Measurement and Analysis

Regular measurement and analysis of your content marketing performance will help you glean insight from activity and inform future decision-making.

Here are some posts to help guide you:

5 Powerful Stats That Make Content Marketing Worth Drooling Over

custom content stats to drool over

Unless you’ve spent the past decade or so in a pillory, you’ve probably heard that content is king. The adage is most certainly played out, but the fact is that content still reigns supreme when it comes to organizations building relationships with people. And research conducted by the Custom Content Council with Roper Affairs only [...]

Likely Story: 5 Benefits of Being Well-Liked on Social Media

symbol for like

So, what’s like, the benefit of being well-liked? Aside from the slight ego boost and customary high-fives doled out at organizations with true fans (as opposed to happenstance customers) there are tangible benefits to having social media friends. It’s a common refrain in the social media echo chamber: how many people “like” you doesn’t really [...]

Are You a Real Expert or Do You Just Play One on the Internet?

Are You a Real Expert? Or Do You Just Play One on the Internet?

There’s a lot of advice being given out these days. People are publishing pointers, tips, and suggestions on every topic under the sun. But how valid are the viewpoints expressed therein? Is the everyman author as credible as we seem to be giving him credit for? Data suggests that what our “friends” are saying online [...]

The Only 5 Content Marketing Metrics that Matter

content marketing measurement

“What gets measured gets done.” This adage steers every hand writing a to-do list in every profession. In other words, we prioritize our daily lives based on what we’ll ultimately be measured on by our boss, our client, or ourselves. But what if what we’re being measured on is unclear, misguided, or just plain worthless?

7 Things Good Marketers Have in Common

image of success

It takes more than a snarky attitude and knowledge of hashtags to be successful in social media. Being likable, retweetable, and ultimately generating leads and developing new partnerships is more art than it is science. But which personality traits separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to social media marketers? The same traits [...]

Getting Tested: What to Test in Email Marketing

testing email

Every day, people from all over the world participate in risky behavior. We all know the dangers, we’re aware of what can happen, but we still don’t put an emphasis on getting tested before we engage in what is a daily activity for many. Of course, I’m talking about sending emails.

4 Lessons from Matt Drudge on Serving Your Audience

serving your audience

Quick: what’s black and white, ignores SEO, scoffs at design best practices and is one of the most wildly successful websites in history? If you guessed Craigslist.org you earn partial credit (only because their SEO is formidable). If you guessed DrudgeReport.com, congratulations, you go the lightning round. A recent article by David Carr on NYTimes.com [...]

The Influential Power of Uncertainty

influential power of uncertainty

Nobody can possibly know everything. And we tend to look through a thick lens of skepticism to anyone who claims they do (here’s looking at you, gurus, ninjas, and self-proclaimed experts). It may be that we’re cynical toward braggarts and wary of for-profit prophets with an agenda hidden behind their proclamation of knowledge, but it [...]

Social Media Friends … with Benefits

social media friends with benefits

Marketers are courting people on social media and the relationship has evolved past the early days when it was all about making friends. Much to the delight of CFOs everywhere, social media has entered the era of “friends with benefits.” Tangible ones, even. According to survey results released by Social Media Examiner, marketers have reported [...]

10 Digital Marketing Infographics to Bookmark, Print Out or Stare at For a While

cave art infographic

Infographics have come a long way since their early cave-drawing roots. Pictures, as they say, are worth a thousand words. And looking at an image is infinitely less taxing than reading its text equivalent, which is why the format has surged in popularity in recent years as smart organizations tap into the viral potential and [...]

5 Things Brands Want from Facebook Fans Besides Money

facebook fan value besides money

ROI doesn’t always come in the form of cold, hard cash. Though your CFO might get nauseous at the notion of outcomes she can’t put in the bank, there’s a ton of value to be derived from Facebook fans that doesn’t make the cash register ca-ching. At least not directly.

