It’s time for our bi-weekly Best of the Web feature.
Except that it looks like our bi-weekly Best of the Web feature is becoming a sometimes-bi-weekly and sometimes-monthly feature. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got a packed editorial calendar and a community of people who are super-eager to contribute!
(As I write this, we’ve got a backlog of five guest posts to schedule sometime in May!)
Yup, things are hopping over here – we’re breaking traffic records, we’re thrilled by the engagement and interactions with so many of our readers over email and other social media, and we’re particularly excited to welcome a whole new group of super-motivated students into our Marketing That Works training program!
Now, just because we’ve been busy doesn’t mean that the rest of the internet shuts down (even though sometimes it might feel like it!).
February was a spectacular month for content, and here are some of our favorites…
Month of the Infographic!
February seems to have been the “Month of the Infographic” – or at least it seems that way from where we’re sitting! We’ve got half a dozen great ones, plus some other cool multi-media goodies for you:
- Social Media Explained with 2 Infographics about Donuts (Steve Baines)
- The History of Marketing: An Exhaustive Timeline (Infographic) (HubSpot)
- The Content Marketing Explosion (Infographic) (Anise Smith Marketing)
- Dream On: Why Sleep is So Important (Infographic) and Giants Kneel to a Tweet: When Social Consumers Go Viral (Infographic) (Frugal Dad)
- 22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue (Infographic) (Copyblogger)
Amazing, Inspiring Interviews
Sometimes we just want to see what people are actually saying, in the form of interviews and videos. Well, this month we stumbled onto some great ones!
- Nancy Duarte Talks about Presentation Magic (Ted Talks)
- Sheena Iyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier (Ted Talks)
- Making a Difference by Giving Back with Natalie Sisson (Be For Living)
Lists, Tips, Ideas, and How-Tos
Once in a while, it helps to be told (gently, and with good reason!) what to do. These bloggers gave some excellent advice this month in the form of lists, instructions and bona-fide essays.
- 7 Things Highly Productive People Do (Inc.com)
- 7 Critical Ways To Turn Readers Into Die-Hard Fans (DIY Themes)
- 5 Critical Steps to Getting Your Creative Project Funded on Kickstarter (Think Traffic)
- The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging (KISSmetrics)
- 6 Powerful Guest Post Tactics that No One’s Talking About (Problogger)
- 7 Practices to Help You Warm Up before Making an Ask (Nate Riggs)
- What Are Proven Tips that will Help you achieve your goals? (Bakadesuyo)
Research, Opinions, Tools, and Ideas
We all know that there are some great minds out there on the internet, and we also know that one of the best ways to provide real value to readers is with thoughtful, interesting and unique research and opinions. Enjoy!
- Profitability as a Policy Problem (Reid This)
- Why a Firm Has Only One Bottom Line and Use Motivational Fit to Market Products and Ideas (Forbes)
- On Ignoring Everybody, Throwing Cube Grenades and Why Hugh McLeod is Wrong About Marketing Your Art Online (Kitty Kilian)
- The Rise of Social Business – Broader than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ Combined (Networking Exchange)
- Is It Possible You Already Have What You Need for Greater Financial Freedom? (Marlee Ward)
- The Biorhythmic Cycles of a Blogger (Nischala Murthy)
- Why I Spent $4,152.11 on a FREE Mobile App and How to Get Tons of Media Attention, Generate Massive Traffic, and Increase Sales Exponentially – The Ultimate Promotion Guide (AppsBlogger)
- What A Suicide Cult Can Teach You About Social Proof, And How To Use It For Good (Sparring Mind)
- Are You Giving Success Or Are You Giving Failure (Ryze Online)
- Resolving the Trust Paradox (Edge Perspectives)
- 3 Awesome, Downloadable, Custom Web Analytics Reports (Occam’s Razor)
- 2535 Words on How to Turn sCRAPed Content into Link Building Goldmine (Traffic Generation Cafe)
- Dan Pink’s FLIP Manifesto (join his newsletter to get it, it’s worth it!) (Dan Pink)
- How To Promote Your Product Like Google Did – Google Plus? (Blog Networking 101)
- Fluff Equals Failure and Is Going Viral Worth It? How to Get 55,000 Visits from Stumble Upon in 4 Days Think Traffic
- Understanding the Hype Cycle of a Blog (Problogger)
Interviews, and Very Kind Mentions
Sometimes being the Freddy Krueger of Blogging makes me blush a little. That was true a few times this month when I was asked for interviews, opinions, or mentioned me, my book, or our training program on some really amazing blogs. Thanks to everyone who reached out!
