Building Community

Web Gems: The Art of Being a Web Editor

Guess what? It’s not all about you. Anyone who has ever played on a team knows that. And shortstops know it best. This idea is the fabric of his or her nature. While pitchers, outfielders, and catchers have received the lion’s share of the glory in baseball, they would be nowhere without a good shortstop. [...]

10 Better Ideas Than Looking at a Top 10 List For Advice

Top 10 lists are like new year’s resolutions. They seem great at first, but they quickly make you feel bored, hopeless, and like you’ve wasted your time. And that’s usually because they are filled with things you know you should do but can’t commit to doing. They’re too aspirational. Too shoot-for-the-moon-y. Which is why I’ve [...]

How Betty Crocker is Baking Content Marketing Success

Betty Crocker found a great recipe for content marketing success. (I know, that pun was hard to swallow.) When food brand giant and cultural icon Betty Crocker, a brand owned by General Mills, wasn’t having success online they developed a digital video series centered around solving common problems for at-home chefs. Since launching in 2008, [...]

We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Namely, Interviews.

interview tips, we have ways of making you talk

To the presidential candidate seated across the table, I must have seemed like tender meat ready to be shredded by wit sharpened on the pundit circuit. The year was 2000, and Pat Buchanan was running a half-hearted campaign. Interest was low enough that I, student reporter that I was, managed to get an interview at [...]

Why the Best Social Media Begins Offline

When I was notified last year that the content marketing firm where I work was moving offices—giving up its spacious, albeit outdated, digs for a new state-of-the-art studio three blocks up the road—I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical, uneasy even, of the changes in the offing.

While Your Audience Checks In, Are You Checking Out?

are you checking out while your audience checks in?

I have a strange relationship with Foursquare; I use it compulsively, though the reasons why I do that are unclear. I check in at restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls, and even at the veterinarian. I hadn’t realized how obsessed with the social check-in service I had become, until the day that I pulled out my [...]

5 Lessons From my Biggest Blog Fails of 2011

I failed a lot this year. My gut reaction was to quietly sweep my failures under the rug, whistle, and walk away. But instead, I figured I’d scrape the bottom of the barrel to see if there was any gold. Sue me. I’m an optimist. Instead of a collection of successful case studies, this post [...]

Is Your Twitter Account a Ghost, a Witch, a Pirate or a Vampire?

Halloween is the one day every year people can dress up as anything they want and not be stared at strangely in the grocery store. So we put a lot of thought into what we might wear to capitalize on the opportunity. But we don’t always think about what kind of costume our Twitter account [...]

7 Tips for Developing Your Webinar Strategy

As a content marketing strategy, webinars can be highly effective – positioning your organization as a thought leader or the go-to resource of valuable information. According to a recent B2B content marketing survey, nine out of ten B2B marketers are using content marketing, and of the ten content marketing tactics rated for effectiveness, webinars rated [...]

A Letter from Mark Zuckerberg*

Editor’s note: OK, so this is not a real letter from Mark Zuckerberg, but it’s a real satire of what could be in a letter from Mark Zuckerberg, hypothetically speaking, of course. Hey there! It’s Mark Zuckerberg, everyone’s favorite socially awkward billionaire! I am here to walk you through our latest exciting changes at Facebook. [...]

7 Ways for Your Company to Break the Ice with the Blogosphere

Does your organization have a blog? Though it seems the evidence that blogging pays off is everywhere, some companies are still struggling to get a blog up and running. (Consider this 2011 HubSpot study where 69% of businesses surveyed attributed their success with lead generation directly to blogging. Business is built on consumer interest, and [...]

5 Future-proof Ideas For Your Website

Predicting the future of the web is nearly impossible. Ever-changing technology provides fodder for our imagination to run wild. And it typically does. Imagination outpaces invention. And invention outpaces convention. Which is why we should focus less on technology, and more on human nature when we’re future-proofing our websites. If we bet on technology, we [...]

4 Reasons Your Facebook Fan Stopped Liking You

“You like me, you really like me!” It’s hard not to get excited when someone likes our organizations page on Facebook, especially early on. It could be the beginning of a beautiful romance of brand and consumer. But then things go wrong. Brand statuses are ignored. Questions are left to wither alone in silence. The flame is [...]

Why Distractions Mean Failure in Football and Marketing

Once, after a loss, former Tennessee Titans’ coach Jeff Fisher made this statement to the media about his team’s effort: “I think you have to be able to deal with distractions, put them in perspective and move on. Distractions are the primary reason for losing football games. ” He didn’t chalk up the loss to [...]

Give Me One Reason to Share It and I’ll Spread Your Post Around

There are a lot of blips on our daily radars. We check our Twitter stream. We drop in on Google+. We comb through our RSS feeds. And for the most part, we ignore most of the content we see. Why? Because we’ve read it before. Because it sounds too familiar. Because it’s obvious. Because it’s [...]

4 Tips for Developing a Blog Comment Policy

If you’ve spent much in social media, you’ve probably been warned not to “feed the trolls.” Trolls, as Wikipedia will tell you, are defined as “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into [...]

Is Your Content Worth Stealing?

I hope you steal this blog post. There won’t be an alarm that goes off. The Feds won’t come to get you, and no one will probably ever know that you did. It’s not a trick, it’s not a trap, and it’s not a lure. I actually want you to. Because that means I’ve done [...]

4 Ways to Get More Mileage Out of Old Content

nickelodeon old content all that, picture of a girl getting slimed

I’m a ’90s baby. I grew up during, at least what I believe to be, the peak of Nickelodeon’s programming. These classic Nick shows represented an iconic part of tv’s pop culture and had everything from talking babies (Rugrats), a dog and cat conjoined (Catdog), action shows (Legends of the Hidden Temple) and pretty much [...]

5 Marketing Cliches You Shouldn’t Roll Your Eyes At (Much)

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times, but that doesn’t always mean the marketing mud you throw against the wall is sticking. The only thing we’re bombarded with more than advertising in our media saturated world is the clichés that guide the teams that create them. And both, for better or [...]

Goodbye, Voice of God (in Journalism)

voice of god is dead in journalism, picture of speakers

For political junkies, there was no more bizarre and fascinating news night than the 2000 election returns. Among the embarrassing moments that night—and there were quite a few—was when anchorman Dan Rather announced that Al Gore had won Florida, and then proclaimed, “If [CBS News] says someone carried a state, you can take that to [...]

The Anatomy of a Web Redesign Failure

web redesign failure, image of a construction site

All of the best practice documents in the world can’t prepare you for a thud that was supposed to be a splash when your big website redesign hits the market. Or should we say, misses the market. Designing a website is a difficult endeavor. Sure, everybody and their 11-year-old-nephew seems to be capable of launching their own [...]

You’re a Human, Act Like It. Unless You’re OK with Being a Digital Marketing Failure

human digital marketing superior to robot digital marketing

Audiences are made of people, they aren’t made of logos. And when building an audience, you must connect with other people as a person, not as a logo. There are very few that can succeed while ignoring this basic mantra. According to the law of averages, you are not one of them.