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Think only B2C blogs can be interesting? Here are 10 blogs from a variety of "boring" industries that'll prove you wrong.
Warning: The following blogs are gonna be boring. They're for industries that you most likely don't care about -- most are B2B businesses, so the chances of you being interested in that content and also a reader of our blog are kinda slim. But, there's no denying that these blogs absolutely rock. Though you may not always be interested in the topics or industries that these blogs talk about, they are kicking some serious butt at doing their job for people in those industries.
Because we've talked about quality content being decided by your audience, we've got to give these amazing blogs in totally boring industries a high-five. So prepare yourself to be blown away. And who knows? By the end, you may be subscribed to a few of them ;)...
These are the contenders for the worst website that appeared on Web Pages That Suck in 2013...I'm going to try something a bit different. Each entry will have a minimal explanation and a link to where it appeared as a Daily Sucker with the associated commentary and, of course, a link to the website....
Here at WDL, we never get tired of great logo design. This is why today we have a new selection of inspiring logos to show you. These logos are minimalist and beautiful. They use simple lines and great typography, proving that you don’t need to over design to represent your brand in a bold way..
The social media desk at The New York Times expanded in 2013 with the addition of three editors and a broadening of our roles in the newsroom. Beyond editing Times social media accounts, our team devotes an increasing amount of labor to working with the paper’s editors and reporters to integrate reader engagement into our most important journalism. But with nearly 5 million more people following @nytimes in 2013, more and more consumers of The Times are finding their way to our journalism using our main presence on Twitter.
For that reason, we took stock of what worked and what didn’t on @nytimes. We examined some of 2013’s most successful tweets, measured in terms of clickthroughs and retweets, to see what connects with these readers and where our investment of editorial effort really paid off (the data comes from SocialFlow, whose system the Times uses to manage some of its major Twitter accounts). We also looked at some of our strategies and tactics to encourage a variety of types of reader engagement with our journalism using Twitter.
Here are some lessons we learned in 2013 from what we did on @nytimes and other institutional Twitter accounts....
Who is the audience for the Samsung Gear smartwatch, Google Glass, and the plethora of personal trackers saturating the market? Harris Interactive conducted a survey of 2,250 US adults to find out. It turns out that these consumers are confused and worried about this new technology, and that may be limiting its growth.
“We believe that the category’s essentially limitless possibilities are actually working against it, making it harder for consumers to wrap their collective heads around the segment. People need to understand what wearable tech is and how it can benefit them,” says Aaron Kane, senior research director at Harris Interactive....
When the principals behind InteraXon headed to the Consumer Electronics Show for the first time in 2011, all they really had was an idea. It was an offbeat one to be sure, since it took the form of a headband that allowed wearers to control things with just the power of their thoughts. Now, three years later, the Toronto-based startup has millions of dollars in funding and 20 staff members supporting a sizeable booth at the annual Las Vegas techno-circus in the build-up to their first-ever product launch.
They’re all sporting a Muse, the company’s new brainwave-controlled relaxation-aid headband, which is launching this spring for $299. The booth itself is notable since it hosts a big, inflated plastic igloo. That’s not so much a symbol of the company’s Canadian-ness, but rather a necessary respite from the noisy show floor, where attendees can use Muse to calm their minds....
What’s the best way to get people—an audience, your staff, a teenager—to do what you want them to do? If you’re like a lot of companies, leaders, or parents, you create a set of rules and policies.
Do not give customers a free upgrade without supervisor approval. Get your reports in by the 15th of each month. Don’t stay out past midnight. But those of us who have issued sets of rules know that lack of compliance is a big problem. Many people don’t like rules, so they ignore them. They lapse back into old habits. Staff members wait until the end of the month to submit their reports. Your teenager stays out until 2 a.m. In many cases, there’s a better way to get people to do what you want them to do....
I don’t know about you but finding time away from “follow Us or Like Us” solicitations, emails, phone calls in the non stop world of engagement is refreshing and rewarding. I suspect that there are many others, if not millions, who feel the same way and soon brands will begin to hear a new message from consumers. The message will be: Leave us alone!
When did we ask brands to constantly solicit us with invitations to “like” them on Facebook? It is similar to a stranger in a mall walking up to you and asking you to stick a “Like Me” sticker on their clothing and sign it. Pretty soon the stranger looks like a fool and they are carrying a “Like Me” sign on them with your name on it like an endorsement....
