8 Game-Changing Steps to Turn Blog Followers into Clients

Yesterday, I had a wonderful visit followed by lunch with a great friend and fellow writer. (Truly, I have some nerve putting myself in the same writing category with her.)We met almost two years ago, but we met "in person" for the first time today. Amanda Cleary Eastep, aka Word Ninja, is a mem...

By Jo Lynn Deal • Jan. 9, 2015

10 Things to Make 2015 Your Best on LinkedIn

The New Year kicked in last week, we all enjoyed the party, made the resolutions and probably half of you have already broken them! Hence we thought we would give you a quick ten things that will make a huge difference to your LinkedIn.Most common approaches to LinkedIn are driven by a tick menta...

By James Potter • Jan. 9, 2015

How to Repurpose Existing Enterprise Content Assets

The concept of developing a continuous stream of branded content can be overwhelming to some companies. How can you possibly come up with original, insightful ideas to share with your audience on a constant basis?The good news is, in many cases, you don't have to. By repurposing existing content ...

By Shana Pilewski • Jan. 8, 2015

7 Rules of Etiquette (Or Being Social) on Social Media

Social media seems like a big old scary jungle with all of the tricks you need to learn. One of these is social media etiquette. Just how do you act on social media for your business? How do you reply, comment back, engage fans correctly, avoid any bad eggs, stay professional, etc.? This can be o...

By Julia McCoy • Jan. 8, 2015

5 Ways to Know Which Social Media Platforms Your Brand Should Use

There are more than 1.73 billion people across the world who use social media platforms to connect with others. For a business, this is huge; more people than ever before also use social media platforms to compare products, have discussions about brands, and seek business recommendations from fri...

By Melissa Thompson • Jan. 8, 2015

6 Trends That Might Impact Marketing to Moms in 2015

It's time for marketers and brands to think about their game plan for the new year. However, this process is not only about new strategies and new budgets. Mom-focused marketers also need to stay on top of developing industry trends that will keep their brand relevant in a very crowded market.A n...

By Amie Reardon • Jan. 7, 2015

How Important Will Content Marketing Be in 2015?

Now that we are in the start of a brand new year, you might be asking yourself what marketing tactics you will implement for your brand in 2015. You know about all of the Internet marketing techniques, from social media marketing to building links. However, content marketing has been buzzing as a...

By Julia McCoy • Jan. 7, 2015

Reputation Management: Prevention vs. Reaction

One of the most important aspects of your business today is your reputation. Since the world is becoming so socially connected, word of mouth and consumer reviews can dictate whether a business is successful or not. Reputation management is more about prevention than it is about reacting to one o...

By John Wieber • Jan. 7, 2015

How Is an Email List Like the Golden Gate Bridge?

Painting the Golden Gate Bridge is a never-ending task.We're all familiar with the anecdote. A team of painters works full time to preserve the structural integrity of the Bridge as it's perpetually besieged by salt-laden fog and time. A fresh coat of paint is not just for looks, it's an essentia...

By William Wickey • Jan. 7, 2015

3 Things to Know Before Undergoing a Rebrand

As the new year has quickly snuck up on us, the pursuit for inspired new beginnings has begun. Right and left, we see the gyms filling up with people desperately fighting to shed the results from holiday comfort food, cars on the highways earlier in the morning for an earlier arrival to work, and...

By Brad Neathery • Jan. 7, 2015

How to Break Your Traditional Social Marketing Habits

Traditional social marketing is now a thing-a real term that people use to describe a marketing style that encompasses platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but also may or may not induce sound sleep.To some of you, this may come as a shock, or perhaps incite a little laughter. Facebook and Twitte...

By Amber Ludeman • Jan. 7, 2015

7 Ways Social Media Can Improve Your Online Reputation Management

Since online reputation management is important in building your business, you should make every effort to maximize your name. To build a strong business portfolio you should consider getting into social media and reaping the benefits. Steering your business on the right course by using social me...

By Lancelot Tucker • Jan. 7, 2015

The 7 Ingredients for a Highly Successful Content Marketer

What are the characteristics of a "get the job done" content marketer?A little research shows that businesses see the content marketer as little more than a slightly more organized blogger. There are literally millions of articles on how to do content marketing but the information cupboard on ho...

