Digital Marketing Digest

"70% of your marketing is the planned ‘marketing as usual’ activity. 20% of your marketing should be programmatic.10% of your marketing is purely responsive Oreo-style."

Agile marketing is where it's at these days - going through the traditional steps of marketing just won't cut it anymore. With social media and various other ways to reach your audience in real-time, there's no excuse for not being able to respond to things as they happen. Who knows, you might come up with the next big campaign (and make a big enough impact to have a marketing technique named after you: Oreo-style).

In probably the most interesting of the reactions to Instagram's introduction of video that I've seen so far (and there have been millions in the last 24 hours), Jeremy Goldman makes a point that I don't think anyone has actually acknowledged yet: there might be room for both Instagram and Vine to coexist.

Some of Jeremy's points:

-Vine is 6 seconds, Instagram is 15.

-Instagram contains a seamless integration of video and photo - the product/network is actually a different type of place.

And my personal favorite:

-Many comparisons can be made between Facebook and Twitter, but I can probably count on my fingers how many people are using one instead of the other. Remember when Twitter was considered "just Facebook statuses?" Look what happened there.

Maybe Vine and Instagram can both succeed, maybe neither will. What do you think?

B2B marketing guy Rich Robinson has combined two of my favorite things in the whole world: Don Draper and marketing.

Every Sunday night as I watch Mad Men, I think about how different the industry and its execs were back then - but also how many of its principles can be applied to business today.

This post brings out all the points that I've observed as well as some others that I hadn't even been able to put into words. 

My personal favorite: Lesson 4: You can't possibly appeal to everyone. Choose a single message / identity and stick with it!

Here's a great tweet skeleton with some useful advice from Gerry Moran.

Something I'd add to the "Format" section: Decide on what format you're going to use based upon your goals. For me, using facts/stats is great for RTs while using headlines (with a little hint of mystery) is optimal for clicks.

Another tip I'd add is to change up the structure every so often and put the link in the middle of your message (or two micromessages). Per [SEO]Moz's Rand Fishkin, tweets with between text tend to get higher click throughs.

Love the notion of "creating irrelevant controversy."

You know how they say "if you're not on social you don't exist?" Well, a similar concept can - and should - be applied to mobile. If your website isn't mobile optimized, it may still exist, but it's going to cause frustration for a large percentage of your readers. Smartphone usage is off the charts with the increasing amount of people converting ( who actually has a non-internet cellphone anymore? ) and consuming content on the go. With these steps, you're on your way to a great mobile site.

Create a voice people want to hang out with: putting it that way gives an interesting twist to the "be human" social media tip that's constantly thrown around by the gurus. I like the idea of viewing "social engagement" as "hanging out."

Be an active listener: If social media is 25% broadcasting and 75% conversing, it should probably be about 200% listening. If you're doing a good job, people are talking about you. Swooping in and letting them know you heard them is one of the easiest ways to make a customer's day, and isn't that what it ultimately comes down to anyway?

Realize that fans and followers are overrated metrics: I've seen Twitter accounts with a few thousand followers and about three hundred times the engagement of a brand with tens of thousands. Numbers are numbers. They're easy to report, but try explaining the ROI of social without any concrete interaction (hint: it doesn't work!).

What's the deal with this EdgeRank thing anyway? Check out this infographic for an informative (oversimplified) explanation.

If a blog post is published but no one reads it, does it still matter? 

If you're stuck on where to promote your content, here's a (not-so) little list of some great places to start. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a place like Scoop.it to send your content everywhere for you...

Break out those emoticons and question marks, people!

Facebook ad targeting just got even better.

As many times as you might hear the phrase "email marketing is dead," if you ask anyone who actually uses it, they will tell you that it most certainly isn't. Email marketing is one of the best ways to spread content and reach your customers directly.

That said, there is one downside - some people just don't like the sight of that cluttered inbox. When their frustration reaches a tipping point, they're likely to unsubscribe to your emails, and you'll never be able to reach them directly again.

Some companies, though, take this as an opportunity to show some empathy, and maybe even a little humor, in an effort to reconnect with their valued customers. Hubspot's newest email unsubscribe message is simply awesome. Check it out.