Is your business website really built to generate leads... or is it just an expensive, online version of your company's brochure?
... In the short e-book this infographic is based upon, I share 10 of the most important strategies with you. These aren't just concepts or techniques that we’ve dreamed up over coffee, but proven tactics we've used again and again to produce extraordinary results. What kinds of results am I talking about? A 500% increase in new leads over a six-month time period hasn't been unusual, once we get all the components in place and working in harmony.It's just as important to note that these don't just create new sales opportunities, but potentially better ones, with more lifetime value from each account.
That's because, when new buyers are voluntarily coming to you for answers and requesting information from your company rather than responding to your sales or advertising efforts, the relationship starts off on a significantly better foot. There is more trust on both sides, with fewer negotiations over price, making it easier for a healthy long-term partnership to develop....
The New York Times has rolled out its largest website redesign in seven years, but readers familiar with the newspaper might feel like it’s a step back in time.There are no drastic changes. Gone are the blue headlines and the lengthy sidebar in favor of a grayer digital lady with more white space. But the site feels more like the New York Times than NYTimes.com....
The Aesop Story Engine is one of the most beautiful tools for WordPress that I’ve seen in a long time. Named for Aesop, the master story teller whose fables are woven into our cultural consciousness, this engine provides a powerful suite of multimedia storytelling tools. The Aesop Story Engine plugin was created to be a foundation for building feature-rich, interactive, long-form storytelling themes for WordPress.
The engine powers the Aesop Hosted Storytelling site where users can create stories for free. The Aesop development team has released it as an open source WordPress plugin, making it possible for you to add the same storytelling capabilities to your own website....
Your vs. my. Do vs. don't. Dollars vs. percentages. Minor modifications can have major mojo.
Attend a Life is Good festival and you'll notice that security staff wear "Safety" T-shirts rather than "Security" T-shirts, writes David Meerman Scott.
This friendly idea is a typical tweak from a brand focused on giving customers a good time—another example is its internal ban on the phrase "I have to"—the preferred phrase being "I get to."
It sounds fun, but simple, one-word copy tweaks can make a huge difference to your marketing ROI. Here are five...
The problem with most business and leadership advice is that it's a little like this:
The two circles aren't the point. Getting the two circles right is a good idea, but lots of people manage that part. No, the difficult part is learning to see what an owl looks like. Drawing an owl involves thousands of small decisions, each based on the answer to just one question, "what does the owl look like?" If you can't see it (in your mind, not with your eyes), you can't draw it.
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Content marketing has several benefits but the most important factors which made content marketing the hottest trends is its ability to increase visibility and create business branding and awareness. Since 2013, it’s the most talked about topic in blogging and seo communities. Content is the king, and with the help of content you can reach huge number of people and new readers across several platforms.
Every business model requires a well-structured strategy; same is applicable for content marketing. Its no-way different from marketing rather it’s an integral part of your marketing strategies. But, before you head-off to start your content marketing campaigns, you must learn about the tools which will help you a lot in your marketing and will make it lot easier.
Social Media Strategies Summit has created an outstanding infographic on 25 content marketing tools and has divided them in 5 categories (5 tools in each category) which are content curation, content creation, finding content writers, content promotion and content marketing analytics. These are the must have tools for every marketer who uses content marketing on a daily basis. It’s a simple infographic, but can help you a lot in your business’s content marketing strategy....
Minimalist web designs, when properly done, are always a great source of inspiration. It is very interesting to see how designers approach the task of delivering a project in a simple way. Keeping only important elements in the layout and getting rid of things that are not essential. And remember that you can still use colors in a minimalist website, so don’t worry about having to stick to neutral colors. Check out the examples we have here and give a shot to the minimalist approach in your next project....
Discover how to elevate your status as a content marketing influencer and build your business with strategies from Chris Ducker and the New Media Expo.... It’s not as difficult as you think, and it all revolves around efficient content marketing and re-purposing. Serial entrepreneur Chris Ducker outlined the process in an NMX super session, charting the path for people to build their influence.Ducker, author of The New Business Manifesto, presented a plan for entrepreneurs to build personal/brand influence with content marketing, eventually seeking to launch a business from that attention.Here are Ducker’s five steps for entrepreneurs and content creators looking to build the “Business of You”...
