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How much of my budget should I spend on content marketing? That's probably the question I hear more than any other. It's a welcome question because businesses don't budget for something they don't think will work. I was particularly happy to be asked about content marketing budgets yesterday while speaking at the PCO Conference in New Zealand. PCOs (professional conference organisers) can be a tough crowd, especially if you're trying to convince them to divert budget away from the `in person' experience food, beverages, venue costs, entertainment and travel expenses.

Yesterday the Content Marketing Institute along with MarketingProfs released their annual report on content marketing: B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends. The international survey comprised the results of nearly 1100 people (most of them in North America) almost equally split between micro, small, mid-size and large organisations. Right across the board, content marketing activity is on the rise and business is increasing content marketing budgets. The report states:

"On average, 60% of respondents indicate that they plan to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months."

The overall spend on content marketing is 26% but it's interesting to note smaller companies spend a larger percent of their budgets on content. It's a good indicator to me content marketing is working, regardless of the size of your business. Respondents who considered themselves most effective at content marketing spent 31% of their budget on content marketing.

Good news for PCOs
It was interesting for me to note the most effective form of content is still in-person events. Undoubtedly, spending big on an event is still going to give you a good return on your investment. Content marketers are finding video events to be the next most effective kind of content. Anyway you cut it, the PCO isn't going anywhere.

My advice
Next time someone asks me the question about how much to budget for content marketing, based on this new report I'm going to answer `about 25% – 30% of your total marketing budget to be effective'. If you haven't adopted a content marketing strategy it's a good rule of thumb figure to include in your planning. Make sure you download the free report, it's a good read with lots of useful information in it to help you plan your content marketing activity.

Are you increasing your spend on content marketing next year?

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Are you interested in getting your content distributed to a wider network? Of course you are. In an earlier post, I advised on the need for sharing widgets. How you construct a link for sharing on Twitter can make a big difference on how often it's distributed. You won't be surprised to hear I have an opinion on how that should be done.

1) The title of the article or post
The very first thing you'll want a reader to see is the name of your post. Your title should have relevant keywords and entice people to open the link. (No one knows better than me that's easier said than done.) Do not put your company name, Twitter ID or any other information in front of the title. Remember, it's not about you, it's about the content.

2) A link to the post
Directly after the title, your reader should be able to click on a link and go to your article. It's not so important the link is shortened because Twitter will do that for you now.

3) The source
After the link, you'll want to identify the source of the article. This separates your content from SPAM and encourages people to click. You don't, however, need more than one identifier. If your Twitter ID easily describes your website, don't include the name of your website.

Good examples

How to silence noisy neighbours http://bit.ly/uch4rM via @smh

[color=blue]Need a resume? We can help: http://bit.ly/ussM1Z via @MiningOilGasJob

Not so good

RT @HarvardBiz – Job Seekers: Get HR on Your Side – Amy Gallo – Best Practices – Harvard Business Review: http://s.hbr.org/uNUREl

[color=blue]Study reveals youth are stressed | Sunshine Coast Health | Fitness and Medical News in Sunshine Coast | Sunshine Coast Daily: http://bit.ly/rqlkRe via @AddThis – This tweet is already 19 characters over the 140 limit on Twitter!

The Take-Away
Take it from one of the pack, readers are a fickle, lazy bunch. The urge to share your content is fleeting, especially if it's too hard. Make sure your Twitter sharing widget is constructing short, sharp tweets leaving plenty of room at the end for a personal endorsement from the reader. People like me are just waiting to share your content with the Twitterverse.

How do you like to see a Tweet constructed?

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Last week I visited the east coast of Australia speaking to hiring managers and recruiters about how to use social media in their work. Many of the people I met with had expressed equal parts of interest and trepidation about entering the social media fray. Nearly every one of them was concerned about doing more harm than good.

Today I ran across a blog post from Craig Thomler speaking to the very heart of the problem.

"A number of those being employed in these new social media advisor roles don't have the mix of skills required to hit the ground running. I've heard of people with little or no experience with professional use of social media being employed as social media advisors simply on the basis of their personal use of these channel and therefore presumed competence."

I completely agree with Mr. Thomler. For years I've been attending social media conferences where the largest demographic by my guess is young people between the ages of 18 and 22. Why so many? When I ask them why they're there, most of them tell me it's because they think a job in social media would be fun.

