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Showing posts from 2018

Social Media Quotes Providing Valuable Insight

While we like to goof around on here, never forget that these quotes are adding valuable insight and advice into any marketing strategy that involves social media. Case in point: “If you get bored with social media, it’s because you are trying to get more value than you create.” – Fast Company

Moar Quotes!

We're just getting started, y'all! “Successful companies in social media function more like entertainment companies, publishers, or party planners than as traditional advertisers.” - Erik Qualman

Quotes Week the Remix!

Oh, em, GEEEEE! Quotes Week was so damn popular we absolutely had to bring it back peeps! Check it! This week we're doing social media quotes!  “Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them and they may come and stay.” – Seth Godin

Tips Week for Content Marketing, Conclusion

And now we come to the payoff! Begin with the end in mind If you’ve read Stephen Covey’s long-time best-selling book,  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , you’ll recognize this one as the second habit: Begin with the End in Mind. In Covey’s words: It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. If you don’t know what you want to be, in terms of your content marketing, when you grow up, how will you know if you are on the right path? Things to do: Create your content marketing mission statement. Set a subscriber goal for your content. Decide what you ultimately want subscribers to do. Answer the question, “ How Will We Know We Are Succeeding? “ Do you have a major issue that is driving your success, or stopping you from succeeding?  Please let me know in the comments below.

Tips Week, Content Marketing, Part 5

We're closing in on the end of the tips. But this one's a killer! Kill a channel Here’s a publishing truth: It’s likely that with each new channel you add to your content marketing plan, the other channels you are already using will take a small hit in quality and focus. I’ve seen this time and again as concentration goes wider and relevance gets broader. I’d like to challenge you to kill a channel (or two) and put a renewed focus on the channels that are most worthy of your time and attention. Be amazing: Be great at distributing content through three channels; use another three to heavily promote that content; and forget the rest… at least for a while. Then check the results.  

Tips Week for Content Marketing Part 3!

The tips just keep on coming! Follow the “3-legged-stool” model Almost every successful media company in the world leverages the “3-Legged-Stool” model: creating content for digital,  print, and in-person . I believe that if your brand doesn’t leverage all three channels in a meaningful way, you cannot truly be an industry-leading informational source. Beyond that, there is a huge opportunity in leveraging print channels, specifically. Just think of it like the value of a trade show where all your customers are in attendance, but none of your competition showed up. That’s the value print content marketing currently represents. I smell opportunity.  

Tips Week, Content Marketing Part 2

Continuing the mad tips!  Go 6 months without mentioning your product There's a study that compared CMI’s informational/educational posts to posts that mentioned their products and/or services. The posts that talked about the brand received about 25 percent of the total unique visitors that a regular, educational post did. At the same time, those branding posts received virtually no additional subscribers on sales-related posts, while regular posts brought in between 35 and 75 subscribers. The point is this: The more you talk about yourself, the more you’ll negatively impact your content marketing efforts. Keep the offers outside the content, and watch your program flourish.  

Tips Week: Content Marketing Strategies and Ideas Part 1

After last week's Quote Week, we're moving onto Tips Week! And our focus is Content Marketing! Take “best of breed” seriously Ninety-nine percent of companies don’t do this. There are at least six principles that are essential to epic content marketing. The sixth, and perhaps most important, is setting a goal/mission to be the “best of breed” informational provider for your industry niche — i.e., to truly be the leading informational resource for your industry. This is critical to making content marketing work for you. If your content marketing isn’t eagerly anticipated and truly necessary, at some point, your audience will see through the façade and ignore you. Ask yourself this:  If your content marketing disappeared from the planet, would anyone miss it? If no one would miss your information, you’ve got work to do. Start by setting your goal, then set up the processes and invest in the people you need to reach that goal.  

Rounding Out the Marketing Quotes

And finally, the last of our Marketing Focused Quotes for Quote Week: 1. “Today it's important to be present, be relevant and add value." – Nick Besbeas 2. "Great Execution is the Ultimate Differentiator." - Margaret Molloy 3. “The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing.”  - Tom Fishburne 4. "Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate." – Beth Comstock 5. "Instead of using technology to automate processes, think about using technology to enhance human interaction." – Tony Zambito 6. “If you are an artist, learn science. If you are a scientist, cultivate art.” – Karin Timpone 7. “We’re all learning here; the best listeners will end up the smartest.” - Josh Bernoff

More Marvelous Marketing Quotes From Your Merry Marketing Marching Society!

