Vida Tamoshunas. In the midst of preparing for an internal training session on data visualization, I was thinking about why we don’t remember to do all the simple things to improve our analyses and reports so they can be more easily interpreted by others. The GEICO commercials came to mind as a perfect metaphor. If you can save 15% on insurance in 15 minutes, then why not improve your analysis by 15% in 15 minutes? challenge all of us who share data with others to take 15 minutes to make a few improvements before we hit the send button for an analysis or report. What can you do in 15 minutes? MORE >>

Your Facebook business page is a haven for well-crafted status updates, photos, and links -- it's the ultimate content-sharing platform. But in order to understand which content you post is actually benefiting your business, you need to take the time to analyze your Facebook Insights (Facebook's proprietary business page analytics tool) to capitalize on what works and wave au revoir to what doesn't. Trouble is, if you’ve ever exported data from Facebook Insights, you understand the overwhelming nature of what you receive. Let's get started! 1) Export With the Right Settings. Toss it. MORE >>

By Contributing {grow} Columnist “Social Steve” Goldner. You want successful social media marketing for your company or brand?  Think “Trust Marketing.”  You can say you heard it here on the {grow} blog first. In 2009, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith released their book Trust Agents.  This book focused on trust as it relates to influence.  In other words, brands need to identify the people that they want on their side.  This is extremely important and digital influence and outreach is a key service that I provide in the social media practice I head up at MediaWhiz. You are too honest.”  MORE >>

It's a sad fact, but your email marketing database degrades by about 25% every year. Your contacts' email addresses change as they move from one company to another, they opt-out of your email communication, or they abandon that old AOL address they only use to fill out forms on websites. As a marketer, it's your job to make sure you're constantly adding fresh contacts to your email marketing campaigns so you can keep your numbers moving up and to the right. 25 Ways to Grow Your Email Marketing List. 1) Create remarkable email content. 14) Promote one of your lead-gen offers on Twitter. MORE >>

Social media monitoring tools have become widespread among many sorts of businesses. For example, even offline businesses like clubs and restaurants have started using social media monitoring tools. But why? Well, social media monitoring allows businesses to do many things, such as: See what competitors are doing. Target competitors’ customers. See how effective your branding campaign is. and more! As a result, the benefits of using a good social media monitoring tool far outweighs the drawbacks. Some businesses simply utilize “drive by” social media, but this does not work. MORE >>