Ultimate Guide To Instagram Marketing – If you believe the buzz, Instagram is the leader in photo sharing social networks. Lee certainly thinks so! Instagram offers marketers a great chance to connect with their target audience and tell their story in a visual way. If you want to get up to speed with Instagram quickly, here is an excellent guide promising the ultimate in the insights you need to get started and stand out. Ross Simmonds
6 Predictions for Social Media in 2014 – It’s time to start thinking about what the next big thing is going to be across the social media world. Here are new areas and trends that will be the focus of social media in 2014. Business2Community
AllThingsD Draws to a Close – The archives of what these digital news makers have written since April of 2007 — close to 38,000 posts — will remain in the digital ether for our perusal, the whole staff is reportedly moving on to a new online tech and media news effort with new investors and a new name. Here are selections of the staff’s favorite posts.
How to Choose Between Apple TV, Roku 2 and Chromecast – Once a specialty niche favored by geeks and cord-cutters, these gadgets are some of the hottest items around. If you’re looking for the ideal device to pipe media to your TV, here’s what you’re going to want to think about. ReadWrite
5 Subject Line Mistakes to Avoid When Emailing a Reporter – One of the most important parts of any email is the subject line. Not only does the subject line play an important role in determining whether someone will open your email, but also it helps determine whether your email will be delivered in the first place. This advice applies to all email recipients actually. PRDaily
Link Building 2013: Search Engine Lands Top Link Week Columns – With each passing year, search engine algorithms grow increasingly sophisticated in their ability to identify (and penalize) spammy links. Many link building tactics that were once considered legitimate were unceremoniously moved to the “spam” column in 2013. Here are the topics the link building community found most interesting. Search Engine Land
Survey: 83 Tweetworthy Content and Social Marketing Statistics – Skyword recently collaborated with Unisphere Research on a survey of marketing executives on their habits, goals and thoughts of the industry. For example, did you know? 64% of executives consider a branded blog to be their most potent weapon in achieving a social media presence. Skyword
Want to Make a Successful YouTube Video? – Successful YouTube videos can be as different as oil and water. But those aimed at a small-business audience have some similar traits that can help you. Read more. Entrepreneur
How Facebook Spent the Year 2013 – Fast Company Labs took a deeper dive into the changes Facebook made over the last 12 months, including information on some of their back end acquisitions that provide insight into the company’s priorities in 2014 and beyond. Fast Company
Latest Consumer Trends in Device Usage – Understanding that big picture around the media and marketing impact of new devices requires us to take a closer look at objective, behavioral and longitudinal research data. When it comes to research on media and marketing usage of devices, the Nielsen Cross-Platform report serves as a reliable resource due to its representative sampling of U.S. TV households and behavioral focus on time spent with devices. Here are some relevant, possible surprising, stats. iMedia Connection
13 Amazing Social Media Stats From 2013 [Infographic] – A branded Vine video is four times more likely to be seen than a regular branded video; 95 percent of Facebook users log into their accounts daily; and Pinterest has a 41 percent share of referral traffic to 
e-commerce websites. Read more fascinating statistics in this visual from Nowsourcing. MediaBistro/AllTwitter
Top 5 Social Media Marketing Trends of 2014 – Social media was a communication innovation that gradually grew from casual or friendly communication to professional communication. Today, it’s an integral element of online marketing. Business2Community
The Most Important Apps That Shaped Mobile – In this mobile-first era, apps make headlines, precipitate stock slumps and altogether define an industry that didn’t see them coming a mere six years ago when Apple released the App Store. These are not necessarily the fan favorites, but they were the headline drivers, movers and shakers that helped define the app economy in 2013 and beyond. ReadWrite
50 Things You Need To Know About Pinterest – Over the last couple of years, this image-bookmarking site has been one of the fastest growing sites. Its rising traffic rate has even outpaced Facebook and Twitter. Here are some tidbits about Pinterest, if you still need to be convinced of its importance as a social sharing platform. Search Engine Journal
Announcing Promoted Accounts in Twitter Timeline – After a successful test with a number of advertisers, Twitter announced recently its plans to expand this beta to all advertisers globally. This option is available in addition to the existing Promoted Accounts format that runs within the Who to Follow section. Twitter Blog
5 Ways to Grow Your Email List With Social Media – Use these tips to increase the engagement of your social media audience and build a bigger email subscriber list. Social Media Examiner
Report: Surprising Social Media Engagement Statistics – BI Intelligence calculates an Engagement Index for top major social networks and compares their performance in time-spent on desktop and mobile. They also look at different top activities on social media — photo-sharing, status updates, etc. and which sites drive the highest volume in each category. Business Insider
Why ‘Voice Search’ Will Change Your SEO & Content Marketing – In November, Google launched their voice-activated search for laptops and PCs. Voice search has been around for a while on mobile devices, most notably Siri on iPhones, and now it is on your PC. Voice search is most definitely coming of age and it has implications for both SEO and content marketing. Social Media Today
How 7 Brands Benefit From Content Marketing – The most effective content marketing strategists have a few rules in common: they have a well-documented content strategy, dedicated teams to oversee content marketing efforts, and marketing budgets that spend generously on content marketing. The top goals for content marketing include brand awareness, lead generation, customer acquisition, and thought leadership. Read more for lessons learned. Search Engine Journal
What Pinterest Brings to the Semantic Web – If your business becomes active on Pinterest, the semantic reach of your pins goes far beyond just the network itself. You have the ability to tell your story and put pieces of content out there that could have a direct impact on your target customer’s decision to buy, click or sign up. A must read. Websight Hangouts Blog
The Content Marketer’s Guide to Google Analytics – This post shows how to extract numbers from Google Analytics that will drive action and highlights some of the most useful parts of GA for content marketing. Buffer
Confirmed: Google Reduces Authorship Rich Snippets in Search Results – Matt Cutts has confirmed that Google has applied a 15% reduction in the amount of rich snippets displayed in the search results. Read the comments here for some interesting insights. Search Engine Land
Study: 1/3 of Women in U.S. Use Pinterest – The social bookmarking service is now used by more than one-fifth (21%) of American adults, up from 15% a year earlier, according to a survey of U.S. social networking habits from Pew Research. That puts Pinterest slightly ahead of Twitter and Instagram, though all three are well behind Facebook. Mashable
2013 Ads We Loved – See the ads that cracked up and otherwise impressed the editors in this digital advertising edition. AdAge
From the Online Marketing Community
On Winning Habits of Successful Social Media Influencers and Brands, Gary Chestnut said, #5 – Developing your brand and keeping it in a positive light is crucial in today’s business environment. With the advent of social media, separating yourself from the competition can be the “make or break” difference.
On 25 Women That Rocked Social Media in 2013, Mary Henige of General Motors said, Thanks so much, Lee. Coming from you, this is high praise. Thanks for recognizing the GM team. With a woman becoming our CEO in January, 2014 promises to be equally as exciting. Happy New Year.
Lisa Buyer said, Hi Lee – Thanks for putting the word out for People’s Choice on Twitter, happy to make the list with such a powerful group of women. My very first SES panel was shared with you and Greg Jarboe! Thanks for all your contributions to the online marketing industry, it is definitely even more optimized because of you! 🙂
Be sure to read the honorable mentions and the many more comments on the post.
What’s Your Take?
What are your resolutions or predictions for 2014? What digital marketing trends do you see emerging?
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!
