Aja Frost says, “Some people might still think social selling is a fad, but the numbers don’t lie: Those who incorporate social media into their strategy reach their quota 66% more often than their peers. Plus, companies with social sellers enjoy a 22.2% increase in revenue. Not too shabby. But committing to using social media is easier said than done. Many reps don’t know how to interact with their prospects on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other networks — after all, it’s nothing like messaging your friends or responding to family members. Fortunately, you don’t need to... [...]

Himanshu Sareen says, “The cable television industry is in real trouble. Flurry Analytics and the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics found that in 2015, the average U.S. consumer spent 168 minutes each day watching television and 198 minutes per day engaged in mobile apps. And in 2014, a comScore whitepaper reported that total mobile usage officially outweighed desktop computer usage, 60 percent to 40 percent respectively. So while it’s undisputed that mobile apps are big, they can only remain heavy-hitters as long as they remain relevant, and the best way to know that is through proper... [...]

Sophorn Chhay says, “Does your writing suck? Never fear, we’ve all been there at some point in time. Lucky for you (and for us, honestly) we’ve figured out five ways to make our content marketing better. 1. Research Before You Write If you’re deciding on topics before you start writing and pinpointing keywords after, you’re doing it wrong. Your content should be written with three things in mind: – What your audience wants – What Google wants – What you want All three elements are important and their importance is indicated by the order in which they appear. In other... [...]

Brian Smith says, “Last month, Google released version 3.0 of its Google My Business API, which for those of us managing locations at scale felt like Christmas came early. Included in the update were a variety of new features, the most important of which were the addition of attributes for locations, the ability to indicate a preferred photo and the ability to match locations between Google Maps and Google My Business listings. While all of the changes are exceptionally useful (and although one shouldn’t complain about a gift), the fact remains that significant gaps still exist in the API... [...]

Ayaz NAnji says, “What motivates people to share third-party content on Facebook with their friends? Are there differences between why men and women share on the social network? To find out, Fractl surveyed 2,000 consumers about what they share on Facebook and why they share. The researchers focused on third-party content: i.e., why people post links/articles/videos from external websites to Facebook and why they reshare external links that other users post. Some 48% of respondents say the primary reason they post third-party content to Facebook is to entertain their friends. Just 17% share... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “YouTube has had a live-streaming product since 2011. But it hasn’t been a great one. It required a lot of technical know-how and wasn’t possible to use on mobile. As a result, Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live have usurped YouTube as the dominant live-streaming platforms. Now YouTube wants its crown back. YouTube is starting to enable live-streaming within its mobile apps, the Google-owned video service announced on Thursday during a keynote presentation at digital video event VidCon. YouTube Live — not the official product name but better than “YouTube mobile... [...]

Jeff Hoffman says, “Salespeople entice prospects to book meetings with them based on their words, either spoken or written. With this in mind, word choice is incredibly important to be effective in sales. While an emotionally charged phrase might compel a prospect to sign the contract, an off-putting word could kill the opportunity. Get HubSpot’s free CRM here to start sending customized sales emails. If you’re good at selling, you likely spend the bulk of your day talking to prospects and customers. During your next conversation or email exchange, audit your communication for these... [...]

MOZ team says, “As SEOs, we often find ourselves facing new changes implemented by search engines that impact how our clients’ websites perform in the SERPs. With each change, it’s important that we look beyond its immediate impact and think about its future implications so that we can try to answer this question: “If I were Google, why would I do that?” Recently, Google implemented a series of manual penalties that affected sites deemed to have unnatural outbound links. Webmasters of affected sites received messages like this in Google Search Console: Google Outbound... [...]

Jeff Rajeck says, “Most brands struggle with social media. Coming up with eye-catching content day after day is quite difficult. Many marketers, however, are tasked with doing just that and need a constant flow of new ideas about ‘what works now’. To help out, here are three examples of Facebook posts which have outperformed, contrasted with three which have not worked out so well and a takeaway lesson from each. Background It’s easy to find examples of social media posts which have really taken off. There are many lists of these, and they all seem to include ‘Don’t... [...]

Ahmad Raza says, “In a world where buzzwords like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and banner ads have become commonplace, it might be easy to overlook the fact that generic, targeted online advertising doesn’t convert in every industry. There are situations where a personal touch is required. PPC Advertising Costs Outpace Customer Value Depending on your market, it may cost too much to acquire a customer via generic PPC advertising. The margins on your products may be razor-thin, or the competition could be so fierce that even with healthy margins, bidding on PPC traffic would be a losing proposition. The... [...]