There's a lot of content about every imaginable sort of marketing out there. Our goal with these marketing picks is to help you focus on what's important and avoid spending your time on content that has little impact on your marketing efforts.

This week we curated content to help you understand what consumers expect from brands on Social Media and what social mistakes are important to avoid. In addition, we cover CTAs, content types and finish off with a brilliant infographic about email design.

Social Media

Consumers Aren’t Looking to Buy From Brands That Are “Cool” on Social

We've always been of the opinion that companies should tread carefully on social Media and craft a strategy that looks far into the future. Yet many companies confuse authenticity with snarkiness and choose to reap immediate returns by being insensitive.

Although some people might find insensitive content amusing, companies risk being quite unfunny with the vast majority of people. Same goes for taking a political stance as a company – it might be to the joy of one segment of a company's audience while eroding trust with another segment.

There's a fine line between bad taste and coolness and what celebrities can get away with, most companies can't.

This extensive report by Sprout Social which surveyed a 1,000 consumers, confirms our stance on the issue. Check out the full report to find out what consumers really want from brands on social media.

Plenty of brands are doubling down on social snark and reaping the benefits of increased media visibility. But does this behavior correlate to sales?

Read the full article on sproutsocial.com

We Made These 10 Social Media Mistakes so You Don’t Have To

Having a social media strategy is absolutely necessary to your brand's success on any social network. However, there are many pitfalls that unfold only once you start executing the strategy. Some pitfalls are minor while others can significantly hinder your growth on social media.

A few companies have more authority (and data) than Buffer when discussing social media. This article covers mistakes that Buffer committed so that you can improve your strategy and avoid these critical social media mistakes.

Despite building a product that helps people succeed on social media, we have committed a good number of social media mistakes ourselves...

Read the full article on blog.bufferapp.com

Inbound Marketing

3 B2B Case Studies That Prove the Power of CTAs

One of the key elements for conversions on your website is having good calls-to-action (CTAs).

CTAs can take the form of a button, a link, a banner and a multitude of other forms. If this wan't enough, they can be located practically anywhere on a website.

All these options mean that CTAs are hard to get right and it isn't surprising that many companies don't bother using them.

If you're considering using CTAs, this article will highlight why they are an absolute must.

We saw over 738% increase in conversions by making the process more convenient for users. That's some serious conversion rate optimization — which leads to some serious revenue...

Read the full article on moz.com

Content Marketing

The 8 Main Different Types of Content and How to Use Them

There are many types of content and they can have vastly different purposes.

So when should you work on a whitepaper? And why should you consider creating an infographic? Knowing the answer to these questions will help to correctly channel your resources and create the content that helps to achieve your specific goals.

This article helps to answer these and other questions about the most popular content types.

Different types of content can help you connect with different customers in a number of ways. In many cases, a variety of content types is ideal for reaching and connecting with users at different points of the digital sales funnel...

Read the full article on adespresso.com

Infographic

Infographic - The Complete Email Design Checklist | Campaign Monitor

Contrary to many predictions, email is still a significant marketing channel and will remain so in the foreseeable future.

Good emails can grow engagement with your content, drive traffic to your website, nurture leads and convert people to paying customers.

This infographic provides all the necessary tips to make sure that your next email campaign is set up for success.

From your subject line to images and everything in between, use this checklist as your guide for success whenever you create an email campaign...

Read the full article on campaignmonitor.com