You can create as much content as you want, and use the best search engine optimization methods you can get, but if people don’t really care what you have to say, you’re not going to get far.

That’s why I wanted to give you some tips that I use when I’m creating content like blog posts, videos and more.

These tips can help capture your audience and make sure your message resonates with them.

I’m gonna’ call this “The 4 R’s of Ridiculously Great Content” and to get started creating content that will keep your audience riveted, watch the video below (note – a transcript can be found beneath the video):

Video Transcript

I’m super excited to be here today guest blogging for Matt.

Because Matt focuses a lot on content and creating great content, and getting it out there to your audience, I decided I wanted to do something talking a little bit about how to make people interested in what you have to say.

Really, you could create as much content as you want and have the best search engine optimization methods you can get but if people don’t really care what you have to say, you know you’re not getting that far.

So I want to give you some tips that I use when I’m either writing blogs, or I’m doing like what I’m doing here today for you and doing videos, that can help capture your audience and make sure your message resonates with them.

We’re gonna’ call this the 4 R’s, really simple for you to remember and it’s “The 4 R’s of Ridiculously Great Content”.

The 4 R’s of Ridiculously Great Content

Be Relatable

The first R is going to be, “Be Relatable”.

If you read any of my blogs or watch any of my videos, you’ll see that I often tell really funny stories about myself. Or, I talk about things that I suck at or mistakes I’ve made or situations that I’ve gotten in that were just like kind of ridiculous or maybe embarrassing (a lot of the times probably embarrassing).

I do that ’cause of two main reasons:

1. People love a story – they like to follow along with a story and it helps them learn because they can relate it to the real world.
2. People want to talk to someone and to read what someone has to say that’s relatable – they want you to be a real person, not just a drone throwing out advice at them. For the same reason that if you call a customer service center and you get one of those automated robot voices, it drives you nuts. Whereas if you call a customer service center and get a real person, it’s kind of like a sigh of relief.

So always makes sure that your content is relatable, whether that means bringing it on back to you, tell stories about yourself, people you know or whatnot.

Make sure it works correctly for your brand, but don’t be afraid to let your vulnerable side show because that really helps people connect with you.

Be Relevant

Number 2 is, “Be Relevant”.

If there’s an opportunity to take a current event going on in the news and really apply it to your topic in a way that people can learn from, that’s fantastic!

It also can be a really good way to boost your visibility and get your post out there since that topic is going to be trendy.

Now, one very careful warning about this: be sensitive to everything that goes on. Don’t take some sort of natural disaster or mass killing spree and try to make it work to you to sell your product.

What you want to do is only use current events if you can, especially if they are tragic, use them in a way that can teach your audience something important.

In the end, yes you want to get your content out there, but please be sensitive about these events and what goes on and realize that we’re all human and have emotion and so use common sense and basic decency when making those decisions.

But being relevant is always a great idea. People are thinking about a topic, they’re probably already processing through their head and if you are able to help further that processing through things you say in your blog or the content that you put out there, then all the better.

Be Ridiculous

The third R of Ridiculously Interesting Content is, “Be Ridiculous”.

Again, you’ll read my blogs or watch videos that I’ve done and I try to just make them sometimes over the top. I talk about really kind of strange topics that no one would ever think had anything to do with marketing and communications.

I would say in the last couple of months, I’ve written posts about Darth Vader, about toads, about the best mustaches in history. I mean, you name it, I have written about it.

So don’t be afraid to stretch outside of the box of what people normally think about your topic. Grab something that’s unpredictable, that’s not in the norm and that’s going to grab people’s attention and give them a different perspective about what you have to say.

Remember that there’s a lot of people out there creating great content and most likely, anything that you’re writing about has been written about in one way or another. So if you try to bring in some sort of oddball element to what you’re saying to get your point across, it really helps you stand out. It helps accentuate your brand and who you are as an individual.

Be Romantic

And the fourth, and final, R of great content is, “Be Romantic”.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that you want to shower your audience with roses or chocolates or take them out to a romantic dinner, but you do want to let them know that you care about them.

Make sure that your audience realizes that it’s important to you that they’re there, that they’re reading, listening, being part of the conversation that you’re having with your content.

You can do that through asking questions at the end, or doing Q&A that you accept their questions and you respond with whole blog posts that are responses to thing that they really want to know. Make sure that if anyone leaves comments on your articles that you respond and you give them an actually thought out and good response.

People want to know they matter. They want to know you care about them and you’ll develop a much more loyal audience that will come back again and again spread the word about you if you do let them know that you care.

And after all, if you’re in a business that these are your market, you probably should care. If you don’t, you might want to look for a different business.

Laura Petrolino is Founder and Managing Director of Flying Pig Consulting, a communications and business consulting firm which focuses on the needs of startups, small business and non-profits. She is also co-host of Call a Biz Hero, a web-based, Superhero led business talk show.

As business owners learn more about the rules of SEO, how to rank well in Google and the importance of content in their marketing strategy, it’s almost like a light bulb goes off in their head at some point. The thought goes something like this:

“You mean, if I use my keyword 50 times in a 400-word piece of content, Google will rank me higher?”

The answer: maybe, but not likely.

You may see some short-term benefit in your rankings, and a correlation of a bit more traffic from a strategy like this. The benefits may not be worth the risk involved, however.

Spammy, Keyword Stuffed Content Is A Thing Of The Past

Google is catching on to spammy, salesy content, and that added traffic is not going to pay your bills. You don’t get money by generating website visits. You get money by generating sales. There’s a difference.

Your audience is smarter than you’re giving them credit for at this point. People aren’t interested in plumbers selling plumbing services to people looking for plumbers in the Chicago area.

This type of writing is what happens when businesses act on the above impulse, and it may raise your traffic, but it can also lower your conversion rate. Remember, it’s the guy at the computer reaching for his wallet that pays your bills. If your message isn’t aimed at him, he may never reach for that wallet

No commercials

Another tendency of businesses new to producing content is to create a commercial.

When it comes to television, viewers are there because they’re waiting for their favorite show to come back. No one sits down at the computer wanting to read or watch a commercial. They want value and entertainment.

When it’s your customer seeking you out, you’ll have to provide them with what they are looking for.

How do you get the attention of a perspective customer?

Well, if he’s looking for plumbing services, there’s probably a reason for it. Maybe his pipes are leaking. Maybe he wants a new bathtub fixture. There could be a number of reasons.

If it’s your blog post, or your “how to” report that they find when they do a Google search for their issue, you’ll have their attention. Valuable information builds trust.

That’s why providing consistently awesome content is so important. It’s crucial for a plumber to offer great industry information in a way that stands out from his competition. This way, your content strategy helps distinguish your business from the other search results.

