You wouldn't hire Jonathan Ive and put him in a cubicle with an underpowered Lenovo laptop, would you? You wouldn't sign Peyton Manning to run the triple-option offense, would you? You wouldn't hire Tony Stark but tell him he's not allowed using your tools, would you? Then why do organizations continue to hire social media specialists, managers, and coordinators, but then handcuff them with outdated policies, processes, and technology? Boy do we need your help!"), Before going out and hiring that person to handle your social media, take some time to set them up for success. MORE >>

Amplifying your copy with high quality visuals creates great, engaging content. This is a truth most marketers have already realised. But how should you balance copy vs. visual and how should you define and create this high quality visual ? Regardless of the platform or social network, short, concise copy paired with strong, authentic visuals that carry the tone of voice in the copy (and the brand identity, obviously), will most likely attract the attention and interaction you’re looking for. The five pillars of visual marketing. Are you already turning your content marketing into visual gold? MORE >>

Drew’s note ~ Here’s some practical advice from the folks at Simple Machines Marketing and we couldn’t agree more. We often start our engagements with new clients with an audit like Charlie describes: As a marketing strategist who works directly with clients, I’m very familiar with the frustration businesses feel when it comes to marketing. The common theme in a lot of the frustration has to do with uncertainty. When a client is responsible for making projections and they’re forced to deal with the probabilities and estimates of a new marketing channel, that’s frustrating. MORE >>

Dropbox is BIG. The Dropbox application has become so big that the San Francisco Chronicle recently highlighted them in a feature article. It’s a cogent statement, acknowledging the massive success achieved by this SF Bay area digital titan of file storage. The article makes a terrific point in that people feel more secure saving their most cherished data with a company like Dropbox that isn’t as pervasive as behemoths Google, Microsoft or Apple. You know. Dropbox isn’t like those other choices. They are happy with their place in the file storage sun and wouldn’t dream of being naughty. Use it. MORE >>

I am reposting this very interesting question from Eric Lanke ( originally posted on his blog here ). would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on this. This is a true story. My association Board chair and I were chatting not long ago, talking about the mission and big-picture objectives of our association, and I mentioned, literally without giving it a second thought, that we were incapable of measuring progress on some of the things we had set for ourselves. It was only the look of shock that passed over his face that made me step back and think about what I had just said. Not one. MORE >>