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It’s already Sunday?! Man, the weekends fly by so quickly in the summer. And at the speed this summer is passing, I’d say it’s time to hightail it to somewhere warm and sandy for a week and just relax ’til next weekend. Summer doesn’t fly by when you’re on a beach, right? If you need some reading material for the plane/train/bus/car, scroll on and check out the best inbound marketing stories we found this week across the web.

How Top Brands Are Using Instagram, From Simply Measured

This story comes to us from the Simply Measured analytics blog. Instagram recently made headlines with the news that it had surpassed the 80 million user mark (up from just 15 million in January 2012!). It shouldn’t come as a big surprise, then, that among those 80 million users are 40% of the world’s top brands, as classified by the Interbrand Top 100 list. B2C brands like MTV and Starbucks dominate on Instagram, and 25% of the brands that are leveraging Instagram post at least once per week. It seems like Instagram is going to keep growing, and the 60% of top brands who are missing out have created a unique opening for smaller brands to make a name for themselves on the photo-sharing social network. Check out the full story here.

Facebook Launches New Ad Creation Tool to Help Marketers Align Campaigns With Goals, From HubSpot

This week in Facebook updates, we covered the news of a new ad creation tool that will take some of the anxiety out of Facebook advertising. With Facebook elaborating upon an earlier-released feature allowing advertisers to measure the success of their campaigns based on their stated objectives, this updated ad creation interface will make it easier for Facebook advertisers to create ads and Sponsored Stories that are more closely aligned with those stated goals, such as generating more business page likes or promoting page posts. These changes will aim to give advertisers more guidance as they’re building their Facebook ad campaigns and help them achieve the right balance of Facebook ads and Sponsored Stories to achieve their particular goals. Facebook has also added a preview option to the process, allowing marketers to view what their ad will look like in actual news feeds. The changes will be especially beneficial to marketers trying out Facebook ads for the first time. Check out the full story here.

Brands Missing Out On Mobile Ad Opportunities, From MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs highlights the takeaways of a HipCricket study on mobile advertisement opportunities — namely, that many brands are leaving those opportunities on the table, and then walking away. Yikes. According to the study, 46% of mobile users have viewed a mobile ad, and 64% have completed a mobile purchase as a result of viewing a mobile ad. But an astonishing 74% of mobile users claim that their favorite brands have never advertised to them on a mobile platform. That’s a lot of brands missing the chance to convert some mobile purchases! Additional details in the study revealed demographic differences in those who take advantage of mobile ads: 55% of those who clicked have an annual income of greater than $75,000, and 29% who clicked have an annual income of greater than $100,000. Check out the full story here.

YouTube’s Built-In Video Editor Gets Better, From Mashable

Our last story this week is from the folks at Mashable. For about a year now, YouTube has been offering a built-in video editing tool as a feature that all users can take advantage of in their video publishing endeavors. But as of Thursday, video editing in YouTube has gotten even easier. YouTube shipped some new features, including quick views of every filter and a real-time, interactive preview of the changes you’ve made, consistently available throughout the editing process. The editor is gradually rolling out to all YouTube users. We’ve still noticed a few flaws with the editor, so we’re eager to see what changes YouTube has in store for the future. Check out the full story here.

Repurposing Content With a Purpose, From Smart Insights

The Smart Insights blog brings us this excellent guide to repurposing content — with a purpose! Aimed at making your content strategy more efficient, the post highlights the advantages of repurposing content, as well as eight ideas for efficient and effective repurposing. Some of the ideas we like best? Repurposing the audio track from video content as a downloadable podcast, creating textual transcripts from your video content, curating your best content into ebooks, and publishing the recordings of live webinars. We’d also venture to add that the reverse is also true; ebook and webinar content can be repurposed as blog content, too. Check out the full story here.

Did you come across any other excellent inbound marketing stories in the past week? Share them in the comments!

Image credit: kansasphoto

The last week has been a bit of a blur – and I was just not able to finish off the five must-read posts last week … so I’m jamming two weeks together now. Slightly early … and maybe you’ll find this an antidote for insomnia on Sunday evening – or an inspiring way to start your Monday. Either way – I trust you will enjoy these five great reads.

1. Trevor Young hits it out of the ballpark with his great post I’ve Seen Marketing’s Future and its Name is Amanda Palmer. Superb thinking and connecting of the dots
2. Kate Carruthers looks at the big shifts between the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries – focusing on the digital economy and the digital revolution
3. Any marketing practitioner will know – often through bitter experience – that our jobs are infinitely harder than they used to be. But Bill Lee says the evidence is clear – Marketing is Dead
4. The climate change deniers can deny all they like. But Bill McKibben says you just need to follow the figures to realise just who the real enemy is – Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math
5. I’ve been saying it for years – share the message but OWN the destination. But Ray Wang pulls no punches –> Brands are dumb if they drive traffic to Facebook. Read it and weep suckers!

