you. This is creating universal income for all entrepreneurs who are active.

The Complete Social Market Network of Web 3.0

Markethive, The Complete Social Market Network that is built for the people, is becoming well-known for its generous Infinity Airdrops and continuous micropayments faucet system so it really does PAY to be active and engaged. 

By joining Markethive you build relationships with thousands of other like-minded individuals who are actively building a business, blogging, researching, building an audience and their personal brand, etc. basically being “entrepreneurs” and advancing their businesses. You can join with these people as friends, group members, and subscribers of theirs via Blog Casting, Blog Sharing, and Blog Swiping. 

The Markethive Community is exploding and at the heart is a collaborative and supportive ethos that gives a real helping hand to those that are just starting out and is a treasure trove of new technology revenue-generating systems for the seasoned marketer. 

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

Deb Williams
A Crypto/Blockchain enthusiast and a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech. I embrace "change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept, and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

Resources: Mark Schaefer; Copyblogger

 

 

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Global Business Speaks English

Global Business Speaks English

Ready or not, English is now the global language of business. More and more multinational companies are mandating English as the common corporate language—Airbus, Daimler-Chrysler, Fast Retailing, Nokia, Renault, Samsung, SAP, Technicolor, and Microsoft in Beijing, to name a few—in an attempt to facilitate communication and performance across geographically diverse functions and business endeavors.

Adopting a common mode of speech isn’t just a good idea; it’s a must, even for an American company with operations overseas, for instance, or a French company focused on domestic customers. Imagine that a group of salespeople from a company’s Paris headquarters get together for a meeting. Why would you care whether they all could speak English? Now consider that the same group goes on a sales call to a company also based in Paris, not realizing that the potential customer would be bringing in employees from other locations who didn’t speak French. This happened at one company I worked with. Sitting together in Paris, employees of those two French companies couldn’t close a deal because the people in the room couldn’t communicate. It was a shocking wake-up call, and the company soon adopted an English corporate language strategy.

Similar concerns drove Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten—Japan’s largest online marketplace—to mandate in March 2010 that English would be the company’s official language of business. The company’s goal was to become the number one internet services company in the world, and Mikitani believed that the new policy—which would affect some 7,100 Japanese employees—was vital to achieving that end, especially as expansion plans were concentrated outside Japan. He also felt responsible for contributing to an expanded worldview for his country, a conservative island nation.

The multibillion-dollar company—a cross between Amazon.com and eBay—was on a growth spree: It had acquired PriceMinister.com in France, Buy.com and FreeCause in the U.S., Play.com in the UK, Tradoria in Germany, Kobo eBooks in Canada, and established joint ventures with major companies in China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Brazil. Serious about the language change, Mikitani announced the plan to employees not in Japanese but in English. Overnight, the Japanese language cafeteria menus were replaced, as were elevator directories. And he stated that employees would have to demonstrate competence on an international English scoring system within two years—or risk demotion or even dismissal.

The media instantly picked up the story, and corporate Japan reacted with fascination and disdain. Honda’s CEO, Takanobu Ito, publicly asserted, “It’s stupid for a Japanese company to only use English in Japan when the workforce is mainly Japanese.” But Mikitani was confident that it was the right move, and the policy is bearing fruit. The English mandate has allowed Mikitani to create a remarkably diverse and powerful organization. Today, three out of six senior executives in his engineering organization aren’t Japanese; they don’t even speak Japanese. The company continues to aggressively seek the best talent from around the globe. Half of Rakuten’s Japanese employees now can adequately engage in internal communication in English, and 25% communicate in English with partners and coworkers in foreign subsidiaries on a regular basis.

Adopting a global language policy is not easy, and companies invariably stumble along the way. It’s radical, and it’s almost certain to meet with staunch resistance from employees. Many may feel at a disadvantage if their English isn’t as good as others’, team dynamics and performance can suffer, and national pride can get in the way. But to survive and thrive in a global economy, companies must overcome language barriers—and English will almost always be the common ground, at least for now.

The fastest-spreading language in human history, English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwide—that’s one in every four of us. There are close to 385 million native speakers in countries like the U.S. and Australia, about a billion fluent speakers in formerly colonized nations such as India and Nigeria, and millions of people around the world who’ve studied it as a second language. An estimated 565 million people use it on the internet.

