...it's how to use news releases to reach buyers directly



By Courtney Green - Senior Marketing Manager, Sydney

As it has for many things, the Web has changed the rules for news releases. The way buyer’s access news via Google, Yahoo and various PR wire sites means that it’s not just journalists accessing your news but millions of people around the world. How to reach and engage with these millions of people around the world is what the Author, David Meerman Scott looks at throughout Chapter 17.

Scott says in regards to news releases “you are providing your buyers with information that they need in order to find your organisation online and then learn more about you”. This makes perfect sense – for instance I have a Ministerial Keynote Address that has just been added to a conference I am currently marketing, therefore writing a news release about his address will then lead to people becoming aware of this and in turn learn more about the conference.

Scott goes on to say that a fundamental change about news releases is that you don’t need to wait for big news. Write about pretty much anything that your organisation is doing!

• CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.
• Win an award? Write a release.
• Add a product feature? Write a release.
• Publish a white paper? Write a release.

This to me, I feel would keep the momentum of your marketing strategy at full pace so you are constantly at the forefront of people’s minds with interesting and relevant information to share.

Scott also looks at the use of RSS feeds which increase our ability to reach a much wider audience than ever before. Here at IQPC Australia we use Media Atlas (aap) and I have just come across a new one called http://www.whatech.com.au/ which has a technology and finance focus. Just this week I uploaded a Smart Grids press release and within the hour it had been picked up in Google Alerts and also by the CIO Council who then distributed the press release to their utilities database thus reaching people that I may not have otherwise!

One section in this chapter looks at the importance of links in your news releases. This is something I have become increasingly aware of over the last few months as we move to more web centric marketing. Not only do links within your news releases allow buyers to easily move between the news release to your event website or specific piece of content, it also increases your event website ranking – and we all know how important that is! Scott says “Each time your news release is posted on another site, such as an online news site, the inbound link from the online news site to your web site helps to increase the search engine ranking of your site, because the search engines use inbound links as one of the important criteria for their page ranking algorithms”. 

The final and perhaps most important section of this paragraph looks at the value of repurposing your news releases for other audiences. Scott says that “too often, organisations spend tons of money on, say, a PR program that targets a handful of journalists but fails to communicate the same information to other constituents”. Putting it into context it would be like having a very good press release and not repurposing it into an effective piece of copy to email to the database of a supporting association. For me, repurposing is time effective, smart and allows you to reach audiences that could have been missed opportunities.

Probably the advice that stands out to me the most is last paragraph of the chapter where he writes about the importance of having relevant, fresh and regular content/news releases. He says a regular editorial calendar means your company is busy. A non-updated media room can appear as if you company is stagnant. To me this rings true for our download centres. It is important for us to be constantly on the look out for relevant news articles or content opportunities so that we appear as not just a conferencing company but an information provider that is on the cutting edge of news and industry trends.

I feel that chapter 17 really reiterates what I and my team have been trying to achieve in our marketing strategies of late and it is encouraging to know we are on the right track.

Courtney Green

...it's chapter 16 of the New Rules

Our bible here at IQPC is 'The New Rules of Marketing and PR' - how to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly.

As a unit, the team has been reviewing and discussing a couple of chapters each week, and as the Online Communications Manager, I've decided to take it one step further and chart my learnings - since the aim of this blog is to 'evolve an online communications manager'.

The good thing about this book is the simplicity of the language. The author, David Meerman Scott, uses plain english, real world examples, and cuts the crap. The book was evolved as a result of his experience with his own blog and the feedback and conversations he had with the readers. In addition to this, the book does not read front to back - you can open any chapter and read, and it's not required that you've read the early ones....

So this is how i'm going to post - chapter 16: Video and Podcasting made, well, as easy as possible. Overall impression of this chapter: I think it reinforced to me that we are doing a good job in terms of new media within business - our standard of podcasts and videos are excellent, but we can certainly take it to the next level...