Hideman Masks Your IP Address and Location, Offers Anonymous Browsing

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Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

What’s New This Week?

LinkedIn Platform Further Enables Professional Content Sharing: LinkedIn has worked closely with developers to improve the signup with LinkedIn experience and make it easier to share content on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn users will see more content shared on LinkedIn through these improved signup options.

Social Media Marketing Podcast: We’re thrilled to announce Social Media Examiner’s new show: Social Media Marketing with Michael Stelzner. The show is designed to help busy marketers thrive with social media marketing tips and success stories.

Please let us know what you think about the show.

Discussion From Our Networking Clubs: Thousands of social media marketers and small business owners are asking questions and helping others in our free Networking Clubs. Here are a few interesting discussions worth highlighting:

• Are you using social media to market and build passive income streams?
• How do you get “real” readers versus just fellow bloggers to your blog?
• How do you increase fan engagement on your Facebook page?

Pinterest Announces Open Registration: “For those of you who haven’t joined Pinterest yet, this means you can sign up without waiting for an invite. All you have to do is go to Pinterest.com to get started.”

In addition to using your Facebook or Twitter login to create your Pinterest account, registration is now possible with just your email address.

Foursquare’s Nearby Friends Feature Is Back: Foursquare is “bringing back the ability to switch between nearby check-ins and all activity” so you can choose to keep up with your friends or find out what’s going on in your city.

Update your Foursquare app to see these new features.

Tumblr Launches Reblorg: Tumblr’s Reblorg is a “new hub for original creative work.”

Reblorg is for video, animation, GIFs, glitches, music, paintings, challenge posts, contests, games, tech toys, collage, haiku, limericks, kabuki coding and other art forms.

Facebook Introduces New Mobile Ads for Apps: Facebook is beginning to test a new way for mobile app developers to grow their business with an ad unit that helps them reach and reengage their users.

This new app allows developers to "buy mobile newsfeed ads that open Android and iOS App Store purchase pages when clicked."

Google Video for Business Closes Along With Other Google Products: Google is shutting down a few more products including Google Apps for Teams, Google Listen and Google Video for Business. The videos hosted on Google Video for Business will migrate to Google Drive.

Here’s a couple of useful social media tools worth noting:

CScore: a tool to discover the performance and competitive advantage for any Facebook page.

Here's the CScore for Social Media Examiner's Facebook page.

Stitcher: A mobile app that allows you to listen to talk radio shows, podcasts and live radio on demand.

Audio publishers should check out Stitcher.

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner presents Facebook Success Summit 2012 (online conference).

Join 20 Facebook experts at Social Media Examiner’s big online conference! Go here to learn more.

What do you think? Please share your comments below.

Here’s what we included in this week’s One Social Thing daily email. Scroll to see the social media and content marketing articles you need to know.

To get One Social Thing delivered to your email each day, please subscribe below. If you find a social media or content marketing story you think is a must-read, tweet it out with the #OneSocialThing hash tag. If we use your idea in an edition, I’ll send you a signed copy of my book.

Thanks! – Jay

What was the big issue of the week for you?

About the Jay Baer:

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and co-author of The NOW Revolution. Jay is the founder of http://convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

One Social Thing Wrapup – Week of August 6th is a post from: Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting

This week we boosted your home Wi-Fi, improved your Windows mastery, prepared our student-readers to go back to school, and more. Here’s a look back.

More »

Reich took a vacation — lucky guy — and had a brainstorm:

Robert Reich,  Back from Three Weeks Vacation with a Bold Proposal

Here’s a bold proposal I offer free of charge to Obama or Romney: Every American should get a mandatory minimum of three weeks paid vacation a year.

Most Americans only get two weeks off right now. But many don’t even take the full two weeks out of fear of losing their jobs. One in four gets no paid vacation at all, not even holidays. Overall, Americans have less vacation time than workers in any other advanced economy.

This is absurd. A mandatory three weeks off would be good for everyone — including employers.

Studies show workers who take time off are more productive after their batteries are recharged. They have higher morale, and are less likely to mentally check out on the job.

This means more output per worker — enough to compensate employers for the cost of hiring additional workers to cover for everyone’s three weeks’ vacation time.

