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Over a year ago, I wrote about P&G's plans to lay off over 1,600 of their workforce because they'd wasted so much money on advertisements, and needed to move to more efficient expenditures like Facebook and Google. This week, I come to find they haven't learned a damn thing. When I wrote about their layoffs last year, I cautioned P&G (because they were obviously reading my blog article) that: Digital media is not free Not all advertising is inherently bad Not all digital advertising is inherently effective Apparently, the words of warning did not resonate. This week, Business Insider reported that CEO Bob McDonald actually ended up cutting 6,250 jobs as part of his cost-savings program -- so my 1,600 figure last year fell short of reality -- and that part of that program included "using more social media like Facebook and Google, which deliver 'free' ad impressions." *Facepalm* Here's the thing. Ad impressions are not free -- they are ads you pay for. Organic listings are free (minus headcount) -- they are based on whether the content you create is valuable enough for Google or Facebook to warrant giving your content digital face time in front of their users. This approach, this mindset, is the reason this digital "experiment" isn't going so well for P&G, and 6,250 people -- most of them brand managers -- are being laid off. It's the reason they still spend close to $10 billion a year on ads, yet simultaneously talk about the need to cut costs. As Yogi Berra said, "there are some people, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em." P&G doesn't know, and they don't get it. The most mind boggling part of this is that their response to their inability to get last year's digital experiment to work is... wait for it... increasing their ad budget. Business Insider also reported that these layoffs were "in part...because Facebook ended the free ride for advertisers in the middle of last year." So even getting this stuff for free couldn't make their new digital strategy work. Why Isn't P&G's Digital Strategy Working? Because new technology isn't the answer. The technology in and of itself doesn't make you a good marketer, or a good advertiser. (And neither does money, clearly.) Of course, when you have money to throw around, it helps -- particularly with exposure. But exposure alone doesn't do anything anymore. If your story sucks, it doesn't matter how much money you throw at a hot new technology. Your story sucks, and no one wants to hear it. Even via your door-to-door sales (that's right, they're now going to be spending ad budget on door-to-door sales). Unless their perspective on marketing and advertising changes, no matter what the budget, no matter what the medium, they're not going to lift themselves out of their rough patch. Business Insider's article ends saying: So why did P&G's free-on-Facebook experiment fail? One reason is that Facebook changed the rules mid-year. It altered the news feed algorithm ... so a brand's page posts are only seen by about 15% of a brand's fans. If companies wanted to guarantee reaching their entire audience, they had to pay for ads inside Facebook. The free ride -- in which brands with big fan bases could reach a larger percentage of them without paid media -- was over. P&G now also appears to be rediscovering the need for paid advertising. Yes, it's Facebook's fault. It's not P&G's fault for failing to stay on top of digital trends like learning what EdgeRank is and how it works. It's not P&G's fault for relying on third-party assets to build their brand, instead of investing in assets they can control, like their own website and blog. It's not P&G's fault for failing to create remarkable content that -- and if you know how EdgeRank works you'd know this -- gets you more visibility on Facebook due to reader engagement. It's not P&G's fault for failing to realize no audience is guaranteed, paid or otherwise, and that audiences are actually earned on a daily basis. And it's certainly not P

Industry experts are saying that Twitter is on track to earn up to $1 billion in ad revenue by the end of 2013. It’s become the go-to network of choice for TV shows looking to engage their audience on the second screen, non-profits seeking donations, and local businesses who want to build relationships with their communities. But what does all this mean for you? Join us during the June 4th AllTwitter Marketing Conference‘s keynote panel to hear from some of the top minds in the Twitter community about where the network is headed, so you can be well ahead of the curve. And even if you can’t make it in person, be sure to tune into our #AllTwitterConf hashtag between 9-9:45am PT to follow along! continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Rumors are swirling that Yahoo will acquire Tumblr, one of the most popular blogging platforms. Tumblr says it is currently home to 108 million blogs with over 50 billion posts. AllThingsD reports that the Yahoo board will meet Sunday night to consider a $1.1 billion Tumblr acquisition. CNBC tweeted that Yahoo is planning to hold a product-related news event Monday night in New York City. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer plans to speak at the event. The Verge notes that Bloomberg reports that the press event is about a Flickr update. However, it could be a Flickr update, plus the Tumblr acquisition if the Yahoo board approves the rumored deal. Permalink | Recent Headlines | Facebook | Twitter | WWFeeds.com