If they find your post, and they’re still looking for someone to take care of the job for them, you’re the guy who knows what he’s talking about, and that’s a pretty good place to be in a world driven by content.

The Case For Humanized Content

The bottom line of all this: one of the most important rules of SEO for blogs is to humanize your content.

Even if you’re using SEO tactics to increase your blog’s ranking, you’re better off writing for humans instead of search engines.

Unless you’re lucky enough to count Google, Yahoo or Bing as a client, the search engines aren’t paying your bills, your customers are. That’s where your marketing efforts should stay aimed.

Instead of focusing on writing keyword-rich content for search engines, write for the humans who will become your customers. Believe it or not, even the search engines will reward you for doing so.

What are you doing to humanize your content? Has it worked?

Matt Brennan is a marketing writer helping companies increase their audience by telling better stories. He regularly provides content marketing strategies and blogging tips for businesses.

It’s all so familiar. I sit down at the computer. I devote a little morning time to reading the latest industry posts. Time well spent. Except when it’s not. Some of the blog posts are awesome. They’re helpful, entertaining and useful.

I’ll be honest. Some of the blog posts suck, and I don’t return to that blog. They suck for various reasons.

One of the primary goals of writing blog posts is to keep people coming back to read more and that’s no easy task. In this day and age with everyone’s short attention span, you have to work for every subscription, share and comment.

Here are five secrets to writing blog posts that will keep people coming back to read more:

People Love Peppy

It’s true. Upbeat, punchy and positive rule the day. Here are a couple of tips:

• Your blog readers have a problem. Position yourself as the likeable solution.

  Deliberate on your word choice. Strong verbs are like gold tokens in this world.

• Keep the larger picture in mind through the tone of your piece. Your blog readers have a problem. When you position yourself as the likeable solution to that problem, both sides win.

Don’t Be an Industry Typist

If you’ve spent any time at all reading your industry blogs, chances are you’ve come across the same nuggets of advice multiple times. That’s not permission to copy them verbatim. Instead:

• Put forward your own ideas when you can. Set the agenda.

  Tell us why you agree with them, why you disagree with them, or include an anecdote.

• Do something with it to make it your own. Or even better yet, put forward your own ideas when you can. Set the agenda.

Write for Short Attention Spans

That’s right, folks reading online can have the attention span of a gnat and readers will drop your blog post mid sentence if you don’t work to keep them engaged. Make sure you:

• Don’t use words your audience will need to leave and look up. They may not come back.

  Use short sentences and paragraphs.

• Don’t use words your audience will need to leave and look up. They may not come back.
• Add subheads and lists, both of which are great ways to break things down a bit further and keep people feeling engaged from point A to point B.

Get a Little Personal

If your readers found you through search, chances are you came in a pile of thousands of search results.

If they found you in social, chances are you did something right to stand out in a fast-moving newsfeed for Twitter stream.

The key is to look alive. Look like a real person instead of a faceless business. This means revealing a little about yourself, connecting new ideas and letting your readers know who you are.

Spell it Right

Yes, I know this tip makes its way on to every list post on how to blog. It’s that important, though.

When you consistently let grammar and spelling errors into your work, it erodes your readers’ trust. The question in their minds goes like this:

“How much do they really know about _______ if they can’t even use the right
form of the word ‘They’re?’”

A basic-level understanding of the English language is really important to this whole blogging thing.

The Payoff

When you can move people from start to finish in your posts, really cool things begin to happen. You may start seeing comments. People talk with you about your blog. Your readers begin to look at you as a valuable industry resource.

All of these things build your platform, increase your audience and improve your business.

Matt Brennan is a marketing writer helping companies increase their audience by telling better stories. He regularly provides content marketing strategies and blogging tips for businesses. 

Only months after Pinterest opened itself to business accounts, the fourth largest social media platform just announced its latest release: the Pinterest analytics tool.

Matt breaking in here: to learn more about Pinterest in general, check out my post, “Why Pinterest is Your Business’ New Best Friend“.

With this social media analytics tool, tracking social media marketing results for your small business just got easier.

Companies now have access to more in depth knowledge about the splash they make on Pinterest.  That’s right, you no longer have to rely on Google Analytics or on any other social media tracking and analytics solutions – you can now see many more details with the new Pinterest tool.

Another bonus: the new tool is completely free – the only requirement is for your company to verify its website on Pinterest.

Not sure how this new tool will help your social media marketing efforts? Here are three ways that Pinterest Analytics will help boost your efforts on this popular social network:

3 Surefire Ways to Use Pinterest Analytics To Boost Your Social Media Marketing

1. Get a better understanding about what content best resonates with Pinners

Marketers constantly find themselves testing what works and removing what doesn’t.

Although there was some knowledge of what people were doing with your company’s pins on Pinterest, it was not very detailed and was somewhat time consuming to really analyze.

With the new Pinterest analytics tool, you can quickly see what content resonates with your audience, and what content falls flat.

Just like any other form of online marketing, this allows you to enhance the content you distribute on Pinterest in the areas that work, and stop wasting valuable resources on promoting content that may not be as compelling as you originally thought.

2. See the results of your Pinterest marketing efforts first-hand

Pinterest analytics goes into detail about what happens to each piece of your content.

Here’s a taste of just some of the most useful metrics you can view after verifying your website and gaining access to the Pinterests new social media analytics tool:

• Daily averages of pins and pinners from your website – get daily updates on how people engage with your content directly on your website.
• Daily averages of repins and number of people repinning your content – see the reach of your pins and how people engage with your visual content on Pinterest.
• Daily averages of how often your content appeared in the main board – find out how many times your visual content appeared to people browsing through the latest and most popular pins.
• Daily averages of how many impressions your content received – find out how many people see your images and get deeper insight into what images have caused people to click further.
• Daily averages of how many people clicked to your site from Pinterest – see the leads that your Pinterest marketing efforts generate to help you land the sale.

With this much information, you get a much clearer view of what works in your social media marketing.

With the hard data in hand, it becomes easier to make the case for social media marketing and to show first-hand what your efforts on Pinterest have brought to the business as a whole.

3. Become more timely with your content

Seasons come and seasons go. Marketers always want to be in with what’s hot at the moment.

Pinterest’s new social media tracking tool allows you to increase visibility by posting the content that people are most hungry for right now.

With Pinterest analytics, you can easily reference new trends. If one pin starts picking up in popularity, it may be time to amp up the content production for that specific topic.

For example, if a bakery suddenly gets sees more wedding cake pins, they may want to increase their wedding marketing to attract hotter leads. This allows them to boost their presence and be more effective with their marketing efforts.

