Best blog posts of 2014

It’s fun and rewarding to look back at the body of work for the year. 2014 was a fascinating year on {grow} and I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the most provocative, interesting, and useful ideas that were generated over the past 12 months. Here are my best blog posts of 2014.

This was the year of Content Shock

One of my first posts of the year seemed to set the tone for 2014. In fact, arguably, one single blog post defined the debate in the entire marketing industry for the year — What are the economic implications of the overwhelming amount of content flooding the web? Content Shock is the most-shared and most-viewed post in the history of this blog. It received nearly 900 comments, and more than 700 blog posts have been written on this subject, not to mention podcasts, books, white papers, and speeches.

In fact, three of the top 10 posts of the year addresses this subject of marketing in a world of information density (the other two are Six Arguments Against Content Shock and Ten Strategies to Battle Content Shock).

The post clearly hit a chord and this conversation is far from over as we see many of the implications of this idea come true.

The rest of the Top 10

Here are the leading posts on {grow} that made up the rest of the Top 10 blog posts for 2014, in terms of page views:

70 Rising Social Media Stars — I took a risk with this one as I asked marketing leaders recommend who the future stars in our field will be. It paid off and several people on the list told me this recognition resulted in new business for them!

25 ideas to improve your social media network — This helpful list was an excerpt from an all-new edition of The Tao of Twitter that came out in 2014. I am really proud of this book and its legacy of helping people tackle Twitter!

Nobody Reading Your blog? Here are 10 Reasons to Persist — This was one of my first experiments with infographics on {grow} and people seemed to love it. I was happy to encourage people to keep going!

The Twitter Strategy Shift and What it means to Your Business — This was my biggest surprise post of 2014. In a news conference, Twitter hinted at a signifcant change in the way it would present its newsfeed. I punched out a quick blog post (took about 30 minutes) with my thoughts one night from a hotel room in New Jersey and the darn thing went viral. Hard to predict these things.

Five Reasons to be Freaked out By Facebook’s Experiment — I sincerely love Facebook. But its power — and potential power — truly scares me sometimes. Based on the reaction to this post, many people agree with me.

The Best Marketing Insight I have Received in the Past Five Years — Three words. Just three powerful words changed the way I approach business and it meant so much to me I wanted to share this idea with the world.

A 6-Step Plan to Determine Your Social Media Strategy — One of the innovations for 2014 was turning some older (yet relevant!) posts into slide presentations. I am really proud of the ideas in this post because I sincerely believe in this system and now it is helping thousands of others too. Giving new life to this post resulted in nearly 100,000 views on Slideshare!

The worst post I wrote in 2014

To be fair, I also wrote a few clunkers this year. I would say the overall tone of the blog was probably a little too negative. Me and my guest writers) seemed to spend an awful lot of time on spammers, cheaters, stalkers and hackers. I guess those things were on our minds a lot!

Among the worst posts of the year, this one probably stood out for me: When Does Corporate Governance Help or Hurt Social Media. I mean, look at that headline. Who would even want to read that? The core idea of the post was probably good but it was just a snoozer of a post. Be interesting. That is the lesson here.

Top three podcast episodes

I feel Tom Webster and I really hit our stride this year with out podcasting adventures on The Marketing Companion. The audience has been growing steadily based on our blend of intellectual debate on the hottest marketing ideas and off-beat humor. Here are three most popular episodes of 2014:

Coming Clean on Facebook Reach — Tom and I tore into new research that demonstrated a cataclysmic slide in organic Facebook reach. If you are interested in Facebook marketing, you must listen to this.

The Time for Twitter is NOW — Twitter is a great business value right now but most people don’t understand that. This podcast walks through the business case for Twitter.

Would you Erase Yourself from Google Search? — The EU passed laws that allow people to “be forgotten” on search results. This legislation seems to be picking up steam and there are some interesting implications for content creators and publishers!

Five unpopular favorites

As I looked through more than 200 posts for the year, there were five that were not necessarily the most popular articles but represented stories that I really loved. Maybe you will agree …

To Be a Great Blogger, Put on Your Bitch Mittens — I especially loved the illustration that wnet with this post. I thought this was a very entertaining way to talk about the patience and tolerance required to be a successful blogger.

How a small family business pulled off one of the biggest successes in YouTube History — I just loved, loved, loved this inspiring story of my friend Stephen Cronk and his work to turn a tiny family business into an international brand.

The Future of Marketing Will be Built on Fun — I love to look at the implications of trends and make guesses about the future. I had a lot of fun with this post!

10 Things You Need to Know About OmniChannel Marketing NOW — I put a ton of work into this post and it represented some good original thinking but it kind of got a “meh” reception. Maybe it was ahead of its time? Keep your eyes open for the omnichannel challenge!

Thanks very much for spending time and reading my blog in 2014. And please drop me a note on how I might improve and serve you better in coming years!

Illustration courtesy of Flickr CC and Mircea.