Useful reminder from James Clear with 7 times you should just say Thank You. #1 on his list is where I usually stuff up – responding to compliments. As James notes: We often ruin compliments by devaluing the statement or acting overly humble. Internally, you might think this prevents you from appearing arrogant or smug. The problem is that by deflecting the praise of a genuine compliment...
A good post from Moz covering some featured snippet testing they conducted. Featured snippets are predominantly paragraph snippets, although other formats (list and tables) are increasing. Here’s a quick takeaway for you: Key findings: Featured snippet paragraph lengths The optimal length of a featured snippet paragraph is roughly 40 to 50 words, or around 300 characters. Lots more to learn...
I was reading through Belle magazine this morning – this is a higher end magazine covering interior design and beautiful apartments/homes. One of the early ads (ie expensive placement) was this double-page spread: My eye was caught by the QR code in the bottom right corner. I’m always amazed when companies promote a QR code – seems like a waste of good call-to-action real estate...
Full marks to Apple for being seasonally aware and promoting apps related to Chinese New Year: But I can’t help wondering if there’s a massive opportunity they’ve missed. I don’t speak Chinese, I’ve never shown any interest in Chinese apps, and nothing in my past activity would suggest an interest in Chinese Apps. Apple has no idea about me it seems. Google would be...
Not quite sure why I find it strange that Instagram use Tumblr for their blog platform… Perhaps I thought they would have moved to Medium by now. Or use Facebook notes. Or at least use a responsive theme: Tumblr in a browser is an unpleasant user experience. Especially on mobile. The continual prompts to open AND get the app are web site amateurism. So at odds with the user experience of...
A useful read for marketing managers structuring their teams. Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, notes how he’s re-structuring their teams based on changing needs: The goal isn’t to find a perfect org structure. Instead, find a structure that is right for right now, one that reflects what you are currently prioritizing — and deprioritizing — and sets you up to leverage your current...
Good rebuttal to The Guardian’s report on insecurities with WhatsApp. If true (ie that The Guardian is wrong), then this is a very dangerous issue they’ve potentially created for people in some countries. Zeynep Tufekci writes: The behavior described in your article is not a backdoor in WhatsApp. This is the overwhelming consensus of the cryptography and security community. It is also...
I’ve been harsh on the HubSpot add-ons in the past. But the Ads add-on is *finally* worth investing in. It now supports Facebook Lead Ads, as well as Instagram. Which means that Google AdWords, Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Advertising are now all pulled in and part of the reporting. And the kicker – ROI is now (optionally) calculated based on Deal values. ie this is real ROI being...
Problem: How to avoid the Facebook timesuck Solution: Get other people to do it for you The Bloomberg article on Mark Zuckerberg having others manage his FB communications shouldn’t really be surprising: Zuckerberg has help, lots of it. Typically, a handful of Facebook employees manage communications just for him, helping write his posts and speeches, while an additional dozen or so delete...
For all the good that self-driving cars will bring, there’s always a way to look on the bad side: As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It’s a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation. Here’s why: It’s morbid, but the truth is that due to limitations on who can...