#Simon Case Is A Team Z Tool

[msclaritea]

'What on earth are the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, and the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, doing in a men-only club in 2024? It’s more than two decades, for heaven’s sake, since the then Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith – not one of nature’s more radical progressives – rejected honorary membership of the Carlton Club on the grounds that the Conservatives’ oldest gentlemen’s club denied full membership rights to female MPs. It took seven years of arm-twisting, but eventually the club surrendered, accepting that leaders couldn’t be seen publicly condoning its practices. Though perhaps “publicly” is the relevant word, given that some Garrick members seemingly didn’t see the problem until they were outed and exposed to female colleagues’ ire.'

If Iain Duncan Smith is more progressive then you (20 years ago!), you need a kick up the backside

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/22/garrick-club-row-women-men

You can go fuck yourself and yes, I just saw all of the sudden dust up over the Garrick Club, conveniently kicked up in the last couple of days. What should I assume, then? That the Team Z network found out ahead of time that Benedict would be going there and created said controversy. You people are nothing but a bunch of parasites. What I'm wondering right this minute...is who put Rishi Sunak up to getting involved.

Because The Guardian, The Standard, The Telegraph, Huffpost, etc are ALL rags that you all have used to go after him, before.

Hey, Ben. if you were invited beforehand to the club, whoever invited you, might be behind this.

[g0ose-bumps]

2009! Ghoap

OG 2009!mw2 Ghostsoap set between missions. Drabble of a different Soap and Ghost.

"Would you follow me anywhere?" 

John's voice was a syrupy murmur in the slow dredges of morning. Simon's half awake mind nudges at that. His body drew closer without any conscious thought, hopelessly attracted to the timbre of that low rumble.

"You would, wouldn't you Simon." 

Blinking away the afterimages of sleep from his lashes, Simon's eyes blearily focuses on John. Sunlight shone through the blinds, kissing the slopes and curves of hard muscle in slats of orange. They added a dimension of softness to the jagged scars that made up John. It was a sight not often seen and thus needed to be savoured thoroughly like Simon's most sought after tea blend. 

Fingers brushed along his naked face. Tips rested lightly on the curve of Simon's lips and then traced up towards his cheeks. But the touch went unnoticed, his gaze drawn to the much more arresting sight before him. 

John was a study in yellow. His strong features were highlighted by the sunlight that bathed the man in golden tones. The effect was almost ethereal in nature, light reflecting off like he had an internal glow. Glimmering blue eyes caged with dark lashes and a toothy grin, gave the rugged man a shockingly youthful expression. Beautiful. 

He was beautiful.

It was a compliment that made the man in question taken aback and stammer when Simon's runaway mouth blurted it out to him one day, too lost in the moment at the time to stop it from bubbling out from him. The resulting shyness he'd received had only endeared him more. It felt obscenely out of character for the captain that Simon knew first, but surprisingly in character for the man behind the perfect soldier. 

Task force 141 had started out as an experiment. A dangerous mix of a untried captain recently promoted, a masked lieutenant riddled with rumours of sociopathy and all the heavy expectation on their shoulders as Shepard's pet project of vengeance. It was a recipe for disaster many had said.

What the naysayers didn't know was how much of a force of nature John MacTavish was. A man so aggressively in control and utterly focused on the objective, any goal set before him was completely smashed. Their rag team set of soldiers selected from across the world shouldn't have worked as well as it did but somehow he had made the impossible possible. 

Mactavish expected only the best out of not only the men under him, but of himself. He was a man with a fire in his soul and a deep desire to not just succeed but exceed mission parameters. The captain would have a plan A, a plan B all the way to a plan Z and if something faltered on the way, he'd formulate the training and tools to succeed the next time. A perfectionist at his core. 

He had easily won Simon's respect within the first few days of knowing each other just like he'd easily won over the other men under his command. He'd known even then in those early days, that he would die for Captain MacTavish. All the men in 141 would, no contest. 

But John. 

John was someone he'd live for. 

There was a fragility that hid behind the roughened exterior. A softness that Simon had thought beaten out of men like them. Men who didn't hesitate before shooting, didn't bat an eye at the messier ways to achieve an objective. An innocence lost in all the ways war could be fought and better for the lack of it. More effective for it too. 

John was an outlier. 

Despite the pain and suffering they drenched themself in, John still cared. He still cared about the lives they lost, the men they had to sacrifice and every civilian lost in the cross fire. It was easy to blind oneself to the pain. Lose the part that empathised if it wasn't already gone. 

Or in Simon's case, never truly existed in the first place. 

But the caring never diminished John. It was a heavy burden to carry, for it was a double edged blade permanently notched at John's throat. It pained the man as much as it drove him. Simultaneously a strength and a weakness all packed up in one tidy package for Simon to covet.  

The knife edged line that John walked was a sight that had captured Simon's heavy gaze at first. Ensnaring him deeper and deeper the more he paid attention. He was helpless against the man, thoughts of John consuming Simon as much as sustaining him. 

Afterall, he alone had seen the depths of Simon's depravity and had not turned away. Not flinched like all the rest. Depite everything, John still had the temerity, the foolhardiness to trust him. To let Simon, of all people, know him when he'd put up walls against every other man in their company. 

His kindness was a searing weight behind Simon's ribcage. His trust the blood that ran through his veins, beating life where there was none before. They were both things to be hidden and carefully guarded. Tended to with a delicate touch and an eye for the small print like the lines of code that Simon breathed and spoke.

"Simon?" John nudged.  

Questing fingers hovered over his lips again and the sensation brought him back to John's question. Would you follow me, he had asked. A silly question. 

"I'd follow you anywhere I could." He answered firmly. Devotedly.

"Just don't go where I can't follow."

*

[warninggraphiccontent]

6 August 2021

The sun is shinin', come on get mappy

Ever found yourself floating aimlessly around the alphabet soup of UK government departments doing data, wondering who's responsible for what? Or lost track of all the interesting initiatives that you might be able to get involved with or learn from?

I'm delighted to be running a new project with the ODI that tries to help with that. We're mapping data responsibility and initiatives across the UK government here, so please do tell us what we've missed and comment on what we've already got. It'll be open for comments until Friday 10 September, so you have all summer to contribute.

There's a launch page explaining everything here, and we're also going to be publishing a blogpost a week focusing on a particular area of the ODI manifesto. This week is infrastructure week. Keep an eye on the ODI blog for future ones.

In other news:

A date for your diary - the 22nd Data Bites will be taking place on Wednesday 8 September at 6pm, thanks to ADR UK and the ESRC. Details will appear here in due course - which is also where you can catch up on the previous 21 events.

I'm also chairing an event for IfG at this year's Labour Party conference - more here.

I'm really sad to see this news about Understanding Patient Data (full disclosure - I'm doing some work for them at the moment). Natalie has done a terrific job, and I really hope their work is able to find a home elsewhere - it's more important than ever, given recent events.

Nick Timmins' new report on how the Department for Education handled the pandemic is well worth a read. Warning: contains mutant algorithms. Diginomica pull out some lessons on those here; my piece from last summer on that is here; and there are more links below.

If you enjoyed this account of what allegedly happened to that Spectator piece on Marcus Rashford (h/t Alice), pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy this story of something similar from my time at the Media Standards Trust.  

I did it - my first half marathon since 2019. There's still time to sponsor me and donate to the excellent Tommy's, here.

Warning: Graphic Content will now be taking a break until September. I'll be posting some things on Medium as well as on Twitter in the meantime, so do follow me there. If you need some other data-related newsletters, podcasts or event series to tide you over, there's a list for that. And if you know anyone else who should subscribe, encourage them to start the new school/parliamentary term in September the right way by signing up.

Enjoy the summer, thanks for subscribing, and see you in September

Gavin

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Today's links:

Graphic content

Tokyo shift

Olympic records are being broken at a record pace* (The Economist)

How the Olympics became bigger and more diverse* (The Economist)

What the Tokyo medal table tells us halfway through the Games (BBC Sport)

Russia and Kenya take the podium in the athletics doping contest* (The Economist)

Tokyo Olympics: Will Team GB beat its record-breaking performance in Rio? (Sky News)

20 Chinese gold medal contenders at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (South China Morning Post)

Olympians are probably older — and younger — than you think* (Washington Post)

The Fastest Men In The World Are Still Chasing Usain Bolt (FiveThirtyEight)

Here's how Sydney McLaughlin of the U.S. won the 400-meter hurdles at #Tokyo2020, breaking her own world record (New York Times - more here)

Katie Ledecky's historic week, day by day* (Washington Post)

The Climber: Adam Ondra | The Hurdler: Dalilah Muhammad | The Gymnast: Sunisa Lee | The Swimmer: Simone Manuel (New York Times)

Viral content

Why are Covid cases falling in the UK?* (FT)

Excess deaths in your neighbourhood during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (ONS)

COVID-19: Sewage surveillance reveals 'widespread increase' of coronavirus in England last month (Sky News)

Covid travel: which countries are on the green, amber and red lists? (The Guardian)

Tim Spector: the data explorer who uncovered vital clues to Covid* (FT)

Which Americans are against the jab?* (The Economist)

Chart: Less than 0.1% of vaccinated Americans tested positive for COVID-19 (Axios)

America is plummeting down the global vaccination league table* (The Economist)

Florida’s hospitals set a bleak pandemic record* (FT)

How Europe, After a Fumbling Start, Overtook the U.S. in Vaccination* (New York Times)

Side effects

Why the pandemic is not making your rent cheaper* (New Statesman)

New York City Homebuyers Are Back, and They’re Looking for Deals* (Bloomberg)

Net worth

How Google quietly funds Europe’s leading tech policy institutes* (New Statesman)