- 3 Marketing Blogs you should be following (B Mark Central)
- Interview with Danny Iny (E I Geek)
- The Role of Content in 25 Online Businesses You Know, The Most Effective Piece of Content (From 24 Experts), and Are You Missing This One Piece of Content? (Content Strategy Hub)
- Interview with Danny Iny | Marketing, Online-Work, and Fitness (Cube Dweller Fitness)
- Interview with Danny Iny From Firepole Marketing (Grow With Stacy)
- List Building: Is Offering Freebie A Good Idea To Build Email List? (ProBloggingSuccess)
- Welcoming Danny Iny to Vision Quest (Brighter Vision)
- Ignore Your Audience. F*** ‘Em. Be A Leader First (Ryan Hanley)
- My Blog Sucks Part 2 (Dan Sumner Blog)
- Engagement From Scratch: Seriously Good Tips From and For Online Marketers and Review: A Marketing Program With $1000 Guarantee (Copy Write Matters)
- Do You Have Engagement From Scratch? (Peggy Baron)
- Why Traffic Generation Cafe Is NOT Doing As Well As It Should… (Traffic Generation Cafe)
- What is the Chain of Conversion? (Brainy Video)
- How To Become An Engagement Superstar (Adrienne Smith)
…and a couple of guest posts, too!
This year I’m going to be slowing down on the guest posting, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t occasionally contribute to some of my favorite blogs. This month, I had the privilege of writing something for two of my regular haunts:
- How To Design an E-Book That Gets Downloaded, Read, and Shared (The Daily Egg)
- Lessons from 31 Engagement Superstars (Wibiya)
We’ve listed a lot of great content here, but if you think we’ve missed out on anything important, please let us know in the comments!
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
As always a great list Danny!
Funny how the “Interviews and Kind Mentions” section keeps getting bigger… You’re doing a lot of this right bro.
Congrats and thank you.
Ryan H.
Thank you, Ryan. It’s getting longer because I’m lucky enough to connect with more and more awesome people, like yourself. I only get a small part of the credit.
Thanks for including 2 of my posts, Danny! I’m honored to be included among so many distinguished writers.
It’s our pleasure, Jeanne, you’re doing really great work, and I’m super proud of you!
Thank you so much for the linkbacks/mentions, Danny. I’m totally thrilled you (and others) appreciating my expression.
Also, this is the first time I’ve been on here twice as [Ryze Online] and as a guest poster on [Ryan Hanley] — cool.
What I like about your best of the web is I get to be reminded of blogs in the community I may have overlooked, and I get to be introduced to others in the community that are already filtered by you.
Congrats on your full editorial calendar and awesome community contribution
I’m loving it!
Thank YOU, Jason – I’m absolutely loving the stuff that you’re putting together, and we’re thrilled to be able to share it with our readers.
That’s actually a big part of what I’m loving about blogging in general – being able to connect with so many like-minded people in the community (a community that sort of curates itself, by virtue of shared interests).
Nice how that works, eh?
And it just keeps getting better, man! (There are deep universal reasons why things keep getting better/worse, depending.)
And a self-curated community of like-minds? Sounds like… karma
Hey Danny,
Thanks so much for the kind mention. I’m honored. And a great list of links. Off to reading some of them
Cheers,
Jane.
Great, Jane, have fun!
Hi Danny,
Great list, I’m going to bookmark this for sure!
Thank you also for the mention! Much appreciated!
Stacy
You bet, Stacy!
Thanks Danny for including my post here. Its an honor to be amidst such fantastic writers and thinkers. Nischala
You’re very welcome, Nischala. Your post was really great – I’m really glad that we were able to share it with our readers.
The 22 content generation ideas link is quite good. I never have time to go through all your mashup type posts!
Haha, I do what I can to keep you busy, that’s for sure!
Thanks, Danny, for the mention. I’m honored. When you’ve got a good thing going on like you do, it’s very easy to mention it to my readers.
Keep up the good work and thanks for the further reading recommendations.
Peggy
That’s very kind of you, Peggy. Thank you!
It’s such an honour to be included in this list, and the first link nonetheless
Thank You!
It’s a great post, Steve, we were happy to!
Nice list, Danny…
Funny (or sad lol), when I read “Reid this”, I thought that’s a funny spelling mistake! Until I clicked on the link that is.
Anyway, thanks for the mention!
PS Something wrong with your CL?
Yeah, I know what you mean. Doug was actually one of my profs when I did my MBA – a really great guy, and worth following.
Nope, nothing wrong with CL, we just switched it off. Found I was getting a lot of comment spam, and I’ve been on the fence about how much value it’s really adding to the blog experience.
Great list, Danny!
Greetings from Norway
Thanks, Trond, and welcome to Firepole Marketing!
Danny,
Thank you so much for mentioning my E.i. Geek review of Engagement from Scratch. I too am honored to be listed among the greats here.
You’re very welcome, Mellissa, thank you for writing it!