Marketing

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What’s New This Week? Twitter Introduces Lead Generation “Cards”: The Lead Generation Card is “a new type of Twitter Card that will [...]

What happens if, instead of one sales call a day, you make ten? Or if instead of 3 freelancers working on scaling your work, you have thirty? What happens if you add a zero in places where it feels impossible to handle... what then? Scale isn't always the answer, but if it is, then scale. Build the systems necessary to dramatically change your impact. Halfway gets you nowhere.

Email marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective methods of online marketing today and many online businesses are taking it up. However, in order to run an effective email marketing campaign, one must have some tools in place that will help them create and build a database of email addresses, initiate and track email campaigns and be sure that their messages reach the intended recipients. All these tools can be easily attained by simply using email marketing services for your campaign. Some of the tools you will be able to get from an email marketing service include: * Database tools – these are tools that help you to manage your email lists which could have thousands or even millions of names and addresses. Email marketing services help you to create your database manually after which they can provide you with links to put on your websites that lets visitors voluntarily sign up. They also provide automatic subscribe and unsubscribe functionality that makes managing your email database very easy. * Design tools – these are tools that help you to creatively present your message so that it can be more visually appealing and engaging. Email marketing services usually provide a visual online editor that you can use to create HTML and text layouts on your emails. This way, you can ensure that your message is one that leaves an impact on your clients or potential clients and thus increase the chances of them doing business with you. * Merge tags – these are tools that allow you to customize and personalize your emails by automatically adding a name or some other information that is unique to a particular client. These give your emails more authenticity and they are ideal for building relationships with clients and thus promoting repeat business. This is due to the fact that customers and potential customers will be more easily appealed to by a personal message than one that is general in nature. * Email management tools – since your email database will have people with varying needs, you need email management tools that will help you to make your marketing campaigns more targeted. Email marketing services help you to manage your campaigns by enabling you to send email blasts to different segments according to their preferences and needs. * Tracking tools – these are very essential tools that help you keep tabs on how your email marketing campaign is doing. Most email marketing services will let you know how many of your customers opened the email you sent and how many clicked through to your site. You can therefore be able to determine whether or not your campaign is effective and where you need to make some changes.

I do not know who Jake Bronstein is. I'm simply a huge fan of Jonathan Fields and the Good Life Project. So, whenever Jonathan releases a new episode (which you can now subscribe to as a podcast), I watch it. It is not uncommon for me to have to make a scramble for my Moleskine and pen as the episodes unfold. Jonathan is one of the most compelling interviewers out there. In fact, he's not really an interviewer, but much more of a conversationalist. Embrace the squiggle. This past week has been a crazy one. Crazy in an amazingly great kind of way. After a long wait, I finally got to release my second book, CTRL ALT Delete, on Tuesday. Since then, it has been all about promoting the book without letting the balls drop at Twist Image. A lot of my waking hours are busy spent speaking to media outlets about what this book is really all about. In the second half of the book (called Reboot: You), I talk about the value of having a squiggly career. How the most interesting and successful people I know didn't have a very linear trajectory. How it will not be uncommon for many of us to have 4-5 different careers in our lifetime (as opposed to 4-5 different jobs in our careers). Jack Bronstein is the epitome of a squiggly career. Too many people feel trapped and compelled to stay the course. Too many people think that a linear career is the prudent and true path. Squiggly is interesting. Squiggly is better. If you don't believe me, please watch this: Tags: business book conversationalist ctrl alt delete good life project interview jake bronstein jonathan fields media outlet moleskine podcast reboot squiggle video podcast

The MMA just released a 124 page study on the economic impact that mobile marketing is having on the United States. To save you the effort of reading a 124 page research paper, we gathered important... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more. ]]

Memorial Day means the start of the summer blockbuster movie season. This weekend, we’ll all be getting Fast and Furious again along with another Hangover. Next month, Superman returns to the big screen and in July the Lone Ranger rides again. But if you prefer not to fight the crowds, you can also stay home and watch some of the best movies (or the worst if that’s your thing) on your PC or mobile device. In honor of this holiday weekend, here’s a look at how men and women stream from M-Go. What a terrible blow for TV sets all over America. They probably have no idea how often their man is cheating on them! He’s running around with that hot, stylish mobile phone while his first love sits in the living room, cold and alone just waiting to be turned on. The sad thing is, only 34% of streamers are satisfied with their choice. 81% said they have to bounce between at least two services in order to fulfill their needs. Women, you’re not blameless in this either. Sure, men started this whole streaming trend but now you’re just as guilty as they are. 44% of men have been streaming for more than 3 years but in the past year, women have men beat 31% to 20%.  I’m totally behind this move. Why should men have all the fun? Women need to entertained. They need an outlet so they can relax and experience the romance all over again. As we all know, the first time is the hardest. That’s why 43% of first time streamers made sure they were alone before they tried it. But once they did, they were hooked. Additionally, M-Go learned that men prefer to do it for longer periods of time, while women prefer to keep it under an hour. The study also found that men are mainly concerned with good looks while for women, it’s all about the price. We’ll end with this: women are more likely to do it with a tablet while men prefer to do it with their PC.  (I’m having a Weird Science flashback.) If you choose to stream this holiday weekend, that’s your prerogative. Just don’t forget to give your television some love. Whether you needed a laugh, a good cry or a distraction from the harsh realities of this world – your TV has always been there for you. Time to give back. Be safe and we’ll see you back here next week.