Key learnings:  

• Video: Essentially the chapter explores how easy it is to create engaging content via video. The best line in this part of the chapter is where the author says ‘Creating audio and video content for marketing and PR purposes requires the same amount of attention to appropriate topics as other techniques. It requires targeting individual buyer personas with thoughtful information that addresses some aspect of their life or pr they face. By doing so , you brand your organisation as smart and worthy of doing business with...
• He says that the idea of companies using video for business is still fairly new. He mentions Youtube and Vimeo as channels through which companies can publish video content (and develop a channel) - ‘Vlogging’ is an interesting term for embedding video content into a blog (we should think about engaging with our bloggers and encouraging them to embed our content?)
• Podcasting 101: A podcast is a piece of audio content tied to a subscription component….I wonder what he means by this, and if it’s something we should consider? Ultimately, are we really only creating ‘Audio interviews’ if they aren’t podcasts, because there is no subscription element? Podcasts also presume that people can access them on their iTunes or iPods (mobile), but is this how we envisage they’ll listen to it?
• ‘Many people will help promote a show they have been featured on..’ - this is a great line which got me thinking about how we should encourage our interviewees to leverage the content to their networks also - after all, they invested the time to doing the podcast, they should do more for us!!
• Put links to your podcast on your website, email signature, and on your offline materials (business cards, brochures)

Quotes:

“Podcasting is great marketing because, like blogging, it is a human voice”

  

“Most podcast’s don’t have a PR stamp on them, so the shows come across as being human. The reason why this is interesting is that there is a big marketing shift going on right now. The older traditional advertising model, like the 1950s TV, is that we publish and you consume. However, today’s marketing model is that we publish and you respond to it. It provides me real feedback from real people, and I have conversations. I can be interactive."

Until next time,

Christopher J Archer

...It's All Online, September 2010



This is the monthly eNewsletter I send to our marketing and production teams which gives them updates on online communications. Usually I have action points for each producer or marketer, but sometimes I like to share or educate them. Read on....

Welcome to ‘It’s all Online’
________________________________________

Social media can’t be left to one person….

Jason Romain, Global Head of Marketing, explored the concept of ‘Social Network Fatigue’ in his latest Marketing Newsletter. SNF refers to the sheer burnout experienced by the vast number (and increasing) of social networking and sharing sites available online today.

I’m stealing his material in this edition, because I want to highlight that in light of SNF….social media can’t be left to one person…

Social Media can't be left to one person. It's the whole organisations responsibility, producers, customer service, sales and marketing must all leverage social media. Obviously we can't (nor should we) ignore this powerful channel, but we also can't let it distract us from effective marketing. Marketing is about communicating a story, a story that resonates with our audience, regardless of the tools. Effective marketing is about measurement, some of these new tools also have great new metrics but we shouldn't forget it's about driving revenue or attendance at our events. Integrated direct marketing is about wrapping it all together, measurement, channel and message. Aligning them is where success lies.

… More importantly we must find influencers in the social media space and engage them in our events. It's not always about the latest or greatest tools, it's about telling a story (and measuring success).

So continue to spend time on social networks to engage with influencers who can promote and advocate for our events.
________________________________________

THE POWER HOUR:

Daily in marketing we have commenced ‘Power Hour’ which is a dedicated time between 9-10am for us to engage with social media channels.

What we do:

• Join groups on LinkedIn
• Start discussions centred around themes of the conference (ask questions etc)
• Connect with speakers and influencers within the groups
• Search for relevant blogs and engage with the author (eventually we’d like to share content on the blog)
• Tweet our content on our mining and construction portals
• Try to build our LinkedIn groups through mass invites
• Trial new social media portals to see how we can use them to leverage our content
• Use promotions to connect the event with our group (by offering linkedin offers etc)
• Ask people who join our groups to ‘Introduce themselves to the group and make mention of their interest in X topic’
• Use our speakers are leverage, an area we must get better at. People are more likely to engage with our speakers, not us!!

 What we don’t do: 

• Start a discussion on Linked In and say ‘Come to this conference because…’
• Start new groups of stage one launches without a clear and defined growth strategy as to how this will grow post-event
• Email group members directly spouting that they attend
• SELL our conference on social media – we share content and knowledge aligned to our conferences.

So, I challenge you to commit some time to social media of your own – after all, you hold much more knowledge, you have stronger relationships with the speakers and you can interact and respond to them online. GO TEAM!!

...the Tao of Coaching

Recently I've found myself 'coaching' others, well, doing my best...

I've always like to teach others, mainly because someone once told me 'the best way to learn is to teach others', and I believe this to be very true. When you have to explain to another person how something is done, you are forced to really evaluate and rationalise what you are doing...

