Content marketing has gained much traction over the last 18 months and for good reasons. It is becoming an important part of any organizations marketing mix and can have an immediate impact on how companies are perceived, as well as their success online.

Content marketing also has an immediate impact on search.

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Downloadable guide to social marketing.

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In the nature of making your 2015 as successful as possible, I want to share a few of my favorite marketing tools that I use on a daily basis. They make my make life easier, decisions more data driven, and my content more creative. We all have our own marketing toolbox, here is a look into mine. Here are my top 8 tools that are going to make your life as a marketer easier in 2015.

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Recently, Copyblogger made a shocking announcement: they were killing their Facebook page, even though they had 38,000 fans. Interestingly, this follows their decision earlier this year to close comments on their blog as well.

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Facebooks automated year in review slideshows are meant to surface highlights from the year that was, but for some the virtual scrapbook simply brings back bad memories. In the case of web designer Eric Meyer, a photo of his recently deceased daughter appeared, surrounded by confetti, illustrations of party goers dancing and the exclamation Eric, here's what your year looked like! In response, Eric wrote a blog post about what he refers to as that apps Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty, and pointing to the shortcomings of modern software design.

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The summary is your hook to get readers to click on your article. Think of the summary as the hot fudge to your article titles ice cream. You can give a headline that states Ice Cream and it may be enough to turn a few heads, but not likely. Add a quick summary that describes the ice cream in more depth – such as the promise of a creamy, chocolate, mouthwatering, hot-fudge sundae – and you are far more likely to get the attraction you want and need.

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In between folding laundry and cleaning up after her children, a mom receives $5,000 to blog about an iPhone application for seven days. Another woman earns twice as much as her husbands $35,000 annual salary by hosting several one-hour Twitter parties each week.  

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According to a recent social-media engagement study, Americans now spend more time on social media than any other Internet activity, including email. Social media is not going anywhere and businesses, small and large, are now recognizing their online presence is an essential part of their marketing strategy. Eight out of 10 small to medium-sized businesses now use social media to drive growth for their business, and three out of five say they have gained new customers through social media marketing.

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It has been a slow start for Google’s smartwatches. Only 720,000 smartwatches powered by Android Wear, Google’s operating system for wearable devices, shipped in the last six months of 2014, according to research firm Canalys.

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86% of B2B and 77% of B2C organizations use content marketing.

This makes the content marketing landscape extremely competitive. With more and more companies using content creation and its distribution to improve brand awareness, credibility and niche authority, run-of-the mill content marketing does not work anymore.

If you take a look at some of the best content marketing campaigns of 2014, you realize you can not afford to take content marketing for granted. You need to be able to create compelling content and ensure it reaches your target audience.

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As an early adopter of media since the early 80s, I love everything about media, its immediacy, urgency, fluidity, and ability to impact the masses and unify people and ideas in real time, in the moment.

Social marketing continues to be a powerful force for good, but as we know it can be a dangerous platform for bad too.

Through prior careers in entertainment and broadcast radio sales, and celebrating 8 years in my current social media consultancy, social marketing clearly is the most effective way to build branding, credibility and the bottom line.

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When standardized tests are shared nationwide—as they now are, under the Common Core system that's been adopted in 46 states—cheating suddenly becomes a whole lot easier. Especially since teenagers now share just about everything on social media.

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n a recent research study, we spoke with dozens of professionals about their use of social media, and were struck by the variety of approaches they are using.

Some professionals, we found, still manage to avoid social media altogether. But most see that as unrealistic in many occupations, and are unwilling to be deprived of the advantages social media affords in terms of connecting to people and collecting information.

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With so many out there, how do you know which ones are worth your time?

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When Anil Chawla built a start-up that uses software to archive social media posts, he never imagined that his biggest clients would be government agencies.

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Visual marketing is an integral part of reaching customers today. For brands concerned with SEO, however, it brings a wide variety of challenges. Search engine algorithms look for specific words, which makes it difficult to challenge competitors by coming up with better photos and videos to dominate search rankings.

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The most significant marketing change in the past decade was brought about by social media. Before Facebook or Twitter, brands could not dream of building such close connections with their audiences or

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Chances are your small business has used social media in one way or another. There are the big guns like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And other familiar names like Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine.  However, these are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to all of the social media channels out there.

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Yahoo is shutting down Maps.

