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الخميس، 31 ديسمبر 2015

How To Easily Curate Relevant Content

What's the single most important element of good social media engagement? Your content. With good content you can attract an audience with so much more ease. And at the end of the day, you end up with an excellent brand […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How To Easily Curate Relevant Content

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Written by Vasudha Veeranna, http://drumup.io/

The post How To Easily Curate Relevant Content appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.



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Last Chance to Save $150 Instantly: Get Pro Plus Before It Becomes Recurring

lock in the pro plus all-theme pack today (and save big)

This is it …

Time is running out to get our Pro Plus All-Theme Pack for WordPress before the new recurring element is added at the end of January 2016. (Here’s what that means.)

It’s also your last chance to get $150 off.

And it’s your last chance to book the expense on your 2015 taxes.

If you’ve waited until the last minute, wait no more.

Click here to claim your $150 Pro Plus discount, lock in your account before recurring payments are added, and book it on this year’s taxes

This offer expires today, December 31, 2015, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

And if you’re feeling at all rushed because it’s New Year’s Eve and your head is already in the clouds getting ready for tonight … don’t. :-)

We offer a no-questions-asked, 30-day, money-back guarantee. We do this to make your decision as easy as possible.

Get started with Pro Plus today and take all of January to decide if you want to keep it. If you decide you don’t, just email our Support team and we’ll issue you a full refund.

You don’t even need to give a reason.

We just want you to have the StudioPress design you need for your WordPress website when you need it … for as long as you choose to maintain an account. Pro Plus gives you that, and so much more (and you don’t pay another dime after today).

Click here to find out about everything Pro Plus has to offer and get started risk-free today

Remember: This offer expires today (12/31/15) at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

Then after you get started with Pro Plus, go be safe and have fun tonight. :-)

Tomorrow it’s time to start working on our goals for 2016.

About the author

Brian Gardner


Starbucks addict. Sarah McLachlan fan. Maker of Rain.
Founder of StudioPress. CPO and Partner at Rainmaker Digital.

No Sidebar / Twitter / Instagram

The post Last Chance to Save $150 Instantly: Get Pro Plus Before It Becomes Recurring appeared first on Copyblogger.



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5 Trends In Local Search In 2015

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Local Search is a constantly changing landscape, and that certainly has been the case in 2015! The power of local search for a local business cannot be underestimated. A Bright Local study found that local search is the most effective digital marketing channel for local businesses. Here are my top five takeaways from a crazy year in local search.

1. From Seven To Three, The Google Snack Pack

In my opinion, the single biggest change in local search in 2015 was the number of local results dropping from seven to three on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). These results are now lower on the page, too, with local ads taking up more premium space.

Don’t expect this to change! It’s now more important than ever to be in a top-three position in Google local results. Local businesses need to prepare, because “pay to play” is here to stay.

2. Near Me & Location-Based Services

A recent Google study indicates that for local searches involving “near me” in 2014, 80% were conducted on a mobile device. Proximity searches (where the searcher’s location is automatically determined via phone location and IP address) are an increasingly important local ranking factor.

While you can’t optimize for each searcher’s location, local marketers must make sure that your local presence is strong in terms of important ranking factors such as NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number). Here are a few tips:

  • Make sure that your NAP is accurate and prominently listed on your website.
  • Add appropriate structured data markup to improve local search results and “near me” search results.
  • Ensure city and state appear in your title tags.
  • Ensure strong local links.
  • Ensure consistency of NAP across all local directory citations.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1On3XZR

Politwoops is back to show you all the embarrassing tweets politicians delete

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Twitter has a message for politicians: You can delete tweets, but you can't hide.

Politwoops, a tool developed by the Sunlight Foundation that archives the tweets politicians fire off and then quickly delete, is back after a seven-month hiatus. The tool went dark earlier this year after Twitter removed Politwoops' access to the API on June 3, stopping the ability to track deleted tweets.

