Interest in social media marketing is surging, with several recent studies showing that a majority of companies, of all sizes, are now using social media in some form for business purposes. But if most companies are already using social media in their marketing/PR mix, why is a consultant necessary? Strategy—help identify how social media fits with existing activities such as SEO, PR and event marketing. Content production—content in the form of blog posts, white papers, reports, video, presentations, podcasts and images is a major component of social media marketing. MORE >>

Judging by the number of high-quality articles and blog posts still devoted to the topic (so many I had to split this category into two posts), SEO remains a critical component of online marketing success. Top mistakes newbie SEOs make by Jennifer Slegg - Search Engine Marketing Consultant Solid advice for newbies or SEO pros who need a reminder of mistakes to avoid, though one must be a bit careful with the first item, "My site ranks for `some really obscure multi-keyword phrase`". SEO is dead? Balderdash! ”) and questionable ( Stop using keywords in your URLs. advice. MORE >>

Though social media is all the rage, email marketing also remains strong, with 85% of companies planning to increase spending in this area in the second half of 2009 according to a recent study. Combining social media with email marketing holds tremendous potential, as the tools are complementary. Email is permission-based interruption marketing; social media is participatory. One example of a company executing this combination well is Aquent , a marketing temporary help agency based in Boston. Social Tagging Web Marketing MORE >>

Setting up PPC Campaigns 101, Part 1 by Search Engine Watch The prolific and always helpful Ron Jones steps through the basics of setting up a search marketing campaign, from sorting keywords into ad groups to identifying negative keywords to use. Tags: Web Marketing How can you utilize rich media ads to take advantage of the coverage provided by Google's content network? Which AdWords reports are the most critical, and how you can take full advantage of the information they provide? How is AdWords Quality Score calculated, and how can you improve that score in your campaigns? MORE >>

Lately, you may have seen more examples that incorporate graphical elements, like this: Tom Pick Marketing & PR Executive KC Associates, LLC tom@kc-associates.com (It's difficult to match the exact appearance in Blogger; my actual Outlook signature is shown to the right.) One of the most popular posts ever on this blog was The Social Media Email Signature , in which I noted that "In the old days, email signatures pretty much just mirrored business card information (which is still the case for most people).A It helped. In fact. The easiest way is to use Google image search. Click "OK." MORE >>