Digital Marketing And Social Media PR – The Future Buzz

image credit: a wordle of the gmail blog

I will be perfectly honest. When I see people with an @aol.com, @hotmail.com or @comcast.net address they instantly lose any and all tech credibility with me. I’ve had discussions with several people on this, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I have used and experimented with quite a few of the free, web-based email services. Let me save you a lot of time: Gmail is above and beyond the best.

Using web-based email is a great portability solution for your email, whether it is for personal or business use. However, Gmail is light years ahead of AOL, Hotmail and Comcast. It boggles my mind that anyone still uses them (I single out these other brands of webmail because they are so popular).

image credit: circulating via flickr

Choosing an online marketing or PR agency is a decision you should not take lightly. There are a plethora of choices in this space, and lots make big claims. You should choose an experienced agency that will position your brand in the right way for your desired audience on the web.

This is no easy task. From big brands to small businesses, everyone needs to be strategic in how to enter the social web properly. Social media marketing, SEO, blog development, organic traffic building strategy, and how to grow your brand on the web are just a few of the things to consider. You need a flexible agency that knows how to do all of this and more.

Google recently launched an insight tool for search trends. It’s a like a revved up version of Google Trends and offers a deeper level of analysis of search trends with the ability to compare volume patterns across regions, categories and time.

Really neat stuff and huge applications for web entreprenuers, bloggers and businesses across the nation. Be sure to check out the utility and experiment around a bit – I was able to get some useful metrics almost instantly.

Lately I’ve been having conversations with several people about what is clean, effective and beautiful web design. Seems like I inspired a few of my professional and casual acquaintances to start their own blog from my post on the importance of building your personal brand.

I’m really glad to be motivating people and never have a problem answering questions. Since I had a few people ask me similar questions about what is great design, I thought I’d put some examples together. (Side note: this is yet another great reason why you should have a blog: you can “reply to all” in an open format, along with discussion and just relink to it in the future when the subject comes up again.)

I probably view more than 1,000 websites each week, so when something is unusually good it stands out from the clutter. The web is expanding an incredible amount daily – with both well designed and poorly designed sites. With such a tremendous amount of competition, standing out is a huge key to success.

Are you a leader or a follower?

A huge trend across the spectrum of professional industries is personal branding.

Thanks mostly in part to blogs and social media, there exists an exciting new landscape to easily see who the all-stars are in every field.

Simply handing someone a resume is already dated. If you’re a professional and think a strong resume and great references will win you a high level position in the future, think again.

Intro

I have strong thoughts and passion on this subject, and decided to put down just some in a feature connecting the music and news industries with a little history, the future and why everyone needs to come together and not fight change.

As both an artist and someone who works closely with the media industry, I believe I have a unique perspective on how similar the challenges are facing both of these industries and how it is unfortunate that the big players are using their positions of power to destroy a beautiful evolution of technology and communication.

This evolution ultimately will impact society in an incredibly positive way, bringing down the gatekeepers and creating a completely open and free cultural and information economy.

That is, if we (the independents) can win, and the laws are not bent to the fortune of the few when the power of the many is what will most benefit humanity.