Nearly three years into Yahoos reinvention under CEO Marissa Mayer, formerly a high-ranking Google executive, the company is shuttering some services including Maps. In a second-quarter progress report posted on Tumblr on June 4—Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013—chief architect Amotz Maimon announced that Yahoo is closing down its Maps site at the end of June.

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Looking for a way to keep an eye on RSS feeds throughout the day? You could be sensible and use a good RSS reader, or you could do something like the Arduino RSS Feed Display.

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The Federal Trade Commission rolled out its latest truth in advertising guidelines. The last time the FTC updated its guidelines for truth in advertising was back in 2010. The new guidelines may precede a crackdown for social media marketing.

Their effect on social media marketing includes how marketers handle the use of celebrity endorsements. The FTC recommends that marketers have a proper disclosure check up to make sure that their social media marketing campaigns fall within FTC guidelines.

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We live in an age of information overload. With all the stories from news, blogs, social media, and other sources, the amount of information about any given subject can be overwhelming. It is hard enough to keep up when you are just a consumer of information, but what about when you need to curate content for a target audience?

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RecordForAll allows for you to easily record, and edit audio files.

Free evaluation version available for download!

Audio Recording Software for Podcasters

Facebook refused to fill its site with flashy animated banner ads for a decade. Zuckerberg thought these interrupted the user experience, and could stunt growth. But after reaching near ubiquity and acclimating users to video ads, today the company tells me it’s relaxing its standards and starting to allow businesses to post GIFs as ads and Page posts.

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A national diaper company is on the defense after a mothers video on social media went viral, claiming glass shards were in a bag of wipes. Other angry parents also took to social media to attack Huggies, showing how claims, founded or baseless, can reach thousands, even millions in just a few hours or days.

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Enter search word to search preset RSS Feeds.

Feedly has become one of the best ways to keep up with your RSS feeds. One key feature that’s been missing, however, is the ability to bulk share a collection of sources. Now, Feedly is adding this feature to Feedly Pro.

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We often confuse relevance with creativity. Relevance is not about being cutting edge or participating in the latest fad. When it comes to social media, relevance is about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time through the right channel. Sometimes it is actually easier to understand relevance by looking at what it is not.

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A recent study by market research firm Nielsen claimed that the average person uses 27 apps a month, which sounds like very few considering that Apple and Google’s app stores both have more than 1m apps available. The key, of course, is that the 27 apps can be almost entirely different, depending who you ask.

Some apps do have mass audiences: Facebook and Twitter in the social networking category; WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Snapchat for messaging; Google Maps for getting around; Spotify for music; YouTube for video; Kindle for reading ebooks; Instagram for photo-sharing; and so on.

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Keywords. They are still as powerful as they were in 1996 or the introduction of the Internet to the world. No matter what keywords you have, they can provide your content the kind of impact that it deserves.

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As we look to 2015, what social media marketing trends are likely to develop? Here are six that online retailers should monitor.

1. Niche Social Networks Will Emerge

Mainstream social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will face challenges from lesser-known upstarts in 2015. One example is Ello, an ad-free social platform still in beta that has received a great deal of attention among those that follow social media developments.

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While there are certainly dozens of insightful takeaways that could be gleaned from Buffetts 50-year career as an investor, I think everyone can benefit from learning more about one of his core principles that have guided him through good times and bad.

Reputation matters
One of my favorite all-time pieces of advice from Buffett is this: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'will do things differently.

In many ways, the sheer simplicity and common-sense nature of that statement belies its profound implications for modern-day life. Throughout his career, Buffett has used his reputation sparingly to turn around a failing business or to gain a tactical advantage.

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Creative still counts
When we think of Amazon, we tend to think about deals and shipping. Everyone from your neighbor to your grandparents knows that Amazon probably has the best price on anything you could want to buy, and they know that the companys bread and butter is shipping it to you as quickly as possible. In other words, nearly every consumer out there knows what Amazon is about.

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Question for you to answer: What is YOUR goal for your business startup?

I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing the answer to that question. A defined goal helps your team plan strategic & measurable steps; while, in the process, you also keep resources in check as you strive to reach it.

It can be used as a tool to achieve either of these goals:

increased email subscribers
grow profitability
get leads
more website traffic to your website
improved customers service
increased brand awareness
…and more!

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Celebrity selfies and fan-snapped shots on the Internet have cut the prices they can charge for their pictures. But those tweets and Instagrams and Facebook posts allow them to track down and trail boldfaced names like never before.