To keep the inspiration bubbling, true believers! 1. “The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy 2. “Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov 3. “Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.” – Seth Godin 4. “Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” – Jay Baer 5. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

Tips Week Content Marketing Part 4

More tips, more tips, more tips! Forget real-time marketing Some of the real-time marketing examples surrounding the tragic death of Robin Williams will make you sick to your stomach. Brands and publishers alike are tripping over themselves to leverage breaking news for business gain. The  only  situation in which you should be considering real-time marketing is if your content marketing strategy is near perfect. Only then will you be well prepared enough to tackle the risks of real-time (and reap the potential rewards). Focus on consistent, valuable information… become the expert… get the process in place… be patient.  

Quotes on Marketing

Continuing our Quote Week extravaganza, we have quotes about Marketing: 1. “Whether B2B or B2C, I believe passionately that good marketing essentials are the same. We all are emotional beings looking for relevance, context and connection.” – Beth Comstock 2. “Good marketers see consumers as complete human beings with all the dimensions real people have.” – Jonah Sachs 3. “Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg 4. “Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.” - Mike Volpe 5. "If you're a good marketing person, you have to be a little crazy." – Jim Metcalf

Thoughts on Creativity, the Fire the Fuels Good Marketing

It's Quote Week at Web Market Central! And we're kicking off our week of inspirational quotes with some of the best on creativity: Quotes on Creativity 1. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein 2. “To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” – George Kneller 3. “Creativity about life, in all aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett 4. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker 5. “An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

What's a Session in Google Analytics?

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions leaving his job upon the president's request, we thought it would be a good time to delve into what exactly a session is according to Google Analytics. No seriously, why's Google Analytics have to be all special with their jargon? Visitors visit a site and view a page? But we have users, page views, sessions, all this stuff that makes Google feel extra special about themselves. Luckily Tom Capper dropped the knowledge on us in Moz's Whiteboard Friday! Says Tom: "Google Analytics data is used to support tons of important work, ranging from our everyday marketing reporting all the way to investment decisions. To that end, it's integral that we're aware of just how that data works." His explanation is super thorough! We highly recommend watching the video . It'll blow your mind!

Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Mind Controlled Television

I have no words for this, that's how insane and cool it is. People are designing a television that is controlled by your brain! No joke! Just read the article here at HubSpot's marketing blog !

Neil Patel has a 34 point plan for marketing!

Like that time Martin Luther nailed his grievances to the church door, Internet Marketing Personality Neil Patel has published his own list: The 34 Marketing Principles I Live By! While almost as long as Sam Hinkie's Resignation Letter to the Sixers organization, Neil's thoughts on trusting the process are a little less esoteric. The tips include things such as: The numbers never lie Marketing tends to get more expensive over time Don't take shortcuts Go against conventional marketing wisdom Don't hire people you need to train if you want to grow fast For more details on Neil's 18 years of marketing wisdom, read the full article here !

Google Search Console and Domain Properties? What what?

According to Search Engine Land, Google Search Console is experimenting with domain properties. What's that mean? As Google looks to migrate more features from the old Google Search Console to the new one, Google is rethinking how properties should be organized. To learn more, read their enlightening article .

What is Sparktoro?

Have you heard about Sparktoro ? Rand Fishkin's new business venture? If not, you should check it out. Here's what their site describes them as: SparkToro™ is in the early stages of building data and a software product to help marketers, public relations professionals, and entrepreneurial teams learn more about the audiences they want to reach. My personal experience: I've used their SparkScore tool and their Fake Followers Audit . And find both of those tools to be amazing ideas. On the strength of those two ideas alone I'm pulling for this company's success and hope they realize their full vision. One of the major problems with social media, especially Twitter, is the noise that bots and trolls create. Cutting through the BS and finding the real value of what you see on Twitter? I can't even begin to calculate how useful that is!

Google Offers Help to Stop Bots

For the longest time it seemed like the internet was all "more bots, more bots, more bots" and now it's walking that back and instead it is saying "OK! Stop bots!" Google has heard the clarion call of webmasters everywhere and wants to give out a 50 DKP minus to stop bots! Reading their latest Webmaster Central Blog on reCAPTCHA , it's all about stopping bots with what they call a "frictionless user experience." Whatever that means? Amirite? They offer up some cool bar charts to prove their point though:

Does SEO Actually Work?

I wrote this for my new Doctor Digital column over at Results Driven Marketing's Blog . But I wanted to share it here too. It's the most basic question of all: Does SEO Actually Work? Yes it does! But not like you think it does. This graphic should explain it pretty well:

Digital Marketing for Law Firms, How Hard is it?