Often I find myself talking reaaaaalllly fast, then observing the person's body language..which is often one of confusion. Sometimes I struggle with finding the balance between giving someone a task with enough information as to WHY they are doing it, without having to tell them the WHOLE rationale behind it.

Take today for instance - I have a marketing intern working under my guidance at the moment. She is very capable, but has never worked in a marketing department before. Her experience with marketing is limited to textbook study at a marketing institute (which makes me wonder if they are teaching the 'New Rules of Marketing and PR' there). SO, when I'm briefing her on a new project, I start asking her to do something, then realise that she has no idea how or what or where to begin, so I have to start back at the WHY we do 'online content'....

I'm getting better at it (and so is she in understanding the objective of online communications), also because my Regional Marketing Director, recommend I read 'Max Landsberg: The Tao of Coaching'...now, i've only just begun, but it's a good book. I want to share a couple of the learnings i've found useful.

Ask questions:  Don't just tell when helping others develop their skills!!! This may sound obvious, but the book explains that if you invest the ten minutes in coaching (notice that I didn't use the word explaining or telling) someone who reports to you, it will later save you an hour!

In this video - Herb Kelleher, CEO Southwest Airlines says 'Coaching has to emanate from the heart, not the head...and that people readily recognise the difference between the two...'

Ask for feedback and then receive feedback genuinely: Avoid being defensive, and ask for specific examples.

I've only read the first quarter of the book, but it's worth reflecting on it in this blog!

Stay tuned for more!

Catch me on Linked IN - Christopher J Archer

...meet Lauren Kelleher, Online Comms Assistant

When the role of Online Communications Manager was rolled out throughout the global group, and the volume of events started increasing, so did my work load. Thus, I recruited an intern from a local university to assist with some of online content generation.


Lauren Kelleher joined IQPC as an intern in March of this year (2010), and quickly became a valuable member of the online and marketing teams. She is now with us on a part-time basis, and has provided some insight into her duties and experiences here below...
Lauren, tell me about the role of an Online Communications Assistant? What are your day-to-day duties?

My role as Online Communication Assistant at IQPC includes working closely with the Online Comms Manager and Marketing Team to promote our events to the target audience (business professionals). On a day to day basis this mainly involves creating and finding online content such as podcasts, Q&A’s, Press Releases, News and white papers which are then uploaded to the event websites. Another role of mine is to promote IQPC’s conferences on event based websites to drive interest in each conference. Occasionally I also get to attend conferences where Chris and I video interview delegates and speakers and use the footage to create online content.

What’s the best part of the role? Why?

The best part of my role would be would be when discovering online content has performed really well, as it is satisfying to know that an interview or Q&A that I have worked on has helped drive interest and promote the event – as that is the main part of my job. The other great part of my job is attending the conferences because it’s great to see how the conferences actually work and also interact with the people that attend.

What’s the worst part of the role? Why?

The worst part of my role would probably have to be when it’s difficult to get people to agree to do an interview for an event – it can be frustrating. Also promoting our event on conferencing websites (what we call diary listings) can also be tedious at times!

Do you think online content will enhance B2B relations in the future? How so?

Yes I think online content will enhance B2B relations in the future. By creating content online, there are greater avenues to explore, and we can create content tailored to specific business groups or professionals. I think where we market our content is important – by marketing it online we have the opportunity to promote our events on not only a broad range of generic sites, but also in places which meet people’s specific needs or interests. I think online content is a great way to involve people and engage them in each conference, which is why I think it will prove to enhance B2B relations in the future.

Do you understand what is meant by ‘fishing where the fishes are’, please explain?

I think what is meant by the phrase ‘fishing where the fishes are’ in relation to my job, is marketing your event in the right places at the right time. It is about being able to communicate with your audience in a way that they can relate to and engage with – e.g. Podcasts etc. I think it is also about being aware where the most ‘fishes’ are and putting continued effort into these places rather than others. For example I found that some diary listing websites are more popular than others in generating traffic to our event, so it is more important to focus on such sites than wasting time on others which hardly attract any users.
To contact Lauren, email lauren.kelleher@iqpc.com.au

...ask and you shall receive!

ASK and you shall receive…

We are all LinkedIn right?

