Online Marketing Blog

Believe it or not an image can help make or break a piece of content, once your visitors reach the page.  C.C. Chapman (@cc_chapman) shared sound advice and lots of laughs with his opening session on day one of the New Media Expo with a session entitled “How To Add Photography Into Your Marketing Mix”.

Whether you’re sprinkling your content marketing with imagery or looking to make it a larger part of your strategy, C.C. suggests some best practices for letting your images shine.

#1 – Always Create An Emotional Response
When someone looks at the images that you use to help tell the story of your content, it should illicit a response or reaction.  If a follower takes a look at your photo and then stifles a yawn it’s time to go back to the camera lens and find another image that is more suited.

Marketing trends come and go, but what other “shiny object” topic has caused more debate than social media?

On the one hand, recent studies cited by eMarketer show that two thirds of the U.S. internet population will belong to a social network by 2013. On the other hand, a study by Harvard Business Review showed that 29% of the 2,100 organizations surveyed felt it was difficult to see the benefit of social media for their business purposes.

It’s true that with something as large, fast changing and ubiquitous as the social web there will be zealots and dissenters as well as the comfortably numb. The fact that opportunists make unsubstantiated claims as self-anointed social media experts doesn’t help matters when it comes to understanding social fact from fiction.

Dave Cynkin & Rick Calvert Photo Credit: New Media Expo (NMX)

In college I had a diverse group of friends, people that represented different interests and common experiences which made my time during those years a lot more fulfilling. Even better was that these different groups all came together fairly regularly for a themed event at a local watering hole. Connecting with diverse interests in a meaningful way has been a tremendous business advantage to this day.

When I attended my first BlogWorld conference in 2008, it was a similar experience in that there was a convergence of different groups: from new media/bloggers to public relations, to internet marketers to brands and business owners.  The common experience of using blogs and digital content as a communication platform has brought a lot of people together in a way like few conferences have. I’ve made some of the most meaningful connections for my business and personal growth through BlogWorld, now known as NMX.