Be very afraid
Interestingly, businesses often assign social media activities to inexperienced staff members because they have used them in their personal lives. A kid running a Facebook profile aimed at their friends is a lot different than a business using social media to extend their brand. If you're planning on running a rave or hijacking a party, by all means give it to the young people in your organization. In 2008, Corey Delaney proved he could get results with Facebook by throwing a party that made international headlines. He was celebrated and vilified but the end result was a trashed house and a big clean-up bill from the city. Is that what you want for your business?

Social media is still media
When you participate in social networks, you're broadcasting your message to a global audience. The person planning what, when, where and how to deliver it should have the experience required to manage an international marketing campaign. That person should look a lot more like me a middle-aged business person than a teenage party boy. Social media is not about the tools you use. It's about your overall marketing strategy. Social media lets you implement it in another channel you may not have approached before.

An ad-hoc approach to social media is sure to backfire
The Qantas Twitter disaster is proof throwing money at social media doesn't necessarily work, either. With four full-time employees dedicated to social networking, Qantas still got it incredibly wrong. While I'm not privy to Qantas marketing, it sounds to me like there was a disconnect between the social media message and the folks at corporate marketing. The scary part is most organisations simply take an ad-hoc, stick-the-toe-in-the-water approach to see what happens.

I ask, would you give the keys to a Ferrari to someone with a P-plate?

Where social media fits
Here's the problem. Young people are attracted to the `social' part of social media. They usually don't have an appreciation for how it can affect an organisation or a brand. They certainly don't have the experience or wisdom required to run a comprehensive social media program. Social media should be part of your overall marketing strategy. It should be driven by the message and content your organisation is distributing to the market.

Sound advice
Anyone approaching you with a social media strategy should be viewed with suspicion especially if they're not sporting a few lines on their face or grey hairs earned in the trenches. The most successful social media practitioners (I shudder at `social media expert') are good communicators with strong marketing backgrounds. You may employ young people in your organisation to help implement the plan, but don't let them drive your brand into a ditch.

Who runs your social media activity?

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Image credit: The fabulous Adrianne Barba from bird.STUDIOS

You already know from the title this is going to be a rant, right? I've been using social media sites for business since before the turn of the last century – before the term `social media' was even coined. I kicked off my freelance writing career in 1999 with guru.com and have been hooked ever since. I've written about it a lot and I'm out here every day adding to the conversation. When someone tells me I'm doing it wrong, I get a little touchy.

Social media is full of marketing, media and creative people. It's the space I've inhabited, as well. While the group has its scraps, cat fights and the occasional good old-fashioned dust-up, mostly it's an orderly chaos with everyone following prescribed rules of online behavior. We all want to promote our stuff so we tend to be agreeable about the "do's and don'ts" as long as no one tries to hem us in too much.

Now I'm in a new sandpit with new players and lots of peripheral participants looking to get a toe in. It seems the weapon of choice is social media and they're not shy about issuing edicts on what and how I should be sharing information.

Commercial information
For the record, no one has an obligation to share commercial information just because you're online. You especially have no obligation to reveal financial details of your business if you've never broached the subject yourself. A couple weeks ago, someone I have never met or even heard of before posted this question in a discussion group geared towards people looking for employment:*

I am interested to know who has actually advertised upon COMPANY NAME and if you have had any success at all?

Nice try!
I give the person credit for trying and posted this reply:

You can look at the site to see who's advertising. If you want specific detail, I can have someone from our sales team contact you to discuss it. I'm not sure this is the right forum for us to be divulging that sort of information.

If you missed it, that was my not-so-subtle way of saying `You've got to be kidding.'

Round two
And then I received this nasty little lecture:

I do believe this is a group for your COMPANY thereby making it the most appropriate channel/forum to discuss my question. Linkedin is about open and honest communication and I know your COMPANY is in its infancy stage so information is key to allow your COMPANY to either crash like so many that have tried to compete with MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITOR or grow.

I trust you will now be a bit more open minded and understand the point of linkedin!

Suffice it to say, my mind was anything but open at that point. What sort of person would expect anyone to share financial information in an online forum? Is it just me or could you hear a chair being pulled up for the latest small business crash-and-burn show?

