Make It With Michael

By Carmen Alicia Coto Are you familiar with whiteboard animation videos? If not, this is a process in which a story is told using drawings on a whiteboard . The artist draws in front of the camera (or at least it looks like it!), and records themselves during the process. Now that you’ve heard of them, let me tell you something else: whiteboard animation videos are a great tool. The possibilities are almost endless! Above all, it is a great educational tool because it simplifies a complex message and makes it engaging and entertaining. It also works the other way around by making a boring topic really interesting. A great whiteboard video has to follow some rules though, so keep reading – I’ve got 10 tips to create the best whiteboard animation explainer video for your business! 1. Use the power of storytelling Nobody can resist a well told story. As human beings, we live for stories, we can’t help but be attracted to them. Use this power of attraction, and, instead of just try...

By Kim Smith Organic Social Marketing or Paid Social Advertising? Which is the more effective traffic generation and customer acquisition channel between the two? Where should a social media marketer invest their resources (time, efforts and even dollars)? In the social ecosystem, there has been a roaring debate going on for a long time over the use of Paid Advertising vs. Organic Marketing, and which one provides better value for a brand’s social marketing strategies . So, let’s dive in to compare the two contenders and find which one wins the ‘Game of Thrones’: Contender #1: Organic Social Marketing To play and win the game, you must know the rules of the game. So, let’s understand how social algorithms work to get maximum organic social traffic to your website . Learning about the rules: Understanding the math behind social algorithms Easy to say, difficult to do! Understanding the working mechanism of social algorithms is not a piece of cake. The algorithm for each social ...

By Jeff Harvey No doubt you see digital marketers discussing the newest and most exciting email marketing tricks just about every day all over the internet. Some of these hacks will promise to change the way you market your product. Some might even guarantee to take your email campaigns from 0 to 100 in no time. But here’s a piece of wisdom… age-old marketing best practices, and not ‘new tricks’, genuinely make a difference and will continue to do so for years to come. It takes years of trial and error to uncover these principles of email marketing. A hundred books and 100+ articles/blogs won’t teach you as much as field-testing will. There are plenty of proven email marketing tips, many of which haven’t changed for years and won’t change for years to come. The closer you stick to some of these proven email campaign best practices, the more likely your campaign is to succeed. This is a post for marketers who want a tested formula to get a response to their emails . Tips to make ...

By Shaikh Zafar If you’re concerned about search engine optimization, chances are that you keep a close eye on what the big search engines are up to – especially Google . Anyone following the search engines will tell you that they’re always up to something. New changes are introduced regularly and keeping up with these changes is vital for improving your search rankings . You can’t really blame Google either. They are the world’s most popular search engine for many reasons and they intend to stay there. One way of doing so is by providing a better user experience, and many of the changes they make to their search ranking algorithm are aimed at exactly that. One of the latest changes is the introduction of a mobile-first index. How Google’s mobile first index works Google has traditionally prioritized desktop versions of websites over mobile versions when analyzing content for ranking on results pages. However, this has proved to be problematic for the search engine as more peopl...

By Brenda Savoie If you are always creating new content, it can burn a deep hole in your marketing budget… A great way to publish more content, without actually creating more, is to recycle the content you already have and that of other credible sources in your industry. The list of content curation tools below will help you save money, time and effort by recycling the best content available. Not only will they help you engineer a content recycling system, they will also help you avoid plagiarism in the process. Let’s take a look… 1. Flockler The Flockler principle is clear, you gather your information, you publish it in one place, and you gain valuable insights. Use your curated content to bring fans of your industry, your product, your market and your services to you. For example, Nestle has 20 managers dealing exclusively with content creation and they use Flockler. Draw people in by using snippets of media feeds and curated content from around the Internet. Collate your...