How About You?

By adding one of the most anticipated social media analytics tools to Pinterest, businesses are able to provide more value in their social media marketing.

Has your small business started using Pinterest? And if so, how are you using the analytics feature to increase your visibility?

Please share your experiences in the comments section below.

Kimberly Crossland is a digital marketer helping small businesses excel through content marketing, SEO services and social media strategy. She frequently writes about the latest developments in online marketing and how small businesses can benefit.

This post may start off like a bit of a rant (and it is), but reading to the end will help you understand the business risks of depending on LinkedIn groups from here on out.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of LinkedIn groups.

I’ve been an active member of about 50 groups for over three years now and have found that it’s a great social network for connecting with businesses folks.

Until now.

Here’s What Happened

About one-and-a-half months ago, I found that every time I posted a discussion to a LinkedIn group, I was informed that my post had been submitted for review. This was also happening when I commented on a discussion, even if I had started it.

So, I contacted support to find out what was going on.

Here’s what I got back from LinkedIn support:

Inconvenience? They had no idea.

LinkedIn groups is a major source of traffic and leads for my business. Not being able to participate in discussions without approval is more than inconvenient – it can have a dramatic effect on my business.

And, by the way, I was not aware that I had been blocked or removed from any of my groups. I’ve never received even one notification either from LinkedIn or a group manager.

Here’s What I Did

Following support’s suggestion, I contacted the management team of each one of my groups.

All 50.

Yes, that took a lot of time.

Here’s what I sent:

NOTE: If your group makes all discussions and comments go to review automatically then you can ignore this message.

Hey there,

My discussions and comments in your group are being submitted for review automatically (as opposed to being posted immediately).

LinkedIn support told me that my settings were changed for all groups because they were changed in one group.

If you did not manually change my settings so that my discussions and comments go straight to review, then please change my settings back for your group.

If you did manually change the settings for me, sorry if I offended in any way!

Thanks in advance!

-Matt Mansfield

The result of all that hard work?

• I heard back from only two people, each of whom removed my name from their groups “automatic review” list (thanks guys!).

Two. Out of fifty. Ugh.

The Start of LinkedIn Group’s Decline as a Social Network

The bottom-line in all of this is that LinkedIn groups has failed to scale as a social networking platform.

Why do I say that? Because even though they like to boast about their numbers, the amount of people in LinkedIn groups has simply become unwieldy.

How do I know that? Because the person-to-person engagement that drives social networks has begun to fall apart:

• They have automated their social network – by implementing code that adds someone to the automatic review list in all groups if they are added to the automatic review list in one, people are removed from the social networking process and without people, there is no social aspect.
  • Here’s quote from the “LinkedIn Groups Product Forum” group on this (BTW – from that group I found out that this LinkedIn groups “feature” is called “Site-Wide Auto-Moderation” or “SWAM” and that there was no general announcement when it went live):
    

    We need to get people to understand just how potentially destructive this trigger is – someone making a small error could trigger World War I.

    Once the group owners start “protecting” themselves by nuking first and asking question later, the entire social good created by LinkedIn disappears.

• Group managers are disengaged from the social network -  the management teams from 48 groups did not respond to me. I would understand it if it was only one or two groups that did not respond, but such a large-scale failure tells me one of two things:
  • The folks who run the groups are disengaged from their groups – I can understand this – life gets busy. Typically, when the management team of a group backs off, I leave the group. However, I know that this is not the case among most of the 48 groups that did not respond to me.
    • I did find one group manager who is very engaged and even mentioned this issue to his groups. He runs multiple groups and mentioned this issue in each. He’s also a passionate advocate for group members within the “LinkedIn Groups Product Forum” group. Mark is my hero.
  • The folks who run the groups are overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to run the groups -  this is a far more likely scenario and is a sign that the platform does not have enough tools to help someone run a group once it grows large. This is a problem of scale.

What This All Means to Me

This all may sound like sour grapes however, the fact is that I believe I have good reason to be upset.

You see, I’ve always had a really good track record on the LinkedIn groups network:

• I share relevant content as discussions within specific groups.
• My discussions are often commented upon and shared, both within and outside of LinkedIn.
• I have respected every request I have ever received from a group manager which, over the course of three years has been a grand total of 1.

In addition to that, and the fact that I pay every month to be a premium member, I have:

• Been an active member of LinkedIn since January 20, 2005
• Over 600 professional connections,
• Over 30 recommendations from clients and co-workers,
• 120 endorsements for my skills, and
• Received, just this past February, a congratulatory e-mail telling me, “You have one of the top 5% most viewed LinkedIn profiles for 2012.”

The truth is that I’m feeling pretty betrayed by a social network in which I have invested so much time, effort and value over the years.

I don’t know why I was added to the automatic review list within that first group and I probably never will – it really doesn’t matter – but now my use of the groups network has been totally crippled:

• Many of my discussion submissions are never approved – more proof that group managers are disengaged or overwhelmed.
  • I have heard from folks in my groups asking me why I don’t post anymore. I feel shame every time I have to explain what happened – I am not, and have never been, a spammer.
• Many of my discussion comment submissions are never approved – this is even worse in a way because it makes it seem as if I am ignoring folks who have commented on my discussions or asked me a question. Ignoring people is so unlike me so I HATE this!

I know that LinkedIn implemented this approach to help fight the onslaught of SPAM that pervades their groups, but isn’t this a little too heavy-handed? Isn’t there a way to keep humans in the picture?

What This All Means to You

If you’re a LinkedIn groups user, you’d better watch out.

This whole automatic review thing came out of left field. I don’t know why this happened to me and neither will you.

You may be added to the automatic review list in a group because you have broken the rules.

You may be added to the automatic review list in a group because the manager of the group is one of your competitors and they want to control your message.

Whatever the reason, the power to add someone to the automatic review list is arbitrary and open to abuse. Being added in the past had a small and controlled impact on your use of LinkedIn’s groups. Now, it will cripple your ability to network on LinkedIn.

Think I’m exaggerating? Here are a couple of additional postings from the “LinkedIn Groups Product Forum” group:

If you were blocked and deleted from some other group, triggering a SWAM action (haven’t fully figured out yet what SWAM means.. Site Wide ??? Moderation?), it’s not necessarily because you did anything wrong and you may or may not ever know what the reason was.