This continues our Pay It Forward Friday series. No one likes to see sick children, it’s depressing and makes us worry for our own little ones. But would you be willing to put that discomfort aside for a moment and help ease their suffering? Hope so. Because all it takes is a tweet to help share a child’s last wish – and the smiles you’ll create in return are well worth this tiny bit of your time. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This post is full of gratuitous cuteness. Here's why. I'm looking into some flights to Ireland (I'm a sufferer of the most debilitating form of wanderlust), and I'm using the flight comparison engine Hipmunk to find a flight. I used to use a couple other ones, but the Hipmunk chipmunk is just so cute it's paralyzing. Like, he shows up in my Facebook News Feed, and I stop scrolling and emit an audible "awww!" That kind of cute. (And by the way, I know two men who also admitted to being fans of Hipmunk on Facebook purely because "the little chipmunk's so cute!" Both of them have since purchased multiple flights through them, as well. I rest my case.) What I'm trying to say is, sometimes being cute makes an impact. It taps into something that turns us all into big 'ol softies. So this Friday afternoon, because our regular readers may remember that I tend to get a little distracted this day of the week, let's just melt into big 'ol softies for a minute and enjoy some of the cutest brand mascots of all time. All together now ... awwwwww!!! The 10 Most Adorable Brand Mascots of All Time 1) The Hipmunk Chipmunk I won't belabor the Hipmunk chipmunk for too much longer, but before we move on, please enjoy this compilation of that buck-teethed, chubby-cheeked little rodent who thinks he's a person, dressing up in some of his favorite outfits. Like a big punch of cute right in the gut. 2) The Android Robot There's a reason Hipmunk robotified its chipmunk for the Hipmunk Android app (see above) ... the Android robot is pretty adorable. I know, it seems strange that a piece of machinery could ever be cuddly, but that's what makes it remarkable! You'll also notice Android uses pretty adorable names for its platforms, like Jelly Bean, Gingerbread, and Ice Cream Sandwich. The robot is so cute, in fact, that people actually create their own "art" of sorts with the robot, putting him in cute scenarios like some you see here. Image credits: dullhunk, laihiu, victoria white2010 3) The SEOmoz Robot Guess robots are just inherently cute. The SEOmoz robot always makes me smile, and the copy they use around the robot gives him an even more adorable personality! Just goes to show B2B marketing doesn't have to be totally devoid of the warm and fuzzy. 4) The Dropbox Box I've featured Dropbox on this blog a few times for their creative design. But their mascot -- which is, quite logically, a box -- always makes me smile. I think the cute comes in because ... who the heck expects a box to be cute? I mean, it's a folded piece of cardboard. Why is it smiling? Why is it wearing a party hat? Why is it in a pastel hilltop scene among happy little flowers? It's the unexpected cute that gets me with this fellow, and has a lot to do with all the other cute "people" he hangs out with, too. Bonus: Dropbox will also throw in the occasional dinosaur. I'm a sucker for an inexplicable dinosaur. 5) The Snuggle Bear Snuggle Bear ... the cuteness is kind of baked right in the name, eh? And if you mosey on over to Snuggle's Facebook Page, you'll notice Snuggle being adorable in many different scenarios, including as a stuffed animal being snuggled by cute little kids, and kids and animals giving each other big ol' snuggly hugs. So they've basically decided the bear just wasn't enough cute. 6) The Pillsbury Doughboy The Pillsbury Doughboy. So cute he has his own subdirectory on the Pillsbury site (on which you can make him dance, if you're looking for a time waster). We all know and love him -- he's a chubby, squishy, round, soft, tiny, giggling pile of dough with a chef's hat. That's pretty much all the cute adjectives right in a row. And if you haven't seen the latest co-marketing commercial with Geico in which he struggles to get through airport security (Spoiler Alert: The pat-down tickles and he can't stop laughing), I recommend you mosey on over to YouTube stat. Oh heck, it's quick, just watch it here: 7) The HootSuite Owl I feel compelled to disclose that, orig

As the web cries out, yet again, after an attack by the Syrian Electronic Army, those of us fond of 80′s superhero shows feel like we’re watching an episode unfold. And it’s pretty fantastic. Any minute now, the SuperFriends will come to the rescue. Either than, or the hacks will just continue. It’s more fun to imagine the former. Ka-pow! continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today we give thanks for the Twitter co-founders penchant for interesting names. We have, of course, the Obvious Corp (which is anything but) and Square (that cool “pay using my smartphone” device), the new blogging platform Medium – and now, bestest of all – Jelly. Beyond wondering if they’ve employed someone solely to come up with these names, this latest mushy gushy creation of Biz Stone that has left people wondering: “What the Jelly?” continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Efemr is a Twitter tool that automatically deletes tweets after a predetermined time using hashtags. With efemr you can now control your reputation better, protect your privacy and sharing humorous fleeting moments with the automatic deletion of public tweets. Just add a Minute/Hour Hashtag e.g. #5m for 5mn, or #1h for 1 hour, etc… depending on how long you want your tweet to stay visible to the public. I do not necessarily agree that it helps protect your reputation or privacy since any tweet could have been archived, taken a screenshot of or anything else. But having a time sensitive one for lets say a promotion would be cool. Efemr uses oAuth to verify tour Twitter account and once in, you simply use the hashtag with the time on tweets you want removed.  