Great Images Make Content More Compelling

July 26, 2010 on 9:25 am | In Blogs, Content Marketing, Creative, Creativity, Marketing, My Creative Team, Resources, Social Media, Tools, Writing | View Comments

 Monkeys

You are probably wondering what this photo has to do with this post. Well, in part one of this series, Five Key Elements To Creating Compelling Content, our friend, Rubbermaid blogger  Jim Dietzel, laid out his five key elements for creating compelling content. Number 3 was “pictures are good.”

Our digital colleague, Rodger Johnson from GetSocialPR, also thinks that imagery can kick your content up a notch. He says use compelling images to support the story, a lesson he learned from his journalism days that still works today.

The photo above may be interesting, but it doesn’t really go with this post. So, good pictures are not enough. Photos can help draw attention to a post, keeping it from looking like a huge gray mass of words. But – to be most effective – the image must complement, or support the the story in some way.

If you are going to use photos, you also must respect copyright law. Don’t just do a Google search and use the images. They may be copyright protected. We did a piece sometime back about some free photo resources that you may want to revisit.

Below are a few more related posts on the use of images in your blog.

An Introduction To Using Images On Blogs

Finding Compelling Flickr Images

Using Images Legally On Your Blog

Using Images To Take Your Posts To A New Level

Why Images Are Vital To Modern Blogs

More Marketing Tools

July 10, 2008 on 8:17 am | In Marketing, Online, Research, Resources, Tools, Web 2.0, Widgets, widget | View Comments

Here’s another round-up of marketing tools and resources found on the web:

SpotMixer offers self-service tools to small- and midsized-advertisers for creating TV commercials online. Its customers now are able to distribute their ads through Google AdWords. 

I’m now using Quantcast to get deeper demographic information about my website traffic.  Quantcast is a media measurement service that lets advertisers view audience reports on millions of websites and services. It combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver accurate third-party metrics and easy-to-read profiles on digital media properties.

Widgipedia is a search engine and directory for – you guessed it – widgets.

Have the need to poll your visitors? PollDaddy is your application.  The free version is very powerful.

Best THINKing

July 9, 2008 on 5:47 am | In Blogs, RSS, Resources, Tools, Web 2.0 | View Comments

What is the best content in your RSS reader? Do you have a way to filter the wheat from the chaff? One way to do it is with AideRSS, the intelligent assistant that continuously monitors RSS feeds, finds the good stuff, creates a PostRank™, and delivers it to you.

It uses an algorithm that takes into consideration relevance and and reaction to blog posts, and then scores the posts accordingly. Here’s what AideRSS says are the top THINKing posts:

Brand Trust

Green Content Marketing

Soft Economy? No, Soft Marketers

The ROI of Social Media

Email Is Alive And Well

What are the top posts in your blog, as ranked by AideRSS? Any surprises? Wade into the conversation.

Cool Marketing Tools

July 8, 2008 on 5:33 am | In Marketing, Resources, Social Media, Tools, Twitter, Web 2.0 | View Comments


Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Here are a few marketing tools and resources I’ve come across recently.

The first is the complete Zip Code Index, a detailed resource containing more than 42,000 US Zip Codes, along with their associated demographic and geographic attributes. There is no cost to download it.

Can’t get enough of Web 2.0? Well, then Go2Web20 – which bills itself as the complete Web 2.0 directory – is for you.

HubSpot provides a couple of useful tools for online marketing and PR folks. First is the Website Grader, a free tool that judges the marketing effectiveness of websites. Their new tool is Press Release Grader. Although I have a few quibbles with it, it is still a good first pass on a release to make sure you have covered the basics.

Here are a couple of Twitter-related tools. Tweetbeep lets you know when a keyword you have registered is being tweeted about. I’ve been using Summize a lot lately to search Tweets related to My Creative Team. Want to tweet about something in the future but schedule it now? Then, TweetLater is for you.

Want to know what gas prices are doing, how your sports team is faring, or what your competitors are up to? Want to get your daily horoscope, or need to set up reminders? Alerts is the service for you.

