How Canva Re-energized My Marketing Strategy

June 23, 2015January 2, 20161 Comment

While there is no doubt that content is still king when it comes to SEO and that it is a critical component of any inbound marketing strategy, I have to say that the medium that is having the biggest impact on my marketing efforts, as of recently, is imagery. In a world of 140 characters, it is hard to make your insights and message stand out, but if you add the right size compelling image that ties into the post message, you can stand out in a sea of hashtags. Continue reading →

How to Use Instagram for Business

January 5, 201512 Comments

With a community of over 300 million active monthly users, Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms with high engagements, and yet is still a very untapped territory for most businesses. Continue reading →

20 Marketing Statistics That Will Influence Decisions in 2014

January 5, 2014August 11, 20155 Comments

As we settle into 2014, marketers continue to reevaluate their strategies to determine how to better reach, nurture, and convert customers this year. When creating their 2014 marketing strategies, marketers are evaluating the different trends predicted by industry experts. One of the most discussed predictions for 2014 is the importance of creating highly personalized content across all different digital marketing platforms (i.e. website, blogs, social media, email marketing, etc.). In addition, a trend that I expect to continue to grow during 2014 is the importance of having an integrated marketing strategy that connects social media, SEO, content marketing, email, PPC, PR, and event marketing to create a cohesive experience for potential customers. Continue reading →

How to Choose the Most Effective Social Media Platform for Your Brand

August 5, 2013January 2, 2016

Go where your audience is

This is a basic of marketing, digital or not. For example, If you are selling custom hunting bows, you wouldn’t advertise in the Vogue magazine. Instead, you will analyze the reader demographics and psychographics of each magazine to determine which magazines will allow you to best reach your target audience. This same process should be used for determining which social media platforms you should focus the majority of your efforts on.

The infographic below from Social Barrel analyzes the audiences that frequent ten of the most popular social media platforms to help you decide where you should focus your efforts. Continue reading →

11 Questions Every Social Media Manager Should Be Able to Answer

June 30, 2013August 11, 20157 Comments

If you are currently a digital marketer or a social media marketing professional, you have most likely heard someone say “well I use Facebook, I could ‘Do’ social media” or “How hard could it be, it’s just social media.” While offensive to those of us that have worked hard to become credible professional in the social media industry, these questions also have me worried for companies looking for help with their social media.

Companies understand the importance of social media, but they often need assistance developing and implementing a strategy, so they look to hire a social media manager to grow their brand on social media sites. Continue reading →

How to Rock Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day Infographic

March 24, 20132 Comments

With a defined social media strategy in place, marketers can rock social media in 30 minutes a day.

Sound too good to be true? It is actually possible if your daily use of social media is built upon a well-developed social media strategy. But, a strong social media strategy does not mean that your brand has to be on every single social media channel out there. Instead, focus on the social media channels that the majority of your customers frequent.

The infographic below explains how having an over-arching social media strategy in place can save you time and make you a more effective social media strategist. This great infographic was developed by the talented Matt Wesson, a Marketing Content Specialist at the marketing automation company Pardot. It focuses on a six channel social media strategy, and how you can build engaged communities around your brand in as little as 30 minutes a day.

So how should you allocate your time on each channel? Well the infographic breaks the recommended 30 minutes down as follows: Continue reading →

2013 Marketing Trends: Changing Role of Digital Marketing

January 6, 2013August 11, 20156 Comments

With any inbound marketing strategy, customer outreach must focus on multiple channels; and, as we move further into 2013, well-developed cross-channel targeting will become even more important. However, how do we know where to focus our marketing efforts in 2013? Luckily, the great minds at StrongMail, an email marketing and cross-channel solutions company, did a little digging for us!

In conjunction with SurveyMonkey, StrongMail, administered an online poll to learn how more than 1,000 business leaders saw their marketing strategies changing in 2013.

Expansion of Digital Marketing in 2013

Indicate the Marketing Programs You Plan to Increase Spending in 2013

Indicate the Marketing Programs You Plan to Increase Spending for in 2013

Based on the survey results, business leaders across various industries plan to have even more digitally heavy marketing strategies during 2013. Responders reported that they expected to increase spending on Email Marketing (55.5%), Social Media (51.8%), Mobile (42.8%), and SEO/PPC (39.8%) this year. In comparison, only 27.4% of responders thought they would decrease spending on Direct Mail efforts. Continue reading →