A lot of "verticals" or industries make sense for digital marketing and the whole process can be very easy and intuitive. For instance, if you are running a Search Engine Optimization company, it's very straightforward to content market: 1- Write blogs or articles about SEO 2- Try to answer questions people have about SEO 3- Optimize those blogs around what the questions are and what you are saying. But what about an industry that is a lot more complicated and not very straight forward? What about marketing for lawyers? ACE, one of Philadelphia's top Law Firm Marketing companies , just posted this extremely helpful blog about why SEO is important for Law Firms . It delves into exactly how to do the job for a complex industry like the law and its practitioners. One of the key points in the entire article is: "If your customer journey does not have a use for search services, then you'll never see SEO campaign results." We recommend reading

Tip #3 to improve your digital marketing

Do Your Research You may have ideas for what is going to work best for your audience based on past experience with your ads, but taking the time to conduct thorough research and have data to support your actions is important. You may anticipate that your customers will behave a certain way, when in fact they go in a completely different direction. It’s essential to be prepared for this ahead of time and use the information you collect from research to planning your marketing strategy . Elliot Simmonds explains this concept below: “ A lot of people use sponsored posts and other paid advertising, and it seems that many are happy to simply pay the money and watch the views and clicks roll in - even if some of those clicks are from individuals tangential to the product or service they're promoting. Most platforms allow you to specifically target your sponsored posts and ads, and my tip is to do so following a period (even if it's only a short period) of actual research. Your g

Tip #2 to Improve your Digital Marketing

Spend Wisely Each platform used to market online provides you with a different value. You need to analyze which outlets you should invest more time and money into, and which ones are not as important. Some platforms that work well for one company, yield little to no results for another. You need to find the one that suits your business goals the best. Digital Marketing is all very specific to your brand , and you need to plan your budget accordingly. Determining what each platform is going to do for your specific advertising efforts should be the basis for the decisions you make with your campaigns, explains Hitesh Sahni , Marketing Consultant at Smemark: “It’s imperative to understand the value each channel offers. Search advertising platforms, such as Google Adwords, work best when there is a clear demand for your product or service, and you want to target people who search for your product or service online. Search advertising is less effective for a startup that has created a n

Tips to Improve Digital Marketing: Tip 1

Digital advertising has become a major component of modern day marketing strategies. Here are tips on how to improve your digital marketing strategy : 1. Be Creative Your business has visual elements that make it stand out from your competition. Use that to your advantage in your marketing efforts. Whether it is a logo, mascot, font, or color scheme, having it included can help make your brand recognizable. You want to catch the eye of the audience, but you also want to maintain their attention and have them remember your brand. Incorporating unique and creative visual elements into your ads is crucial to the success the ads will bring you. Sarah Maloy, Content Marketing Manager at Shutterstock points out that you want a variety of creative images, but they should be consistent: "When advertising on social media, it's important to refresh your creative often so that it is relevant and so that users aren't seeing the same post more than once. When testing variations

Don't just do something to look cool

Composition matters when it comes to design. Even website design. Don't just do something because you think it looks cool. The folks at Bizarre Beacons have a meme about that. https://bizarrebeacons.tumblr.com/post/177524621302/who-are-they

Google Dragonfly and Internet Censorship

Google Dragonfly does not bode well for the future of Web Marketing. #dragonfly #marketing #socialmedia #SEO #digitalmarketing #business What is Google Dragonfly? Learn all about it from NewsWorld .

SEO Basics: Mistakes To Avoid When Writing Meta Descriptions

Enhancing your meta descriptions is a paramount aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). Often, meta descriptions are overlooked because they are not a direct ranking signal, but you should not make the same mistake because they are an important piece of SEO marketing . Properly optimized meta descriptions help get visitors from search engines to click on your links. They produce miniature ads that can drive customer action and increase the click-through rate (CTR). If you are ready to take the time to improve your meta descriptions, be aware of these six common mistakes with meta description optimization: Duplicate Meta Descriptions  Character Count Obsession Not Using Keywords  Not Optimizing Rich Snippets  Avoiding HTML Tables for Direct Answer Inquiries Boring Writing and Unimpressive Copy Duplicate Meta Descriptions: Duplicates will not penalize you, but you should put together unique meta descriptions for every page. Because they are a short blurb that accurat

How Can Podcasts and Blogs Help Improve Your Brands Strategy?

