Archive for December 2016
Video Marketing 2017: What You Need to Know
Video is the new darling of digital marketing. With more than 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, consumers have grown increasingly comfortable with video. Smart marketers are responding by generating compelling, shareable content that delivers relevant brand messaging across multiple devices. Join us as video marketing expert Mark Robertson and senior research…
Read MoreHow Google may be slowing down AMP by not using direct links to publishers
One of the biggest disadvantages for publishers in using AMP — the accelerated mobile pages format — is that Google will not show a publisher’s actual URL when displaying AMP pages. Google says this is so AMP pages load quickly. However, using a publisher’s URL might hardly slow a page down. In fact, using Google’s…
Read MoreTwitter is eliminating its ads that requested people’s personal information
tanuha2001 / Shutterstock.com Twitter is phasing out its lead generation ad format that brands could use to request people’s names, Twitter handles and email addresses. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the move on Monday. The spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “We are always experimenting with the best ways to help advertisers effectively connect with consumers. At…
Read MoreDigital assistants, conversational search and the future of local
Traditional search has us conditioned to speak like cavemen: choppy sentences, verbs optional. But that’s all starting to change with the rise of digital assistants and conversational search. Conversational search comes with the expectation that digital assistants will actually converse with us. Our primitive two-word queries (grunts and hand gestures included) have evolved into full-fledged, honest-to-goodness questions. The age of digital assistants is upon us. For…
Read MoreForget big data: Why thinking small can help marketers see the future
No one can predict the future, but smart marketers come pretty close. Using big data and machine intelligence to gauge the possibility of outcomes based on customer data and historical context, predictive analytics are about as magical as you’d expect a crystal ball to be: not perfect, sometimes murky, but more accurate than not. Every…
Read MoreHow to use your buyer personas to build your 2017 marketing budget
If you have a love/hate relationship with buyer personas, you’re not alone. According to a 2016 survey by Customer Think, 72 percent of marketers are familiar with these personas, and 60 percent have created their first persona within the last two years. Unfortunately, lots of marketers are confused about how to use their personas or are frustrated…
Read MoreWhy good SEO is strategic
From its inception as a marketing discipline nearly a decade ago, SEO has generally had a tactical focus. And that’s fine. After all, the specific tactics used to gain links, mentions, rankings, traffic and other KPIs are amazingly interesting subjects in their own right. (I’ve long been fascinated by the exact position of the demarcation…
Read MoreNASA has created official accounts on Pinterest and Giphy, and they’re pretty great
NASA’s space channels on Pinterest and Giphy are out of this world. The government agency just announced that it has joined the image-sharing social networks to display the best of what they do. Photos of planets, international space stations, galaxies, black holes, nebulae and so many more are featured on an extensive Pinterest board that has…
Read More5 Under Used Strategies to Make Your Customers Feel Valued
There’s a misconception that great customer service requires endless resources and personnel, complex software systems, and outsourced call centers. While those tools can certainly help large corporations feel more connected to their clients — perhaps increasingly so through automation and social media “bots” to jump on quick replies — there are still few substitutes for human…
Read MoreMore content, less traffic: part I
“Content is king” is the familiar SEO refrain that has spawned umpteen pages of thin, vapid website content. The push toward more and more content was mitigated somewhat by the next refrain, “quality content,” following Google’s numerous Panda updates. But a widespread misconception perpetuated by the SEO industry persists: you need to continue to feed the content beast — otherwise, The…
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