A release from Twitter announcing the service's return quoted CEO Jack Dorsey from a conference in October:

We have a responsibility to communicate our roadmap in a clear and transparent way to everyone in this community. We have a responsibility to have an open dialogue with you to make sure we are serving you in the best way. We have a responsibility to continue to empower organizations that bring more transparency to public dialogue, such as Politwoops. We need to make sure we are serving all these organizations and developers in the best way, because that is what will make Twitter great. We need to listen, we need to learn, and we need to have this conversation with you. We want to start that today. Read more...

More about Twitter, Politics, Social Media, and 2016 Election

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The Big Wrap-Up: The Top 10 Columns On Marketing Land In 2015

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From the death (again) of Google+ to social media advertising and mobile business apps, Marketing Land’s most popular columns of the year spanned a wide range of tactics and strategies.

One phenomenon that rose to the top of readers’ minds in 2015 was the perennial search for the new new tool that will give them an edge on the competition or automate time-consuming tasks. The rise of mobile marketing and the further development of social media platforms were also hot topics this year, as was the eternal search for data and insights to inform marketers’ campaigns.

Read on for the top 10 columns contributed by marketing practitioners in 2015. Many thanks to those listed below and all of the other great columnists that help make Marketing Land what it’s become. Happy New Year to all our contributors and readers; may the marketing odds be ever in your favor in 2016 and beyond!

  1. What The Unofficial Death Of Google+ Means For Marketing by Travis Wright, published on 4/7/15 in the Social Media Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 3124, Google+ 941, LinkedIn 1265
  2. Gmail Sponsored Promotions: Everything You Need To Know To Succeed At Direct Response With GSP, Part 1 by Susan Waldes, published on 3/10/15 in the Email Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 294, Google+ 149, LinkedIn 270
  3. Why Social Media Advertising Is Set To Explode In The Next 3 Years by Sonny Ganguly, published on 3/17/15 in the Social Media Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 919, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 546
  4. Top 20 Most Useful Mobile Business Apps For 2015 by Aaron Strout, published on 4/30/15 in the Mobile Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 367, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 379
  5. The Big List: 80 Of The Hottest SEO, Social Media & Digital Analytics Tools For Marketers by John Lincoln, published on 1/13/15 in the Martech Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 1911, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 821
  6. 6 Inbound Marketing Techniques Every Business Should Use by Neil Patel, published on 1/28/15 in the Marketing Strategies Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 696, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 636
  7. 4 Digital Marketing Strategy Studies: Formats, Trends, Influencers & Engagement by Kelsey Libert, published on 2/3/15 in the Content Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 609, Google+ 298, LinkedIn 695
  8. 5 Key Mobile Marketing Trends For 2015 by Aaron Strout, published on 1/8/15 in the Mobile Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 448, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 461
  9. Why Most Brands Fail At E-Commerce (And 4 Keys To How To Fix It) by David Rekuc, published on 3/24/15 in the Retail Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 143, Google+ 90, LinkedIn 505
  10. The Google Trends Data Goldmine by Benjamin Spiegel, published on 2/10/15 in the Search Marketing Column.
    Social activity: Facebook 250, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 225

Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of pageviews measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1OmSj12

2016 Resolutions For Affiliate Advertisers: 6 Steps To A Successful Year Ahead

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With 2015 just about in the rearview mirror, it’s time to look down the open road that is 2016. Affiliate marketing, with its roots in native content, continues to be a proven method to reach consumers and drive sales.

Affiliate advertisers looking at ways to be most successful in 2016 should determine plans now. To get that started, here are five winning resolutions to improve your influencer network beyond measure in the new year.

Reassess Your Publisher Mix With An Open Mind

Before looking ahead, it’s important to look back to examine what worked best in 2015 to identify top-performing publishers and discover new insights about audience reach. Ask your partners what new techniques they have started to use to drive traffic to their site. 

You might be surprised to learn something new, and that information could spark ideas for 2016 strategies.

