Sherrilynne Starkie

MARCH 23, 2020

Hooray for Visme Unleashed! From time to time I get the opportunity to take social media tools and software for a test drive. Such an opportunity came my way recently when Payman Taie, the founder of Visme wrote to me with the offer to try out the newly retooled platform. As I’m always trying to make my visual content better, I jumped at the chance.

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Content Widget Project Overview 320

Sherrilynne Starkie

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

Earned media, often referred to as PR coverage, is growing in importance for today’s digital marketing success. People are returning to mainstream media in droves, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2020. Just two years ago the news media industry looked bleak with almost half, 44 per cent, of people checking the news less than once a week. Today’s picture is much rosier.

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Fashion News Report Review 409

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 27, 2020

What should be your social media marketing budget? This is a common question. In the not-too-distant past, marketers used three per cent of turnover as the marketing budget ‘rule of thumb’. But things are not that simple anymore. Now, a good place to start is by looking at the required investment in time, not cash. Newbies are often surprised by how much time social media can eat.

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Social Media Marketing Proposal Consultant 486

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 20, 2020

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This ancient Chinese proverb still holds true in today’s marketing world. There are literally thousands of marketing platforms, apps, channels, networks and formats. For overwhelmed marketers wondering where to begin, the best first single step is understanding integrated digital marketting. Ok, so what is integrated digital marketing?

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Marketing Tourism Content management systems Meeting 284

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 13, 2020

It’s January, the time of year where we all resolve to get organized and stay that way all year long! Now is the time to start a content calendar and keep it going. This is an essential tool in producing quality, effective content that consistently supports marketing and business objectives. An editorial calendar will not only get you organized, it will make you more strategic in your work.

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Organization Content Curation Case Study 221

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 10, 2020

Twitter is launching a new takeover ad product, Promoted Trend Spotlight. This placement places video content on the Explore tab which is Twitter’s collection of trending topics and hashtags. It’s where people go to see what’s happening, making it a prime location for advertisers. The new ad is now available only in the United States, UK and Japan, but will soon be coming to Canada.

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Trends Curation Mobile Hashtag 44

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 9, 2020

The Motley Fool is reporting that Instagram ads are now a significant source of revenue for Facebook, generating an estimated 20 per cent of the company’s total in 2019. That number should climb even higher in 2020, as Facebook continues to improve Stories ads. These are heavily weighted toward Instagram. Here’s why Instagram ads work: Intent.

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Instagram Report Features Engagement 195

Sherrilynne Starkie

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Earlier this year Instagram introduced fact-checking in the US to help identify, review and label false information. Starting today the program goes worldwide, including in Canada. The program means that Instagram’s partners are independently assessing information to reduce the distribution of fake news. When content has been rated as false, Instagram reduces its distribution by removing it from Explore and hashtag pages.

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Instagram News Hashtag Review 195

Sherrilynne Starkie

DECEMBER 13, 2019

Back in December 2007, the Society for New Media Research Symposium did a study into the influence of social media in PR. In the survey of 300 communications professionals, more than half agreed that social media was becoming valuable. Other key findings: 27% reported social media was a core element of communications strategies. 3% said social media had little or no value.

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Social Media Skills ROI Survey 195

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

TikTok has half a billion users, according to VP Blake Chandlee speaking at AdvertisingWeek in New York earlier this week. He said the video sharing platform is growing quickly in India and other parts of Asia. And although it’s owned by the Chinese internet firm ByteDance , it does not operate in China. Vaynerchuk urges marketers to think about the attention opportunity on TikTok if they want to gain huge audiences and engagement really fast.

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Platform Engagement Video Marketing 30

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

Facebook has started hiding likes. It means the number of reactions, views and likes are visible only to a post’s author. The test will begin in Australia and includes ads. For now, it’s only a trial with the goal of gathering feedback to understand whether this change will improve people’s experiences. Facebook first mentioned this plan to experiment with hiding likes, after testing the approach on Facebook-owned # Instagram this year.

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Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2019

Great video news for marketers! Facebook has announced new features and metrics for its Live API, Watch Parties and within its Creator Studio. “Rehearsals” via Facebook’s Live API: Page owners will be able to publish Live video only to their Page Admin and editors to test production setups, interactive features and do practice runs. Live video editing and steaming updates: A new trimming tool for Live video is coming and Live broadcast length is expanding from four to e ight hours.

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Features Video API Facebook 39

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

LinkedIn has announced that it’s rolling out Skill Assessments, a new way for users to validate their skills to showcase proficiency and boost discoverability. Early results show candidates who complete LinkedIn Skill Assessments are significantly more likely (~30%) to get. hired, according to LinkedIn’s blog. Each Skill Assessment is constructed through a rigorous content creation and review process in partnership with LinkedIn Learning industry and subject matter experts.