The benefits of “Englishnization,” as Mikitani calls it, are significant; however, relatively few companies have systematically implemented an English-language policy with sustained results. Through my research and work over the past decade with companies, I’ve developed an adoption framework to guide companies in their language efforts. There’s still a lot to learn, but success stories do exist. Adopters will find significant advantages.

Why English Only?

There’s no question that unrestricted multilingualism is inefficient and can prevent important interactions from taking place and get in the way of achieving key goals. The need to tightly coordinate tasks and work with customers and partners worldwide has accelerated the move toward English as the official language of business no matter where companies are headquartered.

Three primary reasons are driving the move toward English as a corporate standard.

Competitive pressure.

If you want to buy or sell, you have to be able to communicate with a diverse range of customers, suppliers, and other business partners. If you’re lucky, they’ll share your native language—but you can’t count on it. Companies that fail to devise a language strategy are essentially limiting their growth opportunities to the markets where their language is spoken, clearly putting themselves at a disadvantage to competitors that have adopted English-only policies.

Globalization of tasks and resources.

Language differences can cause a bottleneck—a Tower of Babel, as it were—when geographically dispersed employees have to work together to meet corporate goals. An employee from Belgium may need input from an enterprise in Beirut or Mexico. Without common ground, communication will suffer. Better language comprehension gives employees more firsthand information, which is vital to good decision making. Swiss food giant Nestlé saw great efficiency improvements in purchasing and hiring thanks to its enforcement of English as a company standard.

M&A integration across national boundaries.

Negotiations regarding a merger or acquisition are complicated enough when everybody speaks the same language. But when they don’t, nuances are easily lost, even in simple e-mail exchanges. Also, cross-cultural integration is notoriously tricky; that’s why when Germany’s Hoechst and France’s Rhône-Poulenc merged in 1998 to create Aventis, the fifth largest worldwide pharmaceutical company, the new firm chose English as its operating language over French or German to avoid playing favorites. A branding element can also come into play. In the 1990s, a relatively unknown, midsize Italian appliance maker, Merloni, adopted English to further its international image, which gave it an edge when acquiring Russian and British companies.

The fastest-spreading language in human history, English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwide—that’s one in every four of us.

Obstacles to Successful English-Language Policies

To be sure, one-language policies can have repercussions that decrease efficiency. Evidence from my research at Rakuten—along with a study I conducted with Pamela Hinds of Stanford University and Catherine Cramton of George Mason University at a company I’ll call GlobalTech and a study I conducted at a firm I’ll call FrenchCo—reveals costs that global English-language rules can create. Proper rollout mitigates the risks, but even well-considered plans can encounter pitfalls. Here are some of the most common.

Change always comes as a shock.

No amount of warning and preparation can entirely prevent the psychological blow to employees when proposed change becomes reality. When Marie (all names in this article are disguised, with the exception of Mikitani and Ito) first learned of FrenchCo’s English-only policy, she was excited. She had been communicating in English with non-French partners for some time, and she saw the proposed policy as a positive sign that the company was becoming more international. That is, until she attended a routine meeting that was normally held in French. “I didn’t realize that the very first meeting after the rule came out was really going to be in English. It was a shock,” Marie says. She recalls walking into the meeting with a lot of energy—until she noticed the translator headsets.

“They’re humiliating,” she says. “I felt like an observer rather than a participant at my own company.”

Compliance is spotty.

An English mandate created a different problem for a service representative at GlobalTech. Based in Germany, the technology firm had subsidiaries worldwide. Hans, a service representative, received a frantic call from his boss when a key customer’s multimillion-dollar financial services operation ground to a halt as a result of a software glitch. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were at stake for both the customer and GlobalTech. Hans quickly placed a call to the technical department in India, but the software team was unable to jump on the problem because all communications about it were in German—despite the English-only policy instituted two years earlier requiring that all internal communications (meetings, e-mails, documents, and phone calls) be carried out in English. As Hans waited for documents to be translated, the crisis continued to escalate. Two years into the implementation, adoption was dragging.

Self-confidence erodes.

When nonnative speakers are forced to communicate in English, they can feel that their worth to the company has been diminished, regardless of their fluency level. “The most difficult thing is to have to admit that one’s value as an English speaker overshadows one’s real value,” a FrenchCo employee says. “For the past 30 years the company did not ask us to develop our foreign-language skills or offer us the opportunity to do so,” he points out. “Now, it is difficult to accept the fact that we are disqualified.” Employees facing one-language policies often worry that the best jobs will be offered only to those with strong English skills, regardless of content expertise.