I was kicked out of a medical device group because the group was so overwhelmed with spam that I respectfully, but repeatedly, asked the owner to please do something about it, and offered to help. He ignored most of my requests but ultimately kicked me out of the group and sent me a message telling me he had done that. Had he not sent me that message I’m not sure I ever would have known what happened. After a restrained but cordial exchange, he reinstated me, but the damage was done and I ended up in moderation in all 53 of my other groups. I still haven’t fully recovered, and probably never will, because some of my groups have absentee or uninterested owners who don’t seem to ever visit their groups anymore.

In your case it could have been something as simple as a group owner blocking you by mistake and then, realizing his mistake, unblocking you, but the damage is done.

The others are people who have, for one reason or another, justified or not, have come into conflict with a group manager or owner and they were removed from the group and now have to contend with trying to contact 49 other group owners / managers, many of whom are absentee owners / managers.

Here is one that caught my eye:

“I am very active on LinkedIn. I recently joined the Urban Planning Group (within the past two weeks). I posted a request for references to create a citation resource and posted a report by a friend from the World Bank on urban planning. All of a sudden, in all of my groups, my comments and shared postings are being sent for approval except for the groups in which I am a manager. I checked my group list and I was kicked out of the Urban Planning Group! I did NOT do anything rude or inappropriate. I am prohibited from even rejoining the group (Message from LinkedIn)! This behavior by the group manager is unprofessional and has adversely affected the rest of my professional interactions. Completely unacceptable; especially when I am a doctoral student and have been unemployed for the past year and a half. My presence on LinkedIn has enabled me to make important connections in search of employment. This situation needs to be corrected!

I sent out an email to ALL of the 18 Group Managers. One manager has responded back saying that he checked the submission cue and there were over 40 members flagged and in a holding pattern!! This is horrible…”

I wouldn’t call her a spammer by any stretch of the imagination.

- Dave Mason

I wish I had some advice, but I thought I was doing everything right and look what happened.

I hope you don’t have to join me out in the cold.

A Message to LinkedIn

I love LinkedIn groups. I always have.

Nothing would delight me more than having you roll this change back because I truly believe that your groups are at the start of a very slippery slope downwards.

If you have been SWAMmed:

There is a support group over at LinkedIn called, “SWAM (Site Wide Auto Moderation) Support”. There, you can discuss options and vent your frustration.

To find the group and join, use the search box (set the drop-down to “Groups”) on the top-right of LinkedIn.

Added 5/6/2013

When it comes to increasing my social media reach, I prefer the “slow-and-steady” method.

Whether it’s more Twitter followers, more Facebook Fans or more LinkedIn connections, I’d rather grow my social media network by one person a month who is honestly interested in what I have to say and share than hundreds of people who are just there to get me to follow, like or connect back to them.

This approach has served me well up to now and I have formed many great relationships online, many of which have lead to business and guest post opportunities (as well as the chance to meet some really awesome folks).

Recently however, I came up against a situation where I needed to increase my social media reach as quickly as possible.

Here’s what happened and how I was able to successfully, and ethically, increase my social media reach by 95x in just two weeks.

The Situation

As many of you might already know, I am writing a book, “1000+ Online Content Ideas for Your Business“ which is due to be published in September, 2013.

In the past, when I’ve released ebooks and courses, I never took the time to build a good “marketing buzz” before I launched each of them to the world. They sold OK, but I knew that they could have sold even better if I had built some marketing momentum before their launch dates.

This time around, I want to build as much buzz as possible leading up to the release of the book. I want as many people to know about the book as possible and I want them to be excited about what they will learn when they read it.

Knowing that social media networks  are a great spot to build marketing buzz, I wanted to increase the impact of my efforts there as much as possible. However, while I have a respectable and solid network, one that is always growing “slowly-and-steadily”, it’s reach was nowhere near what it needed to be.

I had to figure out how to boost my social media reach so I could generate the level of buzz and excitement that I wanted around my book.

The Solution

As an avid user of online software, I know of many solutions that allow you to increase your social media reach quickly. Unfortunately, I’ve always felt that using those tools was a bit dishonest as the network you build is not one full of folks who are honestly interested in what I have to say and share.

That’s when Nicole Fende,my “Book Shepherd”, recommended that I partner with others to increase my social media reach.

Nicole explained that the key to using this approach was to create opportunities that brought value to my partners and their online communities while also building buzz for my book.

I loved this idea! I’m a firm believer in solutions that allow everyone to benefit and was excited to build buzz around my book while bringing value to my partners and their communities (who happen to be the group of folks who are most likely to buy the book when it’s released).

Here are the steps that Nicole and I followed:

1. We brainstormed up a bunch of potential opportunities, making sure to remember that each one needed to bring benefits to both my partners and their communities.
   1. One of the ideas we came up with is a cool crowdsourcing contest kicking-off on 3/4. Check it out for a chance to win online content ideas for your type of business as well a a free copy of my forthcoming book.
   2. Other ideas include sweepstakes to win either products or services from my partners (which enables me to promote the heck out of what they do and offer) and a chance to have me create 25 customized online content ideas for your own business.
2. I identified a list of potential partners made up of folks who speak to the same audience as my book.
   1. I used a number of tools to identify the best potential targets. The best two turned out to be Google search and a new solution called Little Bird that allowed me to search for folks on social media networks based on their influence in a particular topic area (in this case, content marketing).
3. I crafted and sent an e-mail introducing the opportunity and asking if they wanted to be involved.
   1. Nicole drilled the acronym “WIFM” into my head here – when writing the e-mail, I needed to answer my potential partner’s biggest question, “What’s in it for me?”

Once the e-mails went out, I waited for the replies and boy did they pour in quickly!

In the first week after sending the e-mails, I had increased my social media reach to 285,900 social media contacts (I calculated this number by adding up each partner’s Twitters, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn communities).

By the end of the second week, my social media reach had grown to 402,042 social media contacts! That’s 95x the reach that I had in social media on my own.

The best part of this is that these numbers don’t even include my partner’s blog readers and e-mail subscribers. If you add those two in, my online reach had grown beyond my wildest dreams!

The effort goes on and as I continue to follow-up on my e-mails, I expect my social media reach to grow even further.

I am so grateful to each and every partner who has decided to join me in my efforts and I will work hard to assure that they receive as much benefit as possible for having done so!

Final Note: Use This Approach Sparingly!

Increasing your social media reach by partnering up with folks is not something that you can do every day or even every other month. You can only use this approach when you truly have something of value to offer both your partners and their communities.

Everything changes when you switch to a niche business model.

I’ve heard this time and time again, but recently I’ve had the opportunity to experience it for myself. My only regret is that it should have happened sooner.

Making the Case for a Niche Business Model

Matt About Business has always had a stable group of clientele ranging from Fortune 500 clients to 1-person solopreneurs.  I found most of my clients through referrals and among my group of friends and family.

