July's #MashPics show how our community is surviving summer

At the end of each month, we round up our favorite photos from the rapidly growing #MashPics collection

Your July Instagram pics featured the most beautiful outdoor weddings, day trips to the shore, cold treats and all of the other things that make summertime so great

See also: Colorful, captivating and creative #MashPics from the month of May

It's always awesome to see what our global audience is up to, and there's no better way to share moments than in photos. From epic nature walks and extreme summer sports to delicious home cooking, we've seen it all. Scroll through the featured images below. Read more...

More about Photography, Instagram, Social Media, and Mashpics

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6 Simple Ways to Tap Into the Power of Influencer Marketing

Did you know that just 3% of people generate 90% of the impact online? 

Considering this alarming statistic, it should come as no surprise that leveraging the power of this select group of influencers serves as a highly valuable strategy for businesses looking to expand their reach. 

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1UcyA59

8 Creative Ways to Enhance Your Content Marketing With Visuals

On the web, there are few things more discouraging than a big block of text. That's because humans are visual creatures -- we tend to gravitate toward content that is pleasing to the eye, and we're especially drawn to visuals that capture (and keep) our attention. 

It's no wonder that 70% of marketers planned to increase their use of visuals in their content marketing this year. Sometimes visuals are just a more effective and creative way to present information, data, or difficult-to-understand concepts. After all, they don't say "a picture is worth a thousand words" for nothing. 

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1M1ex8D

Tips For Re-training Your Media Sales Team

One of the biggest challenges facing media companies who adopt the inbound marketing methodology is re-training their sales team to sell inbound campaigns to advertisers.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1De67rt

4 Genius Tactics for Increasing Ecommerce Sales

Nothing about running an ecommerce website is straightforward and easy. The goal is, of course, to present a product, entice buyers to purchase, and then process the payment. This is how even the most basic ecommerce site should run. For those that really want to increase sales through the use of psychology and maybe even a little wheedling, there are some other tactics you can adopt.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1KEZvCg

The 20 Best Sites for Wasting Time on the Internet

There's a lot of content out there about productivity -- everything from hacks to shortcuts to tips and tricks for how to get more done in less time. It's all about the sprint, the checking things off the lists as quickly as possible, and the downloading of software that'll block out any and all distractions.

But what about those times when you just want to surf the internet aimlessly? Hey, no one can be totally productive all the time.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1DV8SbT

The 20 Weirdest Words Added to the Dictionary Because of Technology

Whether we like it or not, dictionaries are living, breathing documents, and new words are added to them regularly.

Although the Oxford English Dictionary editors get the final say, they actually look to us to dictate whether a word should be added. In other words, we have no one but ourselves to blame for all the weird words that make the cut every year.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1SODYZE

How to Write an Author Bio That Doesn't Suck

If guest posting is part of your content distribution and promotion strategy, you’ve probably experienced this frustration.

Here’s what happens: You write a great article for a guest publication, and at the end, you’re compensated with a tiny, little paragraph about you. 

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1H5APOd

Twitter finally has a decent Windows app

Microsoft users upgrading to Windows 10 will get an extra bonus: a Twitter app that doesn't suck.

Twitter rolled out a new universal Windows app Wednesday that finally brings the Twitter experience on Windows up to the same level as its apps on other platforms.

See also: The 10 best features of Windows 10, in GIFs

Other than the addition of a Twitter Live Tile, most of the updates already exist within Twitter's website and its other apps. The new Windows app finally adds support for multiple photos in tweets and the ability to watch GIFs, Vines and other videos from your timeline. It also adds photo support to direct messages, a feature the company added to its iOS app in 2013. Read more...

More about Twitter, Social Media, Tech, Windows, and Apps Software

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The Non-Designer's Guide to Creating Better Blog Graphics [Infographic]

You may not be a designer by trade, but as a content marketer, it's your job to make sure you're creating content compelling enough to hit your traffic, lead generation, social sharing, and engagement goals.

Adding images to your blog posts is one of the most important ways to get more readers, subscribers, and leads out of the content you spend so much time creating.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1OC76C7

What to Do When Your Prospect Takes a Strange Turn in the Buyer’s Journey

[Cue Twilight Zone Music] There is another dimension beyond which is known to most marketers. It is a dimension that is vast and chaotic and as timeless as the sales process itself.

It is the middle ground between the introduction and the close, between engagement and disengagement, it lies between the deepest of our marketing fears and the heights of our marketing knowledge. This is the 4^th dimension of the sales funnel. It is an area which we’ll call… The Sales Continuum.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1eAgBW7

13 Businesses With Brilliant Global Marketing Strategies

Thanks to the internet, global reach is no longer reserved for deep-pocketed brands, nor is it an incredible hassle for already over-burdened marketing managers.

In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets. 

To give you an idea of what a great global marketing strategy looks like, we've compiled a list of brands that totally "get it."

