Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet. Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.
Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!
For this week and next, I’m on my own since Lara decided to take a much-deserved vacation.
Karen
Today, you’re going on a content adventure. We’re going to learn so much, from keeping content fresh (Spin Sucks), to finding content ideas when they seem to have dried up (SmartBlog on Social Media), to the art of repurposing content (Duct Tape Marketing) and beyond content marketing (Grow Blog) to the next steps.
Do you need a break now? That’s a lot, but I’m not done.
Related to content, it’s important to know when to stop using a social network (Hubspot). Joining or continuing with a social network for the sake of having a presence alone isn’t reason enough to keep going.
Your website is your business’ hub on the Internet. It’s your virtual front door and the place that will often give prospects their first impression of your business and you as a business owner. That’s why it’s important to make a really good first impression and avoid these web design mistakes (HubSpot).
Every now and then, I go to the TED website and just start browsing. I love watching TED talks. I’ve learned so much and been so inspired by the eloquent words of the speakers. Mitch Joel compiled a list of TED talks to help you re-imagine your business (Six Pixels of Separation) and I have seen a few, but I need to go through and watch them all again.
It came out this week that Facebook had a bug with insights and got our reach wrong for months and months. They fixed the bug and reach dramatically improved (Marketing Land). In other Facebook news, apparently all those text and photo updates may not benefit you the way you think they do (Jon Loomer Digital). Take the data with a grain of salt. Jon’s audience isn’t your audience. Also, I feel vindicated in my stance on the text updates.
We’ve all seen the Harlem Shake videos. It’s the meme of the moment. Personally, it’s run it’s course for me. One video was plenty. But this? This is brilliant. (Marketing Land). YouTube took something that was becoming very run-of-the-mill and made it interesting again.
The Media Mesh
If you missed reading the blog this week, you didn’t miss much. I’ve been very busy working on Social Capital Conference - oh, did you know our tickets went on sale this week? - but there is this one post about how I gained my Twitter following - I even included homework!
App of the Week
You’ll likely notice that our apps will have a business focus and not necessarily a social media focus. These apps help us stay organized so we have time to do social media. We’ve recently begun using a tool called Asana, which has become our task/project manager. It’s a lifesaver for us because all those tasks that used to go into emails and texts now get slotted into Asana. We can get reminders and set deadlines, which I happen to find valuable.
That’s it for this week. I hope you had a good one! Let us know what you’ve been reading in the comments.