To grow however, I needed to figure out how to add additional clients in a more organic way – I wanted folks to find me online and contact me about their projects.

The problem was, I’m one of those people who can do just about anything online including:

• Designing and building a regular, e-commerce or membership website or blog;
• Creating online content that drives traffic via SEO, e-mail marketing and more;
• Using social media to grow an audience;
• Authoring information products such as e-books and courses;
• Learning, configuring and using online software and tools; and
• Coding back-end systems and databases.

Basically, if you need to figure out how to get something done online, I can do it.

That’s great from a personal standpoint, however, when it came to selling my services to businesses, this wide array of skills got in the way.

The truth of the matter is: when you offer everything, people will not be clear on what you offer.

Think of it this way: I am a printer-fax-scanner in a world where most folks only want a printer or a fax or a scanner.

It Was Time to Focus

Thanks to my skills in content marketing and social media, plenty of people have found me and I have a large community of followers, likes, e-mail subscribers, etc.

The area where I fell short was was in the wide-range of services that I offered. By offering to help businesses get anything done online, I failed to appeal to those businesses that needed a specific thing done.

It was time to focus.

Making the Switch to a Niche Business Model

Recently, I began working with a business development consultant, my friend Nicole Fende (I highly recommend Nicole – she’s been trying to get me focused for over a year and since I started working with her late last year, things have really started to move!).

Nicole’s first order of business was to focus on defining my service offerings. After working thorough her questionnaires and analyses, I’ve decided to focus on online content marketing and creation, something that I love doing and that is highly in demand.

From that decision, everything began to flow:

• Nicole and I are hard at work defining my specific service offerings, a fascinating process that has made me take a deep look at what I do, how I do it and who needs what I do.
• Since launching the blog over at my new site, I’ve seen a marked increase in the number of contacts from interested businesses.
• I am currently writing a book on content marketing, “1000+ Online Content Ideas for Your Business”.

Now people know exactly what I do and are contacting me to do it.

It’s still early in this process, but I have high hopes that Matt About Business is moving in the right direction.

Nicole, I admit it – you told me so.

How About You?

Have you found that moving to a niche business model has helped your business grow?

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below!

Superstar millionaire rapper Jay-Z said it best: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business…man.”

You see, he doesn’t just sell music. Instead, he’s created a rock-solid cash factory with many different revenue streams. Multimedia, brand partnerships, and a slew of other pocket-lining activities make up an empire using music as the foundation.

Multiple Revenue Streams

This is something larger organizations do all the time. Take online magazines, for example. A widely-read trade website (like AdvertisingAge, or similar) creates one product: online content. But they make money off of that in so many different ways! They sell:

1. Premium subscriptions to readers,
2. Ad space on the website, and
3. Sponsorship of their email marketing programs.

There you go – 3 ways to make money off of one product. If your small business doesn’t take advantage of multiple revenue streams, you’re leaving money on the table. And it could be a lot.

The great news is that nothing can stop you from tapping new revenue opportunities. In the business world of old, you needed mammoth resources (read: million dollar budgets) to sell overseas, publish and deliver content, and create world-class customer experiences.

Not anymore.

There are so many accessible online tools of which small businesses can take advantage. Add in the fact that customers seek to satisfy every need and urge via the web, and you’ve got some great opportunities.

Time to dive in and explode your small business revenue.

Exist Locally. Hustle Globally.

You’ve got a strategic advantage over really big companies. And that is that you can stay small even while you create big extra revenue opportunities.

Nothing says you have to lose what makes your business special. Whether it’s outstanding service, expert knowledge, or a warm family-like vibe, thinking bigger doesn’t have to mean selling your small business soul.

In fact, you should think of the situation in the exact opposite perspective: How can you bring all of those things that make you a great small business to the national or even global stage?

While it takes some work, the payoffs could be huge. And with a booming cloud-based software market aimed at helping small businesses grow, you don’t have to create any of the technology from scratch.

They Built It. You Should Come.

Right now, as you’re reading this, there’s some hot-shot programming genius developing the next great line of software code.

Just like you started a small business based on your passion to help customers, software entrepreneurs are out there building affordable (sometimes even free) applications for you. You don’t need a huge budget or crack programming team to build online business and marketing platforms – someone else is taking care of that part.

If you can dream it, chances are there’s a company looking to help you do it.

The challenges now are:

1. Figuring out the best opportunity for your business, and
2. Planning and executing that opportunity in a profitable way.

3 Ways to Explode Your Online Revenue

Because the web makes everything so accessible, it’s tempting to spread yourself thin without much of a plan.

Fight that urge. Really think about what opportunity makes the most sense for your particular business. Some are gong to lend themselves better to certain situations, and it’s important to fully understand what goes into each model.

Here are 3 suggestions to consider for new revenue opportunities.

1. The Subscription Service Model

Everybody loves getting stuff in the mail, even when we send it to ourselves. And lots of forward-thinking startups have identified passionate groups of people to serve with subscription businesses.

How it works:
Customers sign up to receive recurring shipments of something, anything, and it could be in different formats.

It could be a constant supply of something you need regularly (razorblades for shaving, for example).

Or, it could be a category for which you receive a curated selection of products that’s different every time.

Successful examples:
Manpacks keeps men in steady supply of basic necessities like underwear, socks and razors. Birchbox sends monthly packages of beauty product samples so women can constantly discover new items.

Can you apply it to your business?:
Do you sell smaller products that lend themselves easily to this model?

If your business is known for stocking the newest and coolest (or quirkiest and most obscure) products in a certain category, maybe you can build a subscription business based on that. Coffee and teas, greeting cards, beauty products, socks, ties, nail polish, books…the possibilities are endless.

A tool that can help you do it:
Memberly – An easy-to-use platform that helps people build subscription businesses.

The catch:
You’ll need to offer compelling value and a product category that works on a shipping schedule. Things that people collect or use constantly make good candidates, and there has to be a good reason to buy from you over another provider.

2. Straight-Up E-Commerce

Plenty of small businesses are not taking their inventories online in a compelling way.

You have something great to offer, and you’re selling from your physical location, so why not offer your wares to people across the globe?

How it works:
Start an online store, sell via the web, and ship the products to your buyers.

Successful examples:
There are tons of great online stores operated by small businesses with physical retail locations. There could be some in your town.

Joe Coffee, a small but well-known coffee company with several locations, sells their beans online. C.H.C.M. is a retailer of fine menswear based in New York City that does a brisk e-commerce business.

Can you apply it to your business?:
As long as customers are searching for it, you can ship it and it’s legal, you can probably sell it online.

