Instagram Fare, Content and Journalism, WordPress SEO Rules

The Content Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

NYC Restaurant Encourages Patrons to Use Instagram

A new New York restaurant, Comodo, has “embraced the hashtag #ComodoMenu and added it to the bottom of its real-life menu, encouraging guests to add, share and check out photos of food offered at the establishment,” according to Mashable.

The restaurant is only three weeks old, and decided to start the Instagram project after it noticed people uploading pictures of their meals to the site.

NewsCred and Media Professionals Discuss the Future of Content

Since branded content has been on the rise, some media professionals have been skeptical about how it’s affected their industry.

But at NewsCred’s Content and Cocktails meetup, the tone was a bit more optimistic, with attendees saying that both independent journalism and content that appeals more to broader audiences’ wants can co-exist.

In fact, thanks to content purchasing, AP’s Former Director of Strategic Partnerships Jennifer Stenger and Reuters’ Global Business Director Brett Curtis stressed that “the monetization of content offered a great opportunity for their historic journalism brands,” writes blogger Felicia. “Stenger said that buying content did not threaten their core business, but was a great way to breathe new life into content that wasn’t breaking news.”

Making an SEO-Friendly Website

Building a new WordPress website? Check out CopyBlogger’s guide on how to make it as SEO-friendly as possible. When it comes to a domain name, Jerod Morris writes, “Ask yourself: ‘Can I fit a keyword or two in here?’ If you can — gracefully — then do it. It can only help.”

The website should also be indexed (don’t block search engines in the privacy settings) and include SEO keywords in the page’s content, whether it’s in the titles, descriptions, or main text.

He says, “Remember that the description is what search engine users will see when your result pops up. Crafting compelling copy is the key here. You’ll want to include keywords as well, primarily because those are (by definition) the words your users have in mind when they’re looking for what you offer.”

How to Effectively Produce Content

ClickZ’s Heidi Cohen gives some insight on how to create content in efficient and effective ways. She suggests maintaining a back log of content marketing topics, developing a structure and editorial calendar for the content releases, and to “write where the emotional value is.”

In terms of specific ideas, she says that businesses can write about news in their industry, divulge an insider’s perspective, and teach customers and prospective customers how to use the business’ products and services.

The Evolution of Content Marketing

According to Content Marketing Institute’s Andy Crestodina, the five stages of content marketing evolution are: Presence (website), Publish (blog), Promote (email marketing), Engage (social media), and Integrate (marketing automation).

Each section gives examples of how to partake in each step. For presence, businesses should figure out SEO and include a contact form on their websites, and in terms of publishing, commenting and blogging are important. In terms of promotion, businesses can encourage email signups and tagging links from those emails to the website.

Engagement can be done be monitoring what people are saying online about the business and networking on Twitter and LinkedIn, while integration, which means to connect “your marketing systems with your sales systems,” can be carried out with e-commerce buttons and marketing automation.

Ted Turner Receives Award at Fifth Annual Digital Media Summit

Ted Turner of Turner Broadcasting System was honored Tuesday for being a visionary in the industry at the Digital Media Summit, The New York Times reports. He helped pioneer place-based media, placing programming in environments outside the home.

Stuart Elliott writes, “In the early 1990s, Mr. Turner’s company, Turner Broadcasting System, was in the forefront of place-based media. It started networks, broadcasting programming and commercials, that included the Checkout Channel, in supermarkets; CNN Accent Health, in doctors’ offices; CNN Airport Network; CNN College Television Network, now the MTVU unit of Viacom; and McDTV, inside McDonald’s restaurants.”

Today, he says, the screens are accepted by the critics who once said they were obtrusive.