By Lisa Chapman

Guest Author: Vasudha Veeranna

Marketing automation has seen an increased rate of adoption over the last couple of years. While most companies are already using automation software in their sales and CRM processes, social media marketing automation is also seeing an upward trend. With new tools launched ever so often, picking one for your business’ needs isn’t always a very straight-forward decision. That said, some tools are just so simple and easy to use, you almost immediately see their value – case in point, DrumUp.

DrumUp is a neat social media management and content curation tool that can help you significantly …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Gain the Leading Edge With These Solutions

Happy New Year! As we pack up our holiday celebrations and look forward to new business strategies, consider this one of the most important pieces of content to integrate into your plans. Our friends at Social Media Examiner have given us social media marketing predictions for 2016. They rallied 14 leading experts to advise us of upcoming changes to watch and be prepared for in 2016.

I especially like Peg Fitzpatrick’s Prediction, which gives online marketers a recipe for posting valuable content. By following her recipe, you will connect your online assets and …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Find More Time with These 10 ‘Must-Have’ Tools

Guest Author: Aditi Parkash

Note to Self: Organize my social media management.

But how? This article delivers the best tools for you to organize and incorporate efficiencies in your social media marketing in 2016. Whew – what a relief!

Effective, efficient social media management is crucial to having a solid social media marketing strategy. If you are a social media manager, you probably already know the importance of having management tools, and this trend is growing increasingly.

The tools you use can help you achieve a number of tasks like content discovery, content scheduling, and …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Books for Social Media Marketing, Book Marketing, Building a Business Online and MORE!

Do you need a great gift for family or a friend who has a dream to build or grow their online business?

Help ignite that fire with awesome books that take you step-by-step through the process – and cut through the clutter.

We are bombarded online with thousands of messages every day. Confusion reigns. But no more! Any of the books below are terrific, on point, and written by the best in their field. You can confidently choose from any of these and know that you have chosen a …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

How to Find Free-to-Use Images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to social media marketing, a picture could be worth a thousand likes or comments. Adding an image to your blog post or a social media post can instantly catch the attention of your audience and draw them to your posts. Social media networks are increasingly becoming very photo-centric with the rise of networks like Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

Why do visitors flock to these websites? It’s because they provide a lot of eye-candy and a welcome change from all the textual content that …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

An Exclusive Report From The Editors Of Internet Retailer

THE NEXT DIGITAL MARKETING WAVE

Breaking News!

Internet Retailer has issued a new industry report covering their predictions for retailers’ and brands’ online spending in 2016.

According to Zak Stambor, Editor of Internet Retailer, “In (our) first-ever digital marketing survey, the results of which are included in this special report, we find that many retailers are boosting their digital ad spending, and they’re spreading those dollars around to a variety of channels. As they do so, they’re also looking for ways to make their messages more relevant to shoppers.”

Image Source: …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Guest Author: Tejas Veeramani

Do you remember when the power supply to a much-anticipated Superbowl Game was interrupted? This was followed by a Tweet from Oreo, the ever-popular cookie manufacturer, with an image captioned, “You can still dunk in the dark”.

The post was re-tweeted more than ten thousand times in an hour and proved to be a huge boost to the Oreo brand’s online reputation.

Social media trends are nearly impossible to predict because they are often based on real-time events. A company called Sickweather was able to pinpoint the geographic origin of illnesses based on public Tweets and Facebook updates of …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Guest Author: Jessica Davis

How did an $11,000 social media campaign return USD$2.5 million for a tiny town in Europe?

Tucked away in the peace and quiet of the Swiss Alps is a small hamlet called Obermutten. Being one of smallest towns in Europe with only 80 residents, it would have continued to remain in obscurity if it weren’t for a certain Facebook campaign. In attempt to attract more tourists the residents announced that they would print a picture of every person who liked their Facebook Page and pin it up on the town’s noticeboard. So, their investment …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

Are you looking for fresh, interesting ideas for your blog?

Well, if the U.S. government feels that certain topics are important enough to publish for US citizens, chances are that you’ll find something of value on those .gov sites as well.

A great source for valuable, targeted articles and content can be searched and used almost verbatim from: www.usa.gov. The federal government cannot copyright their content – it is public domain information and may be used by anyone for any purpose. But be careful – the content must be written by a government agency, and NOT in collaboration with …read more      

By Lisa Chapman

GUEST AUTHOR: Ankara Krishnamurthy

Today, an active social media presence is indispensable in order to stay above the competition. Unfortunately, most people don’t have time to painstakingly go through piles and piles of content to discover something relevant for their audience. Fortunately, however, there are apps that can do this for you. By cutting down the time you invest in social media management, these apps let you concentrate on your business rather than on what to tweet next.

1) DrumUp:

DrumUp is a FREE content discovery and scheduling app that’s gaining traction among social media managers. The app uses NLP and data …read more