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1OBxvjq

Would you quit your job to Periscope full-time? This guy did.

It’s not hard to see why Periscope appealed to Jon Jacques, a 20-something who worked for a video marketing company in New York City — the app that gives you instant access to a captive global audience. So a few months ago, he decided to give it a try during his free time after work and on weekends. Quickly, though, he saw his street magic performances were turning into something more.

In June, Jacques quit his high-paying job to Periscope full-time. He was determined to make money from Periscope and use it to help people in need.

See also: For some strange reason, Periscope users are obsessed with your fridge Read more...

More about Fundraising, Entrepreneur, Mashable Video, Social Media, and Apps Software

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8 of the Best B2B Publisher Email Newsletters

Producing email newsletters for B2B markets can be a vital part of your inbound marketing. Producing one, week after week, which actually gets read isn’t always so easy. Luckily, publications of all shapes and sizes can create great newsletters—you just have to know your audience and what they will find most engaging. 

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1IryDGm

7 Ways to Inspire Trust from Ecommerce Customers

 

Getting people to spend money online is easier than ever, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for everyone. There are still plenty of consumers out there who aren’t comfy passing along financial information, no matter how secure the transactions get. One small slip, and you could turn them off of shopping with you for good. So, how can you get your visitors to trust you enough to convert to customers? Here are some tips to help.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1U6egST

Inside the StartUp Podcast: Gimlet Media Founders on Managing Burnout & Being Transparent [Podcast]

Last year, former This American Life producer and Planet Money co-host Alex Blumberg launched a business of his own: Gimlet Media. In true journalistic fashion, Alex decided to document the entire process of starting Gimlet -- from botching a pitch to legendary venture capitalist Chris Sacca, all the way through finding his business partner Matt Lieber and negotiating their equity in the company -- and release it as a podcast of its own.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1fGsyKL

Illustrate a concept in Instagram's square frames for our photo challenge

For this week's photo challenge, go beyond a simply beautiful photograph and aim to illustrate an idea in your square frames

Conceptual photography is the art of getting a concept across to your audience by using just the contents of a photo. Be it a literal depiction of the phrase walking on clouds or a carefully set up shot that illustrates a brainstorm, your photos should be satisfying, maybe even stirring up an "aha!" moment — they should leave your viewers wanting more.

See also: 20 photos that creatively utilize negative space

Chris Rivera, a fine art photographer who specializes in art- and self-portraits, will be our guest host. His Instagram feed is a mix of beautiful, surreal squares — many of them double exposed and edited to illustrate ideas. Over the last few years, he's grown a following of more than 30,000 people Read more...

More about Photography, Instagram, Social Media, Mashable Photo Challenge, and Mashable Photo Challenge Guest Series

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How to Be an Effective Leader: 9 Timeless Lessons From Warren Buffet, Mary Kay, Chuck Norris & More

In 1951, there was a 21-year-old man who had trouble with public speaking. In fact, the thought of speaking in front of a group of people was so off-putting that it'd often make him physically sick.

Determined to improve his speaking ability, he ended up taking the Dale Carnegie training program -- an educational course aimed at helping individuals improve their communication skills and better influence outcomes. And since then, he can't stop talking.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1h30thK

Type A vs. Type B: Does Personality Type Matter at Work?

Organized, ambitious, competitive, and sometimes a little impatient. Laid-back, collaborative, creative, and sometimes a little messy. Does one of those sentences describe you better than the other?

Most of you probably already associate with either the "Type A" or the "Type B" personality. Or, perhaps you associate with both in different contexts -- like those of us who schedule our time and write to-do lists like maniacs, and yet have never made our beds once in our lives.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1fDdKN1

How to Generate More Leads & Customers Using Social Media Videos [Free Ebook]

Did you know that the use of video content for B2B marketers jumped from 8% to 58% in 2014 alone? More than that, the number of videos brands publish on Facebook has increased by 3.6x year over year.

But does all this video really help marketers succeed?

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1HXMR07

The Anatomy of a Grammar Nerd [Infographic]

Are you pro-semi-colon? Does the word "irregardless" make you cringe? Do you silently (or not-so-silently) correct your friends' and family's grammar mistakes on a regular basis?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, chances are you're a grammar nerd. It's cool -- a lot of us are, too. Actually, it turns out there are quite a few of you out there.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1JLbzPk

Plain Text vs. HTML Emails: Which Is Better? [New Data]

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1D5vHyH

How to Earn Subscription Renewals Without Lifting a Finger

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1In3AqI

5 Tips for Increasing Your Average Order Value

Marketing your ecommerce site is only one way to increase your revenue. There are other things you can do on a daily basis that just might convince buyers to order more products. You won’t even need to increase any of your prices to increase the order value. As an added bonus, these tactics will delight your customers and boost the chances they’ll be back to buy more in the future.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1In3AqH

The Step-by-Step Guide to SlideShare Marketing [Free Ebook]

While many marketers are drawn to the visual nature of SlideShare (it is a popular platform for sharing visual content, after all), it's important to remember that SlideShare marketing is both an art and a science.