When my colleagues and I interviewed 164 employees at GlobalTech two years after the company’s English-only policy had been implemented, we found that nearly 70% of employees continued to experience frustration with it. At FrenchCo, 56% of medium-fluency English speakers and 42% of low-fluency speakers reported worrying about job advancement because of their relatively limited English skills. Such feelings are common when companies merely announce the new policy and offer language classes rather than implement the shift in a systematic way. It’s worth noting that employees often underestimate their own abilities or overestimate the challenge of developing sufficient fluency. 

Gauging Fluency

Job security falters.

Even though achieving sufficient fluency is possible for most, the reality is that with adoption of an English-only policy, employees’ job requirements change—sometimes overnight. That can be a bitter pill to swallow, especially among top performers. Rakuten’s Mikitani didn’t mince words with his employees: He was clear that he would demote people who didn’t develop their English proficiency.

Employees resist.

It’s not unusual to hear nonnative speakers revert to their own language at the expense of their English-speaking colleagues, often because it’s faster and easier to conduct meetings in their mother tongue. Others may take more aggressive measures to avoid speaking English, such as holding meetings at inopportune times. Employees in Asia might schedule a global meeting that falls during the middle of the night in England, for instance. In doing so, nonnative speakers shift their anxiety and loss of power to native speakers.

Many FrenchCo employees said that when they felt that their relatively poor language skills could become conspicuous and have career-related consequences, they simply stopped contributing to common discourse. “They’re afraid to make mistakes,” an HR manager at the firm explains, “so they will just not speak at all.”

In other cases, documents that are supposed to be composed in English may be written in the mother tongue—as experienced by Hans at GlobalTech—or not written at all. “It’s too hard to write in English, so I don’t do it!” one GlobalTech employee notes. “And then there’s no documentation at all.”

Performance suffers.

The bottom line takes a hit when employees stop participating in group settings. Once participation ebbs, processes fall apart. Companies miss out on new ideas that might have been generated in meetings. People don’t report costly errors or offer observations about mistakes or questionable decisions. One of the engineers at GlobalTech’s Indian office explained that when meetings reverted into German his ability to contribute was cut off. He lost important information—particularly in side exchanges—despite receiving meeting notes afterward. Often those quick asides contained important contextual information, background analyses, or hypotheses about the root cause of a particular problem. He neither participated in the meetings nor learned from the problem-solving discussions.

An Adoption Framework

Converting the primary language of a business is no small task. In my work I’ve developed a framework for assessing readiness and guidelines for adopting the shift. Adoption depends on two key factors: employee buy-in and belief in capacity. Buy-in is the degree to which employees believe that a single language will produce benefits for them or the organization. Belief in their own capacity is the extent to which they are confident that they can gain enough fluency to pass muster.

The two dimensions combine to produce four categories of response to the change, as shown in the matrix “Four Types of Employee Response.” Ideally, employees would fall in what I call the “inspired” category—those who are excited about the move and confident that they can make the shift. They’re optimistic and likely to embrace the challenge. But undoubtedly, some employees will feel “oppressed.” Those people don’t think the change is a good idea, and they don’t think they’ll cut it.

The reality is that without buy-in, employees won’t bother to brush up their language; without belief, they’ll lose hope. I’ve identified some guidelines managers can follow to help people along. Rakuten’s Mikitani has successfully implemented a version of this framework.

Leaders and managers can help employees move from one box to another more easily than you might expect. There are fairly simple strategies that aid the shift, typically involving some combination of a strong psychological boost and practical training. To shift employees from “frustrated” to “inspired,” for instance, managers must offer constant encouragement and an array of language-development opportunities. To shift employees from “indifferent” to “inspired,” managers must work on improving buy-in—once these employees feel invested in the change, their skills will follow.

Improving belief in capacity.

Managers can use four strategies to help people boost their belief in their ability to develop language proficiency.

Offer opportunities to gain experience with language.

Whether through education, employment, or living abroad, experience tends to give people the confidence they need to succeed in this task. You can’t change past experience, but you can provide opportunities, such as overseas language training and job rotations, that open new doors and allow employees to stretch their skills. Rakuten has sent senior executives to English-speaking countries like the UK and the U.S. for full language immersion training. Employees have also been offered weeks-long language-training programs in the Philippines. Although not easily scalable to 7,100 Japanese employees, the programs successfully produced individuals with functional English skills. Rakuten also plans to send more than 1,000 engineers to technology conferences outside Japan.