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Skills Badge Construction LinkedIn 39

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

In the last five years, people have raised over US $2 billion to support the people and causes they care about on Facebook , with $1 billion of that coming from birthday fundraisers alone. By dedicating their special day to a nonprofit organization, people rally their friends and family to support important causes. Over 45 million people have donated to or created a fundraiser on Facebook — which has more than doubled since last November.

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Facebook Organization Features Social Media 37

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

Facebook has confirmed that its ad Pixel, used to retarget audiences, has suffered an outage that may have impacted standard Pixel events from being logged. Between September 16 & 17, Facebook Pixel stopped logging events for some advertisers , causing reporting errors that, according to Facebook, may have impacted data connected to conversions, Custom Audiences and Dynamic Ads volume.

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Facebook Eventful Advertising Report 42

Sherrilynne Starkie

MAY 28, 2019

Google is launching a visual refresh of the mobile search results page designed to increase transparency on the world’s favourite search engine. The new design puts a website’s branding front and center, helping users better understand where the information is coming from. Site owners can learn more about how to choose their preferred icon for organic listings here.

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Mobile Google Paid Search Engineering 150

Sherrilynne Starkie

MAY 21, 2019

Instagram is introducing new designs in Explore to improve the discovery experience. The new navigation bar features shortcuts to IGTV and Shopping followed by topic channels tailored to the user’s interests, such as Food, Art and Travel. “IGTV” and “Shop” shortcuts are pinned to the front of the bar. These changes are a boon to brands looking to build Instagram as a direct sales channel.

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Instagram Travel Features Brands 236

Sherrilynne Starkie

MAY 17, 2019

Instagram launched a new @shop account to curate shoppable posts earlier this week. Content featured on this account will be 100 per cent community-trends driven and is supposed to be as a real-time indicator of what’s new and cool. It features FeelJeans, Cafuné, TheLipBar and more, linking to product pages which list the item’s price and a link to purchase the product.

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Instagram Curation Price Trends 150

Sherrilynne Starkie

MAY 6, 2019

I recently ran a poll of my Facebook Group members about online forms. I asked: When is the last time you provided your email or phone number via lead forms to get a white paper, report, coupon or other asset? Half of respondents said they’d done so in the last six months. Sixteen per cent had done so in the last month. Only two respondents said it had been more than year since they’d filled out an online form or that they had never done so.

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Sherrilynne Starkie

APRIL 4, 2019

If one thing is true of Facebook marketing, it’s that change is constant. The platform is always updating features and functions and keeping on top is the key to success. Facebook is updating how it measures ad relevance, for example. The single ad ‘relevance score’ is disappearing. Three new metrics are replacing it. There’s also and update on ‘potential reach’, and other metrics are going away.

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Metrics Facebook Compete Examples 199

Sherrilynne Starkie

MARCH 6, 2019

News of the launch of Mastercard’s new sonic brand reminded me of my Strive PR days in the Isle of Man. We helped a technology company develop and launch a ‘sonic logo’. It was so long ago that my memory fails me in recalling the client. But, I do remember that it took up a fair amount of the overall budget! Of course, using audio in branding is nothing new.

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Brands Sample Samples News 170

Sherrilynne Starkie

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

In this week’s Top 5 social media news for marketing and communications professionals we highlight new Google video display ads, a Forrester Research report on future digital marketing spend, TikTok’s FTC fine, Quora and potential Facebook regulation in the UK. 1. Video comes to Google responsive display ads. Now you can add YouTube video assets to Google responsive display adcampaigns.

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Facebook Committee Sports YouTube 150

Sherrilynne Starkie

FEBRUARY 23, 2019

In 2019 we are experiencing a resurgence in corporate blogging. For the first time in nine years, a greater proportion of Fortune 500 companies use blogs compared to that of Inc. 500 companies, according to new research from Umass Dartmouth. . The blog post below was first published on July 12, 2006, about six months into my blogging journey. In reading it I can remember some of the frustration I was feeling at the time.

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Consultant SEO Communities Review 186

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 24, 2019

A couple of weeks ago I published a list of the podcasts I’d been listening to and people seemed to really like it. So here’s an update with what I’ve listened to and enjoyed this past week. For Immediate Release #171: Ice Cream For Breakfast. I’ve been listening to Shel Holtz’s podcast for ten years and rarely miss an episode. Each is absolutely filled with must-know news for PR and marketing and it provides a ton of insight into current issues and trends.

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Notification Privacy Issues Influencer 230

Sherrilynne Starkie

JANUARY 23, 2019

Today is National Pie Day, and what better day to demonstrate how Snappa can help make relevant, topical marketing graphics. The image below took three minutes to make and not much longer to configure it share on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. It’s graphic design in a snap! Click here to get your Snappa free trial. . We celebrate National Pie Day annually on January 23rd.

