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Even with the projected 80% increase in online investment by luxury brands in 2013, fashion brands small and large also are significantly recognizing that the silver lining lies in the adoption of a reliable listening strategy. As transient as fashion is, it appears that Geek Chic is here to stay. Of course, Oscar Wilde knew that over a century or two before Geek Chic became the rage, noting way back then that “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”[read more]

What does SEO look like when tailored to a Spanish-speaking audience? Here’s a hint: it’s not about a direct translation of keywords. Basic literary translation theory says that good translations move beyond issues of “letter” (that is, a literal word-for-word trot) into the “spirit” of the language.[read more]

Social marketing scientist Dan Zarella just released data that shows how including exclamation points in your tweets earn more syndication (Retweets) but less clicks.[read more]

As you can imagine, parents and teachers have strong opinions about the effect media and technology is having on America’s youth. About 73 percent of parents say they would like to limit their children’s TV watching. The top parental concerns of social media’s impact on kids include the following: violation of privacy, inappropriate sexual behavior, cyber bullying, identity theft/fraud, and diminishing ambition.[read more]

Ann Smarty: Owner of MyBlogGuest and SEOSmarty.

Getting many of the SEO and social media experts of today in one place is a great way to compare thoughts and figure out what direction to take your business in the coming months. We asked eight industry leaders the following question: "What new SEO or social media tool (or new feature of a tool) are you most excited about using in 2013?"[read more]

You can show your Facebook ad to anyone, people who already like your page, or people who do not yet like your page. However, the “platinum,” is friends of connections. By selecting this option your ads will show to friends of your existing fans (those who already like your page).[read more]

Pinners can now send individual pins to their friends on-site as long as they both follow each other – before, pins had to be sent via email. Pins can be sent on both desktop and mobile devices, to both desktop and mobile devices.[read more]

For the most part, the people who register for your webinar are qualified leads. Some will be competitors because they want to see what you’re up to and will want to copy you, but most will be people who want to do business with you.[read more]

Most of what you read about creating more reach for your Facebook Page either has to do with Facebook Ads or optimizing content. But these three little settings for your Page can also dramatically increase reach.[read more]

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A new study found that 40% of adults used social media as part of a political campaign during the 2012 presidential election. Interestingly, online engagement was largely found to have been done by the well-educated and affluent amongst us.[read more]

I’m a big fan of Pinterest and use it extensively both personally and professionally. Here are my top 10 tips that will having you pinning like a pro in no time.[read more]

Personal branding (image: Rosaura Ochoa / Flickr)

It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect job and have no plans of leaving — consistent networking and personal branding efforts ensure you’ll stay on the top of your network’s members’ minds and be viewed as an authority in your field. That starts with your interaction with others, even in the space of digital.[read more]

Facebook Business Page App

Facebook marketing is a huge business and recently there have been massive changes taking place in the way pages for businesses are handled. Read on for information about Facebook Business Pages, along with five essential apps for your brand's page.[read more]

Here's a Google+ cheat sheet to keep handy and get the most out of every post. This cheat sheet breaks it all down from post anatomy, notifications, style options, photo editing and more![read more]

When it comes to growing business, business owners perceive having 2 million engaged Facebook fans more valuable than a Super Bowl ad, and far more desirable than having the same number of Twitter followers.[read more]

Although Facebook tests everything and course-corrects as needed, the challenge here will be to find a balance between generating revenue and the psychology of what Facebook users think the service is (no one likes being sold to).[read more]

Last week, a gang of cyber criminals perpetrated a $45 Million fraud by hacking their way into prepaid card systems at several banks and extracting their take via ATM machines in 26 countries. The US portion of the scam took place courtesy of ATM’s mostly in the Northeast, giving too much publicity to the ensuing spending spree and clearly illustrating the risk that needs to be addressed via the EMV standard.[read more]

Even though Tumblr is often forgotten by brands, it’s still a massive community. In fact, the absence of brands (and the only recent emergence of in-stream advertising) may play a big part in the site’s continued rapid growth. More than 107.5 million blogs and 50.5 billion posts have been created on Tumblr, including the more than 70 million new posts that appear every day.[read more]

Photo credit: Dark Jedi Tumblr 

This post is a love letter to my fellow community managers, as well as a brass-tacks discussion on the practice of community management – the dark and the light side of it. It is also a call to action for community managers to take a proactive stand against burnout — while working all the time may seem like the right thing to do for our communities in the short term, burnout renders us useless to these same communities.[read more]

Good marketers know you have to stand for something. You can’t be all things to all people and still expect to build an iconic brand. Targeting is what sets you apart from the rest – a fact that holds especially true when it comes to fashion. And branding isn’t just about whom to attract; it’s also about whom to repel.[read more]