Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services. http://socialmention.com/
I'm campaigning to rename 'newsletter', but I know it will take Google forever to catch on. Do you sign up for newsletters in excited anticipation of getting company news ? I didn't think so. Granted a newsletter can be a great source of industry news if it's timely. But that's only one strategy. The main goal of your newsletter strategy should be to provide value. Useful + Interesting = Value No 'news' in that equation. How about... ? valuemail infomail infoletter useletter Whatever you call it, don't make it all about your company news. Give people a better reason to subscribe. Click to Tweet this Article
Sometimes it's hard to heed my own advice. Even when I know this particular piece of advice is perhaps the most important when it comes to creating content. I can give you a number of tips to help you write better articles. But there is one simple thing you can do that can really improve the quality of your work, to make your content more useful and interesting. This tip is particularly ingenious - are you ready for it? Prepare your content over two separate sittings , preferably on two different days. It's a simple concept but often not so easy to implement with deadlines looming . First sitting: do an outline research if necessary write a draft Second sitting: review and edit your draft add appropriate links to past articles run spell-check and proof (read aloud if you don't have a proofer) Coming back to your writing with fresh eyes will almost always result in improvement. Because you are taking extra care to craft your messages, you'll feel mo...
I love learning. It’s one of my favourite things to do. When I retire, I’m going back to university. Usually, I want to learn something because I’ve had a little taste of it and (a) I’m just plain curious or (b) I want to learn it so I can apply it to my work or personal life. I’m one of those people that actually read those thick manuals that used to come with new computer games before I did the install. There was a purpose. I knew what I wanted to do and just had to learn how to apply it. Learn and then apply - the better the learning, the better the application. I’ve been good at it my whole life. This year learning changed for me. I began learning lots of things without really knowing if: I was even interested in the topic I could apply it it made sense to apply it there were any benefits to the learning at all Lately, I’ve caught myself saying to people, “You just have to try it for a while to ‘get it’.” (Can you guess what I’m talking about?) A couple of years...
There are so many things to consider and details to look after when it comes to email marketing that the big picture can easily be lost. Here is what small business owners like us always need to keep in mind: #1. You want your subscribers to be from your target market , or have influence with your target market. #2. To get and keep those subscribers, your content - whether it's articles or advertisements - needs to be interesting or useful to your target market. Let me repeat that: your content is for your target market. Which means it's not about you - and doesn't even have to be about what you do . If you are starting out, before you think about what you want to include, first think about what your subscribers would want. If you can find an answer to this question, you've got it made: What can you give your target market that they can't get anywhere else? Click to Tweet this Article
One day, not so many years ago, an email marketer with big glasses and a funky haircut decided to add a bunch of people he didn't know to his email list. When he got complaints, instead of owning up and politely offering to remove them, he said, “I didn't do that. Someone else must have signed you up.” This geeky guy was the first of many. And so, the myth of the mysterious newsletter signer-upper was born. The email marketing industry somehow had to address this strange phenomenon. How could they keep these signer-uppers from signing other people up? And so, the double opt-in process was born. Of course, this made it really difficult for the signer-uppers to cause mayhem. No longer did signer-uppers gather on Friday nights over beer to wreak havoc on the email marketing world. Now the experts, who not so many years ago were preaching that having a double opt-in process was a must, are saying that maybe it’s not so necessary anymore. I have ye...
UPDATE Dec-9-18: LinkedIn no longer allows exporting of your contact's email addresses. "Can I add my LinkedIn contacts to my email list?" I get asked this a lot with regard to the Canadian Anti Spam Legislation (CASL). And my answer is exactly the same if you are planning to send only one individual LinkedIn contact a message - both fall under CASL. Can you? Yes, it's not hard to do - Google 'exporting LinkedIn contacts' for instructions. Should you? Like any other marketing activity, consider the implications. Review your LinkedIn list and remove people for whom your information isn't relevant. Know your target market and use common sense. Think about your target market's perceptions; many people do not know the legal definition of spam... but think they do. Is it legal? Implied consent applies when businesses sell to other businesses (B2B). The email you are sending must be relevant to the person's job at the organization they wo...
Have you ever fallen into the trap of making a change because of one single piece of feedback? It's happened to me and I've seen it happen to others. Don't change your brand's font (or anything else) because one person doesn't like it. One person's preferences will never represent a significant sample of your target market. We want feedback, we ask for feedback, and when we get it, we feel we have to act on it. Not so. Instead, we need to think about it, give it careful consideration, and get more feedback from our target market - because it's their opinion that matters when it comes to our marketing. originally published in Work Better, Not Harder newsletter November 30, 2017 Click to Tweet this Article
I've been a Flickr Pro member since long before I was on Facebook or Twitter. That's because I'm a gardener and it's great for photo-sharing with friends. Flickr also provides a good way for me to organize my photos and keep track of them. It doesn't matter how many times I change computers, my garden photos will always be online where I can find them. Daley Progress has also been using Flickr to display examples of our work - an easy interface for potential clients to browse. I was delighted to discover yesterday that Flickr introduced a new user interface that is so beautiful - and so long overdue. While Flickr was always great for organizing, browsing wasn't nearly the experience is it now. screen shot of a Flickr set While it may not be obvious (and perhaps should be more so), Flickr is also social. I'm connected with other gardeners in different places. I can tweet and like and favourite other's photos. I still think Flickr could be more...
Wondering where to find free images for your newsletter or blog? These are the most common sources we use for free images: FREE: http://pexels.com http://pixabay.com http://gratisography.com https://www.goodfreephotos.com http://www.freeimages.com https://morguefile.com http://unsplash.com FREE with Attribution: https://creativecommons.org Here are some graphics tools we use often: Create favicons for your website or blog http://www.favicon-generator.org Create buttons easily http://dabuttonfactory.com Convert graphics files from one version to another https://cloudconvert.com Colour picker for Chrome http://eye-dropper.kepi.cz Compress images https://tinypng.com Of course, snapping your own photos is always a great choice! photo by Live to Create Photography / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article
Every time I do online research, I find broken things. I'm curious; I like to see how things work. And it's quite amazing how many times I find things that don't work, or don't work well. I'm not just talking about small business websites - even big brands fail sometimes. The thing is, big brands usually have a reputation which leads people to forgive or ignore more easily. I've written before about how important it is to audit your website at least quarterly. (I pay someone to do it for me and it's well worth it.) If you haven't done a website audit recently, now is a great time. Here are a handful of specific things to check. Is your website doing these things well? Be really clear about the benefits to potential customers and put that front and centre. More money and more time are great - but how much? Read and test everything yourself. Don't rely on what others tell you. I've seen a lot of non-functional website forms and suc...
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