Irfan Khan says, “Till recently, Influencer Marketing as a term was used in the context of movie and sports stars who endorsed various products and services in the mass media. Enterprises earmark a sizable portion of their marketing budget to engage these offline celebrities as a part of their Influencer Marketing strategy. However, with Internet penetration growing exponentially and social media becoming ubiquitous, Influencer Marketing has touched the next generation of celebrities – bloggers, video bloggers and micro-bloggers. Bloggers, who are a source of inspiration for hundreds and... [...]

Sherry Gray says, “In a highly competitive market, the need for competitive intelligence is obvious. Market research is the core of any strategic business plan. Knowing what works for your competitors is the surest way to confirm your own ideas for marketing, and to weed out time-consuming plans destined to fall flat. Content marketing is no exception. You can use the same tactics to develop your content that you use when you launch a new product or service. Competitive analysis gives you the opportunity to see what resonates with customers in your space and improve on those successes... [...]

Chow says, “Happy New Year everyone! It addition to the tips I gave you to make 2016 your best year ever, I’m going to add one more tip, and that is to update your blog copyright notice to say 2016. If your blog doesn’t have a copyright notice, you should add one right away. Many bloggers may consider this a relatively minor issue. However, from a professional and branding standpoint, making sure your blog has a copyright notice with the correct information is very important. For most bloggers, this is a simple task of logging into the WordPress admin panel and editing the footer.php... [...]

James Parsons says, “Finding a regular blog content writer can be tough, despite the fact that there are thousands of freelancers out there ready and willing to write content for you. Having hired many writers myself, I like to think I’ve perfected the process of locating the talented ones. 1. Know what you need. The first thing you need to do is determine exactly what you need a writer for. With a blog, you essentially have two options — a regular contributor under their own name, or a ghostwriter selling you content. Finding a ghostwriter is a lot easier and certainly more... [...]

Jordan Simas says, “It’s hard to do things alone. Especially complicated things like growing an ecommerce business. When it comes to selling online, the more friends you have the better. Having connections who can talk up your product is essential to driving traffic to your site and increasing sales. This is where blogger outreach comes in. Even if you don’t have a lot of contacts online you can still reach out to people for help. You just have to do it the right way—and I’m here to teach you how! Types of Blogger Outreach Blogger outreach is about more than just making... [...]

Rory Schaff says, “Yes, you read that right. I said 700-day blog post shelf life. In the social media realm that’s ancient. Can you imagine tweeting about a blog post that was published in 2013? I want to cringe just thinking about it, but I can’t. Why? Because the numbers tell me not to. IZEA, a company that connects social media content creators with brands, partnered with strategic research agency Halverson Group to answer the question that has been on every content creator’s mind: What is the actual life expectancy of a blog post? Starting with more than 62,000 posts,... [...]

David Koji says, “The benefits of guest blogging are long established and undeniable. After all, guest-writing for someone else’s blog is a surefire way to introduce your brand to a new audience, earn quality backlinks and establish yourself as an industry thought leader. Because of these benefits, businesses of all sizes should consider guest blogging as an important part of their content strategy. Yet a potential problem exists with guest blogging. And that is that you have to make sure yours is an amazing piece of content which will stand out from the efforts of others trying... [...]

John Lincoln says, “Content marketing, like any other business initiative, is a learned skill. It’s not as simple as sitting down at your keyboard and typing out a few bits of advice relevant to your niche. (It actually used to be a lot like this, but now it is much more competitive.) In fact, corporate blogging is a learned discipline, just like accounting, marketing and good management. However, some business leaders see it differently. They think that they can hire a good writer to produce content, publish it on a website and watch the visitors come rolling in. There’s much more to... [...]

Barry Feldman says, “Blogging is no hobby—at least not for serious business bloggers. After all, 59% of B2B marketers consider blogs the most valuable channel. Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios offers the proof. In 2014, his company asked 1,000-plus business bloggers to provide answers about how they tackle their tasks and summarized the results in this data-intensive post. The company did it again this year. Here are the results of the 2015 survey. After gathering the data, Andy concludes, “We see more bloggers taking a more professional approach. Evidence for this appeared... [...]

Andy Beohar says, “Leads are the lifeblood of your business. Without leads, you have no one to guide down your marketing funnel and convert into a paying customer. When leveraged correctly, your business’s blog is an excellent venue through which to provide visitors withconversion opportunities. If your business is struggling to generate leads, you’re optimizing your blog is a great first step. Below, we share six tips you can use to turn your blog into a lead generation machine. 1. Integrate Your Blog With Your Website When you’re using a blog to generate inbound traffic, many... [...]