Inbound Industry Report: June 19, 2012

By Laura Pinter | Posted June 19, 2012 | Link | Filed in: Inbound Report

Top marketing news, articles and tips from the third week of June 2012.

Website Copywriting

We can all relate to the feeling of being spread thin, and trying to concentrate, when there are just too many things to do. To manage, we'll either try to tackle many things at once (and likely end up with mediocre results), or hone in on one item to make it great.

The same mentality should be applied to website copywriting to successfully sell your brand, service or product. Stop doing so many things. Ankesh Kothari (@ankeshk) offers some advice to ensure that you aren’t trying to do or say too much. Start with the following:

Listen to your audience. Focus on the topics they like the most, and cut everything else.
Keep it simple. Don’t try to force people to remember multiple facets about your brand; they’ll likely just remember one.
Unify your products/solutions. Find a core element that brings them all together in one sentence.

PR Skills

Just as agencies must adapt their services to the social and digital world, PR pros must do the same. Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) lists his thoughts on ten must-have skills for next generation PR pros. While many of them are emerging traits, traditional communication and relationship-building skills still remain at the core of new needs.

For example, media relations will always be part of a PR pro’s repertoire. But, the process for doing it well is changing. Pros must adapt to innovative media outreach best practices, such as building sincere relationships with bloggers and journalists, to be successful and get results, says Gini Dietrich (@ginidietrich).

Apple Updates

Last week, Apple announced some major product updates at the Worldwide Developers Conference, including faster MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks. In addition, the new MacBook Pro boasts a high-resolution Retina Display, which is also found in the iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s iOS 6 is also getting a makeover with new features coming this fall to select iPads and iPhones. Among the many new integrations is integration with Facebook, which will improve ease of use. One thing to note is that the integration may be “too frictionless,” as default privacy settings will likely be public, which could result in sharing without known consent.

Other Headlines

It’s official—Microsoft will buy the social enterprise startup, Yammer, Inc., for $1.2 billion. Yammer recently raised $85 million in funding, putting its valuation at $500 million. (Did you know that we're a Yammer affiliate partner?)
Google confirmed that it rolled out a Panda refresh last week, specifically impacting sites that were hit by the original Panda update in April. In addition, Google has updated Hot Searches with images, stories and related searches to make for more of a magazine look.
ICANN revealed its newest list of applications for “generic top-level domains,” or gTLDs, with Google as the most active bidder. Learn more on what marketers need to know about gTLDs, and the branding “gold rush.”
Twitter made its small-screen debut last week, releasing a TV ad during the NASCAR Pocono 400, along with a corresponding hashtag landing page. This curation and customer evangelism approach allows brands to tap into fan-driven promotion, and focus on getting conversations to surface.

Stats & Studies

According to recent findings from Searchmetrics, 84% of search marketers say social signals such as likes, tweets and Google +1s will become more important to SEO this year, topping a list of factors correlated to high search rankings.
The latest report from the Direct Marketing Association on response rates for direct channels such as snail mail and telephone show that, in many cases, response rates are higher than some digital channels.
An infographic from Crowdtap sheds light on the true influencers on the web, and how influence spreads more across close-knit networks of actual friends.

What articles made your top list last week? We'd like to hear your opinions.

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