LinkedIn is a great tool for conference producers and marketing managers – there are many applications you can use to find information about your conference, share content, connect with professionals in the industry, identify vendors, and much more.

Last week I trialled the use of the ‘Answers’ function on LinkedIn (see below) – this is where you can ask a question to the entire LinkedIn community about a specific topic. Ideally, your respondent’s will give you valuable answers which you can use…. So, I did this for a few of our upcoming conferences…(confidential, but I can reveal that I had 21 responses for one of the questions, 11 for another, and 7 for another!)

Watch out though - this one guy said regarding an energy question on Carbon storage (talk about creating controversy….) - My thoughts are that CC&S is a vast pork-barrelled boondoggle, capable of swallowing taxpayer's money far more efficiently that it can ever hold CO2. My primary concern is that those who are most ardently pressing for carbon capture (like Al Gore, for instance) have invested billions of dollars their own money in the same projects that they're promoting politically.

So ask away…. You’ve got nothing to lose. Here’s my advice though…

• Keep the question simple
• Before you submit a question you need to clarify the appropriate industry (choose two here)
• Mention in your description that responses may be used within a content article piece you are producing

Next step though....how to use the responses to generate event enquiries....

Here's an interesting video I came across on Youtube. John Pulizzi on Content Marketing 'We are all publishers' - worth a watch!

...the road to Canberra: Lessons learned

Three hours south of Sydney is the sleepy city of Canberra - home of our nation's Prime Minister and meeting place for Australia's parliaments. It was also my meeting place with various keynote speakers who will present at IQPC conferences in the near future.

Last week, armed with a schedule of meetings, the video equipment, and a GPS navigation system, I set off in the wee hours of the morning to my first destination - an interview with Andrew Livingston, the Renewable Energy Regulator, speaker at our Wind Farms Development, Design & Construction 2010.

This interview, conducted in an empty office space under fluorescent lighting was ultimately the driest of the day. Though very knowledgeable and comfortable in front of the camera, I felt Andrew kept giving me answers of a similar nature. Lesson #1 - arm yourself with lots of questions and know your topic before commencing the interview so your video has variety.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rF_M9qsSRM

Soon after, I drove to CNOC (Centrelink Network Operations Centre), for my exclusive interview with John Wadeson, Deputy Secretary ICT Infrastructure, Department of Human Services, Centrelink - a big title for an important figure within a Federal Government agency. John is presenting at our Government Contact Centre Summit 2010.

Before the interview, I was fortunate enough to get some footage of their operations centre to use within my interviews. I found John to be a very charismatic person who was completely comfortable being interviewed, though he often rambled in his responses. Lesson #2 - don't be afraid to ask your interviewee to paraphrase in order to get a more succinct answer!

Link: This video was too long for Youtube. Visit www.govcc.com.au to view it or email me

A short drive out of the city to my next interview with Peter Major, Senior Manager ICT Security, Intact ACT. This interview explored the integrity of government websites against cyber threats and security (for e-Security for Government 2010). Another consummate professional in front of the camera, the entire interview was filmed in one take. This allowed me to produce the final version in a unique way - no dissolves or fancy edits, the interview runs from start to finish with no stops.

Lesson #3 - if you find the interviewee engaging, so will your audience, so don't be too concerned with re-framing. Once you're confident with your initial video set up, keep rolling!
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNPzJp-QNow

Close by to Canberra's iconic Parliament House was my final interview of the day with Paul Madden, Project Director, Standard Business Reporting (SBR), Australian Treasury, for Australian Regulatory Reform 2010.

There is a fine line between being informative and being sold to - this particular interviewee pushed these boundaries with a few clever inclusions of their website, email, and contact details of how businesses can learn more about their services. Ultimately though this allowed me to compromise with him, Lesson #4 - have confidence to play 'Director' during your interview. There's no harm in encouraging them to advocate for your conference, e.g. 'I'm looking forward to speaking at the conference because...' or 'The value in attending the conference is...'

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGl5_kAu-E

A highly successful day in Canberra and the post-production of the videos has been challenging but a great experience. Feel free to let me know your thoughts - any tips or tricks you might have, or feedback (positive and negative!).

Until next time
Chris Archer
Online Communications Manager
IQPC Australia

...it's more than just footage!