Today’s modern shopper looks for the best deal, be it from a mobile app, in-store or on a coupon site. We know from our own data that Q4 is always a big winner for coupon and loyalty sites, so be sure not to discount coupon sites when reviewing performance — pun intended!

Once you have built a list of top-performing publishers, communicate with them. Start by sending a simple “thank you” for a great year to create an opportunity to schedule time to strategize.

Evaluate data alongside publishers to understand what worked well to get a deeper understanding of what promotions and content types are best suited for their site and guide a 2016 strategy you can both benefit from. They’ll appreciate the investment, and it will strengthen your existing relationship.

As the channel grows, it will drive increased innovation in publisher models. Always be thinking of how to make them work for you!

Review Performance Across All Marketing Channels

Marketers no longer have the luxury of operating in a silo — the consumer dictates this through an increasing number of interactions along the path to conversion.

A recent Forrester study found that one of the top five customer acquisition channels is affiliate marketing. The latest attribution tools can prove the value of an affiliate program and add perspective into performance throughout the consumer journey.

Through attribution tracking, you can manage a campaign that delivers on specific objectives, understand how it works alongside other channels and make more informed decisions based on what is (or isn’t) working best — with data to back you up!

Ask Yourself And Your Network The Tough Questions

A network needs to continue to differentiate and advance as the industry grows. A few indicators that your network is focused on this are scale, technology investments, innovation, increased/strong availability of partners, and compliance rigor.

Compliance rigor is most often defined as identifying fraud. As fraud continues to be a hot-button issue in online marketing, it is essential that an affiliate network has checkpoints in place to ensure it’s properly compensated for traffic conversion.

Rigorous compliance practices are needed to protect affiliates and advertisers. This might include an in-depth review of publishers, software tests of plugins and apps, and daily tracking of reports to identify potential fraud. Education around fraud and how to monitor for it is a nice value-add, too.

Most important, consider the quality of brands in your network and the halo effect you gain from being in their neighborhood. A key advantage of being a part of a large network is that you enjoy the benefit of other advertisers finding fraud or compliance issues, and that information scaling across the network benefits you.

Advancements are often included in a network’s product road map. Be sure to ask your network what’s to come in 2016 and take advantage of beta testing, customer feedback requests, and ask your account manager what you can expect to see going forward.

Renew Your Focus On The Consumer

With reviews, comparison sites and social sharing available at the click of a mouse, it’s more important than ever for a brand to build consumers’ trust, and doing so makes it easier for partners to drive sales and revenue.

In turn, you should work with affiliates who are authentic and appeal to your brand’s consumer base. It is invaluable to work with partners who promote what they love and have a loyal base of followers.

You know who your consumers are. As a brand, you have abundant amounts of data from your CRM (customer relationship management) system, affiliate network, and from every other digital provider.

Make the data work for you: Use it to identify partners that your audience identifies with, inform relevant offers, and increase conversion rates. Work hand in hand with your network team to find new distribution that speaks authentically to your target consumer.

Plan For Success

The point of every resolution is to achieve a goal and find success. In 2016, what will success look like for your brand? Where does affiliate marketing fit in?

A solid definition will help keep you on track all year long and serve as a standard for comparison over the years.

The affiliate channel is unique because of the community it creates among advertisers and publishers. In 2016, think about how you’ll develop your presence within the community more — as a professional and as a brand you represent. 

Do you get together with other advertisers in your area to share ideas about what’s working? Do you attend network events and industry events? Ask yourself how you can push the envelope of your own network and your learning curve this year to contribute more to the affiliate community.

The affiliate marketing channel will only continue to grow. A recent article shares the drivers of affiliate growth to include: advertiser interest in original native content, leveraging social influence, creating mutually beneficial partnerships, and understanding data to get the 360-degree view of an entire campaign. 

Connecting with the affiliate community will ensure you are always on top of trends and the latest news.

Summary

The new year brings new beginnings. Start off on the right foot by building a solid foundation for your affiliate marketing strategy in 2016 — and beyond!



