Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Robin Good writes:

Stencil is a web app (formerly known as Shareasimage) which makes it as easy as possible the creation of visual posts, picture quotes, visual promos and and ads for your website or your social media.

The tool allows you to tap into over 600,000 images and 200,000 clip art icons, plus it provides over 40 ready-made design templates that you can fully edit and personalize.

Each and every layout can be easily exported to one of 34 pre-set social media layouts perfectly respecting ideal image and sizes for different platforms. A dedicated Chrome browser extension allows you to easily select any text on a page and to instantly transform it into a visual post to publish.

Free version available (max 10 images per month). Paid version: $9/month. Unlimited images. 

My comment: Born out of one of my favorite tool for creating visual posts (Shareasimage), I have only positive words to describe Stencil. Easy, immediate, simple and truly cost-effective.  

Try it out now: http://getstencil.com...

Our technology and method

Using NLP (natural language processing) to turn text into data, we extract reported speech (the things people say) from the text of online news, along with the associated metadata (things like: the name of the speaker and where they work). We use this data in a variety of ways: for our article ranking, when we manage churnalism (lots of news sources use the same info), and when we display the quotes themselves to create an at-a-glance version of the news.

Why do we focus on quotes

Because we're convinced that a valuable news experience is one that includes a variety of points of view - so more quotes means more value. At Trooclick, we understand that news is the same as anything else you might invest time or money in: it should be a good value....

Whether you're a published author or just getting started with blogging, it's not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good, and makes the reader feel something.

But every marketer should be able to write -- and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It's just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing.

Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section....

Domain names have always had an impact in the branding and SEO of online businesses. In the past, online marketers used “Exact Match Domains” or EMDs, which are domain names that are the same as a key phrase they are targeting. Although this is no longer as effective after Google’s EMD update in 2012, coming up with a domain name that’s relevant and conveys a meaningful message to your would-be visitors. Adding a keyword or two in the domain name has also shown to increase a website’s performance in ads and SERP listings.

Given that domain names cannot be changed when registered, it is essential for businesses and bloggers to plan very carefully ahead.This is one of the most important decisions you should make for your site to take off. To help you determine the perfect domain name for your site, here are five of the best tools out there you should consider using....

Content promotion takes a lot of time.

In many cases, it takes longer than it does to create the content itself.

This means efficiency is key.

And to achieve efficiency, as well as consistent results from your promotion efforts, you need tools.

Tools help automate boring, repetitive tasks and give you insight into the relevant data by helping you analyze it.

Tools are what this post is all about.

I’ve put together a list of 15 tools that can help you promote content more effectively....

Every blogger will tell you that he or she has a collection of excellent tools that help them create outstanding content. Even more important, these tools are so good and easy to use that they save bloggers significant amounts of time in their content creation efforts.

It’s not a surprise that awesome content attracts more readers and boosts your blogging success. The simple rule is this: To produce the best materials you need to use the best tools.

Nevertheless, some bloggers remind me of Gollum with his “precious” – they don’t want to share their tools with others! I’m no Gollum, so I’m happy to recommend the tools I use on a daily basis to create high-impact blog content....

Coming up with exciting content is a bit tricky though, not just because everything has already been done to death, so it’s hard to come up with anything original, but also because once you set out to create it, it seems as if everything is turning against you and wants to prevent you from creating it. You name it: procrastination (although that one is on you), writer’s block (a little bit on you), distractions, the agony of having to edit your work, the list is seemingly endless.

We've mentioned tools to help with content marketing several times at Smart Insights. We thought it worth mentioning these tools because whilst you may already be using the likes of Trello and Hootsuite, these less well-known tools may also help you be that extra bit more effective when it comes to writing content....

When you are browsing different social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you are likely to see images with text on them – these can be inspirational, informative, or just plain fun. Having your message on a colourful image will catch your customer’s eye more effectively than just using text alone.

However, if you are a small business owner, you probably don’t have the budget to hire a a graphic designer. Luckily, there are plenty of options on the market today to help you create the graphic yourself for minimal time and effort....

While the old adage, “You get what you pay for,” usually rings true, sometimes what you can get for free is pretty good.

Luckily, many people sympathize with bloggers who don’t have the investment to buy tools to help improve their effort. They have created some awesome free tools that can take your blog to the next level. Here are eight that rank high on my list....

Updating old blog content is an interesting online marketing tactic. It doesn’t require a lot of hard work - unlike creating new content from scratch - and it brings a lot of benefits to the table.

The only catch is that you need to have content that can be updated, and that your blog already has steady traffic and a decent email newsletter list. Otherwise, while you’re still free to apply this method, you might want to focus on other types of growth for your blog, such as increasing traffic and adding to your newsletter list by publishing new content.

So, the main purposes of updating older content is to increase existing traffic to your blog, to get a piece of content higher in rankings, or use tweaks in order to improve conversions....

Patel These tools aren’t magic – you still have to set things up.

But the good news is that once you successfully incorporate the right tools into your blogging systems, you could travel the world and your business would continue to thrive in your absence.

Without using time-saving blogging tools like these, you’ll be wasting a lot of time and will struggle to create content, with little or no time to promote it....

Creating, organizing, publishing and promoting content can take a lot of time. Luckily, there are some great blogging tools that help make the process easier for marketers who want to implement blogging into their content marketing strategy.

We’ve compiled a list of the best blogging tools and here are 10 tools you should be using to pull in your target audience:...