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What Would Happen If Every Employee Had Admin Access to the Corporate Social Media Accounts?
There's a neighborhood pizza place that my family frequents. It's the kind of hip joint that plays indie rock, serves craft beer, displays local artwork and employs a trendy-looking waitstaff that buzzes from table to table while chatting and...
The Marketing Toolkit for Startups On a Budget
Running marketing for a startup comes with its own unique challenges, not the least of which is maintaining a tight budget while attempting to drive a daily influx of new leads. Even fully-funded startups would be wise not to invest too much in an...
Past Contributorship Has No Impact on Authorship Annotations or Rankings
As early as April 9th, Google began rolling out a new profile feature to its Google+ network that many believe may have Google Authorship and AuthorRank implications. Users can now specify whether they are a “current” or “past” contributor to a blog...
Want To Increase Conversions? Focus On Referral Traffic
While it’s no secret that referral traffic tends to convert better than direct, search and social, many marketers still pour thousands of dollars into interruption-based advertising and yesterday’s SEO tactics, hoping to generate a return....
Google+ Adds Current/Past Option to "Contributor To" Field
Last week, Google+ users started noticing an additional option in their “Contributor to” section: a past or current contributor drop-down. As of today, the option appears to be global. The “Contributor to” section is a requirement to establishing...
The Brand Marketer's Checklist When Tragedy Strikes
When news of the Boston Marathon bombing broke Monday afternoon, many took to social media to share information and concern for those affected. At the same time, some marketers didn’t take appropriate steps to alter their messaging in light of the...
The Real Value of Google Authorship Isn't AuthorRank
AuthorRank isn’t here yet, but there’s no reason to believe that it won’t be a significant ranking factor sometime in the future. Members of Google’s top brass have suggested that it is coming down the pipeline, and that publishers should prepare....
Best Practices for Tweeting at Live Events and Industry Conferences
Industry events like trade shows, conferences and conventions have always been excellent opportunities for networking and lead generation, but the rise of Twitter has given marketers the ability to reach and interact with countless attendees without...
7 Tips for a Social Media Spring Cleaning
It’s April, the second quarter has begun, and spring is here! Springtime isn’t just a great time to put your winter clothes away and clean your a garage. It’s also a great time to review and refresh all of your social media channels, especially if...
Hashtags and Ampersats in Blog Post Titles: A Good Idea?
Many marketers have adopted the practice of inserting hashtags (#s) and ampersats (@s) directly into blog post titles, either as a postscript or affixed to native words. Is this tactic an illustration of tech savvy or ill-advised artifice? Let’s...
Your Social Media Share Buttons Should Be Hardcoded: Here's Why
It’s no secret that social sharing buttons are a great way to increase the distribution and promotion of blog content through social media networks. Plugins and third-party tools like Digg Digg, AddThis, Get Social and ShareThis are great for a fast...
Web Content Vs. Web Copy: Know the Difference
The golden age of copywriting may very well have occurred in the 1960′s, when scotch-fueled, skinny-tied mad men labored for hours over a typewriter in order to craft the perfect five-word slogan. At the dawn of the online era, copywriting’s ...
The No. 1 Way To Fail At Content Marketing
Content marketing campaigns can fail for many reasons. Maybe the research wasn’t thorough enough, the quality of the content itself was mediocre, or the promotional efforts never gained traction. Even the most well-intentioned and seasoned content...
Don’t Let Your Content Become Limp Bacon
There are few things that get people more excited than bacon. If you don’t believe me, just check the #bacon hashtag on Twitter. For those of us who do partake in the cured pork delicacy, you’ve probably had the experience of ordering up a plate...
How HuffPost Live Wins With Owned Content and Community
As traditional media outlets compete for eyeballs and ad dollars, a few innovative players have emerged as masters of rich digital content publishing and social interactivity. Following their acquisition by AOL, The Huffington Post launched HuffPost...
3 Content Challenges That Google Authorship Solves Today
Nearly a year after the concept of AuthorRank first started getting online marketers excited, we’re now entering a period of cynical backlash against the so-called “future of SEO.” It’s true that AuthorRank, otherwise known as “Agent Rank,” isn’t...
7 Ways To Promote Advanced Content Like eBooks, White Papers and Guides
Writing advanced content like an eBook, white paper or guide is hard enough without having to worry about promotion. However, much of the effort put into creating a significant piece of downloadable content is often wasted because the release and...
3 Reasons Meme Parodies Make For Bad Content
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past week, you’ve no doubt been inundated with numerous variations of the Harlem Shake video. Though it seems like every business, organization and team in the world has posted their own take on “Sh*t (...
4 Tools for Generating Relevant and Engaging Content Ideas
We all know that creating great content isn’t easy. It’s hard enough to generate relevant topic ideas, let alone execute on them. Luckily, there are many online tools that can help you ideate quickly and effectively. Here are four free tools for...
New YouTube Channel Design: What You Need To Know
On February 4th, YouTube announced a new Channel design. Though it is currently in limited beta, the new design will soon be available to all users. YouTube Channel design refreshes are nothing new – and typically frequent. However, this update...
