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الاثنين، 30 نوفمبر 2015

10 photos that show off our dazzling, magical sky

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Last week, we challenged our Instagram community to capture beautiful skies in their photos

We saw breathtaking rainy day window shots, silhouette portraits against warm sunsets, starry nights hiding behind thick fog and more.

Our guest host was Brighton Galvan, a creative director and photographer from California.

"There are so many great photos here from the challenge, I'm honored to have been a part of it," Galvan said. "I love seeing people post great work on social media — it always inspires me."

Check out Galvan's favorite #MashPics_Skyscape submissions below.


Galvan says: The colors are amazing in this photo. Read more...

More about Photography, Instagram, Sky, Social Media, and Mashable Photo Challenge

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Millennials’ Growing Distrust Of Plastic Cards Pave Way For Digital Payments

Less than a decade from now most payments will probably be made with apps in phones or smartwatches, using biometric triggers or other mechanisms that don’t involve swiping or using plastic cards. Just as credit cards have mostly replaced cash so will credit cards themselves be...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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Could Google’s New Star Feature For Images Challenge Pinterest?

New bookmarking option for Google Images is only available on a personal account level, but there is social sharing potential down the road.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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Marketing Day: Mobile “Showroomers” Study, 3 New Google Patents & Black Friday Reports

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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SEOs, SEMs, Analysts & Developers: Teams Save Up To 20% At SMX West

Do you manage the search marketing team at your company or agency? Sister site Search Engine Land’s SMX West is the ultimate team-building experience. There members will get must-know SEO, SEM, mobile and conversion optimization tactics at more than 50 sessions and from 100 expert presenters. Is...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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Build Social Relationships With Influencer Marketing

Study: Mobile “Showroomers” Generally Buy In Stores, 18 – 34 Year Olds Most Active

We learned over the weekend how prominent mobile devices were in the Black Friday shopping melee. And while a growing number of purchases are happening on mobile devices, smartphones are primarily being used by consumers to find store locations, check hours information and to do price comparisons...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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Honda Hosts #OpenTheCheer Twitter Instant-Win Contest For Holiday Sales Event

The carmaker worked with RPA to craft a playful video-focused campaign that uses Twitter's instant-win cards, which were recently introduced and not yet widely available.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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Digital Analytics Association San Francisco Symposium: ‘Tis the Season for Data

The fourth annual Digital Analytics Association (DAA) San Francisco Symposium is coming up! Join us on Tuesday, December 8th as we host the symposium at Google’s San Francisco office. This year’s event is focused on how all businesses use data to optimize, personalize, and succeed through the holidays. 


Our lineup of great speakers includes:
  • Jim Sterne, Target Marketing and the DAA
  • Kristina Bergman, Ignition Partners
  • Adam Singer, Analytics Advocate, Google
  • Prolet Miteva, Senior Manager Web Analytics Infrastructure, Autodesk
  • Joshua Anderson, Senior Manager Analytics, BlueShield
  • Michele Kiss, Senior Partner, Analytics Demystified
  • David Meyers, Co-Founder/CEO, AdoptAPet
  • and other great speakers

Theme: Optimization, personalization, and how to succeed through the holidays
When: Tuesday, December 8th, 2015. Registration starts at 12:30. Program runs from 1:00 to 5:30, followed by a networking reception. 
Where: Google San Francisco, 345 Spear Street, 7th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105
Cost: $25 for DAA members/$75 for non-members
Event website and registration: register here

Space is limited so register early!

San Francisco locals, this Symposium is organized by local DAA members and volunteers. We encourage you to become a member of the DAA and join our local efforts. Become a member and reach out to one of the local chapter leaders, Krista, Charles or Feras.

Happy Holidays!