Foster positive attitudes.

Attitudes are contagious: People’s faith in their own capabilities grows when they see others around them—peers, managers, friends—having positive experiences with the radical change. The reverse is also true, unfortunately. Managers can model good risk-taking behaviors by showing that they too are trying new things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes.

Mikitani focused his personal attention on middle managers because he knew that collectively they could influence thousands of employees. He encouraged them to constantly improve their own language skills and even offered to teach them English himself if need be. (Nobody took him up on the offer.) He also encouraged managers to support their subordinates in their efforts to develop their language proficiency.

Use verbal persuasion.

Encouragement and positive reinforcement from managers and executives—simple statements like “You can do it” or “I believe in you”—make all the difference. To mitigate turnover threats at Rakuten, managers identified talent that the company wanted to retain and tailored special programs for them, all the while cheering them on. Also, Mikitani repeatedly assured his entire workforce that he would do everything in his power to help every employee meet his or her English-proficiency goals. He made it clear that he believes that with effort everyone can adequately learn the language of business and that he did not want to see anyone leave the company because of the English-only policy.

Encourage good study habits.

Companies need to contract with language vendors who specialize in helping employees at various levels of proficiency. The vendors need to be intimately familiar with the company context so that they can guide employees’ learning, from how best to allocate their time in improving skills to strategies for composing e-mails in English. Rakuten considers language development to be part of every job and grants people time during the workday to devote to it. Every morning, employees can be seen flipping through their study books in the company’s cafeteria or navigating their e-learning portals.

Improving employee buy-in.

Shifts in buy-in call for different measures. But they don’t operate in isolation: Buy-in and belief go together. Strategies that can help people feel more confident include:

Messaging, messaging, and more messaging.

Continual communication from the CEO, executives, and managers is critical. Leaders should stress the importance of globalization in achieving the company’s mission and strategy and demonstrate how language supports that. At Rakuten, Mikitani signaled the importance of the English-language policy to his entire organization relentlessly. For instance, each week some 120 managers would submit their business reports, and he would reply to each of them pushing them to develop their language skills. I surveyed employees before and after Rakuten implemented the adoption framework. Results indicated a dramatic increase in buy-in after Mikitani showed his employees that he was “obsessed and committed to Englishnization,” as he put it. The vast majority of the employees surveyed said that the policy was a “necessary” move.

Encouragement from managers and executives—simple statements like “You can do it” or “I believe in you”—make all the difference.

Internal marketing.

Because a language transformation is a multiyear process whose complexity far exceeds most other change efforts, it is crucial to maintain employee buy-in over time. At Rakuten, the now-English intranet regularly features employee success stories with emphasis on best practices for increasing language competence. Companywide meetings are also held monthly to discuss the English-language policy.

Branding.

Managers should encourage people to self-identify as global rather than local employees. It’s difficult to develop a global identity with limited exposure to an international environment, of course. Rakuten tackled this challenge by instituting an enterprisewide social network to promote cross-national interactions. Employees now interact and engage with colleagues worldwide through the company’s social networking site.Adopting a universal English policy is not the end of leadership challenges posed by global communication. Using English as a business language can damage employee morale, create unhealthy divides between native and nonnative speakers, and decrease the overall productivity of team members. Leaders must avoid and soften these potential pitfalls by building an environment in which employees can embrace a global English policy with relative ease. In this way, companies can improve communication and collaboration.

When I asked Mikitani what advice he’d give other CEOs when it comes to enforcing a one-language mandate, he was emphatic about discipline. CEOs need to be role models: If they don’t stick to the program, nobody else will. Mikitani even holds one-on-one performance reviews with his top Japanese executives in English. “If you forgive a little,” he says, “you’ll give up everything.”

Mikitani doesn’t fear resistance. He believes, as I do, that you can counteract it—and ultimately bring about significant transformation in employees’ beliefs and buy-in. A global language change takes perseverance and time, but if you want to surpass your rivals, it’s no longer a matter of choice.