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1YR4JF9

Announcing: Copyblogger.FM

Introducing Copyblogger.FM

AKA the Episode Where Sonia Seizes All the Power …

If you’re reading this on New Year’s Eve, you’re probably a diehard. (Which we love, by the way.)

You might have been reading and listening to Copyblogger content for a long time now. And you may well know our original podcast, The Lede.

It started life as Internet Marketing for Smart People (audio edition) with Robert Bruce and Brian Clark, then over time morphed into The Lede, most recently hosted by Jerod Morris and Demian Farnworth.

In 2016, the show is transforming once again, and The Lede becomes Copyblogger.FM.

And I (ahem) kicked all those jokers off the platform and am taking over.

Last time I saw Farnworth, he was demolishing his console with his lightsaber, but I’m sure he’ll get past it. We’re here for you, bro.

Announcing: Copyblogger.FM

What’s the new show about?

Copyblogger.FM is about content marketing, first and foremost. We’ll be covering:

  • Emerging trends
  • Interesting disasters
  • Enduring best practices
  • Worthwhile news
  • Practical strategies and tactics

We’ll also let you peek behind the scenes at the content strategies for the Copyblogger blog and Rainmaker Digital as a company, so you can learn from our experiments and observations.

And I may go on a rant once in a while.

If you’re already subscribed to The Lede, Copyblogger.FM will use the same feed, so you can just keep listening to the new incarnation without doing anything special.

If you’d like to try it out, you can find us here: Copyblogger.FM.

Serious thanks to our great team

Kidding aside, I want to thank Jerod and Demian (and Robert and Brian) for all of the hard work and insights they’ve delivered over the years. They’ve created something valuable, and I promise I will work hard to keep building on what they’ve created.

They will, of course, be showing up on the new version of the show with their wisdom and occasional shenanigans. We’ll also see lots of Pamela Wilson, our EVP of Educational Content, who will be sharing behind-the-scenes news about Copyblogger.

The team and I are greatly looking forward to seeing you there!


The Cornerstone Content Challenge

Have you signed up yet for our January Content Challenge?

We’re going to be walking folks just like you through a powerhouse strategy to make your site more authoritative, more attractive to your audience, and just plain more awesome. We’ve got tutorials, a free webinar, and even a pop-up forum to help you get it done. And it’s all free.

Join us for the Copyblogger Content Challenge.

Footnote: By the way, yes, I’ll still be producing my own show, Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer, which is focused more on who we are as individuals and how that plays out in our work and business lives.

That one is around 80 percent rant and 20 percent strategy; on Copyblogger.FM, we plan to reverse that ratio.

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 Announcing: Copyblogger.FM appeared first on Copyblogger.



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MarTech Today: Twitter’s Mac Client, Big Data To Win Back Users & What’s An Ad Network?

martech today logo

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in marketing technology, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From Marketing Land:

From Around The Web:



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1TrRILq

Using the Instagram Suite of Apps for Business

We read your best YouTube comments of 2016 — and recorded our reactions

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Why is Adele so popular? Can a 4 year-old understand the basics of cloud computing? Who is Sam Sheffer? We answer these questions and more as we take a look back at our favorite YouTube comments of the past year. Read more...

More about Youtube, Comments, Social Media, Videos, and Mashable Explains

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2016 Social Media Marketing Predictions From the Experts

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Are you wondering what marketers should plan for in 2016? Do you want to know where social media pros are focusing their attention? In 2015, new platforms made a big splash and several popular networks monetized. To get you ready for what’s coming next, we asked 14 social media marketing experts what to watch for [...]

This post 2016 Social Media Marketing Predictions From the Experts first appeared on .
- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle



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الأربعاء، 30 ديسمبر 2015

LeadPages Wants Its New “Center” Product To Conduct Your Marketing Orchestra

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LeadPages, whose purpose in life has been to capture leads at “points of signup” like opt-in forms or landing pages, is now reorienting itself toward a new goal: becoming the “command center” of marketing tools.