Explore different settlements on the balance of power and what they mean for the future of the Internet (Demos)

Ransomware attacks rise despite US call for clampdown on cybercriminals* (FT)

Environment

Planetary ‘vital signs’ show extent of climate stress — and some hope* (FT)

How heat dome has sparked worst wildfires in a decade across parts of Southern Europe (Sky News)

Beyond human endurance: How climate change is making parts of the world too hot and humid to survive* (Washington Post)

Race

The 'ethnic data gap' on voters - and why it matters to parties and pollsters (Sky News)

Hollywood reaps the rewards of becoming more diverse* (The Economist)

UK

The first ever machine generated map of the @UKParliament treaty procedure (UK Parliament)

Favourability towards Boris Johnson falls to lowest level since October (Ipsos MORI)

Productivity: firing on all cylinders (IfG)

Mathematician Hannah Fry: ‘I’m sure there’s lots of tutting — but not to my face* (FT)

Everywhere else

‘It’s Huge, It’s Historic, It’s Unheard-of’: Drug Overdose Deaths Spike* (The Upshot)

Elon Musk’s Outrageous Moonshot Award Catches on Across America* (Bloomberg)

Police shootings continue daily, despite a pandemic, protests and pushes for reform* (Washington Post)

People in the West are least worried about hurtful speech* (The Economist)

An Inca highway still benefits people living nearby* (The Economist)

German election 2021: The New Statesman’s poll tracker* (New Statesman)

Meta data

Information health

Statistics informing quarantine requirements for arrivals to England (Office for Statistics Regulation)

Review of NHS Test and Trace (England) and NHS COVID-19 app statistics (Office for Statistics Regulation)

What we mean by trustworthy use of patient data (Understanding Patient Data)

The future of Understanding Patient Data (Understanding Patient Data)

Lord Bethell’s new phone (Good Law Project)

UK government defends deleting all trace of job vacancies after appointing Matt Hancock's lover to health department board (Business Insider)

Education, education, education

Schools and coronavirus: The government’s handling of education during the pandemic (IfG)

The UK A-Level ‘COVID-19 algorithm fiasco’ and lessons for the enterprise (diginomica)

Four things government must learn from the A-level algorithm fiasco (me from last year for IfG)

More from last summer (W:GC)

Even more from last summer (W:GC)

Ensuring statistical models command public confidence: Learning lessons from the approach to developing models for awarding grades in the UK in 2020 (Office for Statistics Regulation, from March 2021)

AI got 'rithm

Hundreds of AI tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped.* (MIT Technology Review)

I’m sorry Dave I’m afraid I invented that: Australian court finds AI systems can be recognised under patent law (The Guardian)

Bias in Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Magazine)

The ethics of recommendation systems in public-service media (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Britain can set 'gold standard' in ethical artificial intelligence - industry report (BCS)

ICO baby

The Information Commissioner's Office is letting us down*  (Telegraph)

Response: ICO’s priorities and impact of our work (ICO)

New guidance on direct marketing and the public sector (ICO)

Thread (Tim Turner)

Information Rights Strategic Plan: Trust and Confidence - annual tracker (ICO)

UK government

Introduction to Data Quality course launched (Government Data Quality Hub)

A new model for modelling (Actuaries in government)

Six reasons why digital transformation is still a problem for government (NAO)

govcookiecutter: A template for data science projects (Data in government)

Radar – more than just wave detection (Defra digital)

Driving technology convergence and reuse in our Future Borders and Immigration System (Home Office Digital, Data and Technology)

The longlist (Civil Service Data Challenge)

Cabinet Office eyes ‘geographical capability map’ for civil servants (Civil Service World)

Next step in plans to govern use of digital identities revealed (DCMS)

Building a single sign-on for government: What we’ve learnt so far (Services in government)

ESRC launches opportunity to inform data infrastructure strategy (UKRI)

Keeping old computers going costs government £2.3bn a year, says report (BBC News - CSW had this last week)

2021 Deane-Stone Lecture: Ambitious, Radical, Inclusive and Sustainable: How a National Statistical Institute evolved through Covid-19 (Sir Ian Diamond for NIESR)

Taking the wiki

Left-leaning Wikipedia is no match for my shelf of dictionaries* (Telegraph)

There are 11,656 athletes at the Olympics. Guy Fraser wanted them all on Wikipedia (The Guardian)

A sense of place

��X’ Marks the Spot: Officials Map a Route Out of the Pandemic* (New York Times)

What 3 Words is a Mess

Dis and that

Disinformation: It’s History (CIGI)

Why Generation Z falls for online misinformation (MIT Technology Review)

It's a jungle out there

Why Amazon’s £636m GDPR fine really matters* (Wired)

The slow collapse of Amazon’s drone delivery dream* (Wired)

Open for the best

Natalia Carfi to carry the torch of openness (Open Data Charter)

Tech spec experts seek allies to tear down ISO standards paywall (The Register)

The promise of open-source intelligence* (The Economist)

Private parts

Estonia says a hacker downloaded 286,000 ID photos from government database (The Record)

Here’s how police can get your data — even if you aren’t suspected of a crime (Recode)

Everything else

The social value of data (Bennett Institute)

BIG TECH’S DUTY OF CARE (New Economics Foundation)

Inequality just went stratospheric. Can we bring it down to earth?* (Prospect)

A New Tech ‘Cold War?’ Not for Europe. (AI Now Institute)

THE TIME TAX: Why is so much American bureaucracy left to average citizens?* (The Atlantic)

Can data cooperatives sustain themselves? (LSE Business Review)

medConfidential note on the PRUK green paper and DARE project (medConfidential)

Measuring internet poverty (Brookings)

Data don’t lie, but they can lead scientists to opposite conclusions* (The Economist)

Opportunities

JOB: Head of Digital Data & Digital Democracy (London Borough of Newham, via Martin)

JOB: Executive Director (Digital Freedom Fund)

JOB: Senior Data Analyst (Common Wealth)

JOB: Visuals Project Editor - Visuals (The Guardian)

JOBS: Data for Science & Health team (Wellcome Trust)

JOB: Data Journalist (Tech Monitor, New Statesman Media Group)

JOBS: Data and Digitalisation programme (Ofgem, via Owen Boswarva)

JOB: Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (DCMS)

JOBS: Economic Advisers - The Digital and Tech Analysis team (DCMS)

JOBS: Modelling Hub Analyst Roles, Data & Analytical Services Directorate (MoJ)

JOB: Director of Analysis (MoD)

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP: Data, Visualisation and Storytelling (The National Archives)

JOB: Product Manager - Data (BBC, via Jukesie)

And finally...

Vennerable

In celebration of John Venn's 187th birthday today, here's a poem in the form of a Venn diagram. (Brian Bilston)

*whispers* that's not actually how they work, but fine, it's funny (@StandingHannah, via David)

[nerdmars]

Bruno Mars’ many Grammy wins for 24K Magic was more than just a victory for the musician. It’s a victory for R&B music as a whole. The Grammy for R&B Album of the Year has often been completely segregated from the major awards. (Frequent nominees and winners include people like John Legend, Mary J. Blige, Boyz II Men and Alicia Keys.)

Winning the R&B Album of the Year Grammy rarely leads to walking up to the stage at the end of the night for the big prize — or even being nominated for it. Lauryn Hill pulled it off for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill back in 1999. And it hasn’t happened since — until Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic brought home both awards among several others.

Does this mean the Academy now respects Black music and is recognizing its’ worth? That remains to be seen. It can be seen as a start.

Bruno Mars is doing his part to bring light to the musicians that have been an influence on pop music for decades. While collecting his Album of The Year Grammy, he gave a heart-warming speech, dedicating his award to Babyface, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Teddy Riley. He put it plain: “This album wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for these guys.”

With a monstrous record like this, there’s plenty you probably don’t know. Here are 24 things you didn’t know about 24K Magic.

To get started, here’s a good one: winning Record, Song and Album of the Year in one night gives a musician entry into a very small group of musicians like Simon and Garfunkel, Norah Jones and Adele. (Even Michael Jackson doesn’t belong!) 24K Magic achieved this incredible feat and Bruno is the 10th artist to hold the big three.

Here’s more…

(1) 24k Magic was born in a top-secret and, well, magical spot. Unlike most albums, 24K Magic was recorded entirely in one studio. The Glenwood Recording Studio in Burbank, California, has hosted everyone from the Black Eyed Peas to Britney Spears. But don’t look for information anywhere. Even the website has only a phone number.

(2) Yet, 24K Magic was almost not born at all. After the success of "Uptown Funk" and Bruno’s not one but two Super Bowl appearances, the singer spoke about having writer's block and not being satisfied with a lot of the early songs he recorded.

(3) Shampoo Press & Curl is part of the formula for the worldwide success of 24K Magic. The production group, originally known as The Smeezingtons, initially wrote and recorded for other artists while Bruno was still developing as a solo artist. They are credited on just about every track.

(4) 24K Magic won the big three at The 2018 Grammys but the album also scooped one of the obscure awards. In the non-televised ceremony held earlier in the afternoon, the album won for Best Engineered Album, non Classical. Tom Coyne, the master engineer on the project, passed away last year, so Bruno made sure his wife was on stage to collect the award on his behalf.

(5) Many of the songs on 24K Magic were recorded live. Not in front of an audience but performed live with instruments in the studio. The standard these days is recording in parts and then using Pro Tools. That’s if instruments are used at all. Most artists who use live music save it for the tour.

(6) The entire album is pretty short as music goes. 24K Magic clocks in at just a bit over 33 minutes. A piece of music must be at least 30 minutes in order to be considered an album and not an EP.