 

Tsedal Neeley is the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School and the founder of the consulting firm Global Matters. She is the author of The Language of Global Success. Twitter: @tsedal

Inbound Marketing Is Content Marketing – Now On Blockchain At Markethive

Inbound Marketing Is Content Marketing – Now On Blockchain At Markethive

Useful content should be at the core of your marketing. Content is the core of Inbound Marketing

Gone are the days where content means the blog posts your company writes. Instead, content marketing now includes a diverse set of content types and multiple channels to push them through. Chances are that if you’re already using social media, then you are doing content marketing to some extent.

Content marketing is accelerating at a blistering pace. By the year 2020, roughly 1.7 MB of new content will be created every second… for every living person on earth.

It’s easy to hear statistics like that and feel a sense of overwhelm – to feel like there’s no way to make your brand stand out from the crowd. But there is and I am going to show you how with this article.

 

 

What is content marketing?

To begin with, content marketing is taking any type of content (digital or physical) and purposefully sending it out to your audience.

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.

Content marketing is used by leading brands. Research shows the vast majority of marketers are using content marketing. In fact, it is used by many prominent organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and John Deere. It’s also developed and executed by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe. Why? Because it works.

 

Content marketing aka “Inbound Marketing” is good for your bottom line — and your customers

Here are some key reasons and benefits for entrepreneurs and companies that use content marketing:

  • More awareness

  • Increased sales

  • Cost savings

  • Better, more loyal customers

  • Greater branding and online presence

 

Content is the present – and future – of inbound marketing

Go back and read the content marketing definition one more time, but this time remove the “relevant” and “valuable”. That’s the difference between content marketing and the other informational garbage you get from companies trying to sell you “stuff.” 

Companies send us information all the time – it’s just that most of the time it’s not very relevant or valuable (can you say spam?). That’s what makes content marketing so intriguing in today’s environment of thousands of marketing messages per person per day.

 

Marketing is impossible without great content

Regardless of what type of marketing tactics you use, inbound marketing “content” should be part of your process, not something separate. Quality content is part of all forms of marketing:

  • Social media marketing: Content marketing strategy comes before your social media strategy.

  • SEO: Search engines reward businesses that publish quality, consistent content.

  • PR: Successful PR strategies address issues readers care about, not their business.

  • PPC: For PPC to work, you need great content behind it.

  • Inbound marketing: Content is key to driving inbound traffic and leads.

  • Content strategy: Content strategy is part of most content marketing strategies.

 

What if your customers look forward to receiving your marketing? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent 15, 30, 45 minutes with it? What if they anticipated it and shared it with their peers?

 

 

Markethive Blogging Platform

Markethive Blogging platforms broadcast out to huge portfolios of social networks, news sites, forums, and WordPress blogs.  Markethive blogs get easily indexed into the search engines, are subscribable by other Markethive members and subscription allows remote posting to their selection of social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.  A content-rich blogging system with a reach into the millions across multiple social media and blogging platforms.

With Inbound Marketing, potential customers find you through channels like blogs, search engines, and social media which is exactly what you get and a whole lot more powerful tools, tutorials, mentoring, all integrated into a social network with selling platforms and exchanges. 

 

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Benefits 

Additional benefits include receiving MHV Coin by your readers which adds more value to bloggers who have increased subscriber levels. You are paid by Markethive, the system, for writing and publishing your blogs instantly and continuously. All part of the micropayment faucet system within Markethive thanks to Blockchain Technology. 

To be effective at inbound marketing (content marketing), it is essential to have an automated marketing system that embraces and enhances your marketing strategy. 

The best part is that it is free with Markethive. The Markethive Inbound Marketing System can be compared with other platforms costing as much as $2,500 per month. 

 

 

Join Markethive to learn what questions to ask and how to develop your strategy, where we deliver printed, video and live educational seminars to get you acclimated and up to speed.

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

 

Deb Williams

Market Manager for Markethive, a global Market Network, and Writer for the Crypto/Blockchain Industry. Also a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech.  I embrace "Change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

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Multiple Chanels How to get started on your content marketing strategy

Multiple Channels

How to get started on your content marketing strategy

Gone are the days where content means the blog posts your company writes. Instead, content marketing now includes a diverse set of content types and multiple channels to push them through.

Chances are that if you’re already using social media, then you are doing content marketing to some extent. The next step is to get a strategy in place. This guide will walk you through why having a content marketing strategy is important and different ways you can get started on your own.

What is content marketing?

