Category Archives: news

Fast Five in Search – Week 17, 2014

Posted on by
Reply

fast-five

 

Last week I treated you to five of my favorite Social Media Marketing News Sources. This week I share the remaining five that wouldn’t fit on last week’s list.

Here’s this week’s Fast Five – Top Social Media News Sources (continued):

1) Social Media Today – This site claims to pull together “the world’s best thinkers on social media”. While that statement is always going to be relative, I can vouch for the consistent freshness of their content. Be sure to check out their infographics channel while you’re there.

2) Social Fresh – Themed in a happy orange, this blog provides exactly what it says on the label – a collection of fresh updates about social media. What makes Social Fresh unique is their angle toward social media education. Their goal is to inspire people to create better businesses through social media via social media conferences and online training programs.

3) Expanded Ramblings Social Channel – As a reminder, Expanded Ramblings have an extensive library of Internet statistics and Infographics. Much of their content is dedicated to social media and this link will take you straight to that good stuff. If you need to find recent social media usage statistics or related stats, you’re bound to find something here.

4) TechCrunch Social Media Channel – As I’ve blogged about in the past, the TechCrunch network reaches over 12 million unique visitors and draw more than 37 million page views per month, with more than 2 million friends and followers on the various social media channels. This is their exclusive news channel for all things social media.

and finally…

5) Social Times – A recent discovery, this site is dedicated exclusively to social media news and is published by Media Bistro – a long time provider of jobs, news, education, events, and research for the media industry.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

Spread the joy!

Fast Five in Search – Week 16, 2014

Posted on by
1

fast-five

 

After posting my list of Top Digital Marketing News Sources a few weeks ago, some of you asked me if I could recommend some sources that focus exclusively on social media and social marketing news. I’m happy to oblige with this week’s Fast Five. There’s more than five, but let’s stick to the format and reveal five at a time (more next week).

Here’s this week’s Fast Five – Top Social Media News Sources:

1) SiteProNews Social Media News – SiteProNews is probably the largest single source of daily social media news that I visit in my morning rounds. Because their article feed is collated by author tags, the stories can be filed under several categories, including social media (linked above), social media marketing and social networking articles, so be sure to check each category for the latest stories.

2) Social Media Examiner – Pitching as the world’s largest online social media magazine, Social Media Examiner was founded by well known copywriter Michael Stelzner. With a flock of well known self-help gurus as guest bloggers, Social Media Examiner helps businesses discover how to best use social media, blogs and podcasts to connect with customers, drive traffic, generate awareness and increase sales. Technorati ranks Social Media Examiner as one of the world’s Top 5 business blogs.

3) Social Media Explorer – Headed up by social butterflies Nichole Kelly and Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer is a strategic services agency focusing on both social media marketing and digital marketing. As well as articles about social media marketing and search engine marketing, this site also provides an extensive selection of articles about public relations, media and journalism.

4) VentureBeat Social Media News – A little bit Huff Post, a little bit Mashable, this quirky site aims to “provide deep context to help executives, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts make smart decisions”. With 11 million monthly pageviews, the site is growing in popularity and seems to source more unique social media news than some of the bigger players. A handy bookmark if you’re looking for a new perspective on social.

and finally…

5) MarketingLand Social Media Channel – MarketingLand.com was developed as an offshoot of the successful SearchEngineLand run by Danny Sullivan and his team. Given the constant morphing of search engine marketing and social media marketing, it made sense to expand topics across separate sites under more relevant category headings and domains. This is the new and improved social media newsfeed now hosted on MarketingLand.com, but you can see older social media archives over on SearchEngineLand.com.

I’ll complete the list with my five remaining Top Social Media News Sources next week.

Happy news hunting!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

Spread the joy!

Fast Five in Search – Week 14, 2014

Posted on by
1

fast-five

 

Last week I treated you to five of my favorite Digital Marketing News Sources. This week I share the remaining five that wouldn’t fit on last week’s list.

Here’s this week’s Fast Five – Top Digital Marketing News Sources (continued):

1) TechCrunch – This site is similar to Technorati but more about the companies / products and less about the Silicon Valley egos. I’ll visit this site if I want to know more about a particular tech company, app or product. TechCrunch is best known for profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products and breaking tech news. The TechCrunch network claims to reach over 12 million unique visitors and draw more than 37 million page views per month, with more than 2 million friends and followers on the various social media channels. The site first came to world wide attention when it broke the news of Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006.

2) WebProNews Technology News – WebProNews mostly covers the latest developments in search engines, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, advertising, and online branding. Their authors also offer personal opinions quite freely, which can be both a positive and a negative. The site is a bit ad-heavy, but I’ll pop in here if I’m looking for an alternative angle on a particular news item or a second opinion.