(7) The artwork for the album comes courtesy of Greg Gigendad Burke. Known for his innovative work with artists like Jay-Z, T.I. and Wiz Khalifa, Burke often does both artwork and design for album covers. For this album, Bruno did the art direction himself.

(8) Bruno is clearly loyal. The Stereotypes, a Los Angeles-based production team, has been in the game for over a decade. After years of hits and misses, they reconnected with Bruno. 24K Magic was already done but Mars still invited them into the studio and ended up creating “Finesse.” That late addition made the album — and became history.

(9) Outside of the remix of "Finesse" with Cardi B, there are no features on the album. It’s a rarity in this era to skip the tradition of plumping up an album with guest rappers or vocal duets for a varied audience and sound. Bruno decided to keep it simple — even though he’s known to pump up music for other artists.

(10) Bruno’s got nothing against remixes though! Official remixes for "That’s What I Like" include tracks with Gucci Mane and Party Next Door.

(11) Last year Beyoncé appeared at a Bruno Mars show with gold hoops spelling out CHUNKY, a song from Bruno’s album. The whispers started immediately. Would there be a collaboration perhaps? And then, eagle-eared listeners began insisting that Beyoncé is singing backgrounds on the song. Does it sound like it could be her? Maybe. Is that likely? No. However, there are no background vocalists credited on the song…

(12) Bruno Mars fully credits New Jack Swing pioneers like Teddy Riley and Babyface for his new work. Just in case you don’t know what New Jack Swing means: in the late '80s and '90s, a particular form of pop music borrowing heavily from hip-hop and R&B was born with acts like Bobby Brown and Guy. The name comes from early ‘80s hip-hop slang for a newcomer.

(13) The opening lines from "24K Magic"? That’s Mr. Talk Box, a musician known for his work in gospel music. And because his portion of "24K Magic" was sampled on Kendrick Lamar’s "Loyalty," the musician contributed to more than one 2017 megahit.

(14) Bruno’s album helped Cardi B. achieve yet another chart success. With “Finesse,” she becomes only the third person in history — and the first woman — to have five singles on the Top 10 at the same time.

(15) The funk that led to "Chunky" comes courtesy of Charlie Wilson and The Gap Band. One of Bruno Mars’ producing partners told him about a party he went to where everyone played the wall and stayed on their cellphones — until the DJ played "Outstanding" by The Gap Band. Bruno says hearing that inspired him to write "Chunky."

(16) There’s a wink-and-nod lyrical homage to R. Kelly’s "Seems Like You’re Ready." If you don’t know the 1993 song, you might miss it. But he literally croons out the line on his ballad "Versace on the Floor."

(17) A quick run-down on all of the hair-related terminology Bruno spits on “Perm”: He tells a woman to relax (which is another word for perm). He mentions sheen (usually used in aerosol form). There’s a tribute to pat-pat-patting your weave. And he urges us to “activate” the sexy, as in activator used for '80s-era curly hairstyles.

(18) If you’re one of the few people on earth who haven’t heard the album in its entirety, here’s a random factoid: Yes, that’s Halle Berry in a voicemail recording in the middle of the song “Calling All My Lovelies.”

(19) While working with Babyface, a song Bruno never finished began to play. Babyface said he needed to finish it that day. The song became the tearjerker “Too Good To Say Goodbye.”

(20) Music lovers began hyperventilating when photos surfaced of Missy Elliott and Bruno Mars in the studio together. Alas, they were “just hanging out.” Maybe next time.

(21) Bruno is known for keeping things old school when he’s recording. When it was time for him to allow journalists to listen to the album before release, the album was loaded on one iPod stored in a safe at his record label offices.

(22) While Bruno admits that he was nervous when he started recording, he personally put himself against his own biggest work. The title track for 24K Magic was recorded while "Uptown Funk" was still No. 1 on the charts.

(23) Ever the perfectionist, Bruno will tweak a song until he’s 100 percent happy with it. Case in point: his latest single "Finesse" had over 20 different versions.

(24) And speaking of perfectionism, the power ballad "Versace on the Floor" was completely done. Then Bruno listened and felt like he didn’t get it right vocally. He actually ended up writing the song over completely.

(25) Did you stream this album? It’s all good. But Bruno kind of wishes you had it on CD. He designed and wrote all of the inserts for the physical project and then realized that the idea of holding and reading liner notes may soon be a distant memory. He worked really hard on designing the fonts for the song titles. (No, really.)

Written by Alisa S. King

[unixcommerce]

50 Content Promotion Tactics to Help Your Great Content Get Amazing Exposure

You’ve just launched a gorgeous campaign with all the design bells and whistles. The copywriting is art and the experience intoxicating—so say your design and content team.

The day of launch has everyone excited. The marketing team smells a win at Cannes Lions and the sales team anticipates Glengarry-level leads. But wait, what’s that? Nothing? Nothing!

It looks like you’ve got a bad case of Invisible Content Syndrome.

Just about every marketer experiences the dichotomy of creation / promotion with an increasing focus on making the best content possible. But then what? Many time-strapped marketers are resolved to hit publish, schedule some social shares on brand profiles and maybe throw a few bucks towards social ads. But is that enough?

Back in 2012 Americans were consuming an average of 63 GB of media on a daily basis. I can only imagine how much it is today. Enough to make last minute social shares and ads a crapshoot in terms of making sure your content is seen by the audience you intend and when it’s actually going to be useful for them.

Invisible Content Syndrome isn’t a new idea, of course. Sonia Simone from Copyblogger wrote about it back in 2010 (which I just discovered this week) offering solid tips on how to beat it. When it comes to solving for invisible content, creating channels of distribution for content marketing is something I’ve been focused on a very long time—here’s a post on the topic from 2007.

Fast forward to 2018 and today’s world of information overload and the multitude of device options for consuming information makes standing out even more challenging. Content promotion can’t be effective if it’s an afterthought. Your best practice would be to make promotion part of content planning.  To provide you with a helpful resource, I’ve compiled a list of content promotion ideas for you to consider during your content planning so you can be the best answer for your customers, when and where it matters most.

50 Content Promotion Tactics to Cure Invisible Content Syndrome

1. Collaborate with influencers. I have to put this one first because it’s become an incredibly effective way of delivering mutual benefit for everyone involved. Brands get exposure to influencer audiences as they promote the result of their collaboration, influencers get exposure by association with the brand and consumers get really useful content from people they trust. There are a multitude of variations on working with influencers for content promotion and you’ll see some of them further on in the list.

2. Create modular content for repurposing. Another highly effective approach is to identify topical segments of your main content and cluster them together for variations on the theme in repurposed content. If your content is about topics X, Y and Z then you can take all the ideas about X and either: publish in a different format like turning a blog post into an ebook as I’ve done down below, or add some new insights about topic X to those from your original content and publish it as a deeper dive on the subject.  Repurposing has many different options and I’ll bring a few more up further in the list.

3. Ping journalists about research content before you publish. This is a great idea I learned from Steve Rayson of BuzzSumo. If you’re doing a research project, identify publications that match editorially and reach out to a relevant journalist in advance to see what questions they would like answered in the research. When the report publishes, share with the Journalists and they’ll inevitably help promote the thing they contributed to. You can sign up for services like HARO and wait for opportunities to find you or seek them out with a service like Muck Rack.

4. Republish / syndicate on a different channel. Publish the original content on your brand site or blog, then the author can republish that same content on LinkedIn Pulse with a citation and link to the original at the end. An alternative would be to republish on Medium following the same citation advice. A different channel will likely have a different audience and when the content you’re working with happens to be mutually relevant to multiple channels where you publish, why not share?

5. Repurpose the original in a different media format. A substantive video could be turned into multiple blog posts with still images used as graphics in the posts. The audio from the video might be useful in a podcast format and further screen grabs from the video could be used for social shares.

6. Deconstruct the original content and personalize for a different audience. In many types of content there are universal truths —things that are true for each audience segment or vertical market a brand is after. Strip away what’s personalized in your content for a specific audience leaving these truths. Then add in content specific to a different vertical or audience and publish appropriately. The additional content that results becomes more content promotion opportunity.

Click To Tweet

7. Survey your social networks with one simple question. Then compile answers into a blog post, citing the contributors. Announce the published content to your network and those that contributed will appreciate the attribution and help promote it.

8. Reassemble modular interviews into new content. Identify a group of 10 industry experts / influencers and interview them. It’s often best to start with just one question as mentioned above, then follow up to ask more. Make 3-4 of the questions very specific and designed to evoke tactical answers. Be sure to use SEO keywords in the questions. Publish each of the 10 interviews a week or month apart. After that, take all the answers to one of the tactical questions and assemble into a new post about that very specific topic. Add a your own insights or capture tips from a few new influencers to spice it up and don’t be afraid to publish as an infographic, motion graphic or eBook. Do the same for the other tactical questions and answers as well. New formats give you new publish and promotion opportunities.

9. Write guest posts for industry blogs. Take the main theme of your content and customize a story for relevant industry blogs. Tools like BlogDash can be helpful for finding the right blogs. The contributed blog posts need to be written in a way that linking to your original content makes sense as a reference. This is most meaningful when your original content is not a blog post itself, like a video, report, ebook, infographic, microsite, interactive experience, motion graphic, etc.

10. Pitch industry publications with exclusive stories. With bigger content assets and especially those involving research or truly newsworthy information, it pays to identify industry publications and pitch story ideas. With enough advance notice, you can see the upcoming themes for a publication in their editorial calendar. If a staff journalist is unresponsive, research contributing authors with story ideas. Your story is the content—but you might also be able to link back to useful resources that support the facts of the story. The more unique, robust and engaging, the more likely a relevant resource on your brand site will be linked to by the publication.

