Each week on our homepage we feature one video about social and digital media marketing, UMSL, or the St. Louis community, and a blog from one of the many talented bloggers from the surrounding St. Louis area. This page is an archive of all the videos and blogs that have been featured on the UMSL Digital Mindshare homepage.
Take Me Straight to the Videos
Previously Featured Bloggers
Things you don’t know about Influencer Marketing
By Nick Szabo, COO at Swizzle
Influencer marketing is the new “sexy” term in the marketing world, but a lot of people don’t understand it and don’t know how to take advantage of it. Those who figure it out now will be akin to the first people to do social media marketing, taking advantage of a new, extremely successful, marketing strategy, and will leave their competitors in the dust.
Since I am constantly researching this world, talking to key players in it, and being asked about it, I decided to write down a few things you may not have heard yet. Read Full Article
7 Ready For The Mobile Tipping Point?
By April Mullen, Senior Strategist at StrongView
We’ve been talking about mobile for several years — and for good reason. Mobile is chipping away at desktop engagement, but many brands still aren’t meeting critical customer expectations for the pocket screen. In 2016, a larger percentage of email opens will take place on a mobile device than on a desktop, according to predictions. What does this mean for email marketers? It’s time to put forth a better experience. Here are five awesome ways to enhance the customer email experience on mobile phones. Read Full Article
7 Signs You’re Ready for Social Intelligences
By Heather Bartel, Director, Marketing, evolve24
Digital marketers often joke about the speed at which new tools and technology disrupt our daily workflow. If we take a couple days off, the first thing we ask upon returning to the office is, “what’s changed?” While this digital disruption can negatively affect others, I believe marketers are pretty resilient and handle change far better than other functions. We’re always looking for the latest gadgets and tools to apply to our craft. Because, ultimately, it’s our job to connect with consumers in ways that motivate them to buy our products, use our services or join our cause. Read Full Article
September 2015 Marketing and Design Events
By Renée Fleddermann, ATOMICDUST
It’s an exciting month for St. Louis marketers and creative professionals. With multiple outdoor art fairs and a whole week dedicated to design, September is the time to shake things up and try something new, or to appreciate the thriving creativity in our city. Read Full Article
Marketing MacGyver’s small business alternative to HubSpot
By Danni Eickenhorst, Blank Page CEO & Chief Strategist
Serving small businesses and nonprofits for most of my career, I’ve become a bit of a MacGyver. I can piece together tools and tricks to accomplish most any marketing aim on a shoestring budget. Most recently, I was asked by a client to audit whether Hubspot was something they should budget for, and I provided them with my honest response, considering their needs and their budget. Below, you will find assessment. Read Full Article
UMSL Digital Conference Recap 2015
By Thomas Salopek, Digital Manager at Charter Media
The State of Digital Media Marketing Conference 2015 went off without at hitch at the UMSL campus on April 17th. It was a day filled with multiple speakers, workshops and networking. It was clear the size of the conference was much larger this year. Overall, there was a good variety of speakers from all walks of media; from Chris Brogan (keynote) toJustin Warshowsky of Google. The key themes that came out of this year’s conference were clear: Personalization, Predictability and Transparency. Read Full Article
Follow the Speakers at #UMSLdigital Conference 2015
By Erin Moloney, Social Media Club of St. Louis President
UMSL’s annual “State of Digital Media Marketing” conference is a who’s who of digital marketing and technologies held each year at the University of MO St. Louis. This year, the lineup of speakers and panelists is doubly as impressive as last year’s. UMSL has listed the speakers here on their website. We also made a Twitter list of the speakers, so you can follow them easily in one place! Don’t forget to also follow the official conference hashtag #UMSLdigital before, during and after the conference for insights and highlights. Read Full Article
Disruption In The Email Conversion Funnel
By April Mullen, Senior Strategist at StrongView
The email marketing industry has been fascinated with the innovations happening in the inbox over the past couple years, and especially those being led by Gmail. The Promotions Tab, the unsubscribe feature, grid view, image caching, quick actions, the Inbox app and the soon-to-be-launched Google payments functionality called Pony Express are changing the way consumers engage with email. And the vast majority of these changes focus on meeting the needs of the always-on, connected consumer.
The challenge to marketers is that these innovations are changing the process of micro-decisions that a consumer goes through each time an email is received. Read Full Article
[HOW TO] Prepare Your Mobile-Friendly Website for Upcoming Mobile-Search Algorithm
By Ivan Temelkov, Digital Marketing Strategist
In February of this year, Google made an announcement that it will will be implementing a mobile-search algorithm on April 21, 2015. The intent is to improve mobile-friendliness by focusing on a more succinct user experience. The SEO community threw its hands up in the air with a high level of dissatisfaction. There are a plethora of non mobile-friendly websites out there and those particularly are quite upset about this announcement. For those website owners who currently have a mobile-responsive design this does not create much of a worry. Read Full Article
Tips on Getting Your First Design Job
By Katie Werges, Senior Designer at Atomicdust
Applying for your first design job is hard work and just plain terrifying. I took a whole semester-long class just preparing and tweaking my resumé, portfolio and website to send out to companies. All in the hope that someday, maybe, just maybe I could possibly work at one of them.
