Online Marketing News Recap – Week of December 16, 2013

New Year’s resolutions: most of us make them, but how many of us keep them? Well, this year we’re hoping to help you stick to some useful ones. Many people list “getting into better shape” as one of their new-year goals. We can’t get you out of bed and into your running shoes or yoga pants, but we can help you to get your online marketing strategies into top form. Check out the best online marketing news articles from the last week, and you’ll be on your way to success long before that ball drops in Times Square!

2014 Marketing Predictions with a Twist (Steve Olenski, Forbes)

There are just two weeks left in 2013, and you’re doubtlessly looking ahead and hoping your team is fully prepared for what the new year will bring. While we can’t look into a crystal ball and foretell your company’s future, we can point you toward one of the handiest marketing news articles this week: Steve Olenski’s run-down of predictions for 2014 from major players in marketing, like several leading professors at elite university programs, as well as professionals who work for big-name national brands like Red Robin and Victoria’s Secret. They pair their insight with famous quotes from film and music (yup, even “Wrecking Ball” makes an appearance) to illustrate and summarize their points in fun, relatable ways.  Get a clearer picture of how you’ll best reach customers—old and new—in the next 365 days with this humorous guide.

4 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2014 (Elizabeth Kent, Social Media Today)

So, thanks to Forbes, you’re feeling a bit more clued-in about what your marketing strategy needs next year, right? Great! This week, Elizabeth Kent wrote a great article for Social Media Today on smart ideas for your social media campaign in the weeks and months to come. Her suggestions include branching out on the social media platforms you use (don’t just keep it to Facebook and Twitter, as important as they are), rethinking your content (audio-visual material and blogs are two of your friends!), and focusing on local and mobile outreach. Social media marketing campaigns aren’t going anywhere—so make sure you’re not neglecting yours as the new year approaches. Make one of your resolutions a revitalized strategy.

From Old School to New School: SEO in Transition (Eric Enge, Search Engine Watch)

Finally, it’s always good to remember that the landscape of search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly in flux. In order to stay on top of the competition, it’s very important to stay current on what’s really working—versus what isn’t. Eric Enge has written some useful tips for Search Engine Watch about how to approach SEO going forward. He emphasizes quality over quantity for techniques like guest blogging and link building, and he encourages you to make your content compelling to your human readers as well as search engines. And—tying in to the social media resolution we’re encouraging you to make in 2014—he wants you to know that it’s not wise to neglect your company’s Google Plus profile. It used to be that you could add a few basics to your page and call it a day, but now, visibility on Google Plus is key. And, like any marketing you do, try not to make its use a chore—have fun with the content you post and share there … and everywhere!