10 tips for successful Pinterest advertising

How do you pin to win? Columnist Brad O'Brien offers some tips to help you step up your advertising on Pinterest and stay ahead of the curve.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Look out for the MosQUito — a new kind of ad fraud that drains human traffic from infected websites

Marketing/anti-fraud agency eZanga says it could affect thousands, possibly millions, of WordPress and Joomla-based web sites.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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What I learned fundraising on Facebook & Twitter: We need donate buttons!

Facebook likes and Twitter retweets don't necessarily translate into charitable donations. A "donate" button could help.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Sprout’s Spring Service Day

There are more than 660 public schools serving almost 400,000 students in the city of Chicago. Among them is Chicago Collegiate Charter School, which currently serves 225 students in grades 4–7. Chicago Collegiate’s mission is to prepare 100% of its students to attend and graduate from college.

Three years in and their approach is working: Despite students entering Chicago Collegiate on average dramatically below grade level, students have shown growth in the top 1% nationally for math and top 2% nationally for reading.

At Sprout, we believe in the power of education and the importance of making a high quality education accessible to all students. We want to do what we can to encourage young people to continue their education, and that includes helping schools like Chicago Collegiate foster an environment that enables learning for their students, staff and community.

Earlier this month, a group of Sprout Social employees headed over to Chicago Collegiate to enhance their playground, clean up the hallways and redo their reception area: in short, to beautify their campus so that students can have a clean, organized place to learn.

We decided to develop a formal corporate giving program at Sprout nearly two years ago. To kick it off, we surveyed the entire team to ensure we were supporting the causes people cared about. The results showed that youth, education and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) were clearly important to our team, and since then, we’ve partnered with one Chicago school each year to invest hours, effort and dollars into projects that serve the needs of the school community.

Over the course of our year working with Chicago Collegiate Charter School, we’ve hosted a full team visit in the fall, a book drive around the winter holidays and a smaller on-site in the spring. Members of Team Sprout have helped with projects ranging from organizing the classroom libraries to debugging and repairing some of the school’s computers to presenting on their career paths.

We’re proud to support a culture of giving back to the greater community and looking forward to more service days, drives and projects as Team Sprout continues to grow.

This post Sprout’s Spring Service Day originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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MarTech Today: Experian’s new Audience Engine, protecting against ad fraud & preparing for voice search

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: Experian launches PII-matching audience targeting platform to reach 85% of the US Apr 28, 2016 by Barry Levine In the new Audience Engine,...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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The 5-Step Process that Solves 3 Painful Writing Problems

I once asked the Copyblogger community to name their biggest writing challenges.

From the many responses, a pattern developed:

• How to get started
• How to cut the fluff
• How to finish

These three issues are really symptoms of the same painful problem, which boils down to not clearly understanding what you’re trying to accomplish with your writing. Don’t worry … it’s a fairly common ailment.

There’s a five-step process you can work through that will help clarify your objectives, which leads to greater clarity in your writing.

This method also helps you kick-start any writing project (and finish it) with only the necessary elements, because you’ll know exactly what you’re after and how to make it happen.

Step #1: Begin with the end in mind

The most important step in the process happens before you even write a word.

You must understand your objective for the content.

You have an idea, but what’s the goal? From a content marketing standpoint, you’re usually seeking to educate or persuade (often both, and as we’ll see in the next step, they’re actually the same thing even when intentions vary).

Having a “great idea” and sitting down to write can often lead to a half-finished train wreck.

What’s the “why” behind the idea? Figure this out first, or move on to another idea.

Step #2: Identify questions

Okay, so now you have a goal in mind — a mission, if you will.

What’s standing in the way of your mission?

The obstacles you face are the concepts your audience does not understand yet, but must accept by the time they’re finished reading. These are the questions you must answer before you can achieve the goal you’ve identified in Step #1.

In copywriting circles, we say an unanswered question (an objection) is a barrier to buying.

With education, an unanswered question is a barrier to learning. Education is persuasion (and vice versa) when you realize this fundamental truth.

Step #3: Write the headline and subheads

With your goal in mind and the questions you must answer identified, now you start to put things down on virtual paper.

Some people open a word processor during Step #2; I do everything up until now in my head. Do what works for you.

What promise are you making to your audience with this piece of content? What will you teach them? And why should they care? That’s your working headline.

Then, each of the major questions you must answer to achieve your mission (and the promise your headline makes) becomes a subhead. Your subheads don’t ultimately have to be phrased as questions, but this technique helps you compose a focused draft.

Take some time to decide if a particular question is its own subhead or part of the content below a subhead. It’s simply outlining at this point.

Step #4: Fill in the blanks

Want to write lean copy?

Answer the questions designated by each subhead, and answer only that question.

Do not digress. Do not go off on a tangent.

Just answer the question. Do it as simply and clearly as possible.

Step #5: Now … edit

If you’ve followed these steps, you’re not likely suffering from fluff.

Rather, you might find that you need to add more details or rephrase for clarity.

This is also the time to refine your language. Experienced writers can often pull the perfect turn of phrase in some places of a first draft, while in other places there are opportunities for better, more precise word choices.

Finally, review how the piece of content turned out:

• Does your working headline still reflect the fulfilled promise?
• Does your opening keep the momentum going?
• Can you revise the headline, opening, and subheads so that they are even more compelling?

Over to you …

Everyone’s approach to the writing process is different. This process works for me, and I wrote this article fairly quickly using the process as a demonstration.

What works for you?

Any tips you can pass along that might help your fellow content marketers?

Let us know in the comments.

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Editor’s note: The original version of this post was published on October 6, 2011.

The post The 5-Step Process that Solves 3 Painful Writing Problems appeared first on Copyblogger.

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How To Stop Worrying & Love Your Blog

OK, so you have been told that you must write a blog for your company website, but you have the constant nagging questions at the back of your mind - is it worth it, do I have time? Well, the […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How To Stop Worrying & Love Your Blog

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Written by Danny Hall, FSE Online

The post How To Stop Worrying & Love Your Blog appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.

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Microsoft blocks Google Chrome & other browsers from Cortana in latest Windows 10 release

Microsoft says blocking third-party browsers & search providers improves user experience and is in keeping with how competitors act with their own digital assistants.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Shay Mitchell's top 11 pro tips to help moms (continue to) rule social media

Mashable sat down with Pretty Little Liars actress and social media goddess Shay Mitchell to help teach moms how to become the social media queens of their squads. Here are her top 11 tips

You can catch Mitchell in her new movie Mother's Day alongside Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston. Maybe your mom even shared the trailer on your Facebook wall.


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Shay Mitchell has some crucial social media survival tips for moms

Anyone who do not realize moms are built to be social media queens are in denial. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter — these are tools for sharing pictures and distributing unsolicited advice. 

So Mashable asked Pretty Little Liars actress and all-around social media superstar Shay Mitchell to help us teach moms how to be the fiercest smartphone-carrying, oversharing warriors they can be. 

SEE ALSO: Who runs Instagram? Girls.

Your mom might not have 11 million Instagram followers yet — or ever. But she probably only cares about your faves, anyway. 

You can currently catch Mitchell in Mother's Day alongside Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston. Maybe your mom shared the trailer on your Facebook wall. Read more...

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