Posted by Krista Seiden, Google Analytics Advocate


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Five Things to Know About the Divergence of Mobile Search Results From Desktop Results

Search engine providers are tailoring search results to different devices and rolling out algorithm updates that add mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Here's what you need to know about these trends. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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Five Things to Know About the Divergence of Mobile Search Results From Desktop Results

Search engine providers are tailoring search results to different devices and rolling out algorithm updates that add mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Here's what you need to know about these trends. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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Five Buzzworthy SEO Trends You Must Know About for 2016

Get ready for a new year of changes to Google's algorithms--and your SEO strategy. Here are five of the biggest search trends on tap for 2016. They're sure to be buzzed about next year. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Source MarketingProfs Daily: Search Engine Marketing http://ift.tt/1MZySXM

Five Things to Know About the Divergence of Mobile Search Results From Desktop Results

Search engine providers are tailoring search results to different devices and rolling out algorithm updates that add mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Here's what you need to know about these trends. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Source MarketingProfs Daily: Search Engine Marketing http://ift.tt/1MZyRDb

Five Buzzworthy SEO Trends You Must Know About for 2016

Get ready for a new year of changes to Google's algorithms--and your SEO strategy. Here are five of the biggest search trends on tap for 2016. They're sure to be buzzed about next year. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Source MarketingProfs Daily: Search Engine Marketing http://ift.tt/1MZySXM

Cyber Monday: The Top Retailers Ready to Help Customers on Twitter

Most-Responsive-Retail-Brands-on-Twitter-Header

Cyber Monday is officially upon us—arriving with ever greater importance. In fact, already this past weekend, an estimated 103 million Americans shopped online, edging out the 102 million people who stuck to the stores. Analysts predict that when all is said and done, social media alone will account for a staggering $15 billion of sales in 2015.

So, as people continue to clamor to find the best deals online, we at Sprout Social wanted to take a closer look at how retailers are responding. We started with a list from the National Retail Federation’s Top 100 Retailers (which, it’s important to note, includes several grocers, restaurants and fast food chains as well as clothing companies and big box stores). We then plugged these retailers’ handles into our proprietary Twitter Comparison Report to get a score that reflects how often brands are pumping out promotional messages relative to how often they are actually responding to customers’ concerns.

While our most recent Sprout Social Index found that most retailers are ignoring customers on social 83% of the time, the 22 retailers highlighted below are prioritizing customer care on Twitter, earning themselves a Sprout Social Engagement Score of 98 or above.

We’ve also called out a few other facts about how America’s top retailers are approaching Twitter—from how many use a separate handle for customer service to how many aren’t even on this important platform at all.

Jump to the data of America’s most responsive retailers.

From Wal-Mart to Wendy’s, Social Standouts on Twitter

So what accounts for these retailers’ exceptional Engagement Scores? In reviewing their Twitter feeds, a few moments stood out.

Wal-Mart: Responding to the Outcry for Pie

After the enthusiastic endorsement from a fan on YouTube, singer Patti LaBelle’s signature sweet potato pies started flying off Wal-Mart shelves. The retail giant couldn’t keep pace with the demand leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday but was quick to issue a response to its Twitter followers, directly from Senior Buyer for Cakes and Pies Kinna Thomas, who promised that the popular product would soon be back in stores.

Nordstrom: Dazzling Audiences With Interactive Products & Promotions

If your product or service requires a bit of explanation, it can be difficult to encapsulate all that needs to be said in a short Tweet. Nordstrom, however, recently stepped up to the challenge. By integrating a Vine video into a DIY feature on Tevas, the retailer piqued its followers’ interest while sparking a lively conversation. At each stage in the lengthy Twitter thread that unfurled, @Nordstrom reps piped in with prompt feedback, providing more context about how the product works as well as where it can be found for purchase.

Target: Welcoming Customer Creativity

The world is abuzz over Adele’s latest album, which just broke the single-week sales record held by NSnyc. Target has played an integral role in driving a bulk of these sales—but it isn’t just promoting the album itself. Through some artful social media monitoring, the retailer recently discovered and then Retweeted an in-store photo of a welcome mat taken by one of its creative shoppers. This promotion of user-generated content invites other Target fans to interact with the brand in a more fun and meaningful way.

Wendy’s: Playing It Cool With a Brand-Adjacent Conversation

There are more “national days” than any level-headed social media manager can keep track of throughout the year. Of course, not every trending day requires a response from your brand, so it’s important to establish guidelines of what aligns with your core product offerings. Wendy’s provides a good example of how to coolly join the conversation without hashjacking a moment that’s totally out of step.

