How AutoCAD Retooled Its Marketing With Facebook
Chris Hession has been a product and marketing manager for nearly 15 years. But recently, his job completely changed.
“Just in the last year and a half, social media has become not just a component of our product marketing plan, but really the core component,” said Hession, currently senior manager of Autodesk’s AutoCAD product marketing.
“Pretty much for everything we do, we’re looking at, ‘How can we make this work for social?’”
Millions of people worldwide use AutoCAD software to design everything from sunglasses to skyscrapers. If there’s any question that a B2B software company can market effectively with Facebook, look no further than the AutoCAD team. 
26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts
Do you blog? Feel like you’re trying to reinvent the wheel time and again?
Looking for some ideas to simplify your content creation process?
What follows are 26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write.
#1: Anatomically Correct
A blog post contains several areas that require our attention and care. Pamela Seiple refers to six parts of the anatomy of a lead-generating blog post:
- Eye-catching title
- In-text links to landing pages
- Sidebar/banner calls to action
- Social sharing buttons
- Call to action at the bottom
- Relevancy—making sure the post is relevant from top to bottom
How an Alaskan Mom Brings Millions to Her Carpentry Blog
Just over two years ago, Ana White wasn’t quite sure what a blog was.
Today, she runs her own rapidly growing destination, drawing nearly three million page views every month.
Successful professional bloggers aren’t hard to find, but a few things are remarkable about White’s success:
- She writes a do-it-yourself carpentry blog. With White’s help, droves of women are discovering they can build beautiful, stylish things.
- She started with dial-up Internet and does it all from her home in the Alaskan interior (where record-smashing temps recently hit -40° F).
- White succeeded accidentally. She never expected that simply sharing what she loves could support her entire family.
This self-described “homemaker” has an innate knack not only for woodworking but for business as well.
Turns out, this blog Cinderella tale is all about sharing your personal story. Oh, and relentless blogging.
How to Develop a Successful Multi-Author Blog
In this video I interview Joe Pulizzi, author of Managing Content Marketing, co-author of Get Content Get Customers and founder of the Content Marketing Institute.
Joe shares the story behind the Content Marketing Institute and explains why content marketing is not a fad and is here to stay.
You’ll also learn how a multi-author blog can help your business and what you need to know to develop one.
Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
How to Use Content to Increase Your Sales
In this video I interview Marcus Sheridan, the founder of The Sales Lion and River Pools and Spas.
Marcus shares the content strategy he used to increase sales for his pool business. He shows the connection between your blog content and your business growth.
You’ll also discover why content is the soul of your business and is the best sales tool you own.
Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
4 Blogger Tools for Breaking Your Writing Block
Blogs can be powerful marketing tools. Blogging can also be a highly demanding endeavor.
Even the most prolific writers can find themselves with a serious case of “blogger’s block.”
When blogger’s block strikes, some basic keyword research can provide a fresh batch of blog post ideas.
A series of posts written around related keywords can also look good in the eyes of the search engines or prospects.
Using Keyword Tools to Brainstorm Blog Post Topics
#1: Google Related Searches
There are a number of tools that can uncover related keywords and ideas for possible blog topics.
YouTube Analytics: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
YouTube Releases YouTube Analytics: YouTube Analytics now gives you a quick overview and more detailed reports for tracking your audience building and retention statistics. Be sure to check out the updated YouTube Creator Playbook to learn how to take full advantage of the new YouTube Analytics features.
3 Ways to Boost Interaction With Your Facebook Fans
Are you looking for fresh ideas to engage your Facebook fans?
Do you have a pretty nice fan base, but you’re struggling to come up with ideas to engage them on a daily basis?
One proven approach is to help your fans.
Here are 3 techniques used by some of the most successful Facebook pages. Try them on your page to see how your fans respond!
#1: Become a resource
Despite the level of connection you think you have with your fans on Facebook, many still express pleasant surprise when you respond to them personally on the social network.
5 Tips for Creating Video and Audio Content With Your iPhone
If you could create and manage an entire video blog using nothing other than an iPhone, would you?
If you’re interested in learning how to capture audio, pictures and video with nothing but an iPhone, keep reading.
Multimedia Content With an iPhone?
This is what I’ve been doing with my TalkingWithTom project this year. I’ve been interviewing digital thought leaders and then sharing those video interviews once a week.
And I’m creating the ENTIRE BLOG using just an iPhone.
The best part of the deal is I’ve learned a lot about what an iPhone can and cannot do. Along the way, my iPhone has become one of my favorite blog content creation tools.
In fact, I’m now using it in ways I had never envisioned when I purchased it last year.
In this article I’ll share 5 tips and tricks that will help you use your iPhone for capturing audio, photographs and video.
The New Relationship Marketing: Wisdom From Mari Smith
Recently I interviewed my very good friend Mari Smith, the “Queen of Facebook.” She’s coauthored the most popular book on Facebook called Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and has an exciting new book on relationship marketing.
You’ve also seen her outstanding articles on Social Media Examiner pretty much since our inception, and she’s also the anchor of Social Media Examiner TV.
She now has a brand-new hot book out called, The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.
Catch the full interview (audio) at the end of this article.
Mike: Your new book is called The New Relationship Marketing, and I want to key in on the word “new.” What’s new about relationship marketing?
Mari: Well, first of all, the phrase relationship marketing was coined way back in the ’80s by a professor, and I have for 10 years—long before Facebook was even on the map—called myself a “relationship marketing specialist.” And I love that term because to me it transcends the medium. It’s all about people doing business with people.