By Stanford Smith • Jan. 7, 2015

What Retailers Can Learn and Leverage from E-commerce

Since the dawn of e-commerce, the death of retail has been forecasted frequently. While there is no doubt that changes have come to traditional retail, it is obviously still around. Even so, e-commerce has certainly made an impact, particularly in the apparel and electronics sectors. Venture Beat...

By Brett Relander • Jan. 6, 2015

Pinterest Opens Promoted Pins to All US Marketers for 2015

Social network Pinterest has given US advertisers a new advertising tool to kick off the New Year. As of January 1st, the Promoted Pins ads first launched in September 2013 and available only to select brand partners in 2014 has been open to all advertisers.Early Pinterest brand partners includin...

By Larry Kim • Jan. 6, 2015

The Interview: Some Lessons for Healthcare PR

It's that time of year where I should be writing about my highlights for healthcare in 2014, but I'm not going to, for two reasons. Firstly, it's already being done by many others who can write far more eloquently and with more authority on specific healthcare topics than I can, and secondly, bec...

By Paul Tunnah • Jan. 6, 2015

4 Best Practices to Connect Locally on Facebook and Twitter

Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, is one of the best marketing tools a company can employ to connect locally with customers. But how do you get the most value out of these social media tools?How to Connect Locally on Facebook and TwitterIntroduce Yourself (Often)Think about your be...

By Bernadette Coleman • Jan. 6, 2015

The Pros and Cons of Social Media Press Releases

If you're in charge of your company's public relations, one form of outreach that you may have questions about are social media press releases. A social media press release isn't all that different from a traditional online release, but there are some differences you should pay attention to. With...

By Melissa Thompson • Jan. 6, 2015

5 Social Selling Resolutions Worth Sticking to in 2015

The ball has dropped. The confetti, fireworks, and 2015 party supplies have likely been put away or discarded. But what's not so quick to fade away is the hope and inspiration that fills the New Year.Whether you were shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowded New Year's party or gathered around the TV wit...

By Koka Sexton • Jan. 5, 2015

7 Places to Learn to Code - for Free!

Over my 10-year internet marketing career, my biggest personal competitive advantage was having an electrical engineering degree and being comfortable doing coding.Nowadays, you don't have to go back to college (and take on the huge loan or remortgage your house) to get up to speed.The ability to...

By Larry Kim • Jan. 5, 2015

10 Social Media Resolutions

Like most people do this time of year, we have been taking a look at the events of the past year, and are planning for the year to come. As we make our own marketing resolutions for 2015, we thought our readers might also benefit from some suggestions.Below you'll find our Top 10 Social Media Res...

By Sarah Matista • Jan. 5, 2015

Beyond Content Shock: The Defining Trend of 2015 Is Content Ignition

I'd like to share an email I recently received ...Dear Mark:I am the founder of a sporting goods company in the Pacific Northwest. We occupy (and dominate) a small but profitable extreme sport niche.We are certainly a conversational company with passionate fans and we have worked hard to engage a...

By Mark Schaefer • Jan. 5, 2015

4 Ways to Ignite Content

Some of you have heard of Mark Schaefer's Content Shock theory. Put simply, content marketing is such an effective marketing strategy that we've become oversaturated, making it increasingly difficult for businesses to break through the noise. Such was the case in a recent email Mark received fro...

By Rachel Strella • Jan. 5, 2015

11 Tips to Stretch Your PPC Budget

At least once in your professional life you tried using Google Adwords as part of your marketing activities. It might have gone well for a while, it might have failed right away. However, I'm quite sure you have this internal feeling you cannot ignore. Without noticing you became part of the Goog...

By Omri Yacubovich • Jan. 5, 2015

Content Marketing Lessons Learned From Our Best Performing Blog Posts

A quick check of my Twitter feed told me it's that time of year: when bloggers write about their most popular posts from the last year.Everyone is doing it. Jay Baer, Copyblogger, Moz and HubSpot, to name a few.It's definitely a useful exercise to discover what's working (and what isn't).Hopefull...

By Shelley Pringle • Jan. 5, 2015