The server scans the connected accounts and using your authorization you provided removes them. Keep in mind there is timezones and their userload to consider so it may not happen exactly at the minute you wish. So check out Efemr if you want to have tweets magically disappear.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Twitter, you’ve likely received a TrueTwit validation direct message. It says something like “Nelly Nameless uses TrueTwit validation service. Please validate your account.” If you think this practice is okay, you need a Twitter direct message refresher. And when you’re done reading THAT, we’ll tell you why this “harmless annoyance” (aka TrueTwit) is anything but. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Even though the two most popular social networks to emerge in the past few years (Instagram and Pinterest) revolve around visual content, there isn't much data about what content performs best on these platforms. Because Instagram and Pinterest revolve around visual (not textual) content and their APIs are difficult to access, it can be challenging to research these networks. But just because something is challenging doesn't mean it's impossible. After diving into the data, I found eight actionable data points to help you use Instagram and Pinterest to their maximum in your inbound marketing efforts. If you want to see more exclusive data about visual content on social media, join me and special guest Sarah Evans (@PRsarahEvans) today at 2:00 p.m. ET for this week's #SciChat webinar and Twitter Chat. You can sign up here. Without any further ado, let's get to the data. 1) On Pinterest, experiment with tall, infographic-style pieces to get more engagement. On the web in general, tall images are easier to read than wide ones because it's much easier to scroll vertically than horizontally. The same concept applies on Pinterest: Taller images -- those containing more "content" -- tend to get more repins than shorter images. 2) Try to keep your descriptions between 100 and 200 characters. Both Instagram and Pinterest allow creators to provide textual content such as descriptions or captions alongside their visual content. Including text is helpful for both search engines and humans by giving context for what's in the image. On Pinterest, the optimum description length is between 100 and 200 characters, around the same character count as a Tweet. Even though people use Pinterest to browse pictures, short captions and descriptions help increase engagement. 3) Use hashtags when posting on Instagram. On Instagram, a key non-visual feature is the ability to use hashtags in the text accompanying a photo. In fact, when I analyzed data from the site, I found that posts that included hashtags had a far higher like-to-follower ratio than posts that did not use hashtags. 4) Find a clever way to relate top-performing hashtags to your content. The list of most powerful hashtags on Instagram is led by reciprocal-behavior indicators: hashtags like “#FollowForFollow,” “#LikeForLike,” “#F4F,” and “#L4L.” These represent a symptom of the social aspect of the site, though it's not clear whether they lead to high quality followers. The rest of the list of most liked hashtags show us that nature, and in particular sky-based nature photography does very well on the site, as evidenced by “#Sky,” #Clouds,” “#Sunset,” and “#Sun.” 5) Post images that appeal to everyone, strangers and friends alike. On the flip side of the hashtags coin, I also examined the least-liked hashtags on Instagram. This list is full of tags that indicate that a photo is relevant only to the person who took it and his or her close friends: “#BestFriends,” “#LoveHer,” and “#Drunk.” Imagine viewing an image taken by a stranger tagged with something like this -- chances are, it’s not going to be very interesting to you. On the other hand, a pretty sunset or interesting cloud can be attractive to anyone. 6) Experiment with making images showing something people can aspire to do, be, or create. When we turn our attention back to Pinterest and look at the most pinned words, we find words like “love,” “favorite,” and “like” that indicate a positive emotional attachment from the poster to the image posted. The rest of the list is full of words that indicate aspirational imagery, such as “home,” “DIY,” “inspiration,” and “recipes.” These words signify something that the poster wants to buy, do, emulate or create. 7) Think about the DIY activities that your audience may be interested in. The last list of words was the words that were pinned the most, but this list is the words that, once pinned, tend to get repinned by others most often. This list is dominated by cooking and food r