Now that I’m on the other end of the never-ending stream of applications at employment@atomicdust.com, I have developed some tips for applying and interviewing for your first design job. Keep in mind that these are just from Atomicdust’s perspective, and every agency is different. But all of these seem to be foundational items for most agencies.
Read Full Article
The Next Big Innovation In Marketing Is Already On Your Team
By April Mullen, Senior Strategist at StrongView
If you’re an email marketing manager, you have to learn to sell yourself to the CMO. Here’s some ammunition. Conversely, if you’re a CMO or other marketing exec, keep reading for ways to leverage a phenomenal resource that you’re likely underutilizing: the email marketing manager. Here are three skills email marketers have that CMOs can leverage today for strategic-level marketing planning: Read Full Article
[VIDEO] 5 Questions to Ask Your SEO Marketing Services Provider
By Ivan Temelkov, Digital Marketing Strategist
SEO marketing services have really become commercialized and saturated. Everyone is offering it these days. I know that’s especially true in the St. Louis area where it seems like every digital consultant and agency alike are SEO specialists. I’m not harping on those by any means nor it’s my intent on doing so. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the old days of SEO circa 10+ years ago. In reality, how do you distinguish one SEO provider from another? Which provider will give you the biggest bang for the buck? How do you smell the b.s. from one provider to another? Read Full Article
Survey says the St. Louis social media community is engaged and active
By Erin Moloney, Social Media Club St. Louis President
I became the president of Social Media Club St. Louis about two and a half years ago. I took leadership from an excellent leader and friend, Brad Hogenmiller (@javastl). Brad and our board at the time, many of whom have since become advisors, felt strongly that we not charge for membership and that instead we let our fans and friends of SMCSTL speak for themselves as “members” of a new kind – as people who simply enjoy convening in St. Louis to network and learn about social media. Since then, I’ve noticed that our board has taken to calling our fans and friends the SMCSTL “community”. Because we don’t have “members” per se, we truly have fostered a “community” of friends. Read Full Article
Putting Four Common New Year’s Resolutions To Work For Your Email Program
By April Mullen, Senior Strategist at StrongView
The beginning of another year is always a time for reflection, thinking ahead about the improvements we want to make. Here are four common resolutions that can be applied to email marketing programs to make the new year successful. 1. Lose weight. I’m talking about body weight — email body weight, that is. With mobile opens around 50% or higher, it’s imperative to consider images and content in your emails. Read Full Article
The Story Behind CIC
By Tim Rowe, the Founder and CEO of CIC
In late October, I was thrilled to be back in St. Louis for the opening of CIC @4240, a center that’s already welcoming many new startups and already-established companies in a fully-outfitted facility. I understand we had 1280 visitors that night. Wow. Thank you St. Louis. CIC St. Louis is so much more evolved than what we started out with in 1999 in Cambridge, but the opening of CIC St. Louis (Missouri is only our second state) brought to mind the circumstances that led to launching the original CIC, so I thought I’d share that story here. Read Full Article
The State of Startup Marketing
By Diane Fleetwood, the Director of Marketing at Graematter
About five years or so ago, a snapshot of a typical marketing team consisted of the company’s internal marketing group, a PR/creative agency and a communications team. However, today that snapshot have drastically changed. And understanding these changes is essential to any business owner, whether you run a startup or a more mature company. But why? It’s due in part to two key factors. An overwhelming amount of information is now available to customers on the Internet and social media sites. Read Full Article
Atomicdust on “What is SEO?”
By Ken Earley, Copywriter Atomic Dust
Our clients often ask us about our approach to SEO, or search engine optimization. It’s an understandable question considering Google and others constantly update their algorithms. Sure, there are general best practices about title tags, meta data length and more – but those are just the basics. Since we’re not specifically an SEO agency, what is SEO at Atomicdust? It’s actually pretty simple. And it doesn’t involve any tricks or gimmicks. Read Full Article
Will Your Website Recover from Latest Google Penguin 3.0 Update?