To begin with, content marketing is taking any type of content (digital or physical) and purposefully sending it out to your audience. Adding a strategy to this means that you’ve thought about your goals, audiences and distribution channels.

A typical content marketing plan will answer the below questions:

  • Who is your audience? These are usually based on market segments and certain types of content will target specific segments.

  • What channels will you use?

  • What metrics will you use to measure success and ROI?

  • What resources do you have?

  • What pain points will you solve?

Types of content

There are quite a few types of content out there now with new channels being developed every year. Part of being a good content marketer is being able to learn new types and be open to experimentation. Relatively new to the scene is user-generated social media content that can be used as part of your strategy.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list to help you think about what type of content your company has access to:

  • Company blog posts

  • Branded blog posts

  • User-generated content like an Instagram post

  • Videos

  • Podcasts

  • Whitepapers

  • Case studies

  • Infographics

  • Photos

  • Webinars

  • Quizzes

  • Press releases

  • News and magazine articles

Types of channels

How will you get the word out about your content? You can publish all the white papers you want but no one will see them if you’re not talking about them. For some channels, the line between content and channel blurs. For example, email newsletters are an excellent way of promoting your branded content. But, some brands also include unique content in the newsletter’s body. There is no right or wrong way to approach this. If you find that mixing it up works for your company, then go ahead and do it.

Some common channels include:

  • Email

  • Social media

  • Pamphlets

  • Search engine ads

  • Website

The most common channel is email, with 82% of marketers reporting it as the most effective. This is not-so-closely followed by social media at 54% and website/blog at 51%.

What does this mean for you? If you’re just starting out, use this as a jumping point on where to focus your beginning efforts. Start with one or two channels and expand as you feel more comfortable.

What resources are available?

Before you start diving into all of the content possibilities, take a step back and look at what resources you have available to you. Are you a marketing team of one or ten? What skill sets are already on your team? Does your marketing budget have room to hire a professional content creator?

You shouldn’t get into producing videos if you don’t have the available skills nor the budget for a videographer. Keep in mind that time is also a resource. New content types take time to learn, experiment with and create.

Next, think about who can generate this content. Don’t limit it to only the marketing team. Your sales and support teams will know what pains the customer or business goes through, too. All of the departments should have some content ideas that can be developed.

Develop your content marketing strategy

There are many ways to get started in developing your strategy. Here, we’ll offer three ways to get started. It’s possible that you’ve done some of this work already. In that case, repurpose your previous research and put it to use here.

1. Define your goals & metrics

The start of any new strategy begins with knowing what goals you have in mind. In content marketing, multiple goals are common and are often matched with content types and channels. And for each goal, you’ll need to define metrics that are used to measure success.

For example, one of your content marketing goals may be to increase your trial signups. To do this, you’d plan on creating case studies that will be published on your website and shared via social media. The case study includes text, photos, a downloadable PDF and video. Your sales team will use the link to share success studies with potential clients and your social media team will use the different media formats to repeatedly promote the case study.

This content matrix from Ninetyblack provides a graphical guide to where content can fall. The matrix may look different for your business. Quizzes are usually designed to be entertaining and can be a useful way to spread brand awareness.

2. Audit your current content

What’s working for you now? If you already have some branded content, conduct a content audit to help you understand what has and hasn’t been successful. The audit should include the actual content links and distribution channels.

Perhaps you’ve produced a few videos but they’ve only been published to YouTube. You’ve found that the audience is receptive to the videos. At this point, you may notice that a few videos have call-to-action links in the captions that lead back to your website. These videos not only were watched but people clicked on them to learn more. This discovery could potentially lead you to add more links into your captions for more cross-channel promotions.

In a Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 trends report, B2B marketers credited content creation and strategy as the top two factors in their content marketing success. Note that for content creation, it’s specified to be higher quality and more efficient. Low-quality content doesn’t cut it anymore especially if your competition is also focused on content marketing.

If your content was mostly pushed through social media channels, performing a social media audit may be beneficial to you. This way, you can see what type of content performed well and duplicate the similarities.

3. Map your customer journey

Certain types of content work best at points of a customer journey. A helpful product troubleshooting video won’t be as interesting to a potential customer in the awareness phase as it is for someone who has already purchased. Being aware that it exists, however, may help move the decision along.

This Boston Interactive checklist shows the various content types that match a customer’s purchase phase.