11. Pitch for podcast interviews. Podcasting is growing fast and while I’ve never used a pitching service myself, they do exist. You can also search iTunes and other sources of podasts for relevant shows or use a service like RadioGuestList. Then reach out to the owner with your idea for an interview. As above, the more unique, robust and engaging a relevant resource on your brand site is, the more likely it will be linked to by the podcast.

12. Share with communities. Tap into smaller community websites or forums to share your content. However, don’t just arrive, drop a link and leave, expecting the community to respond. You’ll need to invest time in finding the right communities and then build credibility before sharing links to your content.

13. Make content sharing easy. Nothing scales social sharing like making sharing easy. Use click to tweet links in PDFs, reports and blog posts to make it easy for people to share with a single click (or two). Also format your content with quotes to make it shareable.

14. Add your last article to your email signature and out-of-office messages. I learned this one from Jason Miller at LinkedIn.  Below your contact info in an email signature, include the title and link to your latest blog post or content project. Do the same with one, two or three in your out of office message.

15. Make a video on LinkedIn announcing your content. Ann Handley did this recently when she announced the keynote speakers for B2B Forum and it had tens of thousands of views.

16. Use Facebook Live to announce you’ve published new content. This is a smart tip from David Zheng. When you start Facebook Live, a notification is sent to all your followers and fans. Then you can show a featured image and talk about the key points of the post. You can also ask viewers to head to your site to finish reading it or to implement the tactics you talked about. A related suggestion is to create an Instagram or Snapchat story to announce your new content and why it’s useful.

17. Send an email to your email list. Of course you might already be using an RSS to email service with your blog, so this is not that. But if you have a general email newsletter sent on a regular basis, a dedicated email announcing something new and relevant can be very effective for visibility of the content you want to promote.

18. Monitor social networks for questions and answer them with your content. When a question pops up that could be answered with content you’ve created, you have a legitimate reason to share a link. You can set up notifications with services that scan social channels like Twitter or specific forums.

19. Track competitors for inspiration and opportunities. Services like RivalIQ help identify breakout social posts and content from competitors so you can see what they’re doing that’s working. Social media monitoring tools that track competitors can help you see opportunities to promote your content as an answer when a competitor is involved in the discussion. This can be tricky, so be careful and be relevant.

20. Twitter Chats. You can either create a Twitter Chat yourself or start participating in relevant industry Twitter chats. The question and answer format is ideal for sharing relevant and helpful links to your content. Just don’t overdo it. Also, curation of Twitter chats are a great source of content you can publish on your blog with links to the promotable content you want to share.

Click To Tweet

21. Start a podcast. If you’re not having luck getting picked up by other podcasts, maybe you should start one. I’ve been saying for many years, “If you want to be in the media, become the media.” A podcast can become just that: a platform where you can showcase useful insights and content, including your own.

22. Start a blog. Many of the tips already posted here assume you have a blog, but if you don’t, then start one! There are several blog platforms to choose from including WordPress, Tumblr or Medium. On your blog, you can curate other content as news when you’re not publishing yourself. The blog and your useful content can become a hub for your content marketing efforts to create and promote useful information that inspires your audience to do business with you.

23. Tap your community. Active engagement amongst a community means permission to share what’s important to you – including your most recent amazing content. It matters less where the community is—social networks, forums, private groups or a Slack channel and more that you are creating value for the community be sharing relevant and useful content. If they like it, they’ll share it.

24. Activate employees. An email or platform notification sent to your employees about a recently published content masterpiece is a great way to provide them with source material for their own social sharing. Your staff also represent a potentially effective distribution channel for your content as well.

25. Link to new content from content already published. When new content is being created, part of the process should be to research what has already been published on the topic. Redundancy is no good for people or search rankings after all. But complementary content does make sense to link up. Link to your new content (as a related topic) from on-topic content that is still getting traffic from search, social and links to provide a little positive lift.

Click To Tweet

26. Mention new book authors, analysts, influencers and journalists. People in the game of exposure appreciate being mentioned in relevant ways on other websites. The monitoring/alerts those mentions will create can result in clicks to inspect the source content. Because your content is amazing and you have cited the individuals in the most relevant way, there’s a good chance they will share or even link from their own blogs.

27. Upgrade the competition.Find the most popular online content on your topics of interest and create something even better.  Go deep and invest in the design of the information. Link to the content you want to promote from this robust deep dive on the topic.

28. Paid social promotion. Organic is great, but sometimes paid is better. The audience targeting options with major social networks can help you direct qualified traffic to your content. For that, use Facebook or Instagram Ads, Promoted Tweets, Sponsored LinkedIn Content, Sponsored InMail or Text Ads to promote your content to exactly the audience you want to reach.

29. Retargeting. Use a service like AdRoll to tag your content so when people visit and leave, you can display retargeting ads to them for your content as they visit other websites.

30. Promote with native advertising. Another way to pay your way to exposure is  to use a service like Outbrain Amplify to get your content recommended on premium sites, including CNN, People and ESPN.

31. Paid search. The vast majority of all research online starts with a search engine. Find the right keywords for your content and PPC ads could provide the right amount of lift in visibility.

32. Create or buy a niche site. Returns require an investment and sometimes the long game means investing in a niche microsite or even purchasing an existing niche site that is focused on the topic you’re after. Along with the past content is a community of subscribers that you can tap into for exposure to your content.

33. Update and optimize old content. When we do content audits, one of the things we look for is to identify content that has potential – the right  mix of maintained search popularity and and opportunity to be updated. When you find those candidates for updating, optimize them for search and social shares.

34. Creative interactive experiences. Create a quiz, poll, calculator or similar input/output experience using a platform like SnapApp or Ceros that can create interest and then send visitors to your content to dig in deeper to the topic. We worked with Ceros to create an interactive infographic for a research report and both the referrals and the conversion rate to download the report have been amazing.

35. Tap into event streams. Find relevant conferences and their hashtags to follow. Create, or better yet, repurpose content specifically for the audience attending the event. During the event, share your useful and on-topic content with the the community following the hashtag. Don’t overdo it and your shares must be on-topic and relevant.

36. Optimize for organic search. Of course, this is the slow burn of content amplification tactics, but if you are smart and diligent about making your content both Google and people friendly plus you are publishing regularly, you can increase the frequency Googlebot visits and crawls of your site. That means new content you publish can show up in search results within hours.

37. Partner marketing. Identify other companies that are non-competitive but share similar audience objectives. Incorporate your content with theirs in a joint venture whether it’s a webinar, research study or and online / offline event. Each of you will gain exposure to a new audience in a credible way.

Click To Tweet

38. Create an answer engine. Mine your site search for questions visitors search on and develop content that answers those questions. You can use other sources of customer questions like feedback forms and tools like AnswerThePublic.com, BuzzSumo and StoryBase. Q/A format content that follows a specific topic can be do well in organic search. Link to your new content from those pages where relevant. You can also seek out questions on sites like Quora and answer them citing and linking to your more in depth content on the topic.

39. Affiliate program. Give niche and microinfluencers an incentive to share your content by offering an affiliate program that rewards them for the completion of each goal action, whether it’s a download, subscription, inquiry or transaction.

40. Sponsor blog posts. Find blogs that accept sponsored content or a sponsorship message (properly disclosed of course) and include nofollow links to the content you want to promote.

41. Remarketing for influencer audiences. Target those who visit your website from a tracking link shared by an influencer. Few convert on the first visit, so retargeting those visitors with your relevant content can be an effective way to promote and inspire them to take the next step.

42. Reshare the content that has performed the best. Use social share metrics from BuzzSumo or other data like pageviews, leads or sales attributed to your best content to decide what to re-share days or weeks after it was published. In fact, I’ll often query what the top content of the quarter or month has been and schedule a reshare with modified text.

43. Sponsor an influencer’s channel. Some influencers are publishers and make available their channels for sponsorship. Usually the influencer creates the content and there’s a disclaimer that a brand has sponsored an individual piece of content. But with the right influencer, it could be a full day or even a week.

44. Purchase an ad in an email newsletter. Ads are everywhere and one of the most effective is email. Research ad opportunities within industry email newsletters and buy a placement that directs visitors to your useful content. Ads can be spendy, so it might be worth focusing on niche newsletters.

45. Syndicate to Industry Associations. Acronymed organizations are always looking for useful content to share with their members. Find the right associations for your brand and reach out to see if they would be interested in sharing your relevant content via their email newsletter or posting to the organization blog.

46. Get visual with video. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth millions. Spice up your content with a video sidebar or summary and it will increase the likelihood of sharing and receiving links substantially.

47. Comment Marketing. This is an area that must be tread carefully, but if done well, can be very effective. Find content that matches the topic of your content to promote and seek out opportunities to share useful, on-topic comments that include a link to your more in-depth resource. Don’t limit your comments to blogs. Consider mainstream business publications as well – especially those that accept new authors eager to get comments about their contribution.

48. Link building. Find the top ranking content on your topic, then research who is linking to those URLs. Reach out to the link sources and invite them to link to your robust content as well. This approach is too often used and poorly executed, so wins will be few and far between. But it doesn’t take too many links from reputable sources to have a positive impact on the visibility of your content.

49. Sponsor events. Many events will provide opportunities for sponsors to share more than a log0 – content on the conference blog, via attendee newsletter or even in print included in the schwag bag.

50. Make a big ass list like this one! Comprehensive, useful resources often represent content that is worth sharing and linking to. Hopefully readers will feel that way about this post.

Besides this fine list of content amplification tips, I’ve also put together an eBook of recommendations from 10 top marketing influencers and professionals including: Ann Handley, Mike Stelzner, Joe Pulizzi, Mike King, Cathy McPhillips, Sujan Patel, Ursula Ringham, Larry Kim, Carla Johnson, Andrew Davis.  That’s right, walking the talk!

