Quality

Why the Best Social Media Begins Offline

the art of social content creation

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was notified last year that the content marketing firm where I work was moving offices—giving up its spacious, albeit outdated, digs for a new state-of-the-art studio three blocks up the road—I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical, uneasy even, of the changes in the offing.

The Best Year-End Lessons Don’t Come From Top-10 Lists (An Office Meditation)

The Best Year-End Lessons Don't Come From Top-10 Lists (An Office Meditation)

Don’t resist. Relax and let it happen. It shouldn’t hurt, though you might feel a tugging sensation. It’s okay to stop—just for a little while—the striving, planning, strategizing, evaluating that make your work so successful, that you hope makes you notable and valuable. It’s fine to step away from the carefully wrought echo chamber of [...]

5 Lessons From my Biggest Blog Fails of 2011

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 [...]

Harvey Levin: Sensationalist or Soothsayer?

old newspapers never die, they just fade away

“Leave the heavy stuff. Just go.” That’s what the voice inside my head said when I read in The Washington Post (WP) that TMZ founder and celebrity gossip peddler Harvey Levin recently addressed journalists at the National Press Club about the future of news media. It wasn’t the first time I’d considered hightailing it. I [...]

Quality Down to the Last Crumb

Cheetos

Having grown up in a household in which we ate simply and fairly close to the land, I’m pretty sure I didn’t consume my first Cheeto until college. I don’t remember the exact occasion—I like to imagine it as a coming-of-age moment, along with my first taste of Twinkie and ferreting out the existence of [...]

Why Distractions Mean Failure in Football and Marketing

distractions and content 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 [...]

Just Another SEO Manifesto

seo manifesto

If I had only one thing to say about search engine optimization, it’d be this: don’t chase the search engines, instead chase what the search engines are chasing. Search engines are in the business of getting people what they want. In an ideal world, people ask search engines an honest question and receive an honest [...]

An Unglamorous Website Maintenance Checklist

web maintenance checklist, maintenance workers pictured

Many of us were drawn to the world of digital media because of the promise of creativity. We liked the sound of coming up with catchy headlines that resulted in clicks. We liked the idea of thinking up ideas for infographics that would garner links. We were drawn in by the challenge to create content [...]

5 Reasons the Intern Shouldn’t Run Your Social Media Campaign

carrying the load alone as a social media intern

Your intern has more Twitter followers than you do. That is great. But what happens when she gets offered that gig with the agency across town? Will your corporate blog survive? How about that snarky Twitter account or well-maintained Facebook page? Though much of management is wearing the “social media strategy” hat in the board [...]

4 Ways to Kill Distractions and Get Things Done

how do you have time for that

I have been wanting to write this post for a while. But I haven’t had time. I figured I’d do it eventually. But project deliverables got in the way. So did happy hours. And so did sleep. Don’t get me wrong: I kept writing it on my to-do lists. I definitely wrote it down more [...]

The Tao of Quality (Or, What I learned from Auto-Tune)

tao of quality

If you’ve heard any pop music at all over the past several years, you’ve probably heard Auto-Tune, seasoning and sometimes overwhelming the performances of the gifted and mediocre alike. It forces sounds to conform to a particular musical key, eliminating the hundreds of deviant microtones that distinguish the human vocal instrument—which may be why digitally [...]

Don’t Worry, Be Content: 10 Rules for Creating Quality Editorial

examining quality editorial

No rules, just write, right? Not so fast. Though creating quality editorial is an art, there’s absolutely a science behind it, according to Kim Caviness, VP of content at TMG Custom Media (disclosure: the company behind this blog). Here are her 10 rules for quality editorial:

How to Lose Credibility with One Typoe

a typo in mario and luigi

It seems like common sense: Look over your work before you share it. But sometimes – especially in the era of “do more with less” – that simply doesn’t happen. In the name of timesaving, we skip the review and let it fly. We hit “send” or “submit” or “publish” without giving work a once-over [...]

The Quality Mixtape: 20 Web Resources for Content Creation

quality mixtape

Some of my most memorable musical discoveries were made thanks to meticulously compiled and lovingly decorated mixtapes, created for me by friends with the eclectic tastes and artistic fervor of adolescence. I know I’ve just utterly and irrevocably dated myself, but I don’t care; just thinking about those tapes makes me happy, reminds me that [...]

7 Grammar Mistakes that Make Editors Hyperventilate

grammar mistakes for editor hyperventilation

It’s time to declare a war on bad grammar, misuse of words and cringeworthy punctuation and capitalization. In today’s fast-paced media environment, perfection seems to have been traded for speed, making room for these unwelcome villains on the pages of publications everywhere. But who is enemy #1? Do all editors loathe the same mistakes, or [...]

Capital Improvements: Using Initial Caps to Improve Your Designs

initial caps

It’s been said that history is our best teacher. It’s hard to believe that whoever first uttered those words had custom media on the brain. But they might as well have. One of the most effective and time-honored tools in a designer’s repertoire is the drop or initial cap. First used in ancient, illuminated manuscripts, [...]

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 [...]

Content as Social Currency

content as social currency thumbnail

Think of a funny friend. This is the person you bring to happy hours and parties because you know, despite how awkward it may get, this person is sure to make everyone have a good time. Now think of a self-absorbed friend. This is the person who segues (ahem, forces) every conversation to morph into [...]

The Year of Living Quality

sun setting on a lake

2010 is a droplet trembling on the rim of space-time, and I think I’m ready for it to fall. This is the one time of year that I feel justified in reviewing the preceding 12 months and asking navel-gazing questions about accomplishments, miracles, snafus and “I’d-better-not-let-that-happen-again” craziness. It’s an arguably cerebral manifestation of our chronobiological [...]

Give the Gift of Good Content

give the gift of good content

Is there a more sparkling, party-filled, cookie-eating, holiday-song-playing month than December? Wrapped up in all that fun is gift giving. Do you want to be the person who gives earrings to a woman without pierced ears, a snowblower to your friend in Hawaii or an evergreen-scented candle to someone who sneezes at the first sight [...]

Content Curation: Think Museum, Not Warehouse

content curation needle and haystack

Understatement of the week: There’s a lot of content on the web. Another understatement: Sifting through all of it is nearly impossible for the average human being. The deluge of online information (and misinformation, in some cases) has increased the demand for content curation, or rather, for someone else to sift through all that hay [...]

Scarcity, Permanency, and Print

print magazines thumbnail

When it comes to digital content, a premium is placed on being able to update minute by minute. The most recent news, the latest commentary, and a real-time feed of reactions frame what’s online. But when it comes to print, trying to follow this model is as daunting as it is misguided, says Wired editor-in-chief [...]

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 [...]

Shred the RFP

shred the rfp

Relying on an RFP process can often lead to you selecting the company that is the best at responding to RFPs, not necessarily the company that is best at creating and implementing a custom media strategy. So, how can you whittle down the options without an RFP? Focus on these nine best practices to choose [...]

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