The Minneapolis-based company released on Tuesday a new product, Center, that is intended to act as the manager of leads.

Until midnight on New Year’s Eve, LeadPages is accepting early adopters of Center at a lifetime, half-off discounted price of $399 annually. After that, the product will be sold at full price when it is made available in late February.

Center merges and tracks leads across such solutions as email service providers, CRMs or webinar providers, so that rules on how and when to engage those leads can be set. For instance, when this lead (tracked across several tools via email address) abandons a shopping cart purchase, send this email.

The actual actions, like sending an email or a text message, are directed by Center but conducted by the external tool. The company said it intends to add statistically-based lead scoring before the end of next year.

LeadPages

Nearly two dozen marketing tools or systems will be integrated with Center at launch, enabling either data-only or some functional interaction. LeadPages says it will have about a hundred integrations within the first 12 months.

Currently, these integrations include single-point solutions like email marketing platforms SendGrid and Constant Contact, webinar provider GoToWebinar, customer service platform Zendesk, sales and marketing platform InfusionSoft, and business video hosting site Wistia. And, even though Center sees itself as providing an alternative to all-in-one platforms, it also integrates with such marketing clouds as Salesforce, Marketo and HubSpot.

The segmentation of leads is oriented around email addresses, without the kind of behavioral, location or other probabilistic matching that other platforms try to accomplish.

Although cookies are occasionally used by Center for tracking — such as tracking which website pages are viewed by someone who fills out a form on a page — Center knows that the person who attended a webinar, filled out a form or signed up for a newsletter are all the same person because they have the same email.

Some marketers, and marketing platform vendors, tout their ability to create a “single point of truth,” a customer relationship management (CRM) system or other centralized database where all the behavioral, demographic and related info about a lead, prospect or customer is maintained for an entire marketing system. Email addresses, cookies, mobile device identifiers and “fingerprints,” user behavior, location and other characteristics can be used to determine if two different users are the same person and deserve to be housed in the same record.

But LeadPages CEO and founder Clay Collins told me Center maintains its own database of these segmented users in a kind of federated data strategy.

Center’s segmentation does not significantly change the lead/customer records in the individual marketing tools, he said, because an email tool, a webinar provider and a landing page creator all have different needs and requirements. And a CRM, he said, is mostly useful for companies that have a dedicated and significant salesforce.

In the federation envisioned by LeadPages, Center is the hub to all those spokes — and LeadPages’ lead capture tool is one of the spokes.

Other Conductors

Collins’ company, which was founded in 2013 and currently boasts over 40,000 paying customers, is not the only tool provider that sees an opportunity to become the conductor of marketers’ growing orchestra of “best of breed” solutions.

Germany-based startup Cockpit CampaignChain, for instance, launched earlier this month a new product it described as the “cockpit for digital marketing,” which is designed to similarly become a central campaign coordinator of other marketing tools.

In November, another startup called Databox unveiled its mobile product to provide alerts and mini-dashboards so you could watch over your marketing tools from your phone. A variety of bargain-priced marketing automation platforms similarly provide centralized targeting and control capabilities that are augmented by their integration with external tools.

And most major marketing clouds tout their level of functional and data integration with specialty tools. Oracle’s Marketing Cloud, for instance, recently announced an integration with Boomtrain so it could provide machine learning-based personalization for its email marketing. Salesforce’s and Adobe’s Marketing Clouds have integrated with Livefyre so they could offer more user-generated content capabilities.

The key question for Center, as with CampaignChain and others of this kind, is whether marketers find that this additional tool — even one that wants to make your life simpler — is just another dashboard to maintain. After all, don’t you still have to use those other tools, at least occasionally?

Arguably, LeadPages’ Center is making a play to become its own “single point of truth” as it relates to users identified by their email address. Ultimately, their success in that approach may come down to each marketers’ preference for workstyle and pricing.