I wanted to quickly showcase a new video I've produced for our Wind Farm Development, Design & Construction conference.

This interview with Miles George, MD of Infigen Energy (Australia's largest owner and operator of Wind Farms) features footage which I extracted from their corporate Wind Farm development video!

Genius!!

Not only does the additional footage give the interview a greater quality, but it also reinforces the message delivered by Miles in his responses. The images depicted provide greater credibility to the interview, and makes it more polished.

See below...

I welcome your feedback.

My next post will be called 'The Road to Canberra: Lessons learned in our Nation's Capital'

...The value of news in driving EQs

I like my headline - it rhymes!

IQPC Australia has had much success in driving enquiries through news content.

By capturing and marketing relevant news to your target market, you are demonstrating that you’re keeping your finger on the pulse, you’re aware of current affairs, you know the issues affecting their industry and how to overcome them!

A step-by-step guide to turning bad news into good news!

Step one: Set up your ‘Google Alerts’ to send you daily/weekly updates of related news content for your events. Also ensure your conference producers and fellow marketeers are actively looking for online and print news for their conferences.

Step two: Review the news and extract any article or news feature which relates to your conference topic/s. (e.g. we are running a conference on Population Health Management and an article featured on the front page of the Australian Financial Review recently which highlighted key issues affecting our target market.)

Step three: Drop article into PDF, ensuring you source the content in the footer. Or if this is a print publication – scan it! Like this…


Step four: Market it! Like this

Dear X,

Improving Australia's healthcare has shot back to the top of the national agenda after the government announced $2 billion worth of funding for healthcare in Australia.
Featured on the front page of the Australian Financial Review, Monday 12 April, the article highlighted that 436 million will be for funding long term preventative illness including diabetes.
If you would like to read the article click here and we will send it to you. [This is linked to enquire@iqpc.com.au, it opens up an automatic email with a pre-populated subject header ‘Please send me a copy of ‘X Article’]


Step five: The requests for the article will filter into the enquiries inbox and will need to be inputted into SKY. This will create new opportunities for the EQ team (who will need to send each respondent the article via email, and follow up with them soon after to maximise your lead potential).

Pros, Cons, and Considerations:

Pro: We are not asking for a lot of details to be inputted in order to access the content, the simplicity of ‘click and we’ll send it to you’ is brilliant! And in most cases, a person’s auto-signature will generate all the information you require!

Con: The manual entry of names into SKY

Consideration: It is important for your EQ team to remember that a news article (like other online content) will rarely convert a full delegate ticket alone. You need to use this as ammunition to SPIN…

Situation (The article touches directly with the situation of why we have the conference)
Problem (Addresses one of the specific issues about the conference)
Implication (Addresses one of implications of what would happen if they don’t solve the problems)
Need-payoff (Specific urgency regarding the above)


So consider what else you have available to you to share with your prospect (podcasts, other news, whitepapers, research, case studies, the brochure?)



Until next time,

Chris Archer

...it's all about the videos!

I must say - this latest project I've worked on has to be one of the most enjoyable tasks I've endeavoured to date! I'm really proud of the entire process.

I'll start by showing you the end result - here's is one of the videos we produced for our most recent stage two event - Field Service Management 2010. We conducted various Vox Pop interviews with delegates, speakers, and sponsors to get a broad opinion on three topic areas.

How are field Service Technologies affecting the industry? Click below to play...

The idea to bring the video production in house stemmed from a recent fascination of mine with putting together my own videos at home on my new Mac, as well as our growing frustration with our former video production supplier. Thus, Caitriona O'Mahony (Acting Marketing Director AUS), and I decided to commit to purchasing a HD video camera and all the equipment, and doing the video's ourselves.

Risky, of course - not only have I no real post-production experience, and sure, I've done a television journalism class at uni, but I'm far from professional. Based on my experience with iMovie, and our expectations of the kind of videos we wanted to produce, I was confident that I could achieve our desired outcome - and I must say, from the feedback I've received on these videos, we've done it!

So the process began with a fairly thorough research phase into types of video cameras etc - which fortunately for us in Australia, only one brand of camera supports an external microphone output (necessary for interviews etc - better sound quality), so we committed to a HD Canon video-camera. We also acquired a Manfrotto tripod, Luxman lighting kit, Rode stereo mic, camera case, spare battery, and good quality headphones.

