What's resonating with your readers? If you're creating content online and publishing blog articles, it's important to review results regularly - monthly as well as yearly.  The following 9 articles were the top read 2013 articles on Content Talks Business. If you've not read them, they are a good introduction. 

Top 2013 Social Media and Digital Marketing Articles 

1. BuildDirect Uses Social Media to Connect With Customers

Have you wondered how you might use social media to connect with customers? You can find out how during Surfaces 2013 during a panel discussion I will moderate.

You can also glean tips from this blog article! You see, in anticipation of “Social Media in Action: Retailers Share Best Practices for Connecting With Customers” on 1/28/13, I'm sharing highlights from conversations and interviews with my panel participants and social media practitioners.

Here are 8 tips on using social media to connect with customers from Robert Banks, Executive Officer, Co-founder, BuildDirect...

2. SEO Tips: Having Fun with Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

As important as SEO is, would you agree that there's a hair shirt quality to it all? It's technical, it's geeky and abstract, awkward to access and doesn't seem to visibly add to the user experience.

Furthermore, it often gets ignored because identifying meaningful title tags and meta descriptions aren't necessarily an IT function, or the role of a website developer to complete, and the marketer overlooks it because it's part of the website infrastructure and not always easily accessible.

Regardless, title tags and meta descriptions need to be taken care of so they can support your website, and offer up tantalizing clues about your business to prospective customers... 

3. Social Media to Connect With Customers: Nufloors' Cynthia Dean

In anticipation of the session, Cynthia Dean, CGA, General Manager,Nufloors in Coquitlam, BC, whom you may remember from Customer Satisfaction: Do You Assume or Have you Asked? and What Goes Into a Thoughtful Retail Experience? took part in the following interview...

4. Social Listening and Trend Gazing: What Pinterest Offers

Why Pinterest? Because it's visual and easy to use. Simply 'pin' images you like from sites you visit to your virtual bulletin or pin board. It's possible to search through boards without having to be friends with or followers of someone. It provides you with a window on what inspires people and on what captures their fancy on a broad range of topics...

Top 2013 Content Marketing Articles 

5. How To Audit Content: Yours and Your Competition's

Have you ever conducted an online content audit comparing your online presence to that of your competition?

I like to do so every so often, and definitely when I first start working with a client.

In the pre-digital days, it's the kind of thing you could do most effectively at a trade show, when you might ask someone innocent looking to go 'fish' for competitive brochures and materials from others exhibiting.

In the digital days, it's a matter of exploring your competitors' websites, and including yours in the process for a compare and contrast type exercise.

Not to copy or steal what the competition is doing...

6. New Content Marketing Guide Available for Download!

The guide came out of several blog articles published here on Content Talks Business and many requests from business owners wanting guidance on how best to embrace content marketing for their business.

The end result is a 12 page guide which outlines what I consider to be the major pillars of content marketing: personas, keywords and the buying cycle...

7. How To Create Email Marketing Customers Welcome? Show Respect!

And yet, that's not what we experience with email marketing nowadays... Too much of email marketing is about outbound marketing. Lately, I feel under attack: whenever I look at my inbox, another 100+ unwelcome email messages have appeared. My inbox has serious indigestion. I bet yours does, too.

It's particularly perplexing when you think back on your earliest experiences receiving mail... 

Top 2013 Inbound Marketing Articles

8. How Business Blogging Fits Into Inbound Marketing

You see, inbound marketing is all about attracting interested visitors to your website and business. You attract them with remarkable, delicious, relevant content which you publish regularly online - on your business blog.

Inbound marketing means being thoughtful about your customers and the issues they face that you can help them with.

Inbound marketing means taking the higher road on content. If you publish something on your business blog, you feel a strong moral obligation to create content with meaning and of quality...

9. Highlights From the State of Inbound Marketing 2013

HubSpot has released its 4th annual State of Inbound Marketing. Have you seen it yet? Here are my key takeaways, including 6 charts I found particularly insightful.

Of the 3,339 marketing professionals surveyed,60% are doing inbound marketing in 2013; they have allocated 34% of overall marketing budgets to inbound tactics (11% more than on outbound tactics); 48% intend to increase their committment to inbound marketing.

Furthermore, those surveyed report that inbound marketing, compared to outbound marketing, delivers more leads at less cost and which convert at higher rates.

My interpretation of all this is that marketers are reacting to traditional marketing performing less effectively than in the past. They are increasingly seeing the value of being intensely customer focused. They are applying that customer focus to their online strategy via inbound marketing. They are seeing results in terms of increased traffic to their website, greater conversion of traffic into leads, and eventually into customers...

Happy Holidays!

I thank you for reading and subscribing. I wish you and your families simply wonderful and safe Holidays!