A tool that can help you do it:
Take your pick! Shopify, Bigcommerce, Volusion. There’s no shortage of affordable services that can help you get a slick-looking online store up and functional in no time.

The catch:
You’ll encounter plenty of competition for anything you sell, but that didn’t stop you from starting a business in the first place, right?

Build a great experience, and maybe your first online customers can be local customers that have moved away or live a considerable distance from your store.

Beyond that, you’ll have to engage in digital marketing activities designed to drive traffic to your online store.

3. Newsletter Model

Some have proclaimed the death of email. I say that’s total bunk, and I’m not the only one.

Email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and if you can provide amazing value through a targeted newsletter, there are ways to profit from it.

How it works:
Newsletter models are built on the back of amazing content. If you can supply a target market with really valuable information on a consistent basis, and cultivate a following from the resulting trust, you can build a newsletter arm to your business.

Successful examples:
While they may not be attached to small businesses, Thrillist, DailyWorth, and Red Tricycle all have found success using the newsletter model.

Can you apply it to your business:
Are you in professional or business services? Consulting, coaching, marketing – if you have expertise to share, the newsletter model could be a good fit for you.

As for how you can turn it into a revenue stream, there are a few possibilities. You could:

1. Charge a subscription fee,
2. Sell premium content ebooks or downloads through the newsletter, or
3. Charge complimentary businesses to advertise in your stream.

That may sound funny, but think about it. If you sell direct mail services, you could let a search engine marketing company advertise in your email stream for a reasonable fee or on a revenue-share system.

A tool that can help you do it:
Again, take your pick! AWeber, MailChimp, Constant Contact, and a slew of others have simple email marketing tools. If you want to incorporate pay-per-click advertising in your e-mails, check out HeyAmigo. And you can use any popular blogging platform to host your content.

The catch:
It can take time to build a valuable email list. And furthermore, it takes time to publish super high-value content. But once you do, the newsletter model can be a top performer considering it has a very low associated operating cost and a potentially large revenue margin.

Keep in Mind

Remember that the concepts of great marketing still applies to all of these models. You should absolutely explore ways to multiply your revenue without changing the core of your business, but it’s going to take effort.

Whether it’s a product subscription service, an e-commerce store, or a newsletter, you still need to create an amazing experience. And you’ll need to market it, too. No business model exists in a vacuum – they all require us to go out and find our customers.

The best part about these additional revenue stream options is that they generally require little in terms of financial investment. You’ll have to pay for one or two online services, and devote some time to building your program. But the extra income  generated could be big business.

Now get out there and explode your revenue!

Aside from the “stage fright” many folks feel when thinking about others reading their posts, listening to their podcasts or watching their videos, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when choosing the tools to use for creating web content.

That’s right, there are a lot of options for creating all types of content and sifting through them all to find the best is a daunting task.

To combat this obstacle and make effective content marketing more accessible to all, I’ve decided to create the “Web Content Creation Tools – Top Picks” award.

Each year, I will award specific web content creation solutions the “Top Pick” title. These solutions will be selected based on features, functionality and ease-of-use. The winners earn bragging rights and the right to display the “Web Content Creation Tools – Top Picks” badge on their site.

And, if you’re looking for the best tools for creating web content, you can feel secure that the winners were selected after I tried many solutions and selected to use each one to create content for my own sites.

So, without further ado, here are the first annual “Web Content Creation Tools – Top Picks”!

Web Content Creation Tools – Top Picks for 2013

Category: Websites and Blogs

Winner: WordPress

When it comes to creating a website, with or without a blog, WordPress is quickly becoming a standard.

With an seemingly infinite amount of site templates from which to choose, a large pool of plugins for adding any functionality under the sun and a huge amount of online how-to content, WordPress is a powerful platform on which to build your site.

Best of all, you can start small with WordPress.com and then add more features and functionality (if necessary) using WordPress.org. To learn more about this approach, check out my “Online Solutions for Building a Blog” video.

Runner-Ups

If WordPress doesn’t do it for you, then here are a couple of other website solutions that offer good functionality and are easy-to-use:

• Weebly
• Jimdo

Category: Downloadable Documents

Winner: Adobe Acrobat

The best format for downloadable documents such as white papers, presentations, ebooks and more is the PDF and no one knows more about creating PDFs than Adobe because they invented them.

Installing Adobe Acrobat on your computer allows you to create as many ready-to-upload PDFs as you’d like. Even better, Acrobat comes with plugins for all your favorite desktop content creation software such as Word and PowerPoint.

And, once a PDF document is created, you can use Acrobat to do all sorts of things to it including editing and adding password protection.

Sure, there are many cheaper or even free solutions online for creating PDFs, but if you want to create high-quality content that both reads and looks good, Acrobat is the best way to go.

Runner-Ups

If you do not want to plop down the cash for Acrobat, then check out their new online version, Adobe CreatePDF, for a less expensive yet still robust option.

Category: Videos

Winner: Camtasia

Video is definitely the content type with the seemingly highest technical bar to get over, but with just a camcorder, my computer and Camtasia, I’ve been able to create professional videos that draw traffic to my site.

I selected Camtasia because it has the most features for the best price and a remarkably easy learning curve. When I do have “how-to” questions, the instructional videos at their site walk me through step-by-step.

Camtasia is available for both the PC and the Mac – I’ve used both. When I switched to a Mac a couple of years ago, that version lagged in features, but the past two years have seen regular releases and I’m quite pleased with the Mac version today.

Runner-Ups

• Screenflow - Screenflow is a video creation tool for the Mac. Before Camtasia’s Mac version was up-to-snuff, this was the go-to solution, but these days, they are very similar to each other.
• Online Video Creation Tools - the past few years have seen a rise in online solutions for creating videos. One great feature of these tools is that they provide templates, images and even music for you to use in your videos. Some of the best I’ve seen include: PowToon, Animoto, GoAnimate and Prezi.

Category: Webinars

Winner: GoToWebinar

If you want to content that really goes the distance, nothing beats a webinar and when it comes to webinar solutions, nothing beats GoToWebinar.

Webinars give you an excuse to contact your customers before, during and after the actual event. That’s a lot of touch points for one piece of content. Even better, you can record your webinars and post them to your site so that future customers can be drawn by the content as well.

GoToWebinar handles it all for you. From sign-up pages to great “during the webinar” functionality to after-the-webinar e-mails and reports, you’ll find it all here.

Another plus: they have great support – any issues that have arisen were handled quickly.

Runner-Ups

• MeetingBurner – I’ve been on the audience end of many MeetingBurner webinars and the system has worked smoothly throughout.

