Digital Marketing Digest

Yep, an infographic on figuring out infographics.

It's time to face it - localization is in.

Marketers, figure it out.

Consumers, open your mind to it. It might be kind of cool to have the ads you see actually be relevant to you, and to discover awesome new things based upon your interests.

We're in the age of social, people. Say goodbye to the days of anything existing without social icons on/in it.

Marketers can now create new custom Facebook audiences based upon lists that they have already seen success with.

Lookalike audiences online open a new door to potential customers with similar traits to those with whom your business has already had success.

I'm not quite sure why there's such tension between these two positions. In my opinion, they should be combined into one super-mega-awesome social/community role. Speaking from experience. I'm not sure one can succeed without the other.

This is a crazy story about how things can unfold on the internet. The rumors being spread about Applebee's are severely damaging their reputation, and more people need to try and understand what's actually going on before they talk.

Personally, I think Applebees has handled the situation in such a way that large brands should take note of - not ignoring anyone or blocking anyone while also being kind and understanding to anyone and everyone who has an opinion to voice.

This is a great conversation with Gary Vaynerchuck. Although I don't always agree with Gary, I think he does have some great insights into social media, where it is today, and where it's headed in the future.

3 things that I found interesting:

"I think we said on TechCrunch TV that 99.5% of people who say that they're social media experts are clowns, and I believe that."

-This can't be repeated enough. With the increased use of social media, tens of thoudands of people are claiming to be experts. As someone who works in social media myself, I can personally say that I don't believe anyone who says they're an expert in any social media platform, beacuse there is always something new to learn.

"You see Vine come out and everybody cry about how do you make a 6-second video, it's no different than what they said about 140 characters in 2007, but we figure it out."

-This actually sounds like something that came out of my very own mouth. I can't get over this phenomenon of people absolutely freaking out over new things that limit or challenge them in different ways, and then after some time, getting used to them and using them every day.

"I'm obsessed with restrictions. It's why I invested in Path, it's why I love Vine...when you require people to be under restrictions, whether it's your friend count, or the length of time that you can make a video."

-This reminded me of something brought up by K.Tighe, director of content for TaskRabbit, at Scoop.it's #leancontent meet up. She was talking about making your content as valuable as possible, and explained an exercise which involved writing a piece - perhaps a professional bio for yourself or your boss - starting at 500 words, then cutting it down to 250 words, then to a tweet (140 characters). These restrictions force you to only include the most valuable pieces of information, and the same goes for restrictive apps like Vine.

Measuring the impact and engagement of your content is crucial to success.

Graph Search could be a whole new frontier for online marketers. Being able to search the specific likes of certain types of people such as "music liked by people who like Mitt Romney" has been the missing ingredient for some time now.

As Mark Zuckerberg said, Graph Search will give you the answers rather than links to the answers. Being able to identify the likes and interests of groups of people will help online marketers better target their ads and even create campaigns based upon topics that they know will resonate with their desired audiences.

2012 was quite the year for social media blunders. From American Apparrel offering a 20% coupon to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy deal with their “boredom,” to #McDStories to the worst hijacked hashtags, some brands proved that they need more than a few tips.

It's time to be frank. Here are 7 ways to make yourself look terrible on social media. (Pro tip: you're not supposed to do them.)

I'm a pretty big advocate of content marketing, and I don't think there's a more convincing argument than the one presented by Rand Fishkin in this presentation. 

It's increasingly becoming known that search engines are favoring genuine content over paid content. Why spend double the dollars for a smaller ROI? Content is in for 2013.

I'm a big advocate of humanization of a brand's social media presence. No one wants to interact with your logo or the mysterious person behind it. What does make people want to interact is being a human. Let your readers know that there are actual people back there, and tell them who you are and that you're listening to them. These 7 tips are great ways to start the humanization process.

Google Hangouts are not only an awesome way to connect with people and share information about your business, but a great way to humanize your brand. Forming relationships with your clients, audience, and industry peers has never been so easy or impactful.

This is a basic yet awesome blogpost by Marketri's Richard Robinson.

Personally, I have yet to invest much time or effort in Google+, but it's becoming more and more apparent that it's an integral part of online marketing and SEO efforts. For example, Scoop.it has just under three times the amount of followers on Google+ than on Facebook.

I've already begun working on Richard's five simple steps to making the most out of my personal Google+ profile, and you should too!

A great infographic demonstrating how much influence social media can have over customers making purchasing and brand loyalty decisions.