Picture This

One of the oft-overlooked elements in the routine of blogging is image selection. Now, not every blogger uses images, charts, graphs, or other visuals as part of their storytelling approach (Seth Godin, most notably, is almost always a text-only blogger).

But for those of us who do, our photos can be just as important and compelling as our written copy.

The art of communications and marketing is largely one of storytelling. As someone with small children, I can appreciate the necessity of images to help tell stories. Images can help to set expectations, evoke emotional responses, draw attention, provoke laughter, or symbolize irony, among hundreds of other things.

So you see, the cavalier approach to image selection simply won’t do for blogging. Or shouldn’t. Similarly, the sources and the rights of images needs to be taken just as seriously as choosing an image. This post is designed to help you think about where and how you choose images for your blog (or site, or brochure, or whatever), with some bonus content thrown in.

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Marketing Tool That Transcends Message & Media

Today’s marketing professional has an impressive tool kit at the ready. In addition to the staples of the past half-century or so, technology has created a whole new set that seductively promises to change the arithmetic and shrink things to manageable size. Where the world used to be an accessible oyster only for those with the budget, today’s venture can play in the global arena with even the scarcest of resources.

Okay — truth be told, many of us are still wrestling with pieces of the new tool-set. (Please submit all workable Social Media marketing strategies.)

But while in pursuit of promising new connections in an undeniably dynamic marketplace, it may be timely to revisit the tool that has always shaped, and will again change the discussion.

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