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Sean Smith from a start-up called Spectafy says it well: "If you’re marketing for an early-stage startup, every second counts. Any mistake is a massive setback. Setbacks ultimately lose potential customers." During their content marketing journey with Spectafy, a real-time photo sharing app, Sean Smith and the group made plenty of mistakes. Fortunately for you, they kept track of what works and what doesn’t to help you avoid wasting time with your own content marketing efforts. Read more at the Copyblogger site behind the link.

Simple reasons you should do infographics.

Ever since the iPhone kickstarted the mobile revolution, advertisers have been struggling to keep up with the massive changes in people’s online behavior. Despite the reality that people are now spending more time on their smartphones and tablets, the amount companies spend on mobile ads has trailed behind. Finally, that’s about to change. According to a couple of recent reports, spending on advertising on mobile devices will surpass what advertisers spend on the desktop Web late this year or early next year. That’s a milestone that goes well beyond the symbolic, as it means that advertisers not only are getting with the program app, but that they’re finding compelling ways to reach people on the very small screen. Read more after the bump.

New video streaming apps the like of Periscope and Meercat could start a new golden era of citizen journalism. More behind the link at Business Insider.

It is a fantastic thing to generate good content for your travel website or blog, but this alone cannot bring you the kind of results that you want for your travel business. Having a quality marketing strategy is the backbone that will put a purpose behind your content. Despite all you have seen and read about how crucial quality content is for SEO, this will only bring you the results you desire, as well as raise your brand awareness in the marketplace, if only you deploy it alongside a custom marketing strategy. In the latest survey by Smart Insights on digital marketing trends for 2015, content marketing ranked as the top priority (see chart). In 2015, one should not expect to maintain the currency and competitiveness of their travel SEO strategy by just generating original content. Having good content is important, everybody knows that by now. How you generate, post, and distribute it in the long term -- as well as being intentional with your marketing strategy -- are the factors that will set you apart from the crowd. Critical points that every content marketing strategy should be keen to adhere to include the following: Do your research well, connecting your researched topics to long-tail keywords that indicate low competition as well as high search volume; Your content; travel articles, infographics, press releases, videos, etc. should be engaging so that it can fit in among top-ranked tourism industry media; In order to be able to attract new targeted visitors, raise your brand awareness and promote links back to your travel site naturally, syndicate your content and ensure that it is widely distributed. What content strategy have you designed for your travel business? Do you just increase content since people say that it is good to do so? Do you simply come up with a new package for your hotel business just for the sake of having one? When it comes to content creation, let your strategy be very clear. Let your goals and objectives be measurable and evaluatable. More behind the link.

One of the most pressing points for many startups is validating actual demand of their business. A lot of these bootstrapped entrepreneurs have great ideas that address a sizeable target market. However, once they launch in public beta, they often struggle to get sufficient clients. They are not able to figure out if their proposition is compelling enough. validate_demand Startups have a tendency to latch on to every free channel out there to market their business. This results in their efforts being diluted. You cannot be on all social channels, and do a great job at each of them without even testing whether your business has a sizeable market opportunity. And there are enough mediocre social media pages out there that hardly receive any engagement. Therefore, the need is to pick only few channels where you can assess the market quickly and take necessary corrective measures to fine tune your idea. Once you have tested the waters, you can gradually extend your marketing clout and move to different social media channels. In this post five techniques are listed, that any startup can implement right away to validate if their business idea has a sizeable market. (Follow the link for the whole story)

The constant innovation and the ever-changing technology forced companies and businesses to rethink their strategies. The tactics or marketing campaigns that were deployed in 2014 or even in 2013 are no longer relevant for the targeted customer and for almost all of industries today. A new infographic published on Visual.ly goes into detail of how influencer marketing is becoming paramount and the king of content for 2015. Read more behind the link.

A digital marketer is like a conductor. Many players, a lot of shiny noisy instruments and a big audience. It means understanding the nuances of the new web paradigms and how they interact. It’s about knowing about how each of the social and digital channels operate and interact with each other and the synergies that creates. It raises questions like, how different should my Facebook post be to my Twitter or Instagram tactics. What priority should I put on email marketing? How does my content marketing help build my search engine optimization? The questions are many and complex. Read more at business2community.com: http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/10-skills-digital-marketing-manager-needs-succeed-01189858

The height of basketball season is well underway (March Madness and NBA teams are gearing up for a playoff run), but I’ll bet you didn’t know how that relates to omni-channel marketing. Just like basketball, omni-channel marketing is about teamwork — using the various marketing channels towards a single goal and delivering a unified customer experience. Some channels may be the top shooters and other channels may be great in the paint, but what makes everyone better is an elite point guard. They are often the heart of the team, make adjustments on the fly, and always make the right pass at the right time. When the star point guard is off the floor, even though you still have the same number of players, everyone on the team feels it. In an increasingly social and mobile world, social analytics is the point guard of the omni-channel marketing team. Read more at http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/omni-channel-marketing-needs-right-social-analytics-01193331#KIhUfDpg1i84sHDM.99

data oriented marketing is already a necessity for many CMO's. Forbes discusses the topic with the jefe at Dun & Bradstreet.

Over the years, it’s become clear that the quickest way to build a brand online is to invest in content marketing, and link up with bloggers and authoritative industry leaders. All you need to support this theory is to look at brands like HubSpot and KISSmetrics, which hit the ground running with massive guest blogging campaigns and impressive visuals. If you’re looking to experience an equally fast start for your brand – or are looking to give an existing brand a much needed jolt – there are certain strategies you need to pursue. Read more after the bump.

Advertisements are created with the purpose of getting people's attention. The effectiveness of an ad campaign relies on the insight and creativity of the advertisers. Themes that strike a chord to peoples heart will evoke reaction from the viewers especially if they are about animal and human rights, the environment, health, or any issued of public interest. Here are the most shocking ad campaigns that will leave you thinking. Straight from Viralands.

Former American Apparel CEO Charney seeking $40 million in damages at Reuters.

Amazons is reportedly in talks to purchase premium online retailer Net-a-Porter. Very exciting news, but I'm not sure if it's good for us as consumers. What is sure is that, if the purchase goes through, it will pave wave for new generation of high-end online retailers ready to reap the spoils from the opportunity and a possible vacuum in the market.