101 Online Video Stats to Make Your Eyes Glaze Over

online video stats

There’s a pretty good chance you just finished watching one before you arrived here. And after seeing how long this post is, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll abandon this in a few seconds to watch a video online instead. But, don’t worry, you wouldn’t be the only one. Watching video online is becoming the [...]

What the Top 10 Blogs in Content Marketing Are Doing That You Probably Aren’t

what the best content marketing blogs do that you probably don't

If you want to have one of the most-read blogs in all of content marketing, the formula is actually pretty simple. All you have to do? Write 2.4 posts per day with an average word count of 1,278 every day for the next 6.7 years. Think you have the stamina?

What If We Treated Every Page Like Our Homepage?

treat every page like a homepage

I get it. You’re not going to stop obsessing over your homepage. And you shouldn’t. Sure, only a percentage of your overall site traffic probably views your homepage in reality, but it doesn’t matter. It means too much. It’s symbolic. It’s political. It’s your brand. It’s the first thing people see when they check out [...]

101 Social Media Stats

social media stats

Finding the right needle in the haystack that is the Internet is often times an exercise in futility and frustration. Sure, you can find “quick tips” for just about anything, a “how-to” guide for maximizing anything you’d like to maximize, and “case studies” that illustrate someone else’s success story which you believe – for a [...]

Magazine Apps: A History (So Far)

magazine apps

It’s been six months (OK, nearly seven) since the nerd world collectively paused and Mr. Jobs stood on his stage to debut that nifty little tablet thingy called the iPad (the what?! I remember thinking). Since then, sales estimates have ranged from 6 to 8 million, and we’re teetering on the brink of what is [...]

Relativity and the Best Time to Send Email

best time send email

It’s a question that gets asked more often than “do you want fries with that?” Unfortunately, the answer to “what is the best time to send email?” is not a simple one. In fact, the answer is a lot more complicated than it sounds, because it’s different for every person on every list:

How to Fight the Social Media Stigma

how to fight the social media stigma

“So, you like, Tweet for a living?” The thinly veiled mocker quietly asks. “No, I mean, like, seriously? That stuff is kind of a waste of time, isn’t it? Well, at least you get to be on Facebook all day.” The veil is dropped and the disdain shows its face. You’ve just met the social [...]

Fall into the Gap? More Like Piling On …

Thumbnail image for Fall into the Gap? More Like Piling On …

Unless you’ve spent the last week under a rock (or in an Old Navy or Banana Republic), you’ve probably heard the backlash over Gap changing their logo to a “new” logo. It was announced. Then it was denounced. A lot. And now it’s a footnote in the history of “how not to handle your brand’s [...]

Is Your Website Leaking Visitors?

is your website leaking visitors

Your website probably has a leak in it. Despite your best efforts to make a watertight design that funnels visitors through your content pages to conversion, there’s a place where visitors are finding their way out. There may be a steady drip of lost traffic leaking through any page that resolves in a 404 Page [...]

Why Your Homepage May Matter Less Than You Think

front door of website

Think of the last time you worked on a website redesign. Excitement was in the air. Brains were storming and being picked. And there was a lot of talk about what should be included on the homepage. But was it too much talk?

Social Media Metrics Beyond Feel-Good Moments

social media metrics

We all look forward to those feel-good social media moments. We have a post that got retweeted. Or someone left a thoughtful comment. Maybe someone even became a subscriber because they found us on Facebook. It happens every day. These small victories keep us excited, keep us engaged, and keep us glued to the screen. [...]

Why People Follow Brands on Twitter

why follow brands on twitter

I‘ll burst your bubble early: people aren’t following your brand on Twitter because of your good looks. But they do want to know more about your products, services, and news about your company. And oh yeah, they love coupons and discounts. ExactTarget (an interactive marketing software company) recently released a survey that examined the habits [...]

The Numbers Don’t Lie…Usually

data visualized thumbnail

Data can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, access to information can provide insights that assist in making decisions that help move your organization forward. On the other hand, access to information can cause the onset of organizational paralysis, where mountains of data serve as roadblocks to actually getting anything done. So where do [...]

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