The art side of the equation, no doubt, is obvious: Creating a SlideShare presentation requires that you craft a compelling story, and then bring that story to life through the careful selection and arrangement of typefaces, colors, illustrations, photographs, and other elements.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1IAVFwb

So Your Ebook Didn't Generate Leads? You Could Be Making These Rookie Mistakes

We've all had it happen before. 

You spend days creating an ebook. You slaved over the copy. You hacked together the design. You put it on your website.

And then ... crickets. No one downloads it.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1esSUz9

Jenna Marbles is the first YouTube star with her own wax figure

There's a special level of fame that comes with getting your likeness recreated in wax, and YouTube stars may have reached that same lofty upper echelon normally reserved for dead presidents and pop princesses.

Arguably, a lot more kids today can probably identify Jenna Marbles faster than they can Harry S. Truman. Marbles, aka Jenna Mourey, and wax museum Madame Tussauds announced her likeness will soon appear in the New York location, making her the first social media star to join the museum.

See also: At Vidcon,YouTube stars become big moneymakers

"I can't believe I'm getting my own figure. Watching the studio's team work so diligently to get every last detail of me was an interesting experience, and I can't wait to see the finished result," Marbles told Perez Hilton. Read more...

More about Video, Youtube, Entertainment, Social Media, and Madame Tussauds

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Can Company Policy Make Your Team More Creative? Here's How 4 Companies Are Experimenting

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1IxmGAB

Twitter is cracking down on stolen jokes

Joke thieves beware: Twitter seems to be cracking down on plagiarism.

In a freewheeling universe home to millions of spambots, fake celebrities and trolls, it's no surprise that many Twitter accounts habitually crib popular 140-character quips to rack up followers. But Twitter now seems to be using copyright rules to police this comedic fraud

See also: Twitter says sorry for frat-themed party thrown at its headquarters

The social network is erasing and hiding a number of tweets reported as stolen and referring to the original poster as the "copyright holder," as first spotted by the account @plagiarismbad. Read more...

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82% of Managers Aren't Cut Out For the Job: Do You Have What It Takes?

This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Sales blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

Struggling to get along with your manager? It's probably not you. There's a good chance your boss should never have been promoted in the first place.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1LJS1PF

#Curvy forced Instagram to rethink how it polices hashtags

Curvy girls are no longer banned from Instagram, thanks to new technology implemented by the social media platform.

After the hashtag "curvy" was banned earlier this month from being searched on the site, Instagram is using new, automated systems designed to keep the hashtag "clean" of porn and nudity, a spokesperson told Mashable.

"We’re unblocking it, but we are also unblocking it in ways so the content's going to be able to stay clean on the hashtag," he said.

See also: 8 times Instagram policed women's bodies

The same technology, when needed, was previously implemented on trending hashtags to make sure they were free of nudity, porn, hate speech and other "bad" content, the spokesperson said. Read more...

More about Social Media, Social Good, Activism, Instagram, and Online Activism

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Confessions of a Jaded Conference Attendee: 5 Things I Loved About INBOUND

 Remember your very first conference?

You carefully deliberated over every single session in the weeks leading up to it, bought a special outfit, and got a thrill when you finally arrived and saw your name covered in plastic.

“My very own name tag? I’ll save this forever!”

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1MMGTAo

12 About Us Page Examples That Are Probably Better Than Yours

When you’re building a website, it’s tempting to get distracted by all the bells and whistles of the design process and forget all about creating compelling content. But having awesome content on your website is crucial to making inbound marketing work for your business.

So how do you balance your remarkable content creation with your web design needs? Why, with your 'About Us' page, of course! For a remarkable about page, all you need to do is figure out your company's unique identity, and then share it with the world.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1JiOHLb

13 Productivity Tips for the Busy Professional [Infographic]

We’ve all been there. It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday. You desperately want to start your weekend … but you have that incredibly important project you still need to finish up. You think back on the week: What could you have done differently to get your work done and leave at a decent hour of the day?

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/1LAyGBW

Twitter teases new updates ahead of its second Flight developer conference

Twitter is gearing up for its second developers conference.

The Flight conference will take place Oct. 21 in San Francisco, Twitter announced Wednesday, promising a suite of so far unannounced updates expected to be revealed at the event.

See also: Twitter just removed your homepage wallpaper, and people are furious

"We’ve only shown a fraction of what we’re working on publicly," Prashant Sridharan, the company's global director of developer and platform relations, wrote in a blog post.

While we don't know exactly what will be announced at this year's Flight conference, the company says it will add more updates to its Fabric developer platform, which was first revealed during last year's event. Fabric offers developers a suite of tools that help integrate Twitter more closely into their apps while providing tools for ad management and analytics. Read more...

More about Twitter, Social Media, Tech, Apps Software, and Apps And Software

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