Do you struggle with finding professional freelancers? This week’s flashback posts include LinkedIn’s new service to help identify reliable freelance help as well as tips for managing your fear of public speaking. You’ll also learn about a great tool to help manage Facebook groups, guidelines for creating websites focused on user experience and the best apps for work. Here are my favorite posts from this past week:

There are so many opportunities for marketers to build their brand and business using social media platforms. In regard to those that offer live streaming, there has been has been a lot of discussion about the growth of these channels. This week’s posts dive deeper on Facebook’s new live streaming feature and how to do Snapchat right, in addition to some great posts on tools to up your Instagram marketing game, documenting content marketing workflows, and conversion rate optimization. Here are five interesting posts that stood out to me this past week:

Companies and organizations are often held back by their fear that they are going to do content marketing wrong. Rather than taking the necessary steps to identify their buyer-persona’s needs and formulate a content marketing plan, marketers may find themselves like a deer in headlights when contemplating the best strategy for their business. But can you really do content marketing wrong? Some content is better than no content, right? The answer to this depends on your approach. The key is to tell a good story first, and sell a great product or service second. To help overcome your fear and get your content marketing efforts on the best track, avoid these most common misperceptions.

As a partner in an agency that adopted HubSpot’s inbound marketing methodology early on, I was excited to learn about the new Inbound Sales Certification Training that is now available for sales and marketing professionals. Below you’ll find a link to learn more about this new model and training opportunity as well as more of my favorite posts from the week including information on crafting persuasive content, Google’s RankBrain, a tool to help you create Facebook videos, and a guide to local content marketing. 

If you’re looking to boost your email subscribers, learn more about LinkedIn advertising strategies, discover design tips for non-designers and more, this week’s posts are for you. Also, if you are in the process of creating or refining a presentation, be sure to check out my favorite post on dumb slides you should delete immediately and what to say instead. Here are five great marketing and sales posts that stood out to me this past week:

I’m excited to share this week’s list of posts because a couple hit close to home. The first listed on Facebook ad strategy is a great audio post by my consultant, Rick Mulready, who provides great insight about the many recent changes marketers need to know. Other posts touch on a new way to view the sales funnel, an awesome LinkedIn cheat sheet and Google’s top 3 search ranking factors. Lastly, I want to share our agency’s list of top Midwest conferences for 2016 – including our own, Experience Inbound taking place this May.

Content marketing can show great ROI for both B2B and B2C companies, so why do so many companies, even those with dedicated marketing departments, struggle with getting it done effectively and frequently? Content marketing is complex and always changing, and hiring the amount of skilled staff that you would need to do everything from writing to editing, to promoting and social-sharing, is time consuming and costly to keep all functions of content production and promotion in-house. Additionally, implementation of a strong content marketing plan can be overwhelming for many small businesses. 

Each year, our team at Stream Creative is proud to issue our picks for the top Midwest marketing and advertising conferences. With budget and short-distance travel in mind, we’ve lined up a great list for 2016!

This week’s list of posts is all about social with a little bit of content and lead generation thrown in. From LinkedIn best practices for individuals and businesses, social advertising to re-thinking how we position calls-to-action and Google+, the social platform we love to hate - the best articles I read from the past week touch on the ever-changing world of social promotion for business and the importance of testing and analyzing how readers are engaging with your content.

In part 1 of this series, we discussed ways how small or 1 person marketing departments can do more in less time. Now, we will pull back the curtain and share 11 of the actual tools that make the magic happen. These resources all meet one of two basic needs: doing more professional-quality marketing in less time, and cutting down on time spent completing administrative tasks.