My philosophy (like many marketers) is that time and money should be invested to make sure communications are extraordinarily relevant and engaging, and integrated across all delivery channels. In the last several years, “Social Media” has been a new shiny thing that allows us to think about communications in a different way — but the ideas that drive social media have always been in use, and experienced marketers know this — it’s just now we have a plethora of tools to act more creatively and easily against these ideas.
Online marketing is so much fun because we can test different messaging ideas, campaigns and delivery methods. And we can now measure results quickly and early, to see what’s working best and through what channels. Marketers can also deliver a brand in such interesting and powerful ways these days – allowing a company as well as its customers, employees and followers to contribute content about reasons to believe a brand promise is true (or not).
I think most would agree the world of marketing has changed dramatically and we are more accountable to the marketplace — partly because there is now so much transparency (which I love, that’s how it should be). It also forces us to be especially thoughtful about creating/delivering engaging communications and content.
Moral of the story — pay attention to the fact that more and more companies are producing innovative platforms, tools and technologies that allow marketers to elevate their brand and extend their reach. Make the discovery and implementation of these tools part of your strategic planning process — below are some great resources to help you.
Helpful Resources:
- 87 More Vital Social Media Marketing Facts and Stats for 2012
- 28 of the Best Twitter Tips, Tools and Tactics of 2012 (So Far)
- 17 Little Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using (and Why)
- 7 Proven Ways to Create Viral Pinterest Posts
- SEOclearly Split Testing Tool for Rankings
- 47 Essential Social Media Tools for Content Marketers
- Favorite Social Media Tools for Small Business
- 12 Steps to Audit Your Competitor’s SEO
- Buffer Partners With News Curation Service Scoop.it
- A Step-by-Step Guide to Linkedin’s New Company Pages
- Social Revolution: Connecting with Today’s Customers – A Sales & Marketing Guide (On Demand Webinar from HubSpot and Salesforce)
- 20 Tools For Testing Website Usability
- 8 Competitive Intelligence Data Sources
- Marketing via Aggregation, Filtering and Curation — Tools and Resources
- Top Ten Social Media Aggregators
- Best Practices for Success with Marketing Automation Software (plus free download of 2011 Marketing Automation Software Buyer’s Toolkit)
- A Quick Guide to Marketing Automation Reporting
- A Straight-Forward Guide to Optimizing Your Funnels for Maximum Conversions
- Social Monitoring: It’s a Data-Driven Process
- 170 Social Media Tools for Savvy Marketers
- 6 Newfangled Social Media Tools Worth Discovering
- Comprehensive Review Of Usability And User Experience Testing Tools
- Cool Tool: How To Easily Make Your Site More Successful With Marketing Grader
- IAB Best Practices for Conducting Online Ad Effectiveness Research
- 11 Twitter & Social Media Tools to Try in 2011
- First Have a Strategy, Then Find the Right Tools
- How to Use Social Media to Market Major Events
- 45 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
- Branding in the Age of Social: Gaining Insight Through Research
- Three Mobile Marketing Tools You Don’t Hear Enough About
- Ultimate List of Online Public Relations Tools
- How to Use Twitter and Facebook for Press Release
- 4 Steps to Launching a Successful Twitter Chat
- How to Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
- 60 Articles on B2B Marketing Analytics
- Step-by-Step Templates for Mapping Your B2B Content
- B2B And A Resistance to Video Marketing
- How To Sell Marketing Automation to the Boss
- How Is Slideshare The Quiet Giant of Content Marketing? #infographic
- 11 Ways to Maximize Sales with Linkedin