By Jini Maxin Let’s face it… With over 200+ Google ranking factors making sure the law of the land prevails, and over 1 billion websites fighting for spots in search engines – if you ignore SEO, your online sales are likely to go south, especially if you are unlucky enough to get struck with a Google penalty. If you do not want to fall victim to a Google penalty, ensure that whenever the Google God’s wave their magic wand and whip up an algorithm update/change, such as Penguin, Pigeon, Panda, Hummingbird, or the recent RankBrain roll out, that you comply. But then again, how do online website owners actually comply when Google reveals only so much? Even if you keep your nose pressed against Google’s conference room, you won’t get to know much. So, how do you actually entice Google’s robots to drive more traffic to your website ? Simple. Play Along. Learn through trial and error. Stay on the learning curve. Perhaps then, you’ll be able to differentiate what works and what doesn’t...

By Lucas Miller Working remotely can be liberating. It’s also something a lot more entrepreneurs are doing. Pete Rojwongsuriya, founder of Travelistly and Bucketlistly , recently told Forbes : “What [people] do not know is that the global workforce is moving toward this direction, and the types of skills required to work remotely have expanded in recent years. I have a few friends who are considering making their work remote. In fact, my friend’s mother is trying to automate her business selling chemical compounds so that she can ride around Germany with her bike. It is truly inspiring to see people adapting their work so that they can pursue their life goals in a way that couldn’t have been possible before.” Not being tied down to an office and traveling the world while working for clients or building your startup is exciting, but it also comes with many obstacles, including pressure to close deals, creative frustration in areas that aren’t your specialty, and distractions that...

By Mo Harake Sometimes, a pivot is all you need. In business, the stubborn among us wither and die, while those willing to adapt and change see the greatest success. Ecommerce is no different. In fact, the pivot – changing your approach or perspective – is even more crucial because of the changing nature of the medium itself. It’s no secret that ecommerce is big, big business, and only showing signs of getting larger. How big? Industry watchdogs predict that worldwide B2C ecommerce sales will hit just over $1.92 trillion in 2016 . It seems the sky’s the limit. But that’s in a perfect world. Sometimes, you need to think bigger. Sometimes, you need to change it up a little… or a lot. Sometimes, you need to pivot to succeed. Check out these five brands that have pivoted their way to major profits. 1. Brandy Melville Despite sounding like the most American of American monikers, clothing retailer Brandy Melville was actually started over twenty years ago in Italy by Silvio Marsan...

By Will Blunt A lot of sweat and tears can go into a great article. But even if you spend hours creating a masterpiece, its fate still depends on one thing: the headline . If a headline doesn’t attract interest, people won’t click. And if people don’t click, no one will read your great article. So if you want your hard work to pay off, you need to become an expert headline writer. That said, spending hours on a headline after you have just spent hours writing a post is not ideal. Luckily, there’s a structure you can follow to make your headline hunt a whole lot easier. Steve Rayson from BuzzSumo did a meta analysis of what headline elements are most common in viral posts. These are the five things that showed up the most: Emotion Content Topic Format Promise Successful headlines don’t have to have every single element, but the best ones have at least three, according to the research. Here’s an example of a BuzzFeed headline with all five elements in action: Using thes...

By Ajit Singh Sending a bulk email is an irreversible process. You cannot undo it, edit it, or pull it back from the subscriber’s inbox. It’s done, and you can do nothing even if you immediately realize that you have committed a blunder just like the New York Times employee who sent an email to its list of 8 million+ people, which was only supposed to be sent to just 300 people. Twitter Erupts Over New York Times Email Blunder- The Daily Beast Since there is no second chance, the wisdom is in ensuring that you send the right email the first time. Period. Mailchimp outrightly suggests to “recruit someone to proof the campaign for you.” However, making mistakes is like a fart. Despite your resistance, you can’t stop it from coming wherever and whenever. So, in this post, we have identified some of the common, yet not so obvious mistakes, which email marketers make while setting up an email marketing campaign. Let’s take a look… 1. Ambiguous subject line The subject line is critic...