The Gift of Gab: Reaping the Rewards of Richer Engagement

If you want to earn a Twitter Engagement Score of 98 or above like the retailers on our list, it’s time to get talking—and gain a competitive advantage. Consider the following advice:

  • Listen for more than @mentions. Track keywords that alert your team of brand, product or service mentions—time is often of the essence this time of year.
  • Set clear customer expectations. State in your bio when your support team is active—whether that’s 9–5 CST or 24/7—as well as expected response times.
  • Establish short-term benchmarks. Determine reasonable (and unacceptable) response times; measure performance, and adjust staffing throughout the holidays.
  • Rise to specific occasions. Beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday, milestones like last day for promotional pricing and free shipping may result in increased chatter.

Most Responsive Retail Brands on Twitter Infographic

Embed This Infographic:

This post Cyber Monday: The Top Retailers Ready to Help Customers on Twitter originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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3 Google Patents You Need To Know About In 2016

Columnist Pratik Dholakiya outlines three patents that Google is applying for and explains how they could affect search results for both you and your clients.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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AdWords Shopping Ads Enhancements: A Roundup

Columnist Frederick Vallaeys notes that AdWords has released many new features for Shopping Ads recently. Are you taking advantage of them?

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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A 3-Step Plan For Easier Email Marketing

Don't just throw away perfectly reusable email content. Columnist Daniel Faggella outlines some ways to help you create a compelling email campaign without the fuss.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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How to Build a Lucrative Business with Premium WordPress Themes

How to Build a Lucrative Business with Premium WordPress Themes

Sometimes content marketers forget that content isn’t only a game for wordsmiths.

In fact, there’s a thriving community of visual content creators who have built robust businesses around what they do. And one of the most scaleable ways to do that is to craft high-quality premium WordPress themes.

But there’s a lot more to it than “build something beautiful and the customers will show up.”

In this post, I want to talk about what it takes to succeed as a WordPress theme designer in today’s environment.

Once upon a time, all WordPress themes were free. The robust open-source CMS (content management system) attracted enthusiasts of all kinds, who made themes that looked good and suited different tastes.

Today, WordPress has grown to power a quarter of the world’s websites — and premium (paid) themes are the norm for professionals, businesses, serious bloggers, and even passionate hobbyists.

That wealth of premium themes poses a new challenge for designers: the sheer number of great-looking themes out there. There’s more competition than ever, and a lot of them are gorgeous

But : there’s still room for someone with solid design skills to make a name (and a great business) as a theme designer. And it starts by thinking as a business owner first.

Here are five points of focus on your path to building your premium theme empire …

#1: Business know-how

No matter what kind of digital business you might want to build — and WordPress themes fall squarely into this category — you can’t ignore the business part.

You may think of yourself as a design professional who “isn’t into the whole business thing.” But business is just a set of skills that can be learned — and upgrading those skills can open the door to making a great living doing what you love.

Sites like Digital Commerce Institute and podcasts like Unemployable and Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer can help you pick up the core business skills you need — without compromising your integrity or making you feel like a creep.

In my experience, 90% of business ability is mindset. Once you get your head in the right space, you’ll be able to readily pick up the skills you need to make your business a success. You might also choose to partner with smart people who will complement your strengths.

#2: A targeted audience

Because it’s beautiful is no longer enough to find an audience for your WordPress theme.

Themes today need to solve specific problems for well-defined groups of people.

In other words, it’s not only about design — it’s about design thinking.

Virtually any type of business you can think of needs beautiful, thoughtfully designed themes.

Think:

  • Real estate professionals
  • Law offices
  • Restaurants
  • Medical offices
  • Schools
  • Artisans and “small batch” producers
  • Coffee shops
  • Online publishers
  • Coaches
  • … you name it!

Successful theme designers today know precisely who will be using their themes. And they use smart design thinking to solve real-world problems with those themes.

If you build themes for a particular group, decide how you’ll uncover that group’s needs and desires. If you’re not a member of that community yourself, work closely with the types of folks who will be using your theme, so you can come up with innovative and elegant solutions to their needs.