Remember, though, that a customer’s journey doesn’t end at the purchase. Past the purchase point, there’s still retention and support that need content marketing, too.

Bright Vessel illustrates their version of a customer journey map, indicating where each department plays a role. This exercise makes you reflect on every customer touchpoint.

Mapping this for your brand helps you understand where your content can be best served. Once you have the map down, then your content can be further tweaked and adjusted to reflect your audience and their journey status.

Implement & review your content marketing strategy

Now that you have three ways to brainstorm your strategy, the next steps are to document and implement it. With documentation, you’ll have a way to reference and steer your future content. If your strategy was to promote your blog posts on both social media and email newsletters but you find that newsletters are receiving a lot of engagement, you may look into increasing the send frequency or creating a subscriber list for only the blog.

Many content marketing calendars are overviews of content that’s planned for the year. They’ll often list the content, type, audience, customer phase and distribution channel(s), along with the publishing dates. This all-in-one calendar type is helpful for big picture planning.

Once you’ve drawn up the calendar, you’ll still need to listen and distribute it, and this is where social media plays a big role. A social media-minded content marketing strategy incorporates both social monitoring and publishing.

Markethive helps with both of these objectives. Through the Google calendar features, you can see when content is distributed and across which channels. For well-performing posts, Markethive makes it easy to republish the content with just a few clicks.

To monitor the topics your audience cares about, you use branded keywords and search options to see who’s talking about you and to curate content for redistribution. Content marketing doesn’t have to only include branded content. It also includes content that’s published about you or industry-adjacent news. Searching for topics in your industry in Advanced Google Search helps you easily identify & curate the content that your audience cares about.

Setup Google Alerts to keep you aware when others talk about your business and industry. Like Markethive and “Inbound Marketing”. Make sure you have a Disqus account, so you can engage blogs utilizing Disqus alerts and search for industries and blogs and articles that mention you.

In the end, content marketing strategies vary from business to business. The advice given here is meant to be a framework to begin your content marketing strategy, not as set-in-stone rules. As you begin this journey, you’ll find that some strategies or content don’t work for you and that’s okay. Having both defined goals and a plan in hand will go a long way in starting your strategy.

Thomas Prendergast
CEO Founder

What Is A Bounce Rate:How Important Is It?

What Is A Bounce Rate: How Important Is It? 

What is a Bounce Rate? 

Here is an easy way to think of the website bounce rate. Think of a ‘bounce’ as someone landing on your website, not clicking on any other pages and then leaving. The bounce rate is, therefore, the percentage of people that do this, rather than stay and take a look around your website. You want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, get them to engage and take the next step down your sales funnel. 

 

There are some key factors to consider that determine your website bounce rate…

What Type Of Traffic Are You Attracting? 

Are the visitors to your website specifically looking for your company, or are they looking for information? People who are familiar with you will bounce less than those who are in information-gathering mode. If you have an eCommerce store, does your traffic have high ‘commercial intent’? Are they ready to buy or simply researching for future purchases?  

Writing really awesome blog posts can bring you lots of traffic, but this tends to be more information-seeking traffic as opposed to visitors with high commercial intent. Consequently, traffic to blog posts tends to have a higher bounce rate than traffic to your home page even if the average session duration is longer. 

This shows the blogs are good quality and all that may be needed is a prominent call to action. Another way to keep them on longer is to have lots of relevant internal links so the visitors can delve deeper into a topic that interests them. 

 

 

What Causes Artificially High Bounce Rates? 

Websites are frequently crawled by bots. Some are friendly and used to decide where to rank the website. Other bots are nasty and evil and are looking for content to scrape and load to spammy sites. Therefore the bounce rate is skewed because they are not real visitors.

 

The Sources Of Your Traffic. 

Visitors that come from Google search results tend to ‘bounce’ much less than visitors from Facebook, for example. People are in very different frames of mind when they’re in work or play modes. Paid traffic sites can have an effect on your bounce rate due to the fact they are not organic or perhaps targeting the wrong audience pulling in unqualified traffic.

Sending the wrong people to your landing page will definitely result in a higher bounce rate. The right traffic is visitors that are primed to convert because they are in your target audience. 

CEO and CMO of Markethive, Thomas Prendergast has done some excellent research on the target market for Markethive. Given the company is on blockchain and crypto-based, it makes sense to target people using the platforms illustrated in this research

The Design And Layout Of Your Website.