How to deal with social media knuckleheads
What do you do in this situation? I followed my own advice from 3 Easy Steps for Dealing with Social Media Hecklers (after my blood pressure returned to normal). In short:,

• Acknowledge the complaint
• Show empathy
• Give them something to do

Here's my reply:

More than anyone, I appreciate the need for honest, open communication on LinkedIn or any social media channel. It's also important the discussions here are appropriate for the audience intended. As described in our Group Rules:

Again, if you'd like to speak to someone from COMPANY NAME directly, we'd be happy to give you a ring.

6 lessons learned
That put an end to it but there are several lessons to be learned here.

1. It pays to write and rewrite your replies to a confrontation until you have something that's not emotive. It took me at least 3 tries in each instance to get the tone I wanted to portray in public.
2. This exchange started and continued on a Friday evening. It's not unusual for heckling to come at times when people are relaxing with a drink (or ten) or recreational drugs.
3. Make sure you have tightly written rules on your blog, discussion groups and forums. If you can quote them, you don't look like the heavy.
4. Whatever you do, don't let some misanthrope pressure you into doing something you don't want to. This is the most important point of all — there's nothing that says you're obligated to divulge anything just because you're on social media
5. Whenever someone quotes 'best practice' guidelines as part of a disagreement, they're usually trying to justify their own bad behavior.
6. Other people are watching. I've had favourable comments about the way I handled this situation from people I had no idea were even looking at our discussion group.

One of the biggest concerns most businesses have about social media is someone harassing them or making derogatory remarks about their company. It's a rational concern but good business etiquette and sound communication skills will alleviate nearly any situation. You should never, ever, say or share something you don't want to. They might try, but they can't make you do it.

Have you had a similar experience? How did you handle it?

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* I've intentionally removed the identifying terms in this story. I'm not so worried about protecting the guilty as preventing this post from showing up in search results for prospective customers of my new venture. The conflict is of no concern to them but does make an ideal discussion for this blog.

Image credit: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How often do you share blog posts? I've been working the social media channels hard the past few weeks and am becoming increasingly frustrated. As many of you know, I'm working on the AMMA miningoilandgasjobs.com project full-time. The focus of my online reading has been around the resources industry, career advice and recruitment. I find terrific content but often end up not sharing it with my large network. Here's why.

Part of any good content marketing strategy will involve curation the habit of finding expert and complementary content and distributing it to your network. Jay Baer at Convince and Convert reckons the sweet spot is a 40/60 split 40% of your social media activity points back to you, 60% of it is external to your business. Blogs and website pages are ideal material for this. But you know what? A lot of businesses and website owners are making it hard to distribute their material. Are you?

Sharing Blues
1. No sharing widgets If I'm pressed for time or feeling so-so about content, I won't bother to share an article or blog post if there's no widget to do it. With universal sharing widgets like Add This or Share This, I find it hard to believe anyone would park their own content but I see it happen every day.

2. No formatting of content A sharing widget isn't enough. When I click on a tweet widget and am presented with the URL and nothing else, I often get discouraged. At the very least, put the name of the page in your sharing results.

3. URL is not shortened This is less of a hassle as nearly all social media channels provide some sort of URL shortening now. Still, why not provide that service? If you use a URL shortener like bit.ly, you get the benefit of metrics on every link they shorten for you.

4. Limited widget selection If the sharing options don't include channels I use like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn I'm not likely to share something if I'm pressed for time. Remember, it's not about where you're hanging out, it's about where your readers hang out. A bunch of obscure bookmarking sites probably isn't going to bump your distribution much.

By the way, your commenting sucks
If I really like a post, I'll leave a comment. Any blogger will tell you there's nothing better than receiving a blog comment, especially if it's from someone outside your normal circle and not full of SPAM. I can't believe the number of blogs that don't have comments turned on. I've also run across plenty that give me errors on things like my name or my email address. Make sure your commenting software is easy to use and error free. (And, yes, I know my own commenting software is a hassle. I'm in the process of changing that so hang in there with me.)

The Take-Away
Have a look at your website and blog and see if any of these peeves apply to you. Approach your blog as a reader would and run a test. Can a total stranger help you distribute your content? Can they do it easily? Can they leave a comment? I often wonder if the site owner hasn't just turned everything over to a developer and assumes it's all working. Give your blog a test run and see if it needs some work. The online audience is fickle; make it tough for them and they'll go somewhere else. It's not enough to create good content, you have to make it easily accessible, too.

What bugs you about sharing content?

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Image credit: Ohmega1982 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net