Buffer, the social media scheduling app with 1.5 million users, picked up a bit of notoriety when it got hacked and its users started sending out weight-loss spam to followers, but also kudos for its generally transparent approach to business. Today, it is announcing a pivot of sorts. The company is adding two new features – a feed-reading service and curated content suggestions —… Read More …read more
Continue ReadingYou have 0.05 seconds to make a good first impression online.
That’s only 50 milliseconds to hook someone — according to researchers at Carleton University.
Most important, this happens before a user reads any of your content. So, you have to capture their attention with your website’s nonverbal cues.
Do you have any of the following?
Then you need to optimize your website’s nonverbal first impression.
I’m a human behavior hacker, and I’m going to show you how to use science to optimize your website.
Why human behavior science?
Let me be blunt:
If you don’t understand online human behavior your website will fail.
Sure, you can produce killer content — and that’s a great start. But even if your blog unveils the meaning of life while saving baby pandas from grumpy cats, it’s not enough.
You have to understand your reader’s behavior to get them to convert. This is all about making sure your website produces a killer nonverbal first impression.
Below I have laid out six scientifically proven hacks to improve your website’s visual cues.
Do you know how your readers see your website?
The Poynter Institute tracked eye behavior as users read various web pages. They found that reader’s eyes follow an F-Shaped pattern on a website. Typically they start in the upper left hand side of a web page …read more
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1GKJu5epo]
So, the UN is holding a meeting to discuss the legality of killer robots. We don’t want you to panic, but let’s face it, a killer-robot-apocalypse is probably right behind the corner
Meanwhile, a student at the University of British Columbia is trying to teach a robot right from wrong. This could be our only hope, folks
If the thought of killer robots intrigues you, you should probably check out the last episode of Mashable Minute, in which Elliott Morgan discusses a huge Godzilla and tiny dinosaurs
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fEiIWwyS5I?list=PLSKUhDnoJjYmVEZrJ8ni7qFa0IkRsRTNI&w=560&h=315] …
More about Robots, Social Media, and Youtube …read more
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Being an up and coming musician can be both a delightful and dreadful gig. You’re always writing music, recording, performing in bars and/or clubs, and trying to sell yourself on social media platforms. Selling yourself also means shooting a music video for your best song. You can always just upload the video to YouTube and engage with trolls, or upload to Vimeo and engage with trolls. But you want to, not only sell your music video, you want to engage with your growing audience and earn more fans. Facebook is the answer for that.
Create a Page
It seems like a no brainer to create a page for your music video but most musicians seem to overthink it. You’ve encountered pages on Facebook before but they’re usually for products, films, or some cause to have you donate money to. You can create a page for yourself (or your band) to garner an online following and inform people of events, concerts, and more. Creating a page for a music video seems kind of redundant but it’s a great step forward for you.
Like a film, a music video is a story with an arc and a message to tell but set to music. It’s not a novel idea since music videos have been around for about forty years but you need to treat each one of your videos like a huge premier set to be seen by millions. The process of creating and maintaining the page is just the same as maintaining your musician or band page; you can update on the filming and editing of the video.
When your music video is complete you can upload it directly to the page and inform those followers. The uniqueness of the music video …read more
Continue ReadingA couple of months ago my 13-year-old son came to me with a true story. One of his acquaintances had given him control of an Instagram profile with roughly 3,500 followers as a gift.
A few days later, my son and his friends met some famous rappers. They took a few selfies with them and posted the images on the Instagram profile. Almost immediately the number of followers exploded from 3,500 to about 9,000. Then my son’s friend offered to buy the profile from him. There is apparently so much social value, acclaim and recognition associated with the account that it is now worth actual money.
Social capital is being traded for hard capital online now. Social media profiles function as online campaigns for selling an image or perception of yourself. It’s even stranger than …
More about Bubble, Social Media, Justin Bieber, Economics, and Marketing …read more
Continue Reading[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2XFglTo6bg]
Breaking up is hard to do, and it’s even harder when you go as naturally together as steak and A.1. But not all change is a bad thing.
After nearly 50 years, A.1. is removing the “steak” from its name in order to include all the other delicious food pairings that the savory sauce can accompany. After years listening to customers’ stories of their sauce’s love affairs with various other dishes, A.1. Sauce is embracing all foodies with its “For Almost Everything. Almost.” campaign, which imagines the conscious uncoupling occurring on Facebook
See also: …
More about Facebook, Advertising, Viral Videos, Social Media, and Funny …read more
Continue ReadingThe Social Shake-Up 2014 is going to be a blockbuster sequel to our conference last year. For those of you who are considering attending, now is the time to decide. Our very, very low Early-Bird rate of $743 for two jam-packed days (45% off the open rate) will expire this Friday, May 16.