The New York Times has sold its soul for a handful of beans...and there's no magical beanstalk to save it from a very bad decision.
Native advertising is the world’s worst idea and I can’t believe the New York Times management is so gullible and clueless in agreeing to its publication. Gullible — because they were talked into giving away their hard won position as the nation’s top newspaper by marketing people looking for short-term gains.
Clueless — because they can’t see the stupidity of their actions and how they’ve shot themselves in the foot, groin, and brains.The brands and marketing agencies are clueless, too. The practice is exceptionally harmful because it makes it seem as if all content is corrupt...
In observance of National Word Nerd Day, we offer an array of symptoms that indicate your affinity for correct grammar, usage, syntax, punctuation, and spelling run deeper than that of others.
The "marketing funnel" concept has been around for over 100 years. It's about the journey a typical customer takes to buy a product or service.
The marketing funnel has many versions, but this is the jist of it. The funnel shape represents the number of people at each stage of the journey. Lots of people to reach out to at the top, and their numbers naturally dwindle as some people continue toward a purchase...
In a year with more tools at digital journalists’ disposal than ever before, it can be hard to pick what’s really worth using. At NewsWhip, we’re constantly thinking about how online journalists can do their jobs better. That means we come across some of these tools pretty regularly – we even use some of them ourselves. Earlier today, the good folk over at journalism.co.uk listed the 10 key skills that digital journalists need to hone this year. It’s a list that illustrates the changing skillset of the modern online journalist.
On foot of that, here’s our list of top tools for helping today’s digital newsroom put those skills into action. They’re all very simple to use and capable of making a fast impact on your workflow or content. Just click on the titles for a direct link to the tool....
Marketers and publishers will keep a close eye on the Times' foray into the native-ad space, where the Times' entrance serves as a tacit endorsement of the emerging and controversial practice. Times CEO Mark Thompson has also said native advertising will be a salvo in the company's fight to restore growth to its limping digital ad revenue.
As the program takes flight and the Times works out the bugs in its redesign, here are five details you may not know about the latest entrant in the native-ad space.
Times staff pitched story ideas to Dell. One of Dell's first paid posts delves into the topic of millennials in the workplace. The author is a freelancer that the Times contracted, according to Ms. Losee. The millennial generation is among four topics Dell customers are interested in learning more about, she said. A Times editor -- not from its newsroom, but instead part of an internal "content studio" -- pitched ideas to Dell around these topics that weren't related to Dell products. Dell approved the story ideas, which the Times farmed out to freelancers....
Ok, enough of the introductions, let’s dig in and see how Joel’s approaching his Twitter account and what we could learn from it.
The 5 types of Tweets Joel posts One of the biggest changes Joel made is simply in the way he thinks about the individual Tweets he posts. He identified five main types of Tweets that we all post...
When he gets to your site he looks at a few things to try to determine what your content is about and where he should rank you in the search engines.
Our job as bloggers and content creators is to make it easier for Bot to figure this out. Over the years Bot and I have become pretty good friends, so he let me in on a few SEO secrets that I think every blogger should know.… 17 of them actually...
Kahlua was brand new to Pinterest but the most recent holiday campaign resulted in some long-tail success, including getting consumers to think of Kahlua in a whole new way.
When it came to holiday preparation, Pinterest became a big stress reliever. And no wonder, right? There are so many recipes and other DIY solutions available on the site. For Kahlua, this was the perfect time to run a Pinterest-based campaign and build brand awareness.
The campaign was a sweepstakes wherein followers were entered by pinning their favorite Kahlua inspired recipe. For a brand so new to Pinterest, the results were pretty astounding: 16,000 new email subscribers, 3,800 new Pinterest followers — up from 267 the previous month — and more than 10,000 contest related pins....
The pace of social media is relentless. It tempts you hourly to enter the Twitter Twilight Zone. The Facebook Folie Bergere beckons. Pinterest pulls you into its vortex while everywhere by the grace of Google go all of us.
And blogging? Don’t get me started. My microblogging and blog posting owned me.
That’s why I decided to take a blog “holiday” this past November and December.
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Lots of blogging inspiration here from Hubspot. Be prepared to be impressed!