You've probably heard how paramount blogging is to the success of your marketing. Without it, your SEO will tank, you'll have nothing to promote in social media, you'll have no clout with your leads and customers, and you'll have fewer pages to put those valuable calls-to-action that generate inbound leads. Need I say more? So why, oh why, does almost every marketer I talk to have a laundry list of excuses for why they can't consistently blog? Maybe because, unless you're one of the few people who actually like writing, business blogging kind of stinks. You have to … [Read more...]

In April 2016, something happened at Facebook that would quickly result in a revolutionary paradigm shift on the horizon of online communication -- from mobile to desktop, marketing to services, personal to corporate -- everything, really. Messenger opened its doors to developers with an invitation to create chatbots -- something of which roughly 78% of online adults were unaware.  Within six months, developers had created about 30,000 active Messenger bots. Today, less than a year later, that number is up 233%, with 100,000 active bots on the … [Read more...]

Some presentations are better than others. Some have gorgeous designs. Some have insanely actionable takeaways. Some just give down-to-earth advice. But the best presentations represent all three. And if you're looking to get started making your own presentation, why not learn from the best of the best? To help you kick your own presentations up a notch, we've curated 24 awesome PowerPoint and SlideShare decks below.  When you're clicking through the presentations below, notice how they weave an interesting story through the format, design their slides, and … [Read more...]

When I read that the average American spends five-and-a-half hours per day watching video content, I scoffed -- because between video explainers on Facebook, Game of Thrones, and Netflix, that average is closer to my daily minimum time spent watching videos. After all, 2017 is “the year of video” -- so why shouldn’t people consume more videos, and why shouldn’t creators make more? As it turns out, there is such a thing as too much video -- and it happens when publishers “pivot to video.” No, not that kind of pivot. I'm talking … [Read more...]

Remember only being able to send 1,000 texts each month? My mom definitely remembers our phone bills when I doubled that amount every week in middle school. Thankfully, companies created messaging apps to provide free and unlimited messaging, which was a refreshing solution for rigid text message limits and their lofty costs. But messaging apps refused to be just another form of text messaging. They kept innovating and evolved into apps for almost every digital interaction possible. Now, within a single app, you can chat with your friends, communicate with … [Read more...]

Just over a year ago, my business partner and I bet the future and success of our company on content marketing. We dismissed our sales team and put all our efforts into SEO and content. As an engineer, I get the technical aspects of this process. I can use SEO tools to identify opportunities, I understand why links are important, and I can follow the link building process. But I’m not a professional writer and no one else on our team is either. How were we going to create compelling content as a bunch of amateur writers? Luckily, we discovered content … [Read more...]

When it comes to content, sometimes old school can be a good thing (namely, when it comes to old school rap or Throwback Thursday on Instagram). But when it comes to your company's public relations strategy, being old school isn't advantageous for your business or your brand.  Ten years ago, people still relied on morning papers for news. Today, the vast majority of your company's customers and prospects scan headlines on Twitter or see what’s trending in their Facebook feed. People now have control over where, when, and how … [Read more...]

Economic disruptions produced by the ongoing technological revolution, rising uncertainty in global markets, and crises of complexity generated by social media all make this an exceptionally challenging time for organizations seeking to create or refine their brand identities. Explored in what follows are critical issues to address in assembling a comprehensive branding program, based on challenges and opportunities that we at Siegelvision consistently encounter with clients. The Inside-Out Approach Henry Ford is often quoted as having said, "If I had asked people … [Read more...]

If you're familiar with the HubSpot Academy, then you know it offers online certifications and free tools to help people all over the world learn how to market, sell, and grow an inbound business. Recently, HubSpot Academy launched its Education Partner Program, which helps college and university professors teach inbound marketing, sales, and provides guidance on using the HubSpot Marketing Software and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The mission of the program is to bring the theory and practice of running and growing a business into the classroom -- … [Read more...]

Many pollsters, including our team here at SurveyMonkey, track President Trump’s approval rating, which has fallen to an all-time low. We wanted to delve deeper—to ask respondents not just whether they approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president, but why. We did this in the simplest way possible: by immediately following our question on presidential approval with the open-ended question “Why?” This way, we can get explanations in respondents’ own words as to how they feel about our current Commander in … [Read more...]