As we all look ahead towards 2014, it is all about Social Marketing. 9 in 10 marketers will use social media marketing. Call 2014 the year of “social acceptance.”

Redesign your website for the experience of your users not for search engines only. We have now transcended from the age of SEO to the age of CEO [Customer Experience Optimization]. Our technology have aided us in knowing our customers in a way that boggles the mind. We know all the numbers associated with our target audience - we know their age, location, annual income, their spending habits and so forth. Behind this veil of statistics, what we now need to know is the  person with emotions and questions regarding the purchasing of your products and services.
Your marketing strategy needs to be personal.
When developing content always ask yourself: how relevant is your message for this person at this point of customer life cycle?

Since the dawn of history, man has been nurtured by fire side stories. Our brains are hard wired to remember stories. share stories and connect with stories. You, as a marketer are the new story tellers of our digital age.
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” Brandon Sanderson
Need help developing a story. Here are some pointers from Brian Tarcy.

In a society inflicted by massive ADD, small and simple is your ticket to drive attention and retain registration.
David Armano of global social agency Edelman Digital calls mini content, like the six-second video platform Vine, "the second coming of YouTube." He adds, the best way to reach someone is in those "in-between" moments when they're flipping through content on a mobile device.
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229806#ixzz2mA401zJ6
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/09/17/the-top-7-online-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2014/

Content, Context and Contact. -  should be the three pillars of your marketing strategy for 2014 and beyond.

"We are in the business of sales but we don't start with a pitch. we start with a conversation. We try to develop story engines. We ask: What story are you trying to tell? We want to launch a thousand ships together.”
Cecelia Wogan-Silva, director of creative agency development at Google

The future of branding belongs to storytellers who understand the hero’s journey in the context of modern, mobile life. The hero’s journey is a storytelling structure pervasive across cultures. It starts with a call to adventure, requires that the hero be connected to others, including a mentor. The hero will face extremely difficult challenges along the way. The hero ultimately wins and returns home, armed with new knowledge about herself, other people and the world.

Does your brand inspire people to respond to the call for adventure, whether through providing information, tools or a catalyst? Does it help them overcome the obstacles they will face on the path, either by making sure they have nourishment, transportation, tools, information or access to other people? If your brand doesn’t serve any of the segments in the hero’s journey, you’re right to be concerned about the future. Read more

Extend the life of your trade shows and live events by combining words and images in a fun format that people relate to.
Why Visual Content?

• An estimated two thirds of all people are visual learners.
• A full one fourth of our brain is devoted to processing visual information
• Combining images with text or speech increases retention by 40%

 “Drawing simple pictures is actually a much quicker and more efficient way to capture ideas than to capture them word-for-word.”

To create this visual content, graphic recorders listen for key ideas in a conversation. They’re trained to recognize verbal cues to identify these key ideas and quickly replicate them through drawings. This skill helps them to capture the essence of a live presentation in a short amount of time — a feature that seems to enthrall audiences both online and in-person. Graphic recordings are so fresh, in fact, that much of their appeal resides in watching the process itself unfold.

Read More.