If you’re attending the Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland during the first week of September, you’ll want to see if there are any spaces left for this workshop.

Tuesday, Sept. 4th: Rocket Science Simplified: How to Optimize, Socialize and Publicize B2B Content

I will be covering:

How to use a “Best Answer” strategy to activate content integration

How to use keyword & question research to ignite content planning

How to use Power Pages and SEO best practices for organic liftoff

How to use the magic of repurposing social content for promotion

How to use outreach tactics that will fuel blog and media coverage of your campaigns

Basically, much of what you need to know to make sure your content is visible and not just good looking.

Wednesday, September 5th I will be giving a presentation for B2B marketers on influencer marketing: The Confluence Equation: How Content and Influencers Drive B2B Marketing Success.

What’s the secret formula to scalable, quality content? Find out how B2B brands, big and small like SAP, Dell, Cherwell and DivvyHQ are able to create more awareness, engagement and pipeline with the confluence equation. In this presentation you will:

Learn the Influencer Marketing Maturity Model and where your brand fits

Explore how a modular approach to influencer content can fuel cross-channel campaigns

Learn how to get the best of both worlds: campaigns and always on programs

Understand which technologies are available to facilitate influencer identification, engagement and performance reporting

Joining me at Content Marketing World is Ashley Zeckman, Digital Strategy Director at TopRank Marketing. She’s going to be busting some influencer marketing myths in her presentation.

Thursday, September 6th: Influencer Marketing is only for B2C Brands (& Other Lies Your Parents Told You). Here’s what you can expect from Ashley:

A dive into 3 stories of successful content and influencer marketing in action.

Steps for creating a stellar experience for your audience and your influencers.

Scrappy ideas for collaborating with influencers when you have limited time and resources.

Bonus: Formulas for determining content and influencer marketing ROI

But wait, there’s more! We have more TopRank Marketing team members attending the CMWorld conference including Account Manager, Jane Bartel, Senior Content Strategist, Nick Nelson and Content Strategist, Anne Leuman who will be on hand attending sessions and live-blogging. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @toprank and check out our live conference coverage here on the Online Marketing Blog.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

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50 Content Promotion Tactics to Help Your Great Content Get Amazing Exposure

You’ve just launched a gorgeous campaign with all the design bells and whistles. The copywriting is art and the experience intoxicating—so say your design and content team.

The day of launch has everyone excited. The marketing team smells a win at Cannes Lions and the sales team anticipates Glengarry-level leads. But wait, what’s that? Nothing? Nothing!

It looks like you’ve got a bad case of Invisible Content Syndrome.

Just about every marketer experiences the dichotomy of creation / promotion with an increasing focus on making the best content possible. But then what? Many time-strapped marketers are resolved to hit publish, schedule some social shares on brand profiles and maybe throw a few bucks towards social ads. But is that enough?

Back in 2012 Americans were consuming an average of 63 GB of media on a daily basis. I can only imagine how much it is today. Enough to make last minute social shares and ads a crapshoot in terms of making sure your content is seen by the audience you intend and when it’s actually going to be useful for them.

Invisible Content Syndrome isn’t a new idea, of course. Sonia Simone from Copyblogger wrote about it back in 2010 (which I just discovered this week) offering solid tips on how to beat it. When it comes to solving for invisible content, creating channels of distribution for content marketing is something I’ve been focused on a very long time—here’s a post on the topic from 2007.

Fast forward to 2018 and today’s world of information overload and the multitude of device options for consuming information makes standing out even more challenging. Content promotion can’t be effective if it’s an afterthought. Your best practice would be to make promotion part of content planning.  To provide you with a helpful resource, I’ve compiled a list of content promotion ideas for you to consider during your content planning so you can be the best answer for your customers, when and where it matters most.

50 Content Promotion Tactics to Cure Invisible Content Syndrome

1. Collaborate with influencers. I have to put this one first because it’s become an incredibly effective way of delivering mutual benefit for everyone involved. Brands get exposure to influencer audiences as they promote the result of their collaboration, influencers get exposure by association with the brand and consumers get really useful content from people they trust. There are a multitude of variations on working with influencers for content promotion and you’ll see some of them further on in the list.

2. Create modular content for repurposing. Another highly effective approach is to identify topical segments of your main content and cluster them together for variations on the theme in repurposed content. If your content is about topics X, Y and Z then you can take all the ideas about X and either: publish in a different format like turning a blog post into an ebook as I’ve done down below, or add some new insights about topic X to those from your original content and publish it as a deeper dive on the subject.  Repurposing has many different options and I’ll bring a few more up further in the list.

3. Ping journalists about research content before you publish. This is a great idea I learned from Steve Rayson of BuzzSumo. If you’re doing a research project, identify publications that match editorially and reach out to a relevant journalist in advance to see what questions they would like answered in the research. When the report publishes, share with the Journalists and they’ll inevitably help promote the thing they contributed to. You can sign up for services like HARO and wait for opportunities to find you or seek them out with a service like Muck Rack.

4. Republish / syndicate on a different channel. Publish the original content on your brand site or blog, then the author can republish that same content on LinkedIn Pulse with a citation and link to the original at the end. An alternative would be to republish on Medium following the same citation advice. A different channel will likely have a different audience and when the content you’re working with happens to be mutually relevant to multiple channels where you publish, why not share?

5. Repurpose the original in a different media format. A substantive video could be turned into multiple blog posts with still images used as graphics in the posts. The audio from the video might be useful in a podcast format and further screen grabs from the video could be used for social shares.

6. Deconstruct the original content and personalize for a different audience. In many types of content there are universal truths —things that are true for each audience segment or vertical market a brand is after. Strip away what’s personalized in your content for a specific audience leaving these truths. Then add in content specific to a different vertical or audience and publish appropriately. The additional content that results becomes more content promotion opportunity.

Click To Tweet

7. Survey your social networks with one simple question. Then compile answers into a blog post, citing the contributors. Announce the published content to your network and those that contributed will appreciate the attribution and help promote it.

8. Reassemble modular interviews into new content. Identify a group of 10 industry experts / influencers and interview them. It’s often best to start with just one question as mentioned above, then follow up to ask more. Make 3-4 of the questions very specific and designed to evoke tactical answers. Be sure to use SEO keywords in the questions. Publish each of the 10 interviews a week or month apart. After that, take all the answers to one of the tactical questions and assemble into a new post about that very specific topic. Add a your own insights or capture tips from a few new influencers to spice it up and don’t be afraid to publish as an infographic, motion graphic or eBook. Do the same for the other tactical questions and answers as well. New formats give you new publish and promotion opportunities.

9. Write guest posts for industry blogs. Take the main theme of your content and customize a story for relevant industry blogs. Tools like BlogDash can be helpful for finding the right blogs. The contributed blog posts need to be written in a way that linking to your original content makes sense as a reference. This is most meaningful when your original content is not a blog post itself, like a video, report, ebook, infographic, microsite, interactive experience, motion graphic, etc.

10. Pitch industry publications with exclusive stories. With bigger content assets and especially those involving research or truly newsworthy information, it pays to identify industry publications and pitch story ideas. With enough advance notice, you can see the upcoming themes for a publication in their editorial calendar. If a staff journalist is unresponsive, research contributing authors with story ideas. Your story is the content—but you might also be able to link back to useful resources that support the facts of the story. The more unique, robust and engaging, the more likely a relevant resource on your brand site will be linked to by the publication.

11. Pitch for podcast interviews. Podcasting is growing fast and while I’ve never used a pitching service myself, they do exist. You can also search iTunes and other sources of podasts for relevant shows or use a service like RadioGuestList. Then reach out to the owner with your idea for an interview. As above, the more unique, robust and engaging a relevant resource on your brand site is, the more likely it will be linked to by the podcast.

12. Share with communities. Tap into smaller community websites or forums to share your content. However, don’t just arrive, drop a link and leave, expecting the community to respond. You’ll need to invest time in finding the right communities and then build credibility before sharing links to your content.

13. Make content sharing easy. Nothing scales social sharing like making sharing easy. Use click to tweet links in PDFs, reports and blog posts to make it easy for people to share with a single click (or two). Also format your content with quotes to make it shareable.

14. Add your last article to your email signature and out-of-office messages. I learned this one from Jason Miller at LinkedIn.  Below your contact info in an email signature, include the title and link to your latest blog post or content project. Do the same with one, two or three in your out of office message.

15. Make a video on LinkedIn announcing your content. Ann Handley did this recently when she announced the keynote speakers for B2B Forum and it had tens of thousands of views.

16. Use Facebook Live to announce you’ve published new content. This is a smart tip from David Zheng. When you start Facebook Live, a notification is sent to all your followers and fans. Then you can show a featured image and talk about the key points of the post. You can also ask viewers to head to your site to finish reading it or to implement the tactics you talked about. A related suggestion is to create an Instagram or Snapchat story to announce your new content and why it’s useful.

17. Send an email to your email list. Of course you might already be using an RSS to email service with your blog, so this is not that. But if you have a general email newsletter sent on a regular basis, a dedicated email announcing something new and relevant can be very effective for visibility of the content you want to promote.

18. Monitor social networks for questions and answer them with your content. When a question pops up that could be answered with content you’ve created, you have a legitimate reason to share a link. You can set up notifications with services that scan social channels like Twitter or specific forums.

19. Track competitors for inspiration and opportunities. Services like RivalIQ help identify breakout social posts and content from competitors so you can see what they’re doing that’s working. Social media monitoring tools that track competitors can help you see opportunities to promote your content as an answer when a competitor is involved in the discussion. This can be tricky, so be careful and be relevant.

