Month: June 2013

• Study: 87% of Small Businesses Use Social Media Marketing Today — 5 Years Ago, Just 10% Did

  Constant Contact recently released the findings of a survey of 917 small-business participants to see how running a small business today is different than it was five years ago. One of the major findings is that the use of online marketing tools has grown. The survey, “Small Business: Then and Now,”

• Google Subtly Changes Its Advice for Ranking, Moves Away From Links to Quality of Sites

  Google has made it known that it’s cracking down on link manipulation and poor user experiences by rolling out its Penguin and Panda algorithm updates. Now the search engine is making it clear in their advice to webmasters. Search Engine Land highlights the subtle change in wording in Google’s Webmaster Help section regarding “Ranking.” The […]

• How to Create an Effective CTA Button: 7 Best Practices and an Infographic

  Creating a call-to-action (CTA) button is simple enough; creating a truly effective CTA button, on the other hand, is quite a difficult task. It involves a number of factors, including colors, fonts and placement, among other things. To help marketers get a better idea of what they need to do in order to craft CTA […]

• Infographic: Social Calls-to-Action Work on Blogs, Twitter and Facebook

  Dan Zarrella, the self-proclaimed “social media scientist” of HubSpot, has put together an infographic based on his research on social calls-to-action (CTAs) on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. He’s found that social CTAs yield increased action rates everywhere he’s looked. Here are some of the interesting findings: –

• Facebook Updates Page Post Link Ads, Which Deliver a 53% ROI and Perform Well for Lead Gen

  On Monday, Facebook took another step toward achieving its goal of simplifying its ad products by rolling out revamped Page post link ads. “Over the past several months, aligned with updates to News Feed, we’ve enlarged images and the clickable area for Page post link ads on both desktop and mobile,” according to the company’s […]

• How to Use Tumblr for Content Marketing

  Tumblr recently made headlines when it was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion. This turned the attention of the content marketing community squarely on the platform, which can be described as part microblogging, part social networking and part animated GIFs, among other things. The site boasted 29.3 million unique visitors in March, according to comScore. […]

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  Agencies

  Chief Marketer Listline June 24

  Lists features this week include LimitlessSingles.com and card buyers from Barton Clay.

• Facebook’s Twitter Envy: Is Instagram About to Compete With Vine by Getting Into Videos?

  Is Facebook getting Twitter envy? Shortly after unveiling its own version of functional hashtags, Facebook is rumored to be working on unveiling video functionality for Instagram, according to TechCrunch. If this turns out to be true, it would mark a new forefront of competition between Facebook and Twitter, as the latter’s Vine video-sharing app grows […]

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  Agencies

  Cricket Campaign Takes on Verizon/AT&T on Overcharging

  A new Cricket campaign “Half Is More” plays up its lower price compared to two top competitors, Verizon and AT&T.

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  Mobile

  Beyond TV: Syfy Keeps Fans Tuned in with Social and Mobile

  A combination of mobile and social helps the Syfy network engage with fans of shows like “Defiance” and “Face Off.”