The Weekly Marketing Roundup – January 18, 2013

A rundown of 10 marketing, communications or leadership stories you may have missed this week.

Digital Marketing

1. New MySpace Review

   From Mashable

   The new MySpace is pretty. It incorporates many of the trends in modern web design and social media — big visuals, responsive design, easy discovery — and gives them a clear focus: connecting through music. And it really works…

   Click to read the full article

2. Getting Engaged
   

   From Smashing Magazine

   You probably hear about it every week, if not every day: a spiteful or ragged relationship has ended badly. There are bitter arguments, custody battles, legal entanglements, lives and homes broken in the wake of moral incompatibility, poor choices, and a lack of sober discrimination.

   It’s the predictable result of kids getting married too young or impassioned people who barely know each other rushing into marriage. The tale is often similar with designers and their clients after a rushed, ill-considered marriage…

   Click to read the full article

3. How businesses can use Facebook’s Graph Search

   From USA Today

   With Facebook’s introduction of Graph Search on Tuesday, businesses are naturally curious to find out how they can take advantage of the tool, even though it’s currently only in limited preview for English audiences. Facebook has naturally made it a point to explain what businesses should be doing.

   Facebook says…

   Click to read the full article

4. Become the Ashton Kutcher of Subscription Swag, Before He Does

   From Wired Magazine

   If you’ve always wanted to create your own monthly subscription box, social commerce startup The Fancy will now do the hard work for you. And here’s the beauty part: They pay you a chunk of every sale.

   Starting now, anyone – yes, you – can sign up to make their own Fancy subscription box. You can sign up by e-mailing myfancybox@thefancy.com and once they set you up, you get to pick from a list of popular products on The Fancy, or add anything else you like from the internet, so long as isn’t deemed inappropriate by the startup’s staff (think offensive t-shirts, weapons, or drugs). The Fancy says it is looking for all kinds of people to make boxes, says a company spokesperson. That might seem like a risky business decision, but the company won’t procure any of the products for a box until one sells….

   Click to read the full article

5. SMB Marketing in 2013: 85% of SMBs to increase use of email w/Infographic

   From MarketingSherpa

   Both of these MarketingSherpa Blog posts were prompted by research from AWeber, which found 68% of small businesses plan on increasing the marketing budget in 2013. That prompted me to reach out to experts in the SMB sector for tips and tactics specific for SMB marketers.

   Today’s post offers more details from the AWeber research, along with more insight from industry experts…

   Click to read the full article

Nonprofit Marketing

1. It’s 2013, Do You Know Where Your Web ROI Is?

   From NTEN

   A high-school English teacher once taught that every word that an author writes is deliberate and purposeful. Every noun, verb, article, and adjective is chosen with precision to create a masterpiece. Though we readers may not realize it, the greatest authors put a value on every word so that the work may achieve its purpose.

   Now that data on the web is pervasive, we technology professionals are being asked to put a value on every little thing that we do for our web presence: email campaigns, Facebook posts, logo redesigns, information architecture tweaks. It all can be measured, and if you are reading this, chances are you are one of those people doing the measuring. Budgets rise and fall with the lines on a bar graph showing the click-through-rates of your end-of-year email campaign. Return on Investment (ROI) for web projects has come to the forefront…

   Click to read the full article

2. 5 Steps to Optimize Your Org’s Google+ Page

   From Razoo

   Gisele Navarro Mendez‘s last installment of her series helping you optimize your nonprofit’s social profiles for SEO. Check it out her posts on Facebook and Twitter. 1. Optimize your Google+ Page..

   Click to read the full article

3. 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends [Infographic]

   From Kivi Leroux Miller

   The 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report is officially out! Kivi will be blogging some of the more interesting points this week. Get your copy of the report and the other report graphics.

   Here’s the infographic . . …

   Click to read the full article

4. Benchmark Study for Online Video Usage by Non-profits

   From Wild Apricot

   Did you know that “video is, by far, the content that commands the most attention online. In the US, the average web visitor watches nearly 250 videos per month.” (Michael Hoffman, CEO, See3)

   The stats on video viewing are important for non-profits, since “each week, 100 million people take a social action on YouTube through likes, shares, comments, etc. For many of these engaged viewers, their action is in support of a cause or nonprofit organization.”

   Click to read the full article

5. 19 Nonprofit Facebook Page Status Ideas You Can Steal

   From John Haydon

   PIf you’re like most busy nonprofit professionals, you make your best effort to have an organized content strategy on Facebook. But there are still times when you get buried with other projects and simply have no idea what to post on your Facebook Page. Here are 19 quick Facebook Page Post ideas that you can…

   Click to read the full article