Jeffrey L. Cohen says, “The roller coaster ride of social media is starting to make me sick to my stomach. Keep your hands and arms inside the car, as we are about to bank hard right into a rant. First, there was the promise of changing how we communicate with our customers. Social media was going to finally help us achieve one-to-one marketing. Before we reached that nirvana, content marketing suddenly dominated marketing, and social media became a distribution channel. I’m going to avoid the obvious benefits of social media for customer service, because Jay has research to back that up.... [...]

Vincenzo Landino says, “By now, you’ve probably heard of Pokémon Go, the augmented reality game that has taken the entire world by storm. For those of you that are not familiar with it, Pokémon is from the Japanese “pocket monsters,” an incredibly popular video game, trading card, and TV series. Pokémon roam about the land, and, as a trainer, your job is to locate them, capture them in PokéBalls, and then train them to grow stronger and eventually evolve. I played this game on my Nintendo Game Boy growing up, followed that up with the card game during lunchtime at school, and got... [...]

Andrea Lehr says, “It all seems to start with an unsuspecting subject. Consider Michael Jordan. In September 2009, Jordan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He delivered an emotional speech about his prolific career that pushed him to tears. Who could blame him, right? Three years later, an image titled “Sad Michael Jordan” was submitted to MemeCrunch, and now—whether it’s the Golden State Warriors falling short of back-to-back championships or a video highlighting every death over Game of Thrones’ six seasons—you’ll inevitably find Photoshopped... [...]

Jeffrey L. Cohen says, “Content marketing is not really the new kid on the block anymore. It’s something nearly all marketers claim to practice. Even though there are still some that are creating content for content’s sake, the marketers who are successful are the ones who approach it with a strategy. This is no different than any other kind of marketing. You need to know what you are trying to achieve, how you are going to accomplish that, and how you are going to measure a successful outcome. That’s a pretty succinct way to thing about marketing strategy. You can certainly add more... [...]

Kayla Matthews says, “A marketing funnel is the process that leads a prospective customer through several stages on their way toward purchasing your product. It goes something like this: A lead becomes a prospect, who becomes a customer, who becomes (if you’re lucky) a repeat customer. The whole thing probably sounds daunting, and it kind of is: Sales funnels have been around for a long time, but they can still cause modern, technologically savvy businesses trouble. We’re going to discuss seven basic suggestions for dealing with sales and marketing funnel issues and recommend some tools... [...]

Jeremy Goldman says, “I see it time and time again: Stellar content marketers spend so much time developing great content for their brands that they don’t spend enough time thinking of their own brand. While Instagram, Snapchat, and many others are great platforms, LinkedIn is the single best tool you have at your disposal to build your own brand. (highlight to tweet) I want to shed light on LinkedIn’s top personal brand-building features: 1. Comment on Your LinkedIn Feed Your connections are posting articles, commenting on the activity of others, and starting group discussions—and... [...]

Jay Baer says, “In partnership with Edison, I did a lot of research into the science of complaint when working on my new book, Hug Your Haters. One of the most important thrusts of that research is around customer expectations. When a customer complains, what do they expect from a brand…and when? The answers are important, because they help dictate operations policies, staffing, software, and customer retention. This week, I created a brand-new presentation of this key data. It’s available on Slideshare right now. I encourage you to read and download, as it’s full of interesting points”. The... [...]

Ross Simmonds says, “Have you ever struggled coming up with ideas for your next blog post? You look at your canvas, blank page, or Word document and just stare. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. Unfortunately, coming up with ideas for content is an industry-wide challenge that can only be solved with persistence.1 (highlight to tweet) To create a blog post that people will love as much as Kanye loves Kanye, you need have a great idea for the topic and the story you’re going to share. I’m going to share four resources I use for finding inspiration when I’m in a rut. You can start... [...]

Ajay Prasad says, “Do you find that your business is struggling to generate new customers? When faced with such a daunting realization, it’s tough to even think twice about your online reputation. However, if online reputation management is not consistently on your to-do list, then your business is likely to run into problems. The Internet Is the Most Important Influencer of Our Generation How often do you allow someone else’s opinion to influence your decision making? Probably a lot, huh? Now imagine all the friends and relatives that have ever recommended a business to you, and multiply... [...]

Jay Baer says, “Clicks! They aren’t the ultimate goal of most marketers (because actions are way more important than eyeballs), but it’s certainly better to have clicks your website, blog, or other digital property than to not have clicks. Of course, you could create better content and/or create more content in your quest for more clicks. We talk about that all the time on this blog. But here are five other, sly ways to get more clicks that perhaps you haven’t tried yet. 1. Sigstr Think about how many people are in your organization, and how many emails they send every day. Now think... [...]