Get Your Filtr On

July 2, 2008 on 7:10 am | In Journalism, Media, Media Relations, News, Newspapers, Online, PR, Public Relations, Research, Resources, Search, Twitter | View Comments

PR Pros have been paying tons of money for media clips for eons, and some still need to have a paid service to keep up with everything said about them, their organization or their clients. But, there is a new service that the smaller company can set up for free, called FiltrBox that offers many of the same features of the higher priced services. The service now is out of beta, according to the FiltrBox blog,

Information Overload and overpriced media monitoring are now a thing of the past! We are thrilled to announce that the Filtrbox media monitoring service is now available to the public. The service emerges from private beta today with an entirely new user interface and a number of new features.

Here’s what you get for free:

  • Up to five separate filters and 15 days of article history
  • Entirely new Flex user interface
  • Additional sources, including Twitter and FriendFeed monitoring
  • Search, Sort, and Preferences
  • iPhone formatted Daily Briefing emails
  • Flagging of important articles
  • Google Alerts import
  • Drag and Drop Filtr management
  • Content widgets based on custom RSS feeds

Sign up for FiltrBox here.

Building Your Personal Brand

April 16, 2008 on 6:44 am | In Branding, Personal Branding, Resources | View Comments

 

The best brands are always looking to improve. Same goes for personal brand building.

If you aren’t learning something new, you’re wasting space and hurting your brand. Digital technology makes it easy to pick up some new skills or knowledge. Books and lots of them can be found free and online. There is a blog that lists a variety of sites which offer access to online books, including some audio ones. Discover more here.

I also found the Online Education Database recently and it has 100 free podcasts from the world’s best universities. So, if you want to brush up on your quantum mechanics, learn about the historical Jesus or Hannibal, this site is for you. There’s also a list of 200 free online courses.

Get The Flock Onto Your Computer

March 29, 2008 on 9:44 am | In Blogs, FaceBook, Flock, LinkedIn, Networking, Online, RSS, Resources, Social Media, Tools, Web 2.0 | View Comments

Flock has supplanted Firefox as my favorite browser. It is powered by Mozilla, the same engine that supports Firefox, however it has so many more features designed for our new social, digital world. There is a nice demo of Flock by Candy With A Why, so I won’t recreate the wheel.

Here’s what I like about it. It is a nice tool for handling all your RSS feeds. Sometime back I said that we needed an Outlook type platform to make RSS as ubiquitous as email. Flock is close. It also makes it simple to handle all of my accounts: del.icio.us, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, you name it. Finally, it has a feature that allows you to track your friends on all their accounts. Get it and use it.

THINKing Essentials – Media Relations

March 26, 2008 on 2:20 pm | In Journalism, Media, Media Relations, News, PR, Public Relations, Resources | View Comments

My Creative Team: Media Relations

Photo By laffy4k (Flickr)

There has been a lot of good content here in THINKing, and you may have missed some of it. So, this is the first in a series to bring some of that content out of the dusty archives and back into the light of day. Today, let’s revisit some previous posts on media relations.

46 Essential PR Links

Top 17 Media Relations Links

Media Relations How-To

Printed Press Kits: A Contrarian View

Six Tips For Perfect Email Media Pitches

Top 8 Media Relations Links

Sending Out An RSS

March 24, 2008 on 3:18 pm | In Advertising, Blogs, DC (digital colleague), Online, RSS, Resources, StumbleUpon, Tools, feedburnerfeed101 | View Comments

Subscribe To THINKing’s RSS Feed

Photo By photopia (Flickr)

RSS is a friend of mine. Subscribing to feeds helps me keep current on a wide variety of blogs and topics. So, today I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on using RSS.

Now, I have a number of blogs I keep up with, like those of my digital colleagues Jason Falls (RSS feed) and Rodger Johnson (RSS feed), to mention a couple. Instead of visiting their sites ever day, I subscribe to their feeds and have the information come to me. Feel free to subscribe to this blog’s feed.

I’ve started using the new browser from Flock and have found it an excellent tool for keeping up with key feeds. It’s Firefox on steroids. But that is a topic for another day.