20. Twitter Chats. You can either create a Twitter Chat yourself or start participating in relevant industry Twitter chats. The question and answer format is ideal for sharing relevant and helpful links to your content. Just don’t overdo it. Also, curation of Twitter chats are a great source of content you can publish on your blog with links to the promotable content you want to share.

Click To Tweet

21. Start a podcast. If you’re not having luck getting picked up by other podcasts, maybe you should start one. I’ve been saying for many years, “If you want to be in the media, become the media.” A podcast can become just that: a platform where you can showcase useful insights and content, including your own.

22. Start a blog. Many of the tips already posted here assume you have a blog, but if you don’t, then start one! There are several blog platforms to choose from including WordPress, Tumblr or Medium. On your blog, you can curate other content as news when you’re not publishing yourself. The blog and your useful content can become a hub for your content marketing efforts to create and promote useful information that inspires your audience to do business with you.

23. Tap your community. Active engagement amongst a community means permission to share what’s important to you – including your most recent amazing content. It matters less where the community is—social networks, forums, private groups or a Slack channel and more that you are creating value for the community be sharing relevant and useful content. If they like it, they’ll share it.

24. Activate employees. An email or platform notification sent to your employees about a recently published content masterpiece is a great way to provide them with source material for their own social sharing. Your staff also represent a potentially effective distribution channel for your content as well.

25. Link to new content from content already published. When new content is being created, part of the process should be to research what has already been published on the topic. Redundancy is no good for people or search rankings after all. But complementary content does make sense to link up. Link to your new content (as a related topic) from on-topic content that is still getting traffic from search, social and links to provide a little positive lift.

Click To Tweet

26. Mention new book authors, analysts, influencers and journalists. People in the game of exposure appreciate being mentioned in relevant ways on other websites. The monitoring/alerts those mentions will create can result in clicks to inspect the source content. Because your content is amazing and you have cited the individuals in the most relevant way, there’s a good chance they will share or even link from their own blogs.

27. Upgrade the competition.Find the most popular online content on your topics of interest and create something even better.  Go deep and invest in the design of the information. Link to the content you want to promote from this robust deep dive on the topic.

28. Paid social promotion. Organic is great, but sometimes paid is better. The audience targeting options with major social networks can help you direct qualified traffic to your content. For that, use Facebook or Instagram Ads, Promoted Tweets, Sponsored LinkedIn Content, Sponsored InMail or Text Ads to promote your content to exactly the audience you want to reach.

29. Retargeting. Use a service like AdRoll to tag your content so when people visit and leave, you can display retargeting ads to them for your content as they visit other websites.

30. Promote with native advertising. Another way to pay your way to exposure is  to use a service like Outbrain Amplify to get your content recommended on premium sites, including CNN, People and ESPN.

31. Paid search. The vast majority of all research online starts with a search engine. Find the right keywords for your content and PPC ads could provide the right amount of lift in visibility.

32. Create or buy a niche site. Returns require an investment and sometimes the long game means investing in a niche microsite or even purchasing an existing niche site that is focused on the topic you’re after. Along with the past content is a community of subscribers that you can tap into for exposure to your content.

33. Update and optimize old content. When we do content audits, one of the things we look for is to identify content that has potential – the right  mix of maintained search popularity and and opportunity to be updated. When you find those candidates for updating, optimize them for search and social shares.

34. Creative interactive experiences. Create a quiz, poll, calculator or similar input/output experience using a platform like SnapApp or Ceros that can create interest and then send visitors to your content to dig in deeper to the topic. We worked with Ceros to create an interactive infographic for a research report and both the referrals and the conversion rate to download the report have been amazing.

35. Tap into event streams. Find relevant conferences and their hashtags to follow. Create, or better yet, repurpose content specifically for the audience attending the event. During the event, share your useful and on-topic content with the the community following the hashtag. Don’t overdo it and your shares must be on-topic and relevant.

36. Optimize for organic search. Of course, this is the slow burn of content amplification tactics, but if you are smart and diligent about making your content both Google and people friendly plus you are publishing regularly, you can increase the frequency Googlebot visits and crawls of your site. That means new content you publish can show up in search results within hours.

37. Partner marketing. Identify other companies that are non-competitive but share similar audience objectives. Incorporate your content with theirs in a joint venture whether it’s a webinar, research study or and online / offline event. Each of you will gain exposure to a new audience in a credible way.

Click To Tweet

38. Create an answer engine. Mine your site search for questions visitors search on and develop content that answers those questions. You can use other sources of customer questions like feedback forms and tools like AnswerThePublic.com, BuzzSumo and StoryBase. Q/A format content that follows a specific topic can be do well in organic search. Link to your new content from those pages where relevant. You can also seek out questions on sites like Quora and answer them citing and linking to your more in depth content on the topic.

39. Affiliate program. Give niche and microinfluencers an incentive to share your content by offering an affiliate program that rewards them for the completion of each goal action, whether it’s a download, subscription, inquiry or transaction.

40. Sponsor blog posts. Find blogs that accept sponsored content or a sponsorship message (properly disclosed of course) and include nofollow links to the content you want to promote.

41. Remarketing for influencer audiences. Target those who visit your website from a tracking link shared by an influencer. Few convert on the first visit, so retargeting those visitors with your relevant content can be an effective way to promote and inspire them to take the next step.

42. Reshare the content that has performed the best. Use social share metrics from BuzzSumo or other data like pageviews, leads or sales attributed to your best content to decide what to re-share days or weeks after it was published. In fact, I’ll often query what the top content of the quarter or month has been and schedule a reshare with modified text.

43. Sponsor an influencer’s channel. Some influencers are publishers and make available their channels for sponsorship. Usually the influencer creates the content and there’s a disclaimer that a brand has sponsored an individual piece of content. But with the right influencer, it could be a full day or even a week.

44. Purchase an ad in an email newsletter. Ads are everywhere and one of the most effective is email. Research ad opportunities within industry email newsletters and buy a placement that directs visitors to your useful content. Ads can be spendy, so it might be worth focusing on niche newsletters.

45. Syndicate to Industry Associations. Acronymed organizations are always looking for useful content to share with their members. Find the right associations for your brand and reach out to see if they would be interested in sharing your relevant content via their email newsletter or posting to the organization blog.

46. Get visual with video. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth millions. Spice up your content with a video sidebar or summary and it will increase the likelihood of sharing and receiving links substantially.

47. Comment Marketing. This is an area that must be tread carefully, but if done well, can be very effective. Find content that matches the topic of your content to promote and seek out opportunities to share useful, on-topic comments that include a link to your more in-depth resource. Don’t limit your comments to blogs. Consider mainstream business publications as well – especially those that accept new authors eager to get comments about their contribution.

48. Link building. Find the top ranking content on your topic, then research who is linking to those URLs. Reach out to the link sources and invite them to link to your robust content as well. This approach is too often used and poorly executed, so wins will be few and far between. But it doesn’t take too many links from reputable sources to have a positive impact on the visibility of your content.

49. Sponsor events. Many events will provide opportunities for sponsors to share more than a log0 – content on the conference blog, via attendee newsletter or even in print included in the schwag bag.

50. Make a big ass list like this one! Comprehensive, useful resources often represent content that is worth sharing and linking to. Hopefully readers will feel that way about this post.

Besides this fine list of content amplification tips, I’ve also put together an eBook of recommendations from 10 top marketing influencers and professionals including: Ann Handley, Mike Stelzner, Joe Pulizzi, Mike King, Cathy McPhillips, Sujan Patel, Ursula Ringham, Larry Kim, Carla Johnson, Andrew Davis.  That’s right, walking the talk!

If you’re attending the Content Marketing World conference in Cleveland during the first week of September, you’ll want to see if there are any spaces left for this workshop.

Tuesday, Sept. 4th: Rocket Science Simplified: How to Optimize, Socialize and Publicize B2B Content

I will be covering:

How to use a “Best Answer” strategy to activate content integration

How to use keyword & question research to ignite content planning

How to use Power Pages and SEO best practices for organic liftoff

How to use the magic of repurposing social content for promotion

How to use outreach tactics that will fuel blog and media coverage of your campaigns

Basically, much of what you need to know to make sure your content is visible and not just good looking.

Wednesday, September 5th I will be giving a presentation for B2B marketers on influencer marketing: The Confluence Equation: How Content and Influencers Drive B2B Marketing Success.

What’s the secret formula to scalable, quality content? Find out how B2B brands, big and small like SAP, Dell, Cherwell and DivvyHQ are able to create more awareness, engagement and pipeline with the confluence equation. In this presentation you will:

Learn the Influencer Marketing Maturity Model and where your brand fits

Explore how a modular approach to influencer content can fuel cross-channel campaigns

Learn how to get the best of both worlds: campaigns and always on programs

Understand which technologies are available to facilitate influencer identification, engagement and performance reporting

Joining me at Content Marketing World is Ashley Zeckman, Digital Strategy Director at TopRank Marketing. She’s going to be busting some influencer marketing myths in her presentation.

Thursday, September 6th: Influencer Marketing is only for B2C Brands (& Other Lies Your Parents Told You). Here’s what you can expect from Ashley:

A dive into 3 stories of successful content and influencer marketing in action.

Steps for creating a stellar experience for your audience and your influencers.

Scrappy ideas for collaborating with influencers when you have limited time and resources.