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Rappers, Monsters & Men
Eating Fruit In The Jungle:
by Jeremy Krakowski
Director of Media & Marketing, A Real Change International, Inc.
Editorial note: I actually wrote the first draft of this article over 2 weeks before Apple acquired Beats Audio. I’ve decided to edit this article based on those recent developments into what you see below as the principals are even more applicable.
I flew into Washington State, Seattle specifically, for an incredible time of rest and relaxation and pressing into the spirit of God. A time that was much needed for me. I’ve been on a long health and fitness journey, losing over 100 lbs. for the last two years, but haven’t really taken the time to take rest.
I had the incredible opportunity of visiting the offices of Amazon and even walking past one of CEO, Jeff Bezos many offices in the campus. It was truly an honor for me to walk on the ground of such a successful company that has made it it’s mission to LOVE their customers above all.
Amazon is know as “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” here’s a quote from their “About Amazon” page, which you can read here
From Amazon.com: With a mission “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices,” Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished, and used items in categories such as books; movies; music & games; digital downloads; electronics & computers; home & garden; toys; kids & baby; grocery; apparel; shoes & jewelry; health …read more
Continue ReadingGiphy, the betaworks-backed search engine for gifs, has released a brand new tool that makes sharing gifs on social networks even easier and more efficient. Giphy is a search platform that is based entirely around gifs, with artist profiles so that creators can get more exposure and easy sharing tools for social media. However, without in-line integration on Facebook or Twitter people still have… Read More …read more
Continue ReadingHere’s our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Facebook’s iOS Related Content Test Could Be A Boon For Marketers Facebook wants check-ins to be more social, which could be good news for…
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
Pinterest was an immediate hit among fashion, food, and design brands, and we’ve seen how others have benefited. With incredible growth and a wealth of success stories, it’s hard to believe that there are still some industries that haven’t embraced it yet. Currently, only a small portion of financial institutions are active on the platform. They might not seem like a match for it, but several financial brands are doing great things with Pinterest.
This is concerning because women, who influence 85 percent of all purchase decisions, make up the majority of the site’s user base. Of Pinterest’s 70 million members, roughly 80 percent of them are women.
The platform has revolutionized the way consumers share information, and making use of it is an innovative way for financial organizations to offer customers visually compelling information about their brand. Here are some themes to focus on and examples of financial brands that have successfully leveraged Pinterest’s popularity.
While your Pinterest account should be a reflection of your brand, that doesn’t mean every pin should be self-promotional in nature. Being successful on any social network requires finding that happy balance between sales jargon and content that consumers will find valuable. So although some self promotion can be useful, your pinboards shouldn’t be loaded with marketing materials.
For financial institutions, rather than pinning your latest credit card offer, consider sharing your blog post about tips for students looking for their first credit card. Consider who your customers are and tailor your content to meet their needs. Money might not buy happiness, but it does provide choices and opportunities. As such, major life decisions are often made with an individual’s current financial situation in mind.
In addition to providing tips on establishing credit and avoiding credit …read more
Continue ReadingYouTube is the #1 music streaming platform in the world. It’s the #2 search engine in the world. It’s slowly replacing radio, MTV, and many other platforms for music discovery. It’s become a serious revenue source for musicians too (some CD Baby artists have earned more than 40k from YouTube ad revenue). And that’s why YouTube is more important than anything else in your music career — besides the actual music, of course.
But these days it takes more than just a couple music videos to establish a YouTube presence.
According to Lucy Blair:
The days of aiming to create a one-hit ‘viral’ on YouTube as a marketing strategy are long gone. These days it’s more helpful to think of YouTube as your own TV channel. Think of content as programming – and not programming for an album cycle, but a 12-month content cycle.
It’s essential to create a programming schedule and produce regular content to drive subscribers, repeat views and watch time, and to give subscribers a reason to return to your channel.
How do you develop a content strategy, though? And maybe more elementary, what kind of content should you be creating?
Well, here’s a list of twelve different kinds of videos you can create to promote your music.
Still need more inspiration? Check out these 32 viral video ideas for busy musicians.
1) Read our “Top 5 tips for music video promotion on YouTube” for the basics.