Sounds good, but Reich never mentions what the so-called self-employed are supposed to do. I guess this is another way that the government could screw us over, like having to pay both halves of social security taxes.

Here’s a thought. Since Freelancers are at least 30% of the professional and creative workforce in the US now, so if Reich’s vacation idea becomes law (as if) maybe the laws could have a clause granting a tax rebate that is equivalent to 3/52’s of our freelance income, each year. That way we could receive ‘paid’ vacation each year.

But his proposal will go nowhere in this ideologically charged political environment. Who is going to stand up for the average worker, after all? No one.

And Dr. Reich? Please don’t forget the freelancers. You were the Secretary of Labor once, so it looks bad for everyone.

There’s nothing better than unwinding with friends after a long week of work. Start early in this week’s open thread. More »

Today’s guest post is written by Crosby Noricks.

The fashion PR industry has a pretty interesting story to tell if you can look beyond the Avant-Garde (unwearable) runway creations to the clusters of people backstage, dressed in black, with clipboards, walkie-talkies, and this season’s must-have manicure.

The issue lies in the disconnect between what students are being taught, and where they want to apply their skills.

To the point, the industry is doing innovative things with content, social media, blogging, and more.

While not a complete list, following are six things happening in the industry right now.

1. Mercedes Benz Fashion Week brings in more than $40 million to New York each year.
2. Fashion brands such as Burberry (who recently celebrated 10 million Facebook likes) are becoming storytellers in their own right, producing some of the most innovative and effective digital campaigns reaching a multitude of audiences, such as Art of The Trench.
3. To stay relevant, fashion publications are evolving as well. Lucky released a Spotify playlist and has moved into the daily deal space. Vogue produces digital-only editorial content. They provide opportunities for readers to get closer to the action, such as live streaming the Met Gala and taking reader questions.
4. Fashion blogging is mega-business. Refinery29, a localized, fashion, beauty, and shopping blog is estimated to be worth $20 million after six years in business.
5. Mega-publicist Kelly Cutrone has embraced authorship and reality TV, dispensing her now-signature blend of career advice, spiritual healing, and eff-you attitude to the millennial MTV generation.
6. Aliza Licht’s evolution from the Twitter handle @DKNYPRGirl to simply @DKNY, not to mention 385K Twitter followers demonstrates the PR department can become as much a beacon of the brand as the brand itself.

However, pick up any PR textbook and browse through the case studies, examples, and expert quotes and what are you likely to find? You’ll see the majority of content to cover corporate campaigns specific to a handful of verticals, namely healthcare, technology, and automotive.

The same is true for PR journals and often, trade publications. It’s an unfortunate situation because, for better or worse, there is a consistent interest among today’s current crop of communications undergraduates to pursue public relations careers in distinctly different industries such as entertainment, sports, lifestyle, and fashion.

In the five years since launching PR Couture, I have received countless emails from frustrated, uninspired students who have had little opportunity to put what they are learning in class toward projects and companies they care about.

If you’re hungry for more on the fashion PR industry, add these five additional sites to your reading list.

1. Women’s Wear Daily – the fashion industry trade du-jour.
2. Fashionista –  consumer-friendly fashion news with an industry spin.
3. Fashionably Marketing Me – a treasure trove of fashion marketing campaign examples and tech trends.
4. DKNY PR Blog – If nothing else, you’ll get a kick out of Aliza’s amazing PR 101 posts. We’ve all been there.
5. The High Low – Backed by Liz Claiborne, this industry blog covers retail trends with a focus on e-commerce.

While certainly some are dazzled by the allure of free swag, partying with celebrities, and jet-setting from one fashion week to another, still many more have a true passion, respect, and love for the fashion industry, and want to be a part of it.

By assuming such a narrow definition of what PR is, where it happens, and who the people are doing it, we do undergraduates a disservice.

I’d love to hear from you – agree? disagree?

Crosby Noricks is the founder of PR Couture, a blog that explores public relations, marketing, and social media in the fashion industry. She also is director of social media for Red Door Interactive. And she is author of Ready to Launch: The PR Couture Guide to Breaking into Fashion PR.  She enjoys taking the train, listening to the Vicky Christina Barcelona soundtrack and pretending she is in Europe instead of Southern California, which she did while writing this article. You can get in touch with Crosby on Twitter at PR_Couture or via email. 

Nederland telt ruim acht miljoen auto’s. 1,2 personen is het gemiddelde per auto. Onbenut potentieel, volgens AIA-deelnemer Toogethr. Met hun meerijd-app maak je snel carpoolafspraken. Via sociale netwerken wordt het een stