The City of London is usually a relatively peaceful place on a Monday as people catch up on emails and knuckle down to work after the weekend. This morning it was even more quiet than usual because the weather was so horrible and everyone was staying inside, but at about 11:30 loud music and shouting interrupted meetings and broke concentration. Martin Wiggins, director of FWD Marketing was hosting a client meeting in our boardroom and despite the rain and the cold was about to head out to investigate the commotion. On spotting me it was requested that I carry out the investigation in his place due to the meeting currently in progress, while very helpfully calling the lift for me.

Without time to grab a jacket or umbrella I rushed out into the elements armed only with my iPhone only to hear the music disappearing round the corner of Leadenhall Street and Gracechurch Street heading South. A quick cut through Leadenhall Market and I caught the noise up at the traffic lights. Now I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to know what the cause of all of this commotion was…well it was an open top double decker bus full of people dressed as cows!

Despite some very loud speakers playing at the front of the bus, large green banners draped down the side and shouting cow people waving flags and attracting attention from all angles it took me a while to work out what they were promoting. It was enough though to make me want to find out and on closer inspection it turns out that they were from Friends of the Earth and raising awareness that on 12 November MPs will be voting on a new law to break the hidden link between animal feed in factory farms and wildlife and rainforest destruction in South America.

Conclusions

This form of flash mob/gorilla marketing is nothing new, but what I did find interesting is their use of a URL. The banners and flags direct you to www.jointhemoovement.com which is not a website, or even a microsite. It simply re-directs you to a page on the Friends of the Earth website. This will have kept the costs down, meant no new content is required, pushed traffic to the main site to boost SEO, and ensured the route to information is a neat and tidy one.

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We are delighted to have received our first ever guest blog post from Brian Stephens on article marketing. We feel Brian’s ideas match FWD Digital’s for digital marketing success and as he comes from a corporate background his opinions offer value to our clients and to the financial services industry.

One SEO technique that is extremely effective both for building back links to a website and also for establishing a presence as an online expert in a particular field, is article marketing.

The financial services industry lends itself perfectly to this particular SEO approach. With the rules, regulations, technical jargon and multitude of financial options that can be taken up, the average layman can find himself entering a minefield of information that can be extraordinarily difficult to navigate through.

This is where a financial expert can step in. Writing jargon busting, easily understood articles that clearly show what financial options are available across a range of different products and services is highly likely to be of huge benefit to anyone seeking this type of information. Get this right and a loyal following of steady traffic will ensue.

So how does article marketing work?

The author writes an article on his subject matter that typically consists of a summary section, a main content section and a bio section. The bio section is where you place links back to your website which ideally are focused on pages that expand further on the subject matter written about.

Once written the article is submitted to a number of article directories, these can either be general directories or directories that specialize in certain subjects. For a finance article it would be useful to include the article in both types.

In order to submit to a directory it is normally required that the author registers on the site and provides an author profile. It is important that the profile clearly states what the credentials are for writing on the subject matter. People will look at the profile and seek to establish how credible the author is.

It is possible to have more than one profile and this is often done when writers publish about different topics, the reason being to avoid confusing the audience by writing about several topics under the same name. It is better to use one profile per subject matter and ensure the profile matches the subject.

The articles that are posted are offered to the Internet community for general use, i.e. they can take them and re-publish them on their own sites. The rule being however that the article is retained intact, particularly the bio or resources section that contains the links back to the original website or source of additional information.

This is where the payback can become viral, well written popular articles can be taken and re-used multiples of times, consequently giving large numbers of legitimate links back to a website. A second benefit is that the author name and reputation spreads and the author can become recognized as an expert writer on the subject.

Over time as the author becomes better known and recognized wherever the information appears, the audience will tend to follow the links back to the parent website. The resultant traffic and links a website receives will ensure that the site will be ranked higher in importance and usefulness by the search engines.

You can find out more about article marketing and Link Building Strategies in general via this link and by browsing through the listed categories.

Brian Stephens used to work in the corporate world for a high tech gas and oil exploration company but now lives in the South of France where he operates his website design and Internet marketing businesses.

He loves the Internet and recognizes that through the exponential growth of the personal computer coupled with the even more exponential growth of the World Wide Web that there lies an opportunity for everyone and anyone to either build an online business through blogging or to use the Internet as an effective marketing tool for their off line activities. A little knowledge can have a significant affect when it comes to using the Internet.

If you are interested in guest blogging for FWD Digital or want to find out how article marketing could work for your business please get in touch through our contact form or on 020 7623 2368.

That’s enough discussion…take the leap into social media.

We have attended three different social media events so far this week: – Social Media World Forum at Kensington Olympia

- Silverpop’s Advanced Engagement Marketing Masterclass

- The Insurance Age Social Media Round Table

These events included some very interesting discussions led by people who are knowledgable and strategically focused on making social media work for businesses of all types. We have been trying to drive this dicussion within the Financial Services industry and are beginning to see companies entering the digital space with various activities.

In no way are we advocating that you just plough into activity as soon as possible. There needs to be a solid thought process behind anything you do, but there does reach a point when enough is enough in terms of analysis, discussion and research and the only way forward is action.

It’s only when you begin social media activity that you really start to understand it.

You will see what topics generate discussion and which topics do not engage people. You will learn who in your organisation understands and gets excited by social media and who is terrified at the thought of it. You will start to see ideas and enthusiasm growing from within your company that may include recording events and posting them on YouTube, letting clients contact you through Twitter to improve customer service or installing Google Analytics to track referrals.

We have developed a strategy for creating content and letting that content do a lot of the work for you to drive conversation that can engage all of your stakeholders. The title of this blog sums up our content strategy: Passion >> Patience >> Proactivity

So if social media has been a topic of discussion within your company maybe it is time to take the leap and get involved. You can contact the FWD Digital team on 020 7623 2369 or fill out an enquiry form and we will be happy to take the leap with you, while making sure there is a safety net to catch you at the bottom.

Corporate activity online is growing with social media and blogging seeing large growth in 2009

Todays blog from emarketer.com shows that big business is starting to realise the benefits of digital marketing. It looks at the Fortune 500 group of companies and analyses their pick up of blogging and social media. The findings indicate that the larger organisations are coming round to the idea of social media as a marketing tool.

It has been SMEs that really adopted this space early on and it has helped them punch above their weight by driving traffic to their site, making them more visible in the public eye and engaging their target market in conversation. This level of activity has helped them bond with their audience, even encouraged advocacy in some instances, and led to a more transparent relationship. It is this relationship that will keep customers and clients coming back time and time again to buy products and services.

Big business has been nervous of social media. The idea of losing control of the conversation and engaging with public opinion has put many marketers and CEOs off. However, if managed properly online communications can enhance your brand reputation, client satisfaction and ultimately turnover. It seems that in the US atleast these benefits are being seen:

- 35% of the Fortune 500 companies are Tweeting

- blogging increased from 16% in 2008 to 22% in 2009

- Three in 10 Fortune 500 blogs include video blogging

- 19% of blogs feature podcasts

As a digital agency in London we are seeing a greater desire among UK Financial Services organisations to build their online activity and we sense that the industry on the whole is on the brink of adopting social media and blogging in a big way.

If this is the case for your organisation please contact us on 020 7623 2368 to discuss how your business model can benefit.