By Ivan Temelkov, Digital Marketing Strategist
The online repertoire of your website and essentially the trust and authority of your brand on the web serves of utmost importance to current and potential customers. Trust and authority new and existing customers with stronger brand engagement. However, the latest round of Google’s Penguin algorithmic update may potentially jeopardize the pre-existing positive marketplace perception you’ve already worked so hard for in creating. Read Full Article
Networking Tips that Actually Work
By Vernon Ross, Social Media Strategist
Before you attend your first networking function or a professional conference, it’s a good idea and I would say it’s mandatory that you realistically evaluate the skills you have and the skills you need. Doing this evaluation can help you to create a roadmap that will help guide your networking efforts. Read Full Article and Listen to the Full Podcast
You Should Create Better Content, Not More
By Heather Bartel Director, Marketing, evolve24
A recent study from Incite Collaborators found that marketers are making more and more, not better, content. Please. Stop. Right. There. Any marketer will tell you they are stretched, that they don’t have time to waste and want actionable answers. The same goes for most other people as well – i.e., your audience. Don’t believe me? Here’s what experts say: Read Full Article
The importance of internships for undergraduate students
By Peggy Gilbertson, Internship Coordinator UMSL Business
Very few undergraduate students have jobs lined up while they are students unless they know they will work for a family business. This is what makes getting involved in as many internships as possible while still a student so important. Students should realize that they should start building that resume as soon as possible once they are in college in order to make them stand out and be put on the top of the stack when recruiters are comparing the dozens (or even hundreds) of resumes they may receive for one opening. Read Full Article
Developing Your Social Media Marketing Plan
By Perry Drake, Assistant Professor of Social and Digital Media Marketing UMSL Business
The basic function of marketing as we know it has changed. It is no longer acceptable to simply push out a message or grab someones attention with a catchy slogan. You must be able to hold their attention. It is all about creating content to engage the consumer. This is where social media comes into play. Many businesses both big and small fail at profiting from implementing a social media strategy. Remember, social media isn’t a separate part of your marketing efforts. It must be integrated into your overall marketing strategy for social medial to be effective. Read Full Article
Google’s ‘Not Followed’ 301 Reporting for SEO Improvement
By Ivan Temelkov, Chief Search Strategist jWeb New Media
Recently, I was chatting with someone regarding Google’s latest updates and indeed they affirmed their secret plan for world domination. Well, at least it’s starting to seem that way based on their latest changes in Google Webmaster Tools. The addition of a ‘Not Followed’ tab section included under the Crawl Errors section sparked some controversy in the SEO community. I know what you’re thinking, “Great, another thing to worry about in Google Webmaster Tools”. Truthfully, I was a bit on the fence about this new feature as well however after fiddling around with it for some time, I can to the realization that it may actually be quite useful in conjunction with SEO endeavors. Read Full Article
Social Media Analytics and ROI Tracking
By Brianna Smith, Social and Digital Marketing Strategist Fpweb.net
This week I was honored to present at the Social Media Club of St. Charles April event, where I spoke about social media analytics and ROI tracking. During the presentation I covered three areas of social media measurements: Social Media Metrics, Social Media Measurement Tools, and Measuring the ROI of Your Social Media Efforts. The full presentation can be found below! Read Full Article
The Digitization of Currency
By Perry Drake, Assistant Professor of Social and Digital Media Marketing UMSL Business
Another disruption is about to occur. Are you ready? And it is going to effect how you and I will make purchases.Apple Pay is about to allow us to quickly cross the chasm in terms of leaving our wallets and credit cards behind. Apple will play a key role in moving the early majority to this new pay model relatively quickly. Starbucks blazed the trail with their payment app a few years ago. And, the early adopters of that technology (me included) embraced this new way of paying relatively quickly. It felt cool. It was cutting edge, whipping out our phone and paying for a Latte. Us early adopters had also hoped it would have spread even more. But to have an app for every retailer would be cumbersome and not manageable. Read Full Article
Instagram Video Done Right: 10 Inspiring Brand Examples
By Katherine Leonard Content Strategist, TOKY Branding + Design
Instagram video burst onto the scene in mid-2013, and in the months since we’ve seen good, bad and ugly video efforts from brands. The good news is that when companies do get it right, Instagram video efforts seem to pay off — according a study from Unruly Media, 40% of the most-shared Instagram videos are from brands. Big name businesses and bloggers make Instagram video look easy, but there’s more to the medium than repurposing YouTube content. Here are 10 brands that are getting creative and doing Instagram video right. Read Full Article
Recap of #SMCSTL @StartupVoodoo Happy Hour and Panel in #STL – Sep 24th
By Erin Moloney, Director of Digital and Social Media Marketing at Perficient
Check out the Storify below from last night’s panel, “The Integration of Social Technology and the Startup Mindset” at The Wheelhouse’s new location downtown (@WheelhouseSTL) in honor of Startup Voodoo (@StartupVoodoo) conference in #STL. The event was a hit, and we welcomed the following great panelists: Read Full Article
Looking Forward to Design Week 2014
By Danielle Hohmeier, Online Marketing Manager Atomicdust
Every year, we look forward to St. Louis Design Week. It’s a way for the community to come together and celebrate the work coming out of the city – be it graphic design, architecture, photography, jewelry design and more. Plus, as is customary for St. Louis, most of the events are free and include beer. And this year, we have even more of a reason to look forward to the week – Mike Spakowski, our Partner/Creative Directive took on the task of chairing St. Louis Design Week. Read Full Article