Armed with the equipment, we went to the FSM 2010 conference with a schedule of questions, and an interview to conduct, and promptly got to work. Thanks also to my Online Communications Intern, Lauren Kelleher, for her assistance on the day!

At all times behind the camera I considered the sound quality (adjustable on the LCD screen and monitored on my headphones), the framing (to ensure the picture was full, with movement in the background if possible from various angles and locations), the lighting (less shadow and ample light is best), as well as the content (ultimately we wanted our participants to answer questions which provided value), so keeping our end goal in mind was paramount.

In addition, consider getting good quality crowd/network shots (and I must admit, I didn't get enough of these shots in my first attempt), in order to bring you videos to life and give the event the look of busyness and grandeur, you need these 'cut aways' or 'pick ups' for use over the top of your footage.

Post production was done in iMovie - a very simple to use Mac program which comes standard on any MacBook. After simply uploading all the footage to your library, you can simply cut and paste the snapshots from the footage, dissolve between each transition, apply a super (name and company), with logo's at top and tail of the video.

Now that sounds simple enough, but it actually took hours in post-production - probably due to my experience using the program, but I really enjoyed this process, and to be honest, I wanted to deliver perfection - I hope I've come close.

Another consideration is the music I inserted at the top and tail of the videos. You need to source a royalty free track from a website like ProductionTrax.com - one which fits to the sound of a 'corporate' tone. Once purchased (price varies between $15US, and $99US), you can cut/splice this track for use in your video.

So, naturally there is much room for improvement, but for the purposes of generating useful content to the website, I think we've achieved our goal here - what do you think?

Here are the links to the other videos:

Interview with Tony Thornton, Rheem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBtN_DoerBk&feature=related

The Impact of technologies on the industry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6h3_uH__xE&feature=related

Top tips for gaining Staff Buy-In: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S7_b71LMIc&feature=related

Until next time,

Chris Archer

IQPC Australia

Online Communications Manager

... I'm a freak?

My Global Marketing Director - Jason Romain (aka The Nomad Marketer), emailed me yesterday, requesting that a few 'IQPCers' contribute to the next global marketing newsletter.

This was what he wrote in his email:

As Tom Peters once said Leaders should hang out with freaks, freaks being people who think differently and push you to think, so thank you all for letting me make that happen, you’re all freaks, be proud.

I'm a freak? Thanks Jason!

As ridiculous as this sounds - it's completely true.

I've often heard the expression 'People like like people' - meaning we surround ourselves by people who think, feel, react, converse, argue, and socialise in similiar ways to us.

It's how we chose our friends, our partners, and our careers.

So the point for me is to continue to share what I know with my peers, so that they can continue to grow. Subsequently, I urge you to challenge me with what you know.

Seth Godin said recently on his blog that the best thing to say to an artist of any kind might be, "someday, people will think what you did is really important."

These words are encouraging for a humble blogger like me since "If it's popular with everyone right away, it might not be art, it might just be good marketing. But if it earns attention and respect over time, if it wins over the skeptical, then you've really created something."

So I hope this blog finds you well, and perhaps challenges you to think differently.

Let's get freaky!

Until next time,

Chris Archer

p.s. Watch this space, first event in-house produced IQPC Australia event videos will be shared soon.

…on Google Analytics

I spent one lunchtime last week watching an internal webinar on Google Analytics.

I’m familiar with Analytics but definitely not an expert.

My lack of thorough understanding on this application stems from the fact that analysis (not being my strong suit), tends also to be a low priority task for most Marketing Managers. This is mostly due to being time poor, and adopting new processes during busy times is difficult.

But I know now that Google Analytics holds great potential!

Here are my key learnings;

1. Bounce Rate: refers to the rate at which one person enters your site, views one page only and leaves. If your % is <>

2. Within the ‘Visitors’ tab on your dashboard, there is a function called ‘New v. Returning’, to determine who spends more time on the website. The global analytics/webinar trainer has pre-set a series of ‘Goals’ – which highlight the % of visitors who click on a download on the site (whether it is a PDF download, a registration form, or additional content). You would expect that for a LSE event or one with a lot of content, the % of additional content is higher.