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Marketing LinkedIn Instagram Twitter 191

Sherrilynne Starkie

DECEMBER 21, 2018

According to Edison Research, Canadian podcast audiences tend to spend more than six hours weekly listening to their favourite shows. Podcasts great way to keep on top of social media and industry trends and news. A lot of podcasts are motivational and educational, others are just very entertaining. Here’s a list of the podcasts I’ve been listening to this week: The mindset and discipline to build a brand and business — Lewis Howes on the School of Greatness Podcast.

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News Software Analysis Influencer 170

Sherrilynne Starkie

NOVEMBER 15, 2018

The top five must-know social media news stories of the week feature a Google’s new app for small businesses, LinkedIn’s Top Voices list, Facebook welcoming in French regulators, Pinterest’s UX improvements and Instagram’s new time tracking feature. 1. New Google My Business app now available. Google has released an easy-to-use, free tool to helps small business owners reach more people online and connect with their customers through Google.

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News Social Media Health Care LinkedIn 150

Sherrilynne Starkie

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

Here’s a great Instagram infographic! Since 2016, Instagram Stories have been a defining feature of the platform in engaging its 300 million daily users. With this feature users capture, modify and post related images and video content in a slideshow format. On average, users under the age of 25 spend around 32 minutes per day on Instagram. Those in older age groups spend more than 24 minutes per day.

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Sherrilynne Starkie

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

It’s reader competition time! Now is your chance to win a copy of a The Gen Z Frequency: How brands Tune In and Build Credibility. It’s co authored by Gregg L Witt and Derek E Baird and is a comprehensive guide for any brand or organization trying to reach this demographic. It covers fundamental truths, content creation, engagement strategies and tactics such as social media, experiential, emerging technologies, and much more.

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Case Study Microsoft Authentication Study 170

Sherrilynne Starkie

OCTOBER 31, 2018

Happy Halloween everyone! I made this e-card quickly with Snappa, an easy-to-use graphic design tool. Take your communications to a new level with unique visual content. Use this link for your free trial. The post Happy Halloween 2018 appeared first on Sherrilynne Starkie.

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Sherrilynne Starkie

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Top 5 must-know social media news for the week includes stories about a new Messenger, Soundcloud’s Instagram integration, YouTube’s changed engagement metrics, the fight against fake news and Snapchat’s power with youth demographics. 1. Facebook launches Messenger 4. Facebook is rolling out a new, simplified version of Messenger: Messenger 4.

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Research News Facebook YouTube 225

Sherrilynne Starkie

OCTOBER 16, 2018

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn,” said Ben Franklin about social media training never. But his message holds true anyway. Most organizations use social media channels in some way as part of their daily business. Most often, it’s in sales, marketing or customer service. The use of social media technologies and practices is restricted to those who have the word ‘social’ in their job title.

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Training Social Media Policies Skills 150

Sherrilynne Starkie

OCTOBER 15, 2018

Balancing activities across owned, earned, shared and paid media strategies is the best way to get a demonstrable return on investment (ROI) for today’s marketing and communications campaigns. Sometimes referred to as the PESO model (I avoid using this name because it puts paid first when it should be a lower priority.), this is the integraged digital media framework I use with my clients, no matter the challenge.

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Marketing Syndication Adwords Social Media 199

Sherrilynne Starkie

SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

I visited Mark Sutcliffe for the PowerLunch at 1310 News last week and enjoyed connecting with him and Kurt Stoodley, broadcaster and real estate professional. We discussed the potential for reinstating weekly garbage collection Ottawa. The three of us talked about which issues would most help Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer in the next federal election.

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News Real Estate Issues Course 170

Sherrilynne Starkie

AUGUST 29, 2018

This week’s top five social media must-know news sees Instagram and Google working to raise standards, shows how podcasting continues to grow and new innovations from Facebook. And, we see how women are leading the world of content marketing. Read on… Instagram takes action on fake accounts. Instagram, which has more than a billion users, is introducing new features to eliminate fake accounts and to reduce hacking.

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Content Marketing Nielsen Badge 170

Sherrilynne Starkie

AUGUST 28, 2018

What is this decade’s fastest growing social media platform? Instagram! If you’ve not added it to your marketing and communications mix, what are you waiting for? Already 71 per cent of marketers are increasing their investment in this channel. Key facts: Instagram is growing much faster than SnapChat and Pinterest in monthy users. It’s pace of growth is outstripping that of more mature channels such as Facebook and YouTube.

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Instagram Influencer Cost YouTube 247

Sherrilynne Starkie

AUGUST 23, 2018

I often visit Mark Sutcliffe in the 1310New studio for the #PowerLunch where we chat about the headlines of the day. In this episode we are joined by Toon Dreessen of DCA Architects. Guess who we think with be the Canadian Prime Minister after next year’s election? Watch and see! The post 1310 News PowerLunch: Who will be the Canadian Prime Minister in 2020?

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News 30