Now, another tactic is to use Google’s blog search for terms or phrases you follow. For instance, I follow the phrase “stumbleupon marketing“. So, type in your term under Google’s blog search. When the results come up, you’ll see in the left hand column about halfway down is the word “Subscribe”. Below that is the word “RSS” hyperlinked. Click on that and you’ll be subscribed to the search. Anytime it changes, you’ll be automatically updated.

How are you using RSS?

BlogUpp!

March 11, 2008 on 8:42 am | In Blogs, Online, PR, Promotion, Public Relations, RSS, Resources, Social Media, Tools, Web 2.0, Widgets, widget | View Comments

You’ll notice the window in the sidebar to the right that provides a thumbnail snapshot of another blog. This is from BlogUpp!, a new blog promotion tool widget that I am trying. I’ll report back on how it works to drive traffic. Here’s what BlogUpp! says about itself:

  • BlogUpp! snapshots your blog and reads your RSS regularly
  • Blog’s thumbnail shows on other blogs with our service activated
  • The thumbnail is accompanied by your blog’s most recent article
  • For every 10 readers of your blog, it is shown to 9 readers on other blogs
  • An identical widget projects on your weblog, listing relevant blogs
  • Each link clicked in the widget opens a new window, not closing your blog
  • And all this is completely free and with no effort whatsoever
Next Page »

