Karissa Bell says, “It’s already April Fools’ Day in Japan and Google isn’t wasting any time. In a video posted to Google Japan’s YouTube page, the company introduced Google Panda, its new adorable take on voice-enabled search. “Google Panda is engineered with state of the art emotional and conversational intelligence,” promises vice president of engineering, Chris Yerga, in the video. “All you have to do is speak your mind.” Later, a Google engineer takes the stage to walk through the design inspiration (a real-life panda, of course) and the various... [...]

Mike King says, “Simply put, if you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing. In fact, if you’re whipping up blog posts and infographics without business objectives, you’re basically partaking in a very expensive version of arts and crafts. Your job as a content marketer is to show your boss the money — not traffic, not links — mon-naay. Let’s talk about how to get started effectively measuring your content marketing efforts”. A Quick-Start Guide to Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts ‘Copyblogger’ Blog  [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Facebook is the world’s largest social network, but it’s not just a social network. If this wasn’t already evident, it should be now that reports have surfaced indicating the tech giant is negotiating with prominent publishers to host their content within Facebook’s walls so that users don’t have to go to publishers’ sites to consume it. The New York Times, said to be one of the publishers in talks with Facebook, itselfdescribed the plan: Facebook has said publicly that it wants to make the experience of consuming content online more... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “In the latest outlook on the display advertising market in the US, Twitter and Facebook are poised for growth while the former stalwarts, Google and Yahoo, are expected to see their share slip. Twitter, is poised to surpass Yahoo in US display revenues for the first time this year, according to data released by online research firm eMarketerThursday. Facebook’s revenue share is expected to reach 26.9 percent in 2017, up from 23.8 percent in 2014. Twitter’s share is predicted to hit 6.8 percent, up from 3.7 percent in 2014. In contrast, eMarketer expects Google’s... [...]

Larry Kim says, “Way too often—several times a week—I’m amazed by what some marketers are still measuring. Maybe they don’t know any better. Maybe some are just married to legacy metrics that were once logical but now just need to die. Inspired by Rachel Sprung’s recent post on pointless marketing metrics, I’ve come up with my own list of pet-peeve marketing metrics and reasons they’re probably doing your campaigns more harm than good”. These Six Stupid Marketing Metrics Need to Die MarketingProfs  [...]

Jeffrey Vocell says, “Google is about to update their algorithm again, and this time it could have a big impact on your business. I mean, really really big. For context, when Google initially rolled out the Penguin algorithm update, it affected approximately 4% of global searches on desktop and mobile. When they rolled out Panda, it affected nearly 12% of English searches. This time around, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst Zineb Ait Bahajji says that this algorithm update will be bigger than Penguin or Panda. What’s the new algorithm update about? It will use mobile-friendliness... [...]

Rainmaker team says, “Ever throw your hands up in frustration when it comes time to look for an image for your latest blog post? Let’s start with the bad news: a terrible stock photo is worse than no photo at all. The good news? There are more free stock photos available now than ever before! But you have to know where to look. And you need to understand a little about image licensing, like the difference between free, royalty-free, and Creative Commons license terms. Or else that photo you use could land you in legal trouble”. Images: How to Find and Choose High-Impact Photos ‘Copyblogger’... [...]

Bola Awoniyi says, “How advanced are your email marketing activities? It can be difficult to know how far ahead or behind your organisation is from the industry standard, as it is often extremely difficult to completely figure out the inner workings of other companies. And even if that is possible, who has time to do all that? However, thanks to the 2015 Email Marketing Industry Census, produced in association with Adestra, an insight into the amount and type of email marketing carried out by organisations is now available. The research, which is in its ninth consecutive year, provides an... [...]

Dan S. Kennedy says, “The advantages of mission-driven marketing to the average business owner are large and ongoing. We’d like to cover just a few of those substantial benefits, especially when it comes to connecting with the affluent. 1. Increased profits. When properly done, mission-driven marketing drives well-to-do customers to your door. Here’s a good example:Conde Nast Traveler magazine polled its roughly 810,000 affluent subscribers on travel companies and their social responsibility. The outcome? Some 58 percent said their choice of hotel was influenced by the support it gives... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “While marketing teams continue to create more and more content marketing materials, anew study from marketing software provider Acrolinx claims brands are not spending nearly enough time on the quality of their content marketing efforts. Using linguistic analytics software to evaluate grammar and style, Acrolinx leveraged a 100-point scale to score marketing, corporate, technical and customer support content from companies with $250 million or more in annual revenue”. Is Poor Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make The Grade Marketing... [...]