The pricing is toward the lower end of the market. And, for those marketers who prefer well-honed, task-specific tools instead of all-in-one platforms, a Center-piece might fit right in.



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1QZhGbM

Marketing Day: New Twitter Mac Client, CMOs Choose Top Video Ads Of 2015 & More

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

From Marketing Land:

Recent Headlines From Search Engine Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Search News & Information:

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Analytics

Blogs & Blogging

Business Issues

Content Marketing

Conversion Optimization

E-Commerce

Email Marketing

General Internet Marketing

MarTech

Mobile/Local Marketing

Social Media



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1mjfPl9

8 Social Media Apps to Make Your Job Easier

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Social media management isn’t as easy as sporadically sending out Tweets and posting pictures to Instagram. That might be fine for your personal accounts, but when it comes to marketing a business, there is a lot more involved. Connecting with influencers, finding the right content to publish for your audience, running ads and creating custom content are just some of the daily tasks that come along with social media marketing. In order to be more productive and keep some of your sanity, it’s a good idea to load up your social media apps toolkit.

Your kit should include apps that make some of the more tedious aspects of social media management easier. That way you can effectively streamline your workflow and maximize your results. Here’s our compiled list of eight apps that will help you accomplish all of that, and more:

1. Canva

Canva App

If you want to be successful on social media and stand out, you need to get visual. Tweets with images get:

  • 18% more clickthroughs
  • 89% more favorites
  • 150% more Retweets

Canva is one of the most popular graphic design apps for creating visuals in the social media industry. Whether you want a perfectly-sized Facebook Cover or a custom graphic to advertise your latest sale on Twitter, Canva makes it as simple as dragging and dropping the different elements into your image.

You have access to a huge library of free and paid photos, graphics and fonts that allow you to make professional looking social media graphics even if you have zero design skills. There’s also a Design School that’ll allow you to sharpen your skills a bit. Stop resorting to boring stock images and see what you can create in Canva.

Try Canva

2. BuzzSumo

buzzsumo app

In order to earn new social media followers and keep your current ones, you need to share great content. The best type of content is relevant and helpful for your target audience. One survey found that 21% of people would unfollow brands on social media because of boring content.

Why People Unfollow Brands

BuzzSumo is a content discovery and influencer outreach tool that shows you:

  • What content gets shared the most in your industry
  • Who’s sharing the content (influencers)

It’s an ideal social media app because you can use the information you gather from BuzzSumo to figure out what type of content you should create and share in order to get more traffic and social media engagement.

You might find that listicle or “how-to” articles get the most shares. Then you can start to share more of that type of content to generate additional interest for your social media posts. On top of that, you’ll also have a better idea of which influencers to reach out to on social media. As you build relationships, you’ll be able to get your content organically shared by top influencers in your industry.

Try BuzzSumo

3. Scoop.it

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BuzzSumo will give you a good idea of what type of content to share. But you’ll also need a source to get a steady stream of blog posts, videos and articles to distribute. That’s where Scoop.it comes in. Scoop.it is a content curation tool that will crawl the Web for content related to keywords you enter. The app will also give you a list of relevant articles to share around that keyword.

One great benefit of Scoop.it is you’ll get to share content from a variety of sites. A lot of businesses make the mistake of only sharing content from the same two or three blogs, including their own. When you’re constantly sharing content from different sites, you have an opportunity to connect with more people by including an @mention to the original source of the content. The content creator will more than likely Retweet you, which gives your business exposure to a new audience. The more influencers you mention, the more reach you have.