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Social media is a big part of many peoples lives, and it can be a great tool to help build and maintain relationships, and for general self-expression. LinkedIn has 396 million users, Twitter has 307 million active users and Facebook almost 1.5 billion active users, according to Statista.com.

However, social media can easily lend itself to blurring the line between users’ personal and professional lives. And any information — good or bad — posted to social media can be difficult to delete once it’s out there. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to become a more responsible social media user. Read on to find out how social media can hurt your career, and how to avoid social media mistakes.

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The same laws of attraction have never governed the social media marketing scene for too long.

Just as one Tweet changes another, so does user preferences when it comes to consuming online content. New social media rise and fall quickly and this year SnapChat and Periscope already shown a great influence on the marketing landscape. With new players entering the field and old companies rushing to introduce new features and innovations, the rules of social media play hardly ever stay the same.

In 2016 we should expect to see new exciting trends and changes in the social scene and here are the top 4.

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You are definitely not alone in feeling the RSS information overload. As wonderful as it is to be able to tap into all the information in the world, there are only so many hours in the day to spend consuming it all. Not to worry: With a little pruning, filtering and prioritizing, we can turn the deluge of data into a nice, manageable stream of content.

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The end of the year is drawing near, which means its time for fresh starts and new beginnings. While that does apply to whichever New Year’s resolution you plan to make in 2016 (and, in all likelihood, abandon by February), it applies to social media sites as well.

Unfriend and Unfollow
The new year is the perfect time to go through your friends list with a fine-toothed comb. Here is a quick guide for whether you should be friends with someone online: Do you know who this person is? Have you seen him or her in the last year? Do you honestly think you’ll need to talk to him or her in the future?

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In 2015, we have seen several major changes and improvements to the way we conduct business on social media. We have seen brand new networks rise, while others have fallen. We have watched popular networks pivot, and promising networks not take off as expected.

This years social media ad revenue is estimated to total $23 billion.

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Charities are turning to online stars with large YouTube audiences, following an approach increasingly used by big brands to reach new donors and volunteers.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation, for children with life-threatening illnesses, DigDeep, the non-profit organisation focused on water, and Los Angeles-based anti-poverty group United Way are among the charities using a new technology platform designed to let this new kind of minor social media celebrity do their marketing for them.

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This week, a group of Android users noticed a new feature in the Twitter app: a GIF button that can be used to search through trending GIFs to drop into status updates.

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Whether you are constantly searching your own name online (you know who you are) or there is a topic you want to follow closely, Google Alerts lets you know when new pages hit the web that match your query—and you can convert these results into an RSS feed (or something else) to make them easier to manage.

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Whether you’re new to social media or a pro, an effective social media program can broadcast   both your company and employment brand. It may also help stock your sales funnel.

Tackle these four fundamentals and you’ll be off and running.

#1: Start with a clear-cut strategy.

A clear social media strategy can help maximize your efforts from the outset. Start with your goals:

Identify your top priority and focus on it.
Who do you want to reach? How do they use social media?
Do you want to drive traffic to your website or store -- or both?
How can community engagement help support these goals?

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Lately, Facebook newsfeeds have been seeing a new page pop up asking for assistance from the community, and the response has been abundant.

Jessica Williams, chief probation officer and program director of the Ross County Probation Department, created a Facebook page for the agency a few weeks ago. She started posting names of people wanted on warrants after violating the terms of their probation, along with their pictures.

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Social media narcissism is on the rise. The team behind Psychology Today compiled research to show that millennials could be the most narcissistic generation in history. Social media is one of the exemplifications of the problem. That is not to say that everyone on social media is a narcissist, but it is where these people tend to hang out.

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Whether you are constantly searching your own name online (you know who you are) or there is a topic you want to follow closely, Google Alerts lets you know when new pages hit the web that match your query — and you can convert these results into an RSS feed (or something else) to make them easier to manage.

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RSS, also known as Really Simple Syndication, provides a great way to keep up with your favorite websites and skim through the headlines to find the articles. Safari makes it really simple to subscribe to a websites RSS feed in just a few clicks.

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Whether you are constantly searching your own name online (you know who you are) or theres a topic you want to follow closely, Google Alerts lets you know when new pages hit the web that match your query—and you can convert these results into an RSS feed (or something else) to make them easier to manage.

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John Mueller was asked about RSS feeds in the latest Google Webmaster Hangout, specifically whether there are any SEO benefits to having an RSS feed on the site.

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