2) Then check out our Complete Guide to YouTube for more advanced tips …read more
Continue ReadingMore consumers are turning to social media for customer service because of its direct and speedy nature. The problem is that as customer service requests increase, companies have a hard time keeping up. In fact, they’re way behind, according to data from social marketing software provider Brickfish.
Eighty percent of companies believe they provide superior customer service online, but a stunning 92 percent of consumers would disagree with that statement, according to the data. And the problems will only continue to get worse, as social engagement with companies is growing nine times faster than the social platforms themselves. More customers than ever are seeking brands on social media.
As for response times, consumers expect a response a lot faster than most companies deliver one. On Facebook, 42 percent of consumers want a response within an hour, but it takes most brands an average of 15 hours to respond.
Twitter is faster, with the average response time for companies just under eight hours, but tweeters are even more demanding with 32 percent of them expecting a response in just 30 minutes.
There are great gains for companies that get it right. Seventy-one percent of consumers that receive a quick and effective response are more likely to recommend that brand. If consumers are able to contact a brand on social media, they are 50 percent more likely to make a purchase.
Of course, when responding to customers, it’s important to have a plan.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Facebook and YouTube are now dominating mobile traffic shares in early 2014, as more people shift to a mobile device to upload photos to social networks and watch cat videos.
Facebook and YouTube now account for 32% of data sent to and from mobile devices, according to a report by Sandvine. Individually, Facebook’s share was 26.9% for upstream traffic and had a 14% share for downstream traffic during peak periods in North America through the beginning of this year, while YouTube only had 3.7% share for upstream traffic, but a 17.6% share for downstream.
See also: …
More about Mobile, Youtube, Facebook, Tech, and Social Media …read more
Continue ReadingRemember the cool kids in school who stayed ahead of trends? Back then, catching up seemed impossible. Today, your cool peers are using social media in cool ways, but the good news is that you can, too! Read the full article at MarketingProfs …read more
Continue ReadingMost active LinkedIn users spend at least three hours per week on the platform, they have free accounts, and they allow their connections to see the rest of their network, according to a recent report from Wayne Breitbarth/Power Formula. Read the full article at MarketingProfs …read more
Continue ReadingI got a great question last week after my presentation at our live Authority Intensive event in Denver.
What do I do if I feel like I’ve outgrown my audience?
I think a lot of business owners run into this.
Maybe the owner has personally and professionally grown a lot, but the customer base is still very much made up of newbies. Or maybe the topic isn’t as exciting as it used to be.
But there’s something that fascinates me about content-based businesses (online or off, actually). And the single most commonly used word I’ve heard business owners use to describe it is spooky.
Let’s start with the very sound marketing practice of visualizing one single, perfect customer for your business. If this isn’t something you’ve done yet, it’s probably the most important single action you can take to improve your marketing. And it will only take you about 20 minutes.
Once you know who you serve, you talk to that person and only to that person. In other words, every word of your content marketing program — your blog content, email content, advertising, and social presence — is written with that one individual firmly in mind.
This makes your marketing and content feel more intimate, because you’re using the language of individual conversations — which is what works in web content. It makes your writing easier and tends to loosen up writer’s block. …read more
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In and around Ontario, the war on internships rages on. It’s been a hot topic in the press as of late since 2 Canadian magazines (Toronto Life and The Walrus) dismissed their interns after the provincial government questioned the ethics behind unpaid youth employment. This isn’t the first time internship drama has made an impact in the media – there was the Fox ‘Black Swan’ lawsuit that created quite a swell of excitement in September 2013 and it’s got me thinking.
As an intern you have an opportunity to prove to a company why you deserve to be hired over anyone else. In J.J. McCullough’s article for the National Post titled ‘Why Internships Should be Illegal‘, he likens unpaid internships to “something [that] can be very good for business yet still ugly and immoral.” He even goes as far as to educate young internship victims (eyeroll) on “9 tips for ending your internship on a positive note”. As a business owner who employs unpaid interns, I regularly come into contact with many people who agree with McCullough’s point of view on a practice that is a personal career choice many young professionals make. A wise career choice, if you ask me.
Allow me to add a personal spin. Internships are something I feel very passionately about – at the age of 15, the indie record label Wind-Up Records Canada gave me my first internship opportunity. I remember driving from Barrie to Toronto to be interviewed in their office and being totally amazed. It was in that moment I knew I was exactly where I needed to be and that this opportunity was a great chance to prove myself and start my long career in music. Three months later I was hired on a contract basis to coordinate Lifestyle Marketing, …read more
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