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^

Online Slots For Us Players Macintosh Online Casinos Online Casino Review Rtg Us Full List Of Online Casinos Register Credit Card Casino Bonus Slots With Deposit Bonus Casino Sites For Rtg Slots Mac Rtg Casino Casino For Usa Players Play Slots Online With Credit Card Top Online Casino No Download Online Craps Best Odds Best Online Slots 2010 Craps Online Flash Us Slots Online No Download Best First Time Bonus Online Casino Online Games Video Poker Vegas Slots Best Payouts New 2010 Internet Casino Bonus Codes Us Blackjack Casino Best Sign Up Bonuses Casinos Online Casinos That Accept All Us Players Online Casino For Mac Slot Tournaments With No Download Top 10 American Casinos Internet Slots Video Slot Machines Games Us Mac Online Casinos Online Casinos For Mac For Real Money 3 Reel Slots Us Casino Top 20 Casinos Play For Real Money Slot Machines Bonus Casinos Rtg 2010 All New Casinos Online New Instant Online Casino Slot Machine Games With Bonus Internet Casino Blackjack Top Casinos In The Us Online Gambling Promotions Casinos That Pay Bonus For Roulette Online Casino Us Players Casinos Amex Best Online Casino Blackjack Flash Casino For Mac Casino Slots Sign Up Bonus Online Casinos Slots No Download Play Online Slot Casinos All Rtg Casinos Coupon Codes Casinos Rtg Top Bonus Codes Usa Casino Signup Bonus Online Blackjack Real Money Best Online Casino Bonus Best Ratings Casino Games Best Online Blackjack Casinos New Member Bonus Casino Cash Sign Up Bonus Casino Online Casino Play For Real Money New Slots Flash Casino Online No Download Best Odds Us Online Casino New Casino Usa Play United States On Line Casino Best Online Usa Casinos Casinos Accepting Us Bettors A To Z Of Online Mac Casinos Usa Casinos Online Credit Card Casino With Real Money Best Usa Player Online Casino Bonus Best Legal Online Casino Welcome Bonus Casino Usa Player Casino Games List How To Play Online Slot Machines Best Match Bonus Us Casino Casino That Accept Usa Residents Casino Play Start Bonus Online Us Casinos Accepting Western Union No Download Slots Games Video Slots Best Bonus Casinos Bonus Rtg Best Payout Online Us Casinos Online Casino Slot Bonuses Online 5 Reel Slots Bonus List Of Top Ten Online Blackjack Casino Casino 2010 15 Line Slots Bonus Rounds Deposit Mastercard Online Casinos Casino Roulette Online Slots Bonus Codes Online Instant Casino Usa Friendly Gambling America Online Casino Online Casinos Sign Up Bonus Us Online Roulette Bonus The Biggest Casino In Usa Online Slots No Downloads Casino Internet Slots Gamble Online Bonus Specials Play Casino With Moneybookers Online Casinos Accept Ewallet Xpress Cards Best Online Gambling For Mac Best Slot Machine Online Play Casino Slots For Real Money Mac Casino List Usa Accepted Flash Casinos Best Paying Online Slots Top Payout Online Casinos Us Online Slots Sing On Bonus Vegas Slots Best Odds Online Craps Canada Instant Flash Casinos No Download Required Casinos Casinos That Pay Us Players Casino Internet Banking Accept American Express Casino Casino Blackjack Games Online Video Slots Bonuses Casino Promotion Codes Play Slots No Download Required Rtg Accepting Us Players Sign Up Bonus Casinos In The Usa Usa New Casino Codes 3 Reel Slots For Real Money No Download Casino Slots Mastercard Online Gambling Gamble Online Sites Casinos For Us Player Online Casino For Us Players Mac Casino Slot Promotions Us Online Casino Listing Instant Casino Cash Bonus Best Bonus Real Flash Blackjack Top Online Casinos Ewalletxpress Blackjack Credit Bonus Us Player Best Deposit Bonus Blackjack Game Download Rtg Casino Bonus American Express Casino Sites Play New Online Slots For Usa High Roller Casino Guide Online Slots That Accept Amex Mac Video Slots Play Slots Online Real Money List Of Casinos In The United States Slot Games Usa Deposit Best Casino 2010 California Gambling Online Real Slots On Mac Real Video Slots Best Online Slots Real Money Online Gambling In The Usa Casinos That Accept Us Funds Moneybookers Casinos Online Newest Online Casino Bonus Codes Search Online Casino Us Players Casino With No Limit Roulette High Roller Casino Reviews New Instant Online Slots Online Casinos Excepting Us Players New Rtg Casino Bonuses California Online Casinos With Bonus Us Casinos Accepting Mastercard No Download Real Casino Slot Tournament Casinos New Casino Promotion Codes Play Casino Use Mastercard And Visa Best Slot Machine Sign Up Bonus Online Casinos List Online Casino First Deposit Bonus Casinos That Use Moneybookers Online Casinos Accepting All Us Players Only Us Player Welcome Bonus Codes Casino Flash Game Internet Casino Payment Options Rtg Online Casinos Accepting Checks Rtg Us Players Legal Usa Online Casino Casinos Accepting American Express Play Online Video Slots Online Slots For Mac Us Flash Casinos Black Jack Real Money Online Best Casino Bonus Usa Players Casino Flash Games List Of Casinos Online Casino That Accept Amex Play Real Money Casinos Echeck Casino Best Online Slot Machine Games Top Online Sign Up Bonus Casinos Play Slot Machines For Real Money