One of the great truths of social media is that moms like to share and they’re powerful influencers when they get behind (or are annoyed by) a brand. We know it’s true but we keep studying it to make sure the world hasn’t slipped sideways. The latest fact checkers are ShareThis and Digitas. They surveyed 200,000 moms (that’s a nice sampling, don’t you think?) to find out how they interact with social. The packed their results into a slide show called “Wired for Sharing” and now I’d like to share a couple of key slides. Think moms are all about Facebook? Have a look at this: 56% of the general population shares on Facebook but for moms, that same percentage is split between Facebook and Pinterest. I knew Pinterest was hot but I was surprised to see it closing in on Facebook. Moms also like StumbleUpon more than the average bear. Twitter, email, Reddit, and Tumblr just don’t get no respect. Tumblr is traditionally a playground for the young – is that because moms aren’t there or is it that moms aren’t there because it skews young? What’s missing from this list is Instagram. That also traditionally skews young, so perhaps it came in lower than 1% and thus didn’t make the chart. Next, it’s all about the when. After seeing this, I’m going to shift my posting times for sure. We often see studies about how often people check social media first thing in the morning. Well, the might be checking but mom isn’t sharing until later in the afternoon. Peak time is 3:00 pm. For the average Joe, 8:00 in the evening is prime time. Finally, here’s one I’ve never seen before. What kinds of content is mom most likely to share? A third of the content that moms share is either parenting-related (18 percent) or focused on TV and movies (15 percent). I’m not so big on the parenting side, but I’m a win when it comes to TV. Technology comes in at only 10% then we see a huge drop for topics such as sports, music, travel, even pets. Beauty is on the bottom tier with only 2%. I’m surprised by that. After looking at these charts, do you need to make a change? If you’re doing all your social media posting in the morning, you’re probably missing out. And no matter what your brand is, find a way to work a TV or movie Tweet into your feed. That might be all it takes to get noticed.

In order to guarantee the success of your online business, there are certain things that you need to invest some time and effort in doing. One of these is link building. This is the process of improving the link popularity of your site and it can be achieved through a number of ways such as through article promotion, blog reviews, directory submissions, social bookmarking, and link exchange programs just to mention a few. No matter what technique you use to achieve link building, there are numerous benefits that it can accrue for your business. Some of the most important benefits that online businesses can achieve through link building include: 1. Search engine results enhancement – one of the most important ways to achieve online success is by ensuring that your site is well optimized for the search engines, which are the number one source of organic Internet traffic. Of all the techniques that can be used for SEO, link building has been found to be one of the most effective. In fact, sites that implement good link building practices usually achieve SEO results such as higher SERP rankings within a very short time. This in turn results to better exposure in search engines, which could lead to more traffic. 2. Better publicity for your website – it is said that the act of website linking can be compared to producing an industry specific press release. By placing your links in sites that are niche related you get the chance to showcase your goods or services and thus increase the chance of people doing business with you. 3. Better brand awareness – for your business to be successful, your name must be known by a large number of people. This is due to the fact that the more people become aware of your brand name and your products and services, the easier it is for them to trust you and this eventually improves the click through ratio of your links. 4. More traffic – link building can be thought of as opening up a remote area by building multiple roads leading to it. The better the road network to a city or a town, the more the likelihood of a larger population of people moving into the town. Web site linking therefore, allows you to attract more traffic to your business site. When done properly and niche links are generated, most of these traffic will be targeted traffic, which is essential in improving your website’s conversion rate and the overall ROI of your business.

It doesn’t look like Yahoo is putting the breaks on its recent appetite for big acquisitions. In fact, published reports Friday indicate that Yahoo – which just acquired Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion – is planning to make an offer for Hulu, the hugely popular online video service. The offer, in fact, may have already been made. If so, Yahoo is joining the likes of Directv, William Morris Endeavor, Time Warner Cable, and The Chernin Group in an effort to acquire Hulu, which is owned by Walt Disney, News Corp., and Comcast. Yahoo’s interest in Hulu was reportedly intensified after Marissa Mayer’s company fell short of acquiring a majority stake in video site Dailymotion. Hulu hasn’t had a formal M&A process, but had asked prospective bidders to make an offer by Wednesday. That deadline apparently isn’t a firm one, so it’s worth wondering if the field will grow more crowded before this over. According to AllThingsD, it isn’t known how much Hulu is asking for, but two years ago, “Hulu’s owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion.”

Job-hopping might ruffle a corporation's feathers, but employers need to accept it's a way of life.Millennials have disrupted the labor market, making it acceptable to job hop and complete "tours of duty" until a better offer comes along. In the process, company loyalty has become a thing of the past, and everyone needs to accept it, say Chris Yeh and Ben Casnocha in the Harvard Business Review. We can no longer believe in "this idea that people would go to college, study hard, get a degree, land an entry-level job at a big, stable company." Nor can we believe in the old 20th century compact of employees slowly working their way up the ladder. The modern compact is based on alliance. "The employer is saying, 'Hey, make my company more valuable, and I'll make you more valuable,'" say the authors. "Even if this is not a relationship that's going to last for an entire lifetime, this is a relationship that is going to be beneficial to both of us during the time it exists and even afterwards."With loyalty no longer a part of the equation, the modern workplace isn't all that different from an entrepreneur. Uncertainty and volatility is part of the game. There's no guarantee of a promotion or pay raise. In a way, that's a good thing. "If someone can't be entrepreneurial in their own career, if someone's unwilling to take risks in their career, if someone's not keen on remaining agile and adaptive in their own career, how could you possibly expect them to bring to bear those strengths, those traits at your company?" say the authors. To attract and retain the best employees, companies should be more proactive and willing to invest in their workers' future. What's more, they should take a chance on someone who's willing to hustle to get ahead.Ask not what you can do for your bottom line, say the authors, but what you can do for your employee.