Category: Infographics

Winner: Piktochart

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you’ll find infographics everywhere online. I happen to love ‘em for presenting information and I use them in my posts as often as I can.

Up until now, creating infographics required some decent design skills and experience with Photoshop, Illustrator or some other graphic design software. However, a new breed of solutions has arisen to make creating infographics accessible to all content creators and Piktochart is the best one out there.

With tons of templates, an easy-to-use design interface and decent pricing, you can let your information shine with Piktochart.

Runner-Ups

• Visual.ly
  

Category: Social Media Updates

Winner: HootSuite

Social media updates are a great way to extend the usefulness of your content marketing efforts. There are a lot of solutions for scheduling and tracking those updates, but my favorite is HootSuite.

With HootSuite, you can update Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and other social media networks all in one place. HootSuite is a purely online solution which means wherever I go, I can access my dashboard and all the functionality I need using a computer, ipad or smart phone.

I use HootSuite for four main purposes:

1. Chatting and networking with my peers and customers;
2. Sending out updates leading back to my content to attract new customers;
3. Sending out updates leading back to other folks’s useful content; and
4. Conducting market research by setting up searches for specific topics and questions.

Runner-Ups

• SocialOomph
  
• SproutSocial

Category: E-Mail Marketing

Winner: AWeber

Opt-in e-mail marketing lists are a great way to deliver content to, and stay in touch with, customers and potential customers who want to hear from you.

There a lot of e-mail marketing solutions out there, but AWeber is the choice of most e-mail marketing pros.

That’s because the solution offers flexible and easy-to-implement integration and automation features that support pretty much any scenario you can imagine; all while helping you streamline your processes and save time.

While their e-mail templates are solid, they will not knock you off your feet. However, you can customize and create your own templates.

As if making up for their less-flashy template designs, AWeber’s huge selection of customizable sign-up form designs will really drive folks to join your list.

Lastly, AWeber’s user support is great – they answer quickly and talk “non-techie” speak.

Runner-Ups

• MailChimp - a good alternative to Aweber, these guys really go all out when designing templates. Plus, if you like chimps, this is the place to be – their mascot smiles out at you from every page once you log in.

Category: Online Courses

Winner: Udemy

Using Udemy, you can combine almost any of the content types mentioned above into an online course that that you can either offer to your customers for free or sell as an additional revenue stream.

Udemy’s course interface is easy-to-use. You simply need to upload your content, create a course description, add a preview video and you’re ready to go. You can send announcements to your students and even hold live sessions with them via the site.

If you plan to charge for your course, all you need is a PayPal account.

Udemy is very gung-ho about their product and they offer ideas, coupons and a lively forum over at Facebook where you can talk with and ask questions of staff members and other instructors.

You can see a sample of a Udemy course listing by viewing my “Quickly and Easily Create Content For the Web!” course.

Runner-Ups

• LearnItLive
• MindBites

Next Step:

Want to Learn More About Content Marketing?

If you’re interested in content marketing resources and ideas for your business, then sign-up (it’s free) to receive updates as I add more resources including real life examples of using content marketing.

You will also receive updates on my forthcoming book (and even a chance to win a copy!):

Since all the hoopla about the Mayans proved to be untrue, we’ve once again reached “prediction time” – the time of year when everyone publishes their small business 2013 predictions.

I received a lot of great feedback for my “Top Small Business 2012 Predictions and Trends Infographic” last year so I thought I’d spend some time creating one again for 2013.

You see, the only downside to “prediction time” is that the sheer number of predictions and trends posts makes it hard to pull out the top topics – the areas on which to focus in the year to come.

Never fear however because I’ve done that work for you once again! That’s right, I’ve reviewed and analyzed 70 small business 2013 predictions and trends posts and broke them down into high-level topics for your consumption.

And, if you’re just looking for a quick look ahead, I’ve even compiled the top predictions and trends into a handy infographic!

So read on and see what the future has in store for your small business in 2013.

Happy New Year!!!

Top Small Business Predictions and Trends 2013:
The Infographic

Below is the “Top Small Business Predictions and Trends 2013″ infographic. Below the infographic, you will find:

1. A closer look at the top small business 2013 predictions and trends, and
2. Links to the 70 small business predictions and trends posts for 2013 that I reviewed to gather data.

Notes:

1. Feel free to share this image on your own site. All you need to do is include this link either above or below the image: http://www.mattaboutbusiness.com/top-small-business-2013-predictions-and-trends-infographic/trackback
2. Click on the infographic image below to view a bigger version.
3. You can also download this infographic as a PDF.

Top Small Business Predictions and Trends 2012:
A Closer Look

Some Old and Some New Faces In the Top 5 Predictions and Trends

There are some new, and very compelling, faces in the top 5 this year. And, even though three of last year’s top five are still around, focus has shifted in new directions.

1. Mobile, continues to dominate the top five predictions and trends however, businesses are starting to move beyond “being mobile” to strategies and tactics that are enabled by the mobile platform:
   1. SoLoMo (the convergence of social media, local marketing and the mobile platform) continues to be a hot topic of conversation however, there’s a new term that’s buzzing strong, “Context Marketing”. Essentially, context marketing means delivering the right message to the right person at the right time, the holy grail of marketing. Look for lots of activity in the race to deliver “personalized” marketing.
   2. The ability to pay, and accept payments, via a mobile device is the key to the “Mobile Wallet”. Many solutions are already available with many more to come. And, when the mobile wallet is combined with loyalty programs such as points or number of visits, we’re going to see this trend explode.
   3. Having a website that looks good no matter on what device it is viewed is called “Responsive Design”. At the core, this means having a mobile-ready website, one that looks good on phones and tablets alike. Talking about tablets, the huge number of tablets now out in consumer’s hands is driving designers to use the tablet interface as the standard upon which all content will be designed to be viewed.
2. Advertising and marketing continues to be a high-priority for small businesses however, there are a couple of new trends to which you should pay attention:
   1. Visual marketing, videos in particular, seem to be the new standard for content delivery online. Videos can be informative and entertaining, something that customers like very much. Look for more videos (both good and bad) and a new focus on YouTube as a marketing platform.
   2. Thanks to the many changes in search engine optimization (SEO) rules during 2012, content marketing will continue to be the key to attracting attention online. Included in that are the subcategories of content filtering, curation and aggregation, all valuable types of content that help customers cut through the noise to find the information they need.
3. Social media continues to be a hot topic, but it’s almost taken for granted that a small business needs to be there these days. Two interesting new trends include:
   1. The impact of social influencers, those with strong followings on the various social media networks, will continue to grow and can be harnessed by smart marketers who make use of those influencers to reach their followers.
   2. “Social TV” and “Social News” are two new terms to me, but they’ve both been growing in popularity over the past few years. Social TV is the ability to comment and share during a show’s airtime and social news is the trend where “citizen reporters” are posting the news that others consume.  Both of these trends have begun to change both the way we are entertained and the way we learn about the world around us.
4. Business intelligence makes its debut this year with a focus on three important trends:
   1. “Big Data”, that pool of information that businesses collect about each of us, will continue to be mined for any and all insights into consumer buying behavior, wants and needs. 2013 will likely see big data become more accessible to small businesses so that they can start reaping the rewards of analyzing you and me.
   2. More and more small businesses will pay close attention to their website and social media metrics. They will analyze and act on what they find as well, all in an attempt to maximize their return on investment (ROI) which…
   3. …is the final piece of the business intelligence puzzle. Armed with real-time metrics and reports, small businesses will be able to change their courses mid-stream and maximize the return on all their hard work.
5. Lastly, one of the most interesting new trends arising in 2013 is the increase in Customer Power. Customers could always make or break a small business, but now they can reach both far and wide. Using review sites, social media updates, forums and more, they can praise you or complain about you and there’s not much you can do about it (aside from slander). The key to success here is twofold:
   1. Give them a safe place to complain by building relationships and communities online. If customers feel that they can be served there, then they will head on over before posting a bad review or bad-mouthing you on Facebook.
   2. And, for those times that bad things do happen, small businesses need to make use of reputation management tools and techniques so that those situations can be quickly (and hopefully happily) resolved.