Sites that are difficult to navigate, confusing, or look old-fashioned all tend to have higher bounce rates than new clean, easy-to-use, mobile-friendly websites. Intrusive advertisements will not only have a negative effect but will also reduce the reputation of your landing pages. Also, auto-play videos are a strict no-no. Most people don’t like surprises or be bombarded as soon as they hit the site. 

Headlines and subheadings are helpful to visitors to scan blocks of text quickly. If they cannot spot the content by scanning the headline or subheadings, they most likely will not take the time to search your site. 

Images relating to the content make it easier to read. Text without images can be overwhelming and needs to be optimized for online reading. Writing on the web is very different than writing for written publications. Images break up the copy making it easier on the eyes. 

Note: Images need to be relevant, inspiring and entertaining but not too many or too distracting. Avoid oversized images also. Combining images with great content simply reinforces what you want to say with the visual.

The Clarity Of Your Message.

Within the first few seconds of arriving at a website, visitors will automatically scan for content and design elements that communicate Credibility and Safety. The perceived safety of the site relates to the quality of the content and the appearance of the pages. If your site communicates safety, the visitor will be encouraged to stay, explore and may even take the next step.

Grammar and spelling errors on a site are very often perceived as not credible. It’s an absolute turn off for me when visiting sites. But the credibility and safety go well beyond grammar and spelling. The quality of content must quickly communicate that… 

  1. You understand their problem
  2. You have a solution that could solve their problem
  3. They just need to take the next step 

The next step is a clear call to action. Having a clear call to action means the visitor knows at a glance what their next step should be and where it is on the page. Making it easy and not asking for too much information will definitely work in your favor. Even asking for full name, phone number and email can result in a bounce or maybe even a false lead. A simple widget connected to their email account is a one-click verified lead that most people accept and is an easy, unobtrusive way to capture them.  

If the visitor is not convinced that the site is credible, reliable and safe for any reason, they will bounce from the page within the first few seconds after arriving. 

 

The Speed Of Your Website. 

Slow-loading websites have high bounce rates and low conversion rates. It’s that simple. The golden rule is that people do leave a website if it takes more than 4 seconds to load. 

These following factors tend to slow page load times: 

  • Cheap hosting
  • Oversized images that can’t be downloaded quickly
  • Too many images will cause too many requests on each page load
  • Using custom fonts need to be downloaded for the visitor to read 
  • Too many fancy sliders and javascript effects that also must be downloaded to work. 

 

What Is A Good Bounce Rate?

As a very broad rule of thumb, you’re aiming for a website bounce rate of under 40%. Between 40% and 55% is usually okay, whilst 55-65% shows significant room for improvement. This is a very simple and broad rule of thumb. There are certain circumstances like paid and social traffic, traffic hitting blog posts and also mobile traffic tends to bounce more. This is where it might be perfectly okay to have a bounce rate higher than these figures.

 

Checklist of things to review on your landing pages…

  1. You sent the right people to your landing pages.
  2. You don’t bombard people with intrusive ads that distract from your primary call to action.
  3. Your headlines match the advertisement that promoted the landing page.
  4. Visitors can quickly find what they are looking for.
  5. Spelling and grammar have been checked out.
  6. The content provided is of high quality.
  7. It’s well designed with a clear message.
  8. The images don’t distract from the call to action.
  9. You have a clear next step for the visitor avoiding confusion.
  10. You avoid asking for too much information.
  11. Landing pages load under 2 seconds.

 

For Markethive Associates, You can find your bounce rate under Statistics either on your Profile Page or in Pages for your Widget and Capture Page stats. Markethive has made it very easy to read the analytics and keep on top of critical information that can help you improve where need to reach your end goals.

 

This service is available to all Associates, Free, and Upgraded. I find the capture pages and websites at Markethive fare very well with bounce rates and conversions. 

Conclusion

Page layouts that are simple can communicate a lot of information in a short period of time. Focus on what you really want the visitor to do on your landing page. Be sure to make all the content, images and call to action buttons are gently nudging people in that direction.

Think of each landing page as a social contact. This is where you create a first impression that encourages the visitor to get to know you better, thereby improving your bounce rate, time on site and overall conversions. 

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

 

Deb Williams
Market Manager for Markethive, a global Market Network, and Writer for the Crypto/Blockchain Industry. Also a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech.  I embrace "Change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

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