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As I discussed on this blog, 2013 was to be the year of content marketing. (Here are all my posts on content marketing)
Recently, Gary Shirr (@ProfessorGary) brought up an interesting point in a discussion post he made to the Teaching Social Media Marketing LinkedIn group I’m a part of. It got me thinking quite a bit.
Continue reading What is The Future of Content Marketing in 2014?
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This week flew by! Today’s Web Roundup contains a variety of articles.
Search:
This week’s subject has been search, as on Monday I published a post on Snickers use of search in a very creative campaign – if you haven’t seen it, check it out! In an article “Why search is much bigger than you can measure,” Chris Penn talks about some of the ways in which web traffic from search is being masked, preventing us from realizing the true volume of people who are being referred to our site from search.
Social Media and Education:
Recently, Karen Freberg (@kfreberg) Tweeted a great article with Infographics from MediaBistro on social media and education. Of course I agree with the article that: “Social media has revolutionised many industries, but it’s perhaps its impact on the classroom, and the education system as a whole, that is the most striking.” There is a lot of interesting data here. A few things that stuck out to me:
59% of students who use social networks talk about education topics online
50% of those who talk about education online talk specifically about schoolwork.
Also, there is a great infographic exploring just some of the benefits of using social media in school for teachers, students, and parents. There is also another infographic showing the uses of a variety of social media tools to enhance the classroom.
Current Events and Social Media
“Twitter user swiftly sabotages Zimmerman juror’s book deal“ on Yahoo news – With the outpouring of emotion and opinion regarding the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, one person turned to Twitter in an attempt to block a juror in the case from getting the book deal. She succeeded. Here again we see the power of social media to rally support for/against an event. I’m not so sure such the effort could have succeeded in the pre-social media age, or at least so quickly (The article claims she succeeded in 6 hours!) The decision by the Martin Literary Agency to seek to publish a book on the controversial trial has certainly left many people shaking their head. The agency was forced to respond to social pressure and did so quickly, releasing a statement. What do you think about how the Martin Literary Agency responded to this situation?
Friday Fun!
Lastly, just for fun:
I’ve seen a lot of creative professors over the years. This photo album of “18 clues that your professor is cooler than you” shows just how witty professors can be!
If you’re an old school Internet nerd like me, you’ll appreciate this list of “Things that will make you miss the old days of the Internet” from the masters of the web list, BuzzFeed Rewind. Take a walk down memory lane with classic screen savers, AOL, the comforting sounds of dialup, and much more!
Dr. K Roundup
In personal news, my wife Kelin and I will be getting our very first puppy later this month, a bergamasco! My wife grew up with dogs but this is all new to me! I’ve been reading a lot of Cesar Millan books! I’m considering joining Instagram or another photo-sharing social site to share photos of our new dog experience. My Instagram knowledge is rather limited, so this may be a fun way to get up to date on this burgeoning social network. If you’ve got any thoughts on what the best photo apps are, or have any tips and tools, I’d love your input.
Hope to see you at #AEJMC next week! Have a great weekend.
Cheers!
-Matt
photo: CC opensourceway.
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On my last post I talked about Why I’m teaching Content Marketing in the Writing Class. One of the reasons I gave was the close connection between social media, SEO, and content marketing.
Today, we must teach students to write for 2 audiences:
For written assignments, students in Writing Across Platforms (see syllabus) will conduct keyword research to optimize their content for the web.
As one way to introduce my students to SEO and keyword research, I use the below in class exercise with Google Trends (formerly, Google Insights). Google Trends allows users to see and compare trends on what Googlers are searching for, by showing search volume across time. Users can break down trends by category, such as geography.
We also discuss keyword research via Google Adword Keyword Search Tool. But I like to talk about Google Trends first because it is easy to use and a bit more approachable with its visual layout, including interactive maps.
Google Trends Activity and Discussion (Time: 15-20 minutes). Note: Lecture notes at bottom of blog post.
In class, I explain how search engines like Google seek to rank content based on relevancy and credibility so they can deliver the best content to searchers. The algorithms for ranking content are complex and constantly changing. But the question for anyone seeking to get their content in front of the right eyeballs remains the same:
How can we optimize our content to increase the chance people will find it online?
From there, we move on to discussing Google Adwords Keyword tool, which I’ll save for a future blog post.
Check out the associated slides for this class and the class before it where I explain SEO and linking below:
What is SEO and link building and why do they matter?
Keyword Research Activity: Google Trends and Adwords (relates directly to above blog post)
What do you think? How do you teach your students about keyword research and search engine optimization? Would love to hear your exercises and thoughts below.
Cheers!
– Matt
Related Posts:
top cartoon: Some rights reserved by seanrnicholson