3) Expanded Ramblings – A recent discovery, Expanded Ramblings describe themselves as a clearinghouse for original and curated digital marketing tips, stats and news. I think this is a little modest, as they have one of the most extensive libraries of Internet statistics and Infographics that I’ve ever come across. I’ll jump over here if I need to source an infographic or verify any type of fresh Internet stats.

4) HubSpot Marketing News – HubSpot is an inbound marketing software platform and somewhat of a pioneer in the online marketing industry. Although their core business is software and online tools, they have been publishing a solid marketing blog for years. I like this blog because the content is always super fresh and reliable and focused on actionable marketing tips and techniques for businesses of all sizes. Everything they publish is easy to read and implement and makes jolly good newsletter content.

and finally…

5) SiteProNews – I have to add this one with a disclaimer – I sometimes write for them :-) But bias aside, SiteProNews is a voracious aggregator of tech and marketing content. If you’ve heard rumblings on any tech topic, you’re likely to find an article about it already published somewhere on this site. With arguably the largest webmaster readership on the Internet, SiteProNews sources an enormous amount of fresh content from staff writers and guest bloggers alike.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

Spread the joy!

Fast Five in Search – Week 13, 2014

Posted on by
Reply

fast-five

 

A few of you have asked me for my favorite blogs or newsfeeds where I find inspiration for my Fast Five posts. So this week, I’ve been putting together a list of my Top Digital Marketing News Sources. There’s more than five, but let’s stick to the format and reveal five at a time (more next week).

Here’s this week’s Fast Five – Top Digital Marketing News Sources:

1) Inbound.org – A collaboration between Hubspot and Moz.com. The site is a modest community of bloggers and marketers who share and discuss the latest news about SEO, social media, content marketing, conversion rate optimization and other marketing goodies. It reminds me of Sphinn (yeah, remember that one?), but with less SEO bias. I like Inbound.org because apart from hosting the latest digital marketing news, there are discussion threads for each post, meaning you are getting honest opinion on the news content from real marketers, rather than just the message prepared by the news source.

2) Technorati Technology News – Technorati indexes more than a million blogs and describe themselves as “The leading blog search engine and directory, tracking not only the authority and influence of blogs, but also the most comprehensive and current index of who and what is most popular in the Blogosphere.” Nuff said.

3) Mashable Technology News – Like Technorati, Mashable claims to be the leading source for news, information and resources for the blogosphere, however instead of using blogosphere, Mashable calls it the *Connected Generation*. Tacky catch-phrases aside, Mashable reaches 34 million unique visitors worldwide and has over 15 million social media followers, so can definitely claim to have one of the most influential and engaged online communities out there. I like pretty much everything about this site, except for the infinite scroll and the *evil magician* style photo of founder Pete Cashmore.

4) Huffington Post Tech Channel – What started as a political commentary site has ballooned into a breaking news and opinion site, with a seriously sexy number of news sources. I visit this site first if I’m looking for confirmation of a rumor spotted on social media (think celebrity death or political gaff) or if I need a bit of off-beat news to fill a newsletter gap. I’m almost positive that Huffington Post was the inspiration for the fictional blog site *Slugline* on the popular web TV series House of Cards.

and finally…

5) Marketing Land Top News – My first port of call for breaking news in digital marketing. Danny Sullivan and his team are almost always first to have the scoop, thanks to years of grooming contacts within the tech world and Danny’s own extensive background as a journalist. Apart from anything else, I can trust the content on this site to be factual and unbiased.

I’ll complete the list with my five remaining Top Digital News Sources next week.

Happy news hunting!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

Spread the joy!

Google AdWords Promotional Credits for AU/NZ

Posted on by
Reply

advertising creditsFancy $100 worth of free AdWords advertising?

As members of the AU/NZ Google Partners program, our consulting agency – Jordan Consulting Group Ltd – is regularly given access to certain resources and exclusive benefits to help our clients gain the most from their search marketing efforts.

Our latest perk is a stack of email vouchers each worth AU $100 in AdWords advertising credits. If you are based in Australia or New Zealand and would like to test drive Google AdWords or kick-start a new AdWords campaign, I’d be happy to hook you up with one of these vouchers.

But WAIT! There are a few conditions:

1) The credit can only be applied to AdWords accounts that are no more than 14 days old.

2) You must have a billing address in Australia or New Zealand to be eligible.

3) You need to allow Jordan Consulting Group agency access to the account for the first 30 days via our My Client Center account. This blog post explains the process. This is to allow us to monitor and track the account spend without needing your login credentials. You retain exclusive control over the account and the level of access we have to it. It also ensures Google can reconcile the voucher code with our agency account. You can terminate our agency access to your account at any time after 30 days.

4) There are specific terms and conditions for the use of these codes in each country:

Still keen? Please contact me via this form or via my Twitter account @kalena. and I will get you set up.

Here’s to free advertising!

Spread the joy!