Best Online Slots Us Players Best Online Casino For Us Players Casino Video Slot Download Real Money Blackjack 12 Best Slot Machines Online No Download Casino For Cash Flash Casino Slot Tourmanents Internet Casino For Usa Play Slots Usa Online Newest Casino Gamble Online Safely Casino Games That Take Mastercard Legal Usa Casinos No Download Mac Casino Slots Slots Machine No Download Mac Casino Game Download Internet Casino Bonus Codes Best Us Online Casino Bonuses Top Casino Usa Slots Top 50 Casino Online New Casino Us Roulette Flash Download Casino Roulette Sign Up Bonus Legal Usa Casinos Online Blackjack Casino Bonus Best Sign On Bonuses Casinos Online Casino With Amex Deposit Legal Online Casinos Online Blackjack For Real Money In The Us Casino Internet Online New Usa Casino Sites Top Rated Casinos Best Online Casinos For Usa Players Gamble Online With Slots Online No Download Required Casinos Casino Mastercard Us Online Casinos Legal In Usa Online Slot Games With Bonus Usa Slots Black Jack Gamble Online Casinos That Take Ewalletxpress Slots Usa Friendly Deposit With Amex Casinos Online Casinos Listing Best Online Casino For Real Money Big Bonus Deposit Casino New Rtg Casinos 2010 Online Slots Play For Money Blackjack Gamble Real Money Brand New Online Us Casinos Best Casino On Mac Deposit With American Express For Us Online Casino Online Casinos Usa Credit Cards Slot Machine Promotions Echeck Casino Payments No Download Slot Machines To Play Best Online Slots Payouts Online Black Jack Mac Best Online Casino Bonuses Craps Online Us Players Best Online Slots Sites Casino Signon Bonus Codes Mac On Line Slots For Us Players Play Online Slots With No Download Rtg Online Casino Links Play Online Casino Video Slots New Flash Casinos Usa Casino Blackjack Internet Casino Compare Play Online Slot Tournaments Casinos For Mac Best Paying Online Us Slots Rtg Online Casinos 5 Reel Slots For Cash Best Deposit Bonus Casino Legal Usa Online Casinos Play Online Slot Tournaments No Download Casinos Accepting Us Credit Cards Online Slot Machines Real Money Casino That Play For Real Money Best Online Slots For Us Players Bonus Slot Downloads Play Slots Online In The United States Blackjack Casino Usa Real Money Best Online Casino In America Casino Internet Promotion Download New Video Slots New Online Casino Allowed For United States Sign On Bonus Real Money Slots 2010 Casino Sign Up Bonus Mac Casino Downloads All Flash Slots Casino 2010 Slot Machines Online Play Casino Games For Money In Usa Play Online Casino Usa Mac Slots Games Casino Signup Bonus Online Slot Casinos With Deposit Bonuses Best Online Slots Reviews Online Casinos Play Money Play Casino For Real Money Video Slots For Mac Casino Slots Machine Play Online Instant Play Casino Slots Best Online Slots Bonus Games Casino Credit Card Black Jack Tournaments Signup Bonus Casinos For Usa Players Casino Slot Bonuses Online Bonus Slot Casinos Casino Games For Us Players Play Blackjack Online For Real Money Casino That Accept Us Money Play Real Slots With Bonuses Online Craps Flash Casino Play Casino Games With Bonus Rounds Best Casino In America Online European Roulette Websites Casinoe Excepting Mastercard Usa Casinos Online List Play Slots Machines No Download Online Casinos That Take Amex New Casinos Allowing Us Players American Accepted Casino Bonus Legal Usa Casinos Online Slots Online Casinos Good Payout Best Roulette Casinos Us Real Casino With Real Money Online Slot Play For Money Rtg Online Casino Bonuses Usa Casino Sites The Best Casino Promotions Online Casino Flash Games Moneybookers Blackjack Online Top Ten Usa Casino Sites Casino Bonus List Play Casino Using Check Cleopatra Slot Bonus Round Casinos Deposit Bonuses On Line Casinos For American Players 2010 Casino Codes Usa Casino Promotion No Download Slots Bonus Top Online Casino Review Virtual Vegas Casino Blackjack Us Casinos That Except Echecks Us Player Slots Play Bonus Slots Online Instant Play Casinos Online New 2010 Flash Casinos For The Us Internet Casino Las Vegas Casino Cash Promotions Us Online Slot Tournaments Casino Usa Directory Play Online American Express A-z Casinos List Slots That Accept Us Players Instant Play Online Casino Brand New Online Casinos Us Players No Download Casino Sites List Of United States Casinos New Slot Machines Online Casino Slots With Bonus Rounds Video Poker Download Casinos On Line No Downloading Online Gambling Roulette Best Rating Online Casinos Casinos Who Accept Credit Cards Credit Cards For Casino Flash Casino Bonus Us Players Casino Internet Casinos Promotions I Want To Gamble Online United States List Online Casinos Rtg Casinos Accepting Echecks 2010 Rtg Bonuses Online Usa Casinos Accepting Mastercard No Download Real Slots Online Us Casinos American Express Usa Slots Tournament Casinos 3 Line Slot Tournaments Internet Casino Links Online Gambling Casino Usa Video Slots Online Casinos Casino With Slot Bonus Games Real Money Online Blackjack Best Online Slot Casinos Online Casino Amex Play Casinos With Bonus Slots Casino Online For Mac Newest Rtg Casinos Rtg Casinos Deposit Bonus