Other Predictions and Trends

Here are some other interesting predictions and trends that caught my eye:

• The Power of Crowds – yep, the use of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and crowdsolving will continue to grow in 2013.
• Remote Workforce - with the ability to collaborate from anywhere and the growing trend to hire non-permanent workers such as freelancers, 2013 just may be the year of working remotely.
• Micro Startups – with so many folks still out of work, the rise of successful solopreneurs serving niche markets will continue.
• Shift Back Towards Paid Content – a couple of the posts I read argued that this was bound to start happening in 2013. I’ll be interested to see if this model, which did not fare to well a few years ago, will regain a foothold online.

Finally, Some Good Resources and a Bit of Fun

• Good roundups to check out:
  • 2013 Trends
  • The Biggest Trends in Business for 2013
  • 20 Tech Trends for 2013
• Interesting overall trends:
  • Top 20 Trends in 2013 Forecast
  • Business Opportunities For 2013
• REALLY Useful!
  • 31 Ways to Boost Your Small Business in 2013
• Some fun:
  • Great new terms to learn: MomPopolies, Glocalism Are Key Trends in 2013

Top Small Business Predictions and Trends 2012:
The Infographic Links

Below, in no particular order, are the links to the 70 small business predictions and trends posts for 2013 that I reviewed to gather data for the infographic above.

1. 2013: Adding Context to Content
2. Your Guide to Mobile Marketing in 2013
3. 7 Hot Trends for Small Business in 2013
4. 2013 Business Predictions for Small Business Owners
5. Hyperlocal Execs’ 2013 Predictions: Goodman, Tolles, Kucharz, and More…
6. SMB analytics: Deconstructing 3 small business predictions for 2013
7. Dydacomp Shares Top Predictions for Small Business in 2013
8. Emma Jones’s 2013 Small Business Predictions
9. Tech trends to transform small business in 2013
10. The 2013 Marketing Predictions: Content Marketing And Social Business
11. 5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2013
12. 7 ‘Small Business’ Social Media Trends for 2013 with Mike Roberts
13. Small Business Owners Think Local For 2013
14. 14 Experts Predict 2013 Social Media Trends for Small Business
15. 5 Trends in 2013 That Small Business Owners Can’t Afford to Ignore
16. Top Franchise Trends for 2013
17. 8 Online Reputation Management Trends and Predictions for 2013
18. Seven big trends for small businesses in 2013
19. Four small business marketing trends for 2013 (Video)
20. 13 small business marketing trends to watch in 2013
21. The Rise of Big Data
22. The Workspace of the Future
23. Using Transparency to Build Consumer Trust
24. 5 Small Business Trends to Embrace in 2013
25. 2013 Startup Trends
26. Growing Small Business Trends for 2013
27. 6 Small Business Marketing Trends For 2013
28. 2013 Online Marketing Trends For Small Business
29. 5 Hot E-Commerce for Small Business Trends to Watch
30. 2013 Technology Trends for UK Small Businesses
31. Four Small Business Trends For 2013
32. Five Top 2013 Trends for Small Business Social Media Engagement Using Content Marketing
33. 3 Small Business Marketing Trends for 2013
34. Social Business: 5 Trends To Watch For 2013 And Beyond
35. 5 Key Trends That Will Play A Pivotal Role For Your Small Business in 2013
36. Marketing Trends In 2013 – How Will They Affect Your Small Business?
37. Three SMB tech trends to watch in 2013
38. 9 Online Marketing Trends For 2013
39. Trends for 2013: Making Mobile-First a Priority
40. 5 Small Business Marketing Trends for 2013
41. 5 content marketing trends to keep an eye on in 2013
42. Small Business Online Trends 2013
43. Eight Small Business Digital Marketing Trends in 2013
44. 2013 Marketing Trends: What do Small Businesses Need to Know?
45. Top 3 Tech Trends Affecting Small Business in 2013
46. 5 tech oriented marketing trends for 2013
47. 26 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2013
48. Heads Up on Top 5 2013 Business Trends
49. Gartner Declares Top 10 Tech Trends for 2013
50. A Look Into the Future: Planning Ahead for 2013 Trends
51. Top 3 Distribution Technology Trends for 2013
52. 3 Marketing Trends for 2013
53. Top 5 Technology Trends for 2013
54. Marketing Trends for 2013
55. Online Business Trends for 2013: What You Need To Know
56. Top Trends for 2013: Marketing Moves On
57. 2013: The Year of Integrated Digital Marketing
58. Three Trends in Content Marketing
59. Is Your Business Ready for 2013? Look into the Future of Marketing to Find Out
60. Digital And Media Marketing Trends For 2013
61. Six Social-Digital Trends for 2013
62. Five Social Media Trends for 2013
63. 5 Mobile Marketing Tips and Trends for 2013
64. Top Business Trends for 2013
65. Small Business SEO Trends to Keep an Eye On
66. Seven eCommerce and Marketing Trends To Watch For In 2013
67. What’s Hot and What Could Suck About 2013 Communication Trends?
68. Predicted Social Media Trends in 2013
69. The Big Tech Trends of 2013
70. Lucky Thirteen: Marketing Trends for 2013