Karissa Bell says, “Pinterest is stepping up its messaging game in a big way. The company announced that it is adding a new messaging feature that allow users to have one-on-one and group conversations about specific pins. The feature is rolling out on the web and to Pinterest’s iOS and Android apps. Pinterest first introduced the send-a-pin feature last May, but it was more of a sharing feature, as users couldn’t reply to the pins. Now, they can send a pin to one or more of their friends, who can reply with text messages or pins of their own”. Pinterest Now Lets Users Have... [...]

Kyli Singh says, “Social media is a great way to express yourself, but some people take it a little too far. When scrolling through your feeds, you’ll probably find, shall we say, “inadvisable” posts here and there. These horrific social media fails can ultimately backfire by drawing unwanted attention from friends and strangers alike. We rounded up seven epic social media facepalms you should never, ever repeat. And yes, they’re real”. 7 Social Media Facepalms You Should Never Repeat Mashable  [...]

Mike Volpe says, “It used to be that “multi-channel marketing” meant ensuring that your print, TV and radio ads looked and sounded the same. Now, consumers have more channels than ever to interact with your brand, so creating an integrated marketing experience means getting everything right, from social to search, automation to analytics, and lead nurturing to LinkedIn. Simply put, you can no longer afford to focus on one element of your marketing and put the rest out to pasture. Your prospects, customers and leads expect a fully integrated experience with your brand, and if your... [...]

Ana Rosenstein says, “This fall, Mashable will be hosting its second annual Mashies awards to recognize the very best in digital marketing and advertising. As we gear up for the 2014 Mashies, a group of this year’s judges will be participating in a Twitter chat to answer some of the most pressing questions in the field of digital marketing. Ourfirst Twitter chat delved into real-time marketing best practices and the factors that make a digital marketing campaign successful. On Tuesday, we will be hosting our second #Mashies Twitter chat this summer to take an even deeper dive into... [...]

Annie Colbert says, “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife — viral videos are climbing into your News Feed, snatching up your content. It’s not in your head. Facebook is delivering more videos. A Facebook spokesperson tellsMashable that “twice as many people now watch videos on Facebook compared to just six months ago.” Rival Google still dominates the online video market, but Facebook’s controversial move towardauto-play last year has made video consumption a more natural part of the News Feed experience. When you pause your scrolling to watch a herd of baby goats... [...]

Todd Wasserman says, “In an effort to compete with other online shopping destinations, namely Amazon, Google announced it was adding customer reviews to searches on Thursday. Searches for terms that could be construed as products, like “blender” or “lawnmower,” will now include reviews on a five-star scale that are aggregated from merchants, third-party sites and editorial sites”. Google Adds Amazon-Like Ratings to Searches Mashable  [...]

Aubre Andrus says, “Regardless of whether you’re self-published or have a Big 5 publisher behind your book, all authors are doing the same thing: promoting themselves and their book. While marketing takes away time from what we authors do best — writing — it’s a necessary evil. Luckily, there are more than a few fairly simple and efficient ways to get your title out there to all corners of the great wide interwebs and maybe even into the hands of new readers”. 10 Quick and Easy Digital Marketing Tools for Authors Mashable  [...]

Erica Cerulo says, “When you own a small business, you never have enough of two things: Time in the day or money in the bank. For the last four years, my business partner Claire Mazur and I have runOf a Kind — a website that introduces up-and-coming designers to the world through a combination of ecommerce and storytelling — and along the way, we have unearthed a slew of tools that make our lives easier and our workloads more manageable. Better even? They are cheap or free. Though we are super-fans of a few standalone platforms — see: Help Scout for customer service and Slack for... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “While the United States has seen programmatic audience development — the practice of automating digital advertising sales based on audience data — surge over the past few years, publishers and ad tech companies are eying global markets for opportunity. A new survey and whitepaper from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Winterberry Group looks at the developments and roadblocks of programmatic’s expansion in markets around the world by US based companies“. IAB Study Looks At Programmatic’s Global Expansion Opportunities Marketing Land  [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Even if you have never tweeted, don’t have any followers or have never visited Twitter.com, chances are you have still seen a tweet at some point in your life. Twitter knows this, and it’s trying to figure out how to make money off it. The social media site demonstrated solid growth in its most-watched measurement — monthly active users (MAUs) — in its second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday. An unexpected profit, a positive outlook and growing revenue per 1,000 timeline views (a Twitter metric for how well it is making money from its platform), all... [...]