Bonus: Formulas for determining content and influencer marketing ROI

But wait, there’s more! We have more TopRank Marketing team members attending the CMWorld conference including Account Manager, Jane Bartel, Senior Content Strategist, Nick Nelson and Content Strategist, Anne Leuman who will be on hand attending sessions and live-blogging. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @toprank and check out our live conference coverage here on the Online Marketing Blog.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2018. | 50 Content Promotion Tactics to Help Your Great Content Get Amazing Exposure | https://www.toprankblog.com

The post 50 Content Promotion Tactics to Help Your Great Content Get Amazing Exposure appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2018/08/50-content-promotion-tactics/

[pmapstest5]

Digital Assessments For Sales Competencies Digitalization has no doubt brought various kinds of evolutionary changes in traditional work culture. The requirement of well-aligned sales competency has significantly elevated for an employee to be considered responsible for the role. The cognitive, behavioural, and emotional aspect of a candidate is assessed in a specific and overall manner through assessments that are easy to avail and interesting to attend.

This is because the growth of an organization is followed by excellent teamwork, creative production, and most importantly active participation. According to Gallup, highly engaged employees help in reducing the rate of absenteeism and increasing customer ratings to 10% and 20% of the sales. While looking out for consistent employees, the core competencies in sales are highly concerned.

However, some studies made by Alan Benson, Simon Board, and Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn in 2019 show that hiring into an industry might be experiencing unintentional or intentional discrimination by the managers due to the tendency of favouring the same race candidates. Furthermore, survey data from 251 salespeople results showed that the analytical skills of salespeople directly or indirectly affect sales performance in various trading situations.

Therefore, the recruitment team of an organization must be equipped enough while choosing the individuals based on sales competencies. Traditionally, the recruitment team verbally evaluates the potential employees and observes their level of experience and fluency abstractly. Hence, it is high time for the managers to switch their hiring procedures according to Gen-Z expectations.

Problems With Traditional Hiring Procedure

Doesn’t Evaluate The Performance Aspect

Traditional hiring practices limit the interviewers to assess the complete profile of the candidate. In the case of salespeople, role-related skills such as technical awareness, product awareness, rapport building, reporting, and insight into the industry are more important than previous roles played by the candidate. The sales competencies that affect the performance of the candidates are not thoroughly assessed in one-to-one employee-employer interaction.

Involves Recruiter’s Biases

The final evaluation is dependent on the first impression of the candidate. This might encourage various biases, be it intentional or unintentional. The selection of the candidates is done based on the memory of the interviewer, which is not quite reliable. Also, the interviewers are not trained properly due to which avoidance of personal bias can not be facilitated.

Interviews Don’t Cover Complete Candidate Personality

The interviews earlier constituted one-to-one interaction and written papers. It did not assess the behavioural and cognitive aspects of the candidate. Also, the personality of candidates was evaluated based on first impressions. The traditional interviews lacked in determining which candidates are consistent and devoted based on sales competencies.

Time-Consuming

The process of evaluation consumed time with no effective results. Often, the frustration of getting done with the long interviews affects the thorough evaluation of potential salespeople. Also, traditional interviewing did not cover soft skills such as initiative-taking, learning, and communicating which are more important than qualification.

Not Reliable

The language barrier makes written assessments difficult for the salespeople. There are no records of ratings, which means the evaluation is not empirical. The candidates give up on the lengthy assessments before completing even halfway through them. The validity of traditional interviews has therefore expired and it doesn’t attract enough Gen-Z candidates.

Determining the Best For Your Organization

To access the core competencies in sales, you must have the right tools to help. Choosing the best assessments for your organizational needs requires you to sort a few things beforehand. The employee quality required for the job posts, qualifications, level of technical knowledge, and personality preferences. This will help you choose your candidate for different employment sectors. Furthermore, it will help you maintain the right interaction and enthusiastic association with them.

Here are a few easy steps to follow in bringing sales core competencies to utility;

· Customize your tool preference according to your needs

· While choosing from a bunch, ensure that the assessments are validated

· Demand a sample report to the organization that structures your assessment

· Protect your time and resource through proper API integration

· Make your interface attractive and fun to attend for the candidates’

Competencies Assessed By PMaps Psychometrics

There are a few critical sales competencies or qualities a salesperson is expected to possess as an ideal candidate to be distinguished from the rest by maintaining high productivity. Through the right interaction and assignment of duty, the individuals gradually develop to become professionally competent. This refers to practical soft skill development such as colleague relationship building, customer interactivity, engagement, and goal setting. In the case of commerce and trade-based careers, the competency demands are specific and goal-driven. Here are some of the must-have competencies to foster. PMaps assessment measures these competencies to produce a reliable and accurate candidate analysis report.

Perspective Taking

It is very important for the salespeople to outline their goals and form perspectives regarding the customer before they jump into the fieldwork. The assessments that measure this trait concentrate majorly on the aspect of understanding and interpreting realistic situations with the clients. Non-verbal signals of the customer need to be understood to facilitate the desirable presentation of products and services.

Also, it helps in deciding how far the sales must be persuaded with particular clients based on their reactions and attitude towards the approach. Therefore, it saves time and energy for the salesperson making their work smart and efficient.

Positivty

According to Marketing Donut sales statistics, only 8% of salespeople score 80% of all successful sales. At least five follow-ups are necessary to achieve a successful sale. However, 44% of salespeople give up after the first rejection. 22% of salespeople stop persuading by the second rejection and 14% of sales employees hang on only till the third. Further, 12% stopped by the fourth rejection due to lack of optimism, and only 8% went up for the final fifth follow-up.

Therefore, potential salespeople must balance their emotions while dealing with the customers. Also, for maintaining positivity throughout the career. Patience and hope are the best ingredients to create a successful career in sales. Measurement of this trait assesses the candidates’ positive and constructive mentality.

Motivation

According to expectancy theory, individuals in general behave in a particular manner to achieve an expected reward as a response or result to it. To meet high sales targets and aspire to bigger achievements, one requires motivation and drive. It is not possible for an employee to constantly stay energized for the role and responsibility.

However, a salesperson is expected to be consistently productive while approaching the customers. Because studies made on sales performance show the significant effect of intrinsic motivation as a fundamental condition to direct general and technical skills in successful dealing.

Ambiversion

A salesperson must build and maintain customers-relationship as stated in Rapport Management During The Exploration Phase Of The Salesperson–Customer Relationship by Kim Sydow Campbell, Lenita Davis, and Lauren Skinner. Another research by Scott M. Curry, Nicole E. Gravina, Andressa A. Sleiman & Erin Richard indicates that rapport-building behavior shows positive engagement and candidates who have the trait complete 14% more of the productive tasks. A project by Daniel Maurath analyzed the turnovers of ambiverted salespeople, it was found that they performed much better than introverted and extraverted salespeople.

In such a case, ambiversion personality traits can ensure high relationship-building potential with the customers and colleagues. Hence, it certainly makes a salesperson ideal as a salesperson is expected to be wisely introverted and informatively extroverted. The candidate must pass this aspect of the assessment to stand a firm chance of getting through the interview. To be able to empathize with the customer, an ideal candidate must acquire an interactive experience. Therefore, this trait needs to be measured while recruiting salespeople.

Benefits of PMaps Visual-Based Assessments

Visual Interface

The Gen-Z tends to adapt better to the technical environment than in typical ones. The assessments prepared by PMaps are structured to evaluate the sales candidates non-discriminant of language preference. The items of assessment ensure that candidates appearing feel comfortable and answer honestly. It does not limit the answers to social expectation, rather focuses on individual personality evaluation.

Fun & Interesting

The world today believes in smart work at every phase and position. The generation looks out for hooking and innovative systems in organizations. The assessments are developed to keep the candidates on the hook till the very end. Also, the duration of attending the assessment is significantly less. Graphics and audio enrich the digital experience of the candidates while encouraging curiosity throughout the psychometric assessments.

Quick

People these days are engaged in multiple activities thriving to find values of life in productivity. Organizations also experience high demands from the economy which makes the employee schedules tighter. To aid the unnecessary time consumption, managers must adopt digital means of evaluating individuals for sales. A considerable amount of time is saved as these assessments produce a complete report without any manual calculations.

Easily Accessible

These assessments allow both the candidate and manager to easily appear and review the interview respectively. The advanced calculation of data procures accurate reports of the individual. Also, the records of responses can be accessed from the cloud storage anytime throughout life. This data also gives reference to the employee for further monitoring and training of potential sales agents through the period of employment.

Covers All Aspects

A study this month found that salespeople who completed the decentralized program (digital evaluation) achieved approximately 23.5% higher sales performance than those who completed the centralized program (one-to-one interaction). This is because the onboarding process is much more scientific with digital assessments than in traditional interviews for hiring. It is also non-discriminant as it prevents first impression biases on recruiters’ side. It covers all sales competencies and evaluates the candidate based on individual qualities.

Cost-Efficient

The easy interpretation and evaluation of sales competency with digital psychometric assessments are not only easy to use, fun to attend, scientifically accurate, and quick by nature but also, it is budget-friendly and reliable. PMaps pre-assess are trusted by many established companies like Bajaj, Blue Heaven, Dishtv, Digicall, IDBI Bank, IDFC First Bank, Max Life Insurance and many more.

Environment Friendly

The digital assessments are environment friendly as it doesn’t depend on printed papers for interviews and record-keeping. It also reduces production cost of the overall industry. Although it might be contributing a minimal portion, when adapted by large groups of industries it would bring a significant change. The employee records can be accessed from the cloud no matter where you are. Digital sales competency assessments are overall very eco-friendly and economical by nature and are no doubt a healthy investment.

SUM UP:

The need for availing of modernized platforms and tools to operate organizations is growing unstoppably. Changing trends have taken an express ride with social media intervention. The efficiency of employees with adequate sales competencies will earn customers only when it is administered by advanced evaluating and monitoring tools.

