SLIDESHOW: Upgrade Your Social Media Marketing

From Hubspot, here's a slideshow highlighting 20 data-backed ways to make your inbound marketing efforts in social media more successful.

1. Tell Us Why We Should Follow You
2. Use Contra-Competitive Timing
3. Use Tall Images on Pinterest
4. Put Links 25% of the Way Through Tweets
5. Use Questions on Facebook
6. Use Links to Get Retweets
7. Stop Talking About Yourself
8. Say Something New
9. Stay Positive
10. Use Calls-to-Action on Facebook
11. Stay Away From Buzzwords
12. Share Links to Interesting Content
13. Use Photos on Facebook
14. Use Hashtags on Instagram
15. Talk About Food on Facebook
16. Tweet Around 4 p.m.
17. Don't Be Neutral on Facebook
18. Write Longer Tweets for More Clicks
19. Go Short or Long on Facebook
20. Ask for the Retweet

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INFOGRAPHIC: Steps to Successful Content Marketing

As marketing departments come to own more of the buyer cycle, a greater emphasis is being put on inbound marketing techniques. From Ledger Bennett, here's an infographic with a 10 step framework for implementing a content marketing strategy.

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VIDEO: Infographic Marketing

Infographics live up to the expression, "a picture is worth a thousand words". From Submitinme.com, here's a video case study that shows the effectiveness of infographic marketing.

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INFOGRAPHIC: Digital Marketing Trends for 2013

Dot Com Infoway identifies mobile marketing, social media, content marketing and author rank as the top four trends in digital marketing. Here's their infographic which provides insights on utilizing various elements of a digital marketing strategy to offer greater reach, better relevancy and higher customer engagement.

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INFOGRAPHIC: The Importance of Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around for quite awhile, and will continue to be an important part of a business marketing strategy. From ProMarketing Leads, here's an infographic about how email marketing has evolved with technology.

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Nurturing Leads with a Business Blog

Blog content makes excellent social media fodder and is naturally discoverable through search engines, so it can be a great way to attract new visitors and prospects to your website. But blogging can also have a significant impact in the closing stage of selling. From Hubspot, here are eleven ways to use your business blog to nurture leads.

Implement Smart Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
Automatically display different CTAs to different visitors based on information you've already collected about them in your contacts database. Show a CTA for an offer that aligns with a repeat visitor's position in the middle of the sales funnel.

Blog About Topics Sourced From Your Sales Team
Your sales team will have great ideas for content that can specifically help them close those leads as customers.

Enable Salespeople With Top Blog Content
Make sure your salespeople know about all the great content assets they have at their fingertips.

Email Blog Content to Segments of Unengaged Leads
Share blog content with your leads database and email marketing software. Revive a segment of your leads who haven't engaged with you in a while by sending them some low-commitment blog content.

Add Blog Content to Workflows
Incorporate some marketing automation and add blog content to your lead nurturing workflows.

Add Links for Blog Content to Other Parts of Your Website
Adding links for relevant blog articles to other pages of your website that leads are likely to visit can reinforce your position as an industry expert.

Weave Mentions of Your Products/Services Into Blog Content Where Appropriate
Remember that you're a vendor, not a publisher. Weave subtle product mentions into your blog content when appropriate.

Use Top/Sidebar Blog Real Estate Wisely
Beyond the articles themselves, you likely have some other blog real estate at your disposal that can be leveraged to meet a variety of goals.

Link to Middle-of-the-Funnel Offers Within Blog Content When Appropriate
Just like incorporating product mentions, this should be done in moderation.

Encourage Blog Subscription
Convert leads who are casual blog readers into dedicated subscribers. You can then keep exposing them to and nurturing them with your content.

Promote Your Social Media Presence on Your Blog
Your social media presence can double as a lead management tool as it offers more opportunities to promote your content and reach out to leads.

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INFOGRAPHIC: What You Should Know about Content Marketing

From Edge Media, here's an infographic that covers every aspect of content marketing including:

• What is content marketing?
• What makes good content?
• What are the benefits of content?
• Content market vs. advertising
• Myths about content marketing

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VIDEO: YouTube Marketing Secrets

You can't set out to make a viral video. Instead, be authentic and work on creating compelling content. From Entrepreneur.com, here's a video from Shira Lazar, host of What's Trending, advising how to use video to join the conversation, just like you would any other social network.

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INFOGRAPHIC: Business Activity On Social Media

From Invesp, here's an infographic that looks at how businesses use popular social media platforms, how much time they spend on these platforms, and how the connect with their customers.

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INFOGRAPHIC: Foundations for Content Marketing

Users demand content, and so social networks, websites, blogs, video platforms and search engines want it. From HodgesNet, here's an infographic that explains the right foundations for content marketing.

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