3. Direct traffic – the visitors who type the name of the event directly into the address bar on their browser.

4. Referring traffic – websites that refer people to your own website. Central to determining which external partnerships are working and which referring websites drive the most traffic. One way you can qualify the ‘stickiness’ of your referring traffic is to view the ‘Bounce Rate’ of the visitors from that source (as mentioned above, the lower, the better). Similarly you can click on the ‘goals’ tab to view the click thrus to the pre-determined downloads.

5. Content section – tells you which pages within the website are performing the best

6. I noticed a fair bit of traffic is directed through to the websites if your speakers/sponsors promote the event on their LinkedIn or ZoomInfo profiles. Worth asking them for the free plug!

Interestingly, I can now confirm that the time I spend monotonously updating diary listing sites, sharing information and news on LinkedIn, and doing press releases, does actually drive traffic to the website.

For one of our events which I spent quite a bit of time on LinkedIn, discussing shopping trends etc, has driven 25 people through to the website, of which 20% downloaded some additional content (podcast or whitepaper). That’s good news!

How do you integrate the learnings of Google Analytics to your business?

…is LinkedIn the Facebook for Business Professionals?

…is LinkedIn the Facebook for Business Professionals?

Today I attended one of those lunchtime webinars (at my desk obviously), to learn how I can unleash the power of LinkedIn.

Prior to the webinar, I would've considered myself fairly novice on the 'power' of LinkedIn.

I launched my LinkedIn account just prior to commencing my role here at IQPC. I was assured by the multitude of recruiters I met with, that LinkedIn was the 'Facebook' for business professionals.

I tend to agree and disagree with this.

In so far as I am aware, LinkedIn is a great tool for business professionals to connect. Certainly in my role so far, i've been able to share news, share content, ask advice, source news, connect to people, and increase my own business network.

My greatest two issues are as follows;

Time - I struggle to find the time to engage with other people on LinkedIn...to it's full potential I mean. In the past I've spent a few hours joining groups, starting discussions, uploading press releases, content, etc - all the things you CAN do to promote your event. But this can create my second issue

Sensitivity - This is where Facebook and LinkedIn greatly differ. You can share ANY information on Facebook; your business, your shoe size, your favourite foods, your mother's favourite foods!!! On LinkedIn, this behaviour won't fly. Unless there is a perceived VALUE in what you write or say, you will get reprimanded! I've been told off for being too salesy, for plugging my agenda. Thus, you've got to be sneaky. Use what you know.

Currently my strategy is to infiltrate the groups which exist already on LinkedIn within the topic areas we develop conferences for, and then I share;
- Links to press releases
- Promote LIVE podcasts, or links back to the podcast post the recording
- Relevant news
- Event Listing (and subsequently using the event URL as news within the group/s)
- Open discussions (asking ONE question, to foster industry response) etc.

Post the 'Webinar' I can honesty say I am more advanced than I gave myself credit for, having only learned ONE thing during the 45 minutes. (this being the 'Answers' Tab on LinkedIn, where you can ask a question across a multitude of industries).

There's plenty more I can share on LinkedIn (and Facebook for that matter), but that's all until next time.

I wonder - what's your advice on how to promote B2B on LinkedIn?

You can email me directly, or comment below.

Chris Archer

it'sallonline launch blog

..truth be told, I should’ve started this blog back in June 2009.

As the first ‘Online Communications Manager’ to be hired within our company, globally, IQPC took a big chance on me.

And I took a big chance on them.

Starting out, I didn’t know how this role would evolve, what to expect, or how this role would affect the business…and yet as I look back after 9 months, much has been achieved, here and overseas.

Thus, itsallonline has been born.

The purpose of this blog is to trace back through what I’ve learned, tried and implemented, and to develop a legacy for future Online Communications Managers within the group.

Also to share ideas, foster discussion, and record the new things I learn.

I’m also challenging myself on a personal level to read more, research more and share more. I’ll use this space to highlight key learnings.

I also think the process of writing, updating and managing a blog is a great learning experience.

So, I encourage you who may read this to challenge me, share what you know, and we can evolve together.

Feel free to drop me an email, share your thoughts, or comment on this blog.

Quote of the blog: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton

Cheers,

Chris Archer
Online Communications Manager
IQPC Australia
chris.archer@iqpc.com.au