Try Scoop.it

4. Google Analytics

google analytics social media

Some of you might be wondering what Google Analytics is doing on a list about social media apps. Before you start thinking we’ve lost our minds, let me explain. Measuring your social media marketing efforts is one of the most important steps of the process. Unfortunately, 41% of companies have no idea whether or not their social media efforts are paying off because they don’t track their activity. Google Analytics makes tracking your social media campaigns much easier. In fact, we’ve written a couple of guides on how to do it:

Within Google Analytics, you can track which social media platforms are bringing in the most traffic, which pages on your site are getting the most social traffic and even what your social media ROI is. Nearly any type of data correlation between your website and social media that will help you make decisions can be found through Google Analytics. Plus, this tool connects with some of the other social media apps on our list, so it makes for easy integration!

Try Google Analytics

5. IFTTT

if this then that app

Automation can be extremely helpful for social media marketing. However, you have to be cautious of what you choose to automate. In case you’re unfamiliar with IFTTT (If This Then That), it’s a very handy tool that lets you connect different apps into what’s called a “recipe” to streamline your workflow. For instance, maybe you want to automatically post the photos you share on Instagram to your Tumblr page or a specific Pinterest Board. IFTTT makes it possible by connecting your social accounts and automatically performing these tasks without the need for additional work.

The beauty of IFTTT is that its capabilities are only limited to your imagination, and you can make it work to fit your needs. Think of some of the most tedious and time-sucking social media tasks that you’re doing manually. Now, head over to IFTTT and see if there’s a way to create a recipe to automate it. Here are some time saving Instagram recipes to get started.

Try IFTTT 

6. Sprout Social

sprout social app

A social media dashboard is one of the first social media apps you should add to your toolkit. The native interfaces you get with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn weren’t made for marketers. They’re meant for casual users, so each platform doesn’t have the functionality businesses need to be efficient. Your dashboard will serve as the home base for all of your company’s different social media profiles. Instead of having to log into five or six different accounts, you access everything from Sprout Social.

Within Sprout Social, you can:

  • Schedule your social media posts
  • Track brand mentions
  • Get in depth reports
  • Track social conversations
  • And much more

It’s also ideal for agencies and companies that have multiple people who handle the social media marketing efforts. You can track who’s publishing content, assign tasks to specific team members, insert message approval systems and communicate with your team in the dashboard instead of emails. A social media dashboard is a necessity for any business that does social media marketing.

Try Sprout Social

7. AdEspresso

AdEspresso

Facebook has one of the most robust advertising platforms online. The data the social network collects from users allows marketers to ensure their ads are being seen by their target market. When you’re only running a couple of ads with a relatively small budget, using the native Facebook Ads platform is perfectly fine. But once you start to get more advanced, run multiple campaigns and do more split testing, staying organized can become a hassle. AdEspresso is a Facebook Advertising tool that makes running multiple ads much easier.

Not only does AdEspresso allow you to better manage your ads, but the app helps you optimize ads to improve your ROI by analyzing them and providing actions you can take to get better results. Even though Facebook Ads are relatively cheap compared to other advertising platforms, you can waste a lot of money if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you haven’t been seeing very good results with your Facebook ads or have been struggling to stay organized, give AdEspresso a shot.

Try AdEspresso

8. Repost for Instagram

Repost for Instagram

Have you ever came across an awesome photo on Instagram that you wanted to share with your audience? Unlike Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, Instagram doesn’t have a way to let you share content from other users within the app. You can only like pictures and leave a reply. This forced people to use workarounds like using screenshots and cropping out the image they wanted to share. That’s inconvenient, inefficient and sometimes unprofessional looking. Instead, the Repost for Instagram app allows you to easily repost content you find on Instagram and give credit to the source.

This is a good way to start networking with other Instagram users, or even share content across multiple company profiles. For instance, if the entire company attended an event and you post a group selfie on the company page, everyone else can repost it to their individual accounts too for more exposure.

Try Repost for Instagram

What Does Your Social Media App Toolkit Look Like?

It’s amazing how much more you can get done when you have the right tools at your disposal. Add these eight social media apps to your arsenal to find and share better content, streamline your processes and become a more effective social media marketer.