Save your precious time by setting up your goals and criteria with the best competent salespeople from the very base of recruitment. Save a seat on the digital express evaluating critical core sales competencies before your competitors fit in!

– By Pratisrutee Mishra

Team PMaps

[pmapstest4]

Digital Assessments For Sales Competencies

Digital Assessments For Sales Competencies Digitalization has no doubt brought various kinds of evolutionary changes in traditional work culture. The requirement of well-aligned sales competency has significantly elevated for an employee to be considered responsible for the role. The cognitive, behavioural, and emotional aspect of a candidate is assessed in a specific and overall manner through assessments that are easy to avail and interesting to attend.

This is because the growth of an organization is followed by excellent teamwork, creative production, and most importantly active participation. According to Gallup, highly engaged employees help in reducing the rate of absenteeism and increasing customer ratings to 10% and 20% of the sales. While looking out for consistent employees, the core competencies in sales are highly concerned.

However, some studies made by Alan Benson, Simon Board, and Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn in 2019 show that hiring into an industry might be experiencing unintentional or intentional discrimination by the managers due to the tendency of favouring the same race candidates. Furthermore, survey data from 251 salespeople results showed that the analytical skills of salespeople directly or indirectly affect sales performance in various trading situations.

Therefore, the recruitment team of an organization must be equipped enough while choosing the individuals based on sales competencies. Traditionally, the recruitment team verbally evaluates the potential employees and observes their level of experience and fluency abstractly. Hence, it is high time for the managers to switch their hiring procedures according to Gen-Z expectations.

Problems With Traditional Hiring Procedure

Doesn’t Evaluate The Performance Aspect

Traditional hiring practices limit the interviewers to assess the complete profile of the candidate. In the case of salespeople, role-related skills such as technical awareness, product awareness, rapport building, reporting, and insight into the industry are more important than previous roles played by the candidate. The sales competencies that affect the performance of the candidates are not thoroughly assessed in one-to-one employee-employer interaction.

Involves Recruiter’s Biases

The final evaluation is dependent on the first impression of the candidate. This might encourage various biases, be it intentional or unintentional. The selection of the candidates is done based on the memory of the interviewer, which is not quite reliable. Also, the interviewers are not trained properly due to which avoidance of personal bias can not be facilitated.

Interviews Don’t Cover Complete Candidate Personality

The interviews earlier constituted one-to-one interaction and written papers. It did not assess the behavioural and cognitive aspects of the candidate. Also, the personality of candidates was evaluated based on first impressions. The traditional interviews lacked in determining which candidates are consistent and devoted based on sales competencies.

Time-Consuming

The process of evaluation consumed time with no effective results. Often, the frustration of getting done with the long interviews affects the thorough evaluation of potential salespeople. Also, traditional interviewing did not cover soft skills such as initiative-taking, learning, and communicating which are more important than qualification.

Not Reliable

The language barrier makes written assessments difficult for the salespeople. There are no records of ratings, which means the evaluation is not empirical. The candidates give up on the lengthy assessments before completing even halfway through them. The validity of traditional interviews has therefore expired and it doesn’t attract enough Gen-Z candidates.

Determining the Best For Your Organization

To access the core competencies in sales, you must have the right tools to help. Choosing the best assessments for your organizational needs requires you to sort a few things beforehand. The employee quality required for the job posts, qualifications, level of technical knowledge, and personality preferences. This will help you choose your candidate for different employment sectors. Furthermore, it will help you maintain the right interaction and enthusiastic association with them.

Here are a few easy steps to follow in bringing sales core competencies to utility;

· Customize your tool preference according to your needs

· While choosing from a bunch, ensure that the assessments are validated

· Demand a sample report to the organization that structures your assessment

· Protect your time and resource through proper API integration

· Make your interface attractive and fun to attend for the candidates’

Competencies Assessed By PMaps Psychometrics

There are a few critical sales competencies or qualities a salesperson is expected to possess as an ideal candidate to be distinguished from the rest by maintaining high productivity. Through the right interaction and assignment of duty, the individuals gradually develop to become professionally competent. This refers to practical soft skill development such as colleague relationship building, customer interactivity, engagement, and goal setting. In the case of commerce and trade-based careers, the competency demands are specific and goal-driven. Here are some of the must-have competencies to foster. PMaps assessment measures these competencies to produce a reliable and accurate candidate analysis report.

Perspective Taking

It is very important for the salespeople to outline their goals and form perspectives regarding the customer before they jump into the fieldwork. The assessments that measure this trait concentrate majorly on the aspect of understanding and interpreting realistic situations with the clients. Non-verbal signals of the customer need to be understood to facilitate the desirable presentation of products and services.

Also, it helps in deciding how far the sales must be persuaded with particular clients based on their reactions and attitude towards the approach. Therefore, it saves time and energy for the salesperson making their work smart and efficient.

Positivty

According to Marketing Donut sales statistics, only 8% of salespeople score 80% of all successful sales. At least five follow-ups are necessary to achieve a successful sale. However, 44% of salespeople give up after the first rejection. 22% of salespeople stop persuading by the second rejection and 14% of sales employees hang on only till the third. Further, 12% stopped by the fourth rejection due to lack of optimism, and only 8% went up for the final fifth follow-up.

Therefore, potential salespeople must balance their emotions while dealing with the customers. Also, for maintaining positivity throughout the career. Patience and hope are the best ingredients to create a successful career in sales. Measurement of this trait assesses the candidates’ positive and constructive mentality.

Motivation

According to expectancy theory, individuals in general behave in a particular manner to achieve an expected reward as a response or result to it. To meet high sales targets and aspire to bigger achievements, one requires motivation and drive. It is not possible for an employee to constantly stay energized for the role and responsibility.

However, a salesperson is expected to be consistently productive while approaching the customers. Because studies made on sales performance show the significant effect of intrinsic motivation as a fundamental condition to direct general and technical skills in successful dealing.

Ambiversion

A salesperson must build and maintain customers-relationship as stated in Rapport Management During The Exploration Phase Of The Salesperson–Customer Relationship by Kim Sydow Campbell, Lenita Davis, and Lauren Skinner. Another research by Scott M. Curry, Nicole E. Gravina, Andressa A. Sleiman & Erin Richard indicates that rapport-building behavior shows positive engagement and candidates who have the trait complete 14% more of the productive tasks. A project by Daniel Maurath analyzed the turnovers of ambiverted salespeople, it was found that they performed much better than introverted and extraverted salespeople.

In such a case, ambiversion personality traits can ensure high relationship-building potential with the customers and colleagues. Hence, it certainly makes a salesperson ideal as a salesperson is expected to be wisely introverted and informatively extroverted. The candidate must pass this aspect of the assessment to stand a firm chance of getting through the interview. To be able to empathize with the customer, an ideal candidate must acquire an interactive experience. Therefore, this trait needs to be measured while recruiting salespeople.

Benefits of PMaps Visual-Based Assessments

Visual Interface

The Gen-Z tends to adapt better to the technical environment than in typical ones. The assessments prepared by PMaps are structured to evaluate the sales candidates non-discriminant of language preference. The items of assessment ensure that candidates appearing feel comfortable and answer honestly. It does not limit the answers to social expectation, rather focuses on individual personality evaluation.

Fun & Interesting

The world today believes in smart work at every phase and position. The generation looks out for hooking and innovative systems in organizations. The assessments are developed to keep the candidates on the hook till the very end. Also, the duration of attending the assessment is significantly less. Graphics and audio enrich the digital experience of the candidates while encouraging curiosity throughout the psychometric assessments.

Quick

People these days are engaged in multiple activities thriving to find values of life in productivity. Organizations also experience high demands from the economy which makes the employee schedules tighter. To aid the unnecessary time consumption, managers must adopt digital means of evaluating individuals for sales. A considerable amount of time is saved as these assessments produce a complete report without any manual calculations.

Easily Accessible

These assessments allow both the candidate and manager to easily appear and review the interview respectively. The advanced calculation of data procures accurate reports of the individual. Also, the records of responses can be accessed from the cloud storage anytime throughout life. This data also gives reference to the employee for further monitoring and training of potential sales agents through the period of employment.

Covers All Aspects

A study this month found that salespeople who completed the decentralized program (digital evaluation) achieved approximately 23.5% higher sales performance than those who completed the centralized program (one-to-one interaction). This is because the onboarding process is much more scientific with digital assessments than in traditional interviews for hiring. It is also non-discriminant as it prevents first impression biases on recruiters’ side. It covers all sales competencies and evaluates the candidate based on individual qualities.

Cost-Efficient

The easy interpretation and evaluation of sales competency with digital psychometric assessments are not only easy to use, fun to attend, scientifically accurate, and quick by nature but also, it is budget-friendly and reliable. PMaps pre-assess are trusted by many established companies like Bajaj, Blue Heaven, Dishtv, Digicall, IDBI Bank, IDFC First Bank, Max Life Insurance and many more.

Environment Friendly

The digital assessments are environment friendly as it doesn’t depend on printed papers for interviews and record-keeping. It also reduces production cost of the overall industry. Although it might be contributing a minimal portion, when adapted by large groups of industries it would bring a significant change. The employee records can be accessed from the cloud no matter where you are. Digital sales competency assessments are overall very eco-friendly and economical by nature and are no doubt a healthy investment.

SUM UP:

The need for availing of modernized platforms and tools to operate organizations is growing unstoppably. Changing trends have taken an express ride with social media intervention. The efficiency of employees with adequate sales competencies will earn customers only when it is administered by advanced evaluating and monitoring tools.

Save your precious time by setting up your goals and criteria with the best competent salespeople from the very base of recruitment. Save a seat on the digital express evaluating critical core sales competencies before your competitors fit in!

– By Pratisrutee Mishra

Team PMaps