While some industries are slower to adopt digital processes, others have dominated it. One major aspect of this prompt, digital ideology is social media. As marketers, we can all agree that tools like Facebook and Twitter are indispensable for any brand concerned with having a successful social strategy, but to be prosperous on such platforms, you must have timely, engaging content. Yes, it’s much easier said than done. However, a few sizeable brands have shown us that reactive marketing on social media is an attainable goal as long as you have the right plan in place.

Oreo and the Superbowl

One of the most memorable and noteworthy examples of reactive marketing on social media was Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” tweet in lieu of the great Superbowl XLVII blackout. Oreo’s ad agency, 360i, expected the unexpected and compiled a social media team of 15 people including copywriters, strategists, artists and Oreo executives. The Oreo executives were on standby for instant approval on content. While some material was pre-planned, like images designed with each team’s colors to announce the winner, the organization knew they had to be ready to act in the event of something big happening.

This is a guest post my Ivan Serrano. To check out more of his inforgraphics and marketing content, click here.

With the average smartphone user spending nearly three hours a day on their various devices, it’s important for businesses to make sure they’re adapting to new mobile trends.

One of the biggest mobile trends facing businesses is online shopping and how customers use their mobile devices to make purchases. Whether it be searching for a store location or comparing prices, people are finding it more convenient and necessary to use their smartphone to connect with businesses.

Whether you are updating your contacts with new blog content or sending a newsletter, emails allow you to connect with your subscribers and build fruitful relationships. However, this is not going to happen automatically. You will need the best email practices to help you.

Email is still a common form of communication, but as inboxes fill up with thousands of emails on the daily, it becomes icreasingly difficult to attract and retain user attention. Many people just start ignoring emails that do not seem immediately important to them, or unsubscribe altogether. You need to make your emails stand out so that people don't turn a blind eye. Here are a few things to consider as you continue your email endeavors.  

In most companies, the role of copywriter is far from glamorous. My mind typically gravitates toward an image of some poor, unfortunate soul confined to a dark room with a thick stack of business documents in one hand and a thesaurus in the other, wracking his brain for the best way to say “buy our stuff”. Okay, maybe its not that bad. However, I firmly believe that the day-to-day tasks of the conventional copywriter are largely underrated. Language and effective communication span across all industries and professions, and cannot be underestimated in a world where brands are continuously shouting over one another for attention. In the end, it isn’t the loudest ones that will receive responses. It’s those that have the most insightful things to say and the most interesting ways to say them; it’s the brands with the best voices.

Marketing is changing completely. Not only in terms of the way that traditional practices are diminishing, but in the way that people who do marketing think. For the majority of marketing history, practitioners have applied long-term, waterfall strategies to brands, relying upon static artifacts like fiscal reports and ambiguous, annual product planning to theoretically increase revenue. Such reasoning was (and in many cases, still is) due to the idea that marketers have all of the answers, so much so that they can predict the future behaviors of their customers.  This mindset looks something like: “If we implement X strategy, we will get X number of new Facebook fans, X number of our product will be sold, and we will increase X amount of revenue from last year, making the campaign successful.” However, the various values of “X” become a lot less predictable as the balance of power moves further from the marketer and closer to the user.

Whether you work in an industry that deals in B2B, retail manufacturing, or directly with customer service, all modern marketing efforts are continuously moving toward content creation.Every textual material that your visitors see, from page-long blog posts to website copy, conveys a message that reflects back to your company.

The pros recognize it; over 78% of today’s CMOs acknowledge custom content as the future of marketing. The people recognize it; 61% of consumers report that they are more likely to buy directly from companies that tailor thoughtful content than those that do not. As the media landscape continues to evolve with technology, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that users seek an individualized purchasing journey and businesses must deliver it.

This is a guest post by Ivan Serrano. To check out more of his inforgraphics and marketing content, click here. 

With big fish like Facebook and Twitter dominating the social media sphere, it’s hard for new social media sites to make a splash. While a lot of sites have failed to stick around, some prove themselves to be just as impactful as the big ones. Case and point, Pinterest.