This post 8 Social Media Apps to Make Your Job Easier originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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Twitter (Finally) Updates Its Mac Desktop Client

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Call it a late holiday present if you’d like: Twitter has finally released an updated version of its desktop client for Mac users.

Version 4 is out today and Twitter promises that “it looks and feels more like the Twitter you carry with you everyday.” If you’re not a Mac user, or if you’ve only ever used Twitter’s iOS app, it might be tough to appreciate how long Twitter has ignored its Mac client. But then you look at the list of new features and you start to understand; many of these are things that have been available on mobile or via other Twitter clients for a while now:

  • Inline video playback – You’ll see videos play directly in your feed.
  • GIFs support – See animations without leaving your timeline.
  • Group Direct Messages – Create and receive private notes with up to 50 people.
  • Mute – Silence specific accounts so you no longer see them in your feed.
  • Today Center Widget – Get your Twitter Highlights right on your desktop.
  • Dark Theme – Now you can see the world in black or white.
  • Updated design – Get the latest improvements to icons, buttons, and interactions.
  • Quote Tweet – Add your two cents to any Retweet.

Twitter 4 for the Mac is available now in the Mac App Store.



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1QZErfk

5 Essential Search Trends That Will Impact Online Revenue In 2016

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The search and content marketing world has undergone some major changes during 2015. The stage has been set for a shift away from producing content for its own sake. Instead, there is a trend towards the use of search and social data to guide content creation. This development will be a critical part of boosting engagement for brands and helping their content attract the desired audience.

Although the content itself has a central role to play in the conversion of customers, the importance of the more technical side of search optimization should not be overlooked. The industry maturation has also impacted where brands need to focus their efforts on the behind-the-scenes tasks that help to drive content forward and into the limelight.

Here are five SEO trends brands should pay close attention to as they move into the New Year.

1. Mobile Apps Will Need To Be Optimized

Mobile apps are likely to become an increasingly significant factor for search and brand exposure in 2016. The year 2015 already saw mobile searches overtake desktop searches, and the use of mobile apps has been growing. These apps are going to become essential for the mobile user experience.

Any doubt about the importance of apps can quickly be put to rest by noting that 52 percent of all time spent on digital media is consumed by mobile apps. Also, 42 percent of all mobile sales generated by the top 500 merchants came through mobile apps.

To keep customers engaged with the brand, these apps need to be optimized. Well-designed mobile apps should align with the organization and the brand message that you are promoting.

Remember that when people are searching for apps in the app store, they are just going to be seeing the icons with minimal information. All images used with the apps, particularly the icon, need to be visually engaging and encourage people to click to learn more.

As the app begins to find users, make sure to keep an eye on the ratings and reviews. If customers start to complain about any particular errors or usage struggles, then correct the problem right away and let people know that the issue has been addressed.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1YTzfc4

What To Write About When "Everything's Been Written"

Developing great content can be a challenge for any online business. Yet, unless you've been blogging for decades in a static industry, which I'm not sure exists given the technological revolution of the last several years, or manage a blog […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

What To Write About When "Everything's Been Written"

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Written by Gary Dek, StartABlog123.com

The post What To Write About When "Everything's Been Written" appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.



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No-Hype SEO: A Realistic Formula To Making SEO Work For Your Business, Part 1

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SEO (search engine optimization) has come a long way.

After experiencing the “wrath of Google” years ago, some marketers have exited the SEO game and opted instead to use paid traffic to generate their leads and prospects. However, when done correctly (and ethically), there is no match for the longevity, consistency and quality of the lead flow you’ll experience from SEO. Today, I want to offer you an insider’s view of how to do this well.

All of my businesses are built entirely on organic SEO, and if I were to stop doing everything today, they would continue to experience high-quality lead flow consistently for many months to come. This just isn’t the case with paid traffic. Of course, the best marketing systems utilize both organic and paid traffic.

In this article, I’ll give you my thoughts on a time-tested and proven strategy for creating your SEO regimen.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]



Source Marketing Land http://ift.tt/1IE4s14