“Niching” down your offer this way might seem like it would narrow your audience of buyers — but in fact, it opens all kinds of doors to reach the right buyers.

#3: A way to reach that audience

It’s not enough to build a gorgeous solution to the needs of a well-defined audience — you have to be able to get the word out!

The web today provides incredibly focused tools for targeted advertising to precisely the kinds of buyers you’re looking for.

You can also partner with well-known experts in that space. For example, you might work with a popular blogger who has the audience you’re trying to reach.

And if you build your frame within an established “ecosystem” (like Genesis, which we’ll talk a bit more about in the next point), you get the benefit of a community looking for the solutions you have to offer.

#4: A commitment to security and clean code

WordPress sites are astonishingly common. MarketingLand reports that WordPress powers about 25% of all of the sites published on the web around the globe.

In fact, its next two closest competitors (Drupal and Joomla) power fewer than 5% of the planet’s websites — combined.

WordPress is robust, it’s amazingly flexible, and it’s everywhere.

And because it’s so popular, a WordPress theme that ignores security best practices can find itself vulnerable to hackers. Which is no fun at all for your buyers, or your reputation.

Fortunately, there are excellent tools available to manage security and protect the themes you create.

If you don’t want to become a full-time security expert, one simple way to address the problem is to design themes on a framework that’s doing the performance and security heavy lifting for you.

Our company builds one of the best-regarded frameworks in the WordPress community (if we do say so ourselves …), Genesis.

The “back end” (that means all of those behind-the-scenes technical elements) of the Genesis framework is reviewed thoroughly and frequently by security and performance experts. We make sure that all of the code is keeping up with best practices … and with updates in WordPress itself.

Security is just one benefit of building your theme on a reliable framework — but that’s a topic for another article.

#5: An eye for trends and beautiful design

You might have thought this one would come first! And of course, no one wants a premium theme that doesn’t look great and feel fresh and current.

Great designers know that beauty matters — but it’s only one element of great design.

In addition to your great eye for gorgeous site design, make sure you’re incorporating:

  • A solid business mindset
  • Theme design that solves meaningful problems for a well-defined market
  • Effective communication with the audience you’re serving
  • Serious security to keep your customers’ sites safe from the bad guys

Pull these elements together, and you might find that designing WordPress themes becomes the foundation of an amazing business.

Want to know more about the life of a premium theme designer?

The founder of StudioPress and creator of Genesis, Brian Gardner, will be the subject of a webinar inside of Digital Commerce Academy on December 2 where he will share his insights on how he built his WordPress-based business.

Brian wasn’t a technical guy — he has no formal education in programming or computers. In fact, when he started playing with WordPress themes, he was a project manager for an architectural firm.

He calls himself an “accidental entrepreneur,” following his interests where they led. And where they led was a genuinely disruptive innovation — the creation of the premium WordPress theme market. That’s because Brian was the first person to actually offer a WordPress theme and take money for it.

Join us for this live conversation with Brian (he will take questions at the end). We’ll be talking about:

  • How the premium WordPress theme market has changed over the last half decade
  • Expert tips for anyone who wants to create a theme
  • How to know what will sell (without guessing)
  • The biggest mistakes Brian made, and how he overcame them
  • The invaluable lesson about relationship building that Brian learned by working at a convenience store

Plus, much more.

To attend this webinar live (or to view the replay), all you have to do is activate your membership to Digital Commerce Academy.

Join Digital Commerce Academy Today
And attend Wednesday’s case study webinar with Brian Gardner

We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee with all Digital Commerce Academy memberships, so we invite you to check out this event and peruse the other content inside before you make any long-term commitments.

We’ll see you there!

About the author

Sonia Simone


Sonia Simone is co-founder and Chief Content Officer of Rainmaker Digital. Get lots more from Sonia on her podcast, Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer, or come hang out with her on Twitter.

The post How to Build a Lucrative Business with Premium WordPress Themes appeared first on Copyblogger.



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7 Advanced Areas CMOs Must Focus On For 2016

Looking to take your marketing strategy up a notch next year? Columnist Scott Rayden outlines key areas you should zero in on to get ahead in 2016.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.


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