Podcasts and Blogs Can Help Improve Brand Strategy In the conversation about brand strategy , it is important to remember that we are focused on the consumer needs, emotions, and the competitive environment itself, more than numbers, data, and chart, at least, on the outside. Data is a different end of things. With brand strategy, we are concerned with how to reach specific goals by connecting with the consumers as people. Two incredibly powerful tools in the improvement of brand strategy, the blog and the podcast,  have increased drastically in popularity and have become a regular inclusion in the talk of digital marketing. With both mediums, there is unlimited potential for human connection with an on-demand audience. Blogs Blogs are, by nature, informal and conversational, and as such, they quickly draw attention to particular topics and businesses by adding a human touch. Blogging puts heavy emphasis on writing creatively and contributing useful information to a specific ma

How Do You Recover From Poor Business Listings Online?

How to Regain Trust from a Bad Listing  Reputation management is key to keeping a business in a positive light, even after a bad business listing pops up. A bad business listing stems mainly from incorrect citations or addresses on a website. It gets even worse if the business has multiple locations. We know mistakes happen, but when it happens more than once or the original mistake (e.g. a street address) is not corrected, the business will lose consumer trust. It’s interesting that before social media, a business’s reputation was fixed with advertising (often costly) and/or with a press release. Today, social media creates an immediate need to get the correct information up on the website. We live in a world where instant gratification is the norm and to not fix an error on a website quickly, whether it’s a bad email address or an image, is a grave mistake . So, solving the problem includes being aware of it and fixing it quickly. Digital Marketing Strategy  Part of your digita

What Advantageous Aspects of Digital Marketing Could Be Learned?

Aspects of Conquering Digital Marketing: Arguably, the world is becoming more and more digitally minded. The evolution of digital marketing has become stronger along with the new waves of technology regarding aspects of a business. It's no longer the way of the future - it's the way of the present. Those who lack SEO and social media marketing skills are left far behind; thus, there is an unparalleled urgency about bolstering digital marketing prowess.  The thought of having to stay ahead of the game while juggling assignments and accounts can become troublesome. However, follow a precise process with learning the steps that could improve your digital marketing skills, as well as sharpen your competitive edge.  Learning is Beneficial: Digital marketing is different from many other disciplines in that what is mastered one day can be changed entirely, leaving it nearly irrelevant the next. In this field, the methods with which we plan strategies can swiftly b

How Can SEO Tools Help Create A Mobile Site More Appealing?

How SEO Tools Can Help Make Your Mobile Website Appealing: The world is rapidly going mobile, and if you haven't already built a mobile version of your site yet, then your competition will happily take care of this part for you, by snatching your mobile visitors away from you. Learning how social media marketing can help gain awareness for your business or site is a great positive.  Here we provide a great example of how a cell phone makeover can radically change the experience for your mobile visitors.  We begin with some simple guidelines to ensure your website's mobile experience is designed to please the user in the hopes of gaining more clients. Through the use of seo tools , the benefits derived from the gained knowledge in marketing could create improvements to any aspects of the works. This is beneficial for search engine optimization purposes.  Importantly, keep your mobile site to have minimized any challenges that could occur for viewers. One of the m

A Wellness Tip from WMC

A tried and true wellness tip that is practiced daily in the office is the art of pausing. Pausing is very good when in a stressful situation because you are taking time to step back, and think not so in the moment about the task at hand. Simply taking a little break can give your mind the time it needs to get itself together to perform at its peak or think of a more productive way to do certain tasks.

Happy 4th of July

IGTV is Taking Over YouTube

The newest feature offered by Instagram, IGTV (Instagram TV), is becoming so hot that it is taking dedicated, loyal YouTube users away from their comfort zone with hopes of making it big in the newly discovered realm Instagram just dropped on us. A whole new opportunity for digital marketers and social media experts to put their skills to the test to see how they can get a competitive advantage with IGTV now.  May only the strong Social Media gurus survive!

How Can SEO Tools Help Create A Mobile Site More Appealing?

Does Your Website Need A Mobile Makeover? Tips To Improve Your Site's user experience. The world is rapidly going mobile, and if you haven't already built a mobile version of your site yet, then your competition will happily take care of this part for you, by snatching your mobile visitors away from you. Learning how social media marketing can help gain awareness for your business or site is a great positive. Here we provide a great example of how a cell phone makeover can radically change the experience for your mobile visitors.  We begin with some simple guidelines to ensure your website's mobile experience is designed to please the user in the hopes of gaining more clients. Through the use of seo tools, the benefits derived from the gained knowledge in marketing could create improvements to any aspects of the works. This is beneficial for search engine optimization purposes. Keep your mobile site simple, consistent and easily navigable. Remember, mobile screens are