Blog

March 1, 2013
Written by Alex Gamble
Category: Social Media

Tumblr: Inbound Marketing’s Greatest Secret

From 2010 to 2011, Tumblr grew 900%. Last spring, data from Google revealed that the word “Tumblr” is overtaking “blog” as a search term. While this is more of an indicator of the changing purpose of blogs as opposed to a blogger’s nail in the coffin, this data has important implications for Tumblr as an underutilized marketing resource. As the data shows below, a shift is occurring in which mediums are most widely used and marketers would be wise to capitalize on this trend:

data

Whereas blogs are more about written content, Tumblr is about sharing images, GIFs and short blurbs. A visual-based site like Tumblr means a faster way to spread a message. There is no length restriction like Twitter and the content is just as, if not easier, to share as a Pinterest pin. Tumblr’s highly visual nature makes the possibility of a viral post exponentially more feasible, especially with Tumblr’s loyal crowd (2% of users account for 43% of Tumblr traffic).

Below are a few ways to utilize Tumblr as a marketing tool:

February 26, 2013
Written by Alex Gamble
Category: Social Media

Burger King, Jeep Twitter Accounts Hacked—But Is It Just a Marketing Ploy?

hack

As most of you know by now, Burger King’s Twitter account was hacked last week. In addition to the account’s layout being changed to look like McDonald’s, several tweets were also posted by the hackers.

Beyond being a gigantic embarrassment to the company (and giving free publicity for its top competitor to over 89,000 followers), the hack raised issues of cyber security. How can one of America’s largest fast food chains suffer from such a monumental security failure (many joked that it’s because BK’s Twitter password was whopper123. Haha!)? Such an event is a social media marketing nightmare. Plus, this stunt makes a brand look incompetent or out of touch.

February 22, 2013
Written by Bobby Miller Jr.
Category: Content Marketing

Tips and Tricks to Monetize Your YouTube Channel

Ever since Google bought fellow online behemoth YouTube, the Internet giant has been developing a strategy to earn back the $6 billion they spent on the video streaming service. So far Google has been doing pretty well, thanks to the integration of the AdSense platform. Because the revenue YouTube earns is from advertisers, it makes its money on the videos that the world produces. If a video is original and contains no copyright, YouTube is required to pay you, per its own terms of services.

We’ve all heard of overnight YouTube sensations. For example Gangnam Style by Psy. This video crossed the 1 billion mark in December 2012. YouTube paid an estimated whopping $870,000 to the producers because of the partnership agreement they made.

There are many more examples of people who make a living purely off of YouTube. Take Phillip DeFranco. He has over 2.3 million subscribers to his channel with over a billion views (an average of over 100,000 views per episode). There is no clear price-per-view, as it fluctuates based on a number of different factors like views, subscribers, and most importantly, how long someone views it. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that Phillip DeFranco is making bank.

February 20, 2013
Written by Alex Gamble
Category: Content Marketing

Why Optimize Your Site for Mobile? (Plus Some Good Tips On How to Do It)

In an increasingly fast-paced, mobilized world, businesses not working to keep up the pace are easily left behind. One such area of change is the mobilization of websites. No longer is it enough to have a website accessible from stationary devices. With over one billion smartphones now being used worldwide, it is critical that businesses transfer their websites to accommodate mobile users. Doing so ensures that businesses and startups alike can continue to compete in the globalized marketplace while enhancing the opportunity of attracting larger audiences.

February 14, 2013
Written by Allison Way
Category: Social Media

Vine: A New Marketing Platform for Business?

Although it's only been around for a hot minute, the new app known as Vine has become all the rage. For those of you who haven't ventured into the Vine app, it's basically Twitter + Instagram...in video format. The app, rolled out by Twitter, is a free mobile video app that allows people to create and share six-second looping videos.

Sure, Vine is a lot of fun. Sure, you can post hilarious videos of your friends dancing at the bars. Sure, you can make a video of your cat wearing different types of glasses. Sure you can "like" (with a smiley face button) different Vines and share them with your friends.

But does Vine have any business in the marketing space?

It may be too soon to know.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest started out as purely social, but quickly migrated into great tools for marketing businesses, brands, products and services. If those social media platforms can do it, why can't Vine?

My prediction is that one day, Vine will be used as a marketing tool for business. But not quite yet. Businesses are still catching on to the Instagram + Pinterest phase. Some haven't even dipped their uneasy toes into the Twitter pond. Others still haven't even set up a Facebook page. Obviously, there's no hurry for companies to get an account on Vine. But that certainly doesn't mean it won't ever happen.

February 13, 2013
Written by Alex Gamble
Category: Social Media

How Businesses Can Show Customers Social Media Love This Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is about relationships, and all healthy relationships require three things—open communication, the element of surprise and reciprocity. Businesses can apply the same person-to-person relational elements to the business-to-customer relationship. If the business-to-customer relationship is healthy, then everyone wins.

Digital community building is difficult to do, and few companies do it well. The few that do, however, are handsomely rewarded with brand loyalty, social media dominance and word-of-mouth buzz. Below are some simple ways that businesses can show their customers how much they are valued through social media channels this Valentine’s Day and beyond:

February 6, 2013
Written by Allison Way
Category: Social Media

No One Likes My Facebook Page :(

It's embarrassing enough to not be able to view your Facebook insights because you don't have over 30 Likes...but it's even worse when your Facebook fans, Likers and advocates are in the single digits. But we see them all the time: those Facebook pages that have just 3 Likes. Why? What are these social media accounts doing wrong? And most importantly, how can they change things and get noticed?

Lucky for you, I've put together the top 5 reasons your Facebook page isn't getting any (or embarrassingly little) Likes.

January 30, 2013
Written by Bobby Miller Jr.
Category: Social Media

The Problem with Google+

Google is big. Like really big. So big that the company referred to as a “social media giant” has an active reach to 90.58% of the internet.

Let’s think about this for a moment.

That means that of the 7 billion people on this planet, 2,405,518,376 have access to the internet. 34.3% of the population may not seem like much, until we add another scope to the picture (and just as a reference, this data is from June 30^th 2012, seven months from the writing of this article).

The internet is 30 years old according to one of its founding fathers, Vint Cerf. The first registered domain name, symbolics.com, was registered in 1985 when the internet was just 2 years old. Google came along 14 years later in 1998. In that same year, Google ran its very first index of the internet. In the time leading up to that measure the grew from 1 URL to roughly 26 million. Two years later in 2000, the index crossed the one billion mark. Then, in 2008, the index hits the one trillion mark. Five years later, Google hasn’t updated us with a new figure. Why? Because they can’t. The internet, like the universe, is constantly expanding and it has already expanded past the point of measurement.

January 29, 2013
Written by Allison Way
Category: SEO

5 Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Site's SEO

Of course you know what SEO is. It's search engine optimization. It's what gets you on the first page of a Google search. It's something that digital marketers and content strategists bug you about time and time again. But how do you make sure that your SEO is working? How do you get your site fully search engine optimized? And perhaps most importantly, how do you make sure you're not making some major SEO mistakes?

It's one thing to say that your site is optimized--it's another to understand exactly how and why it works. In order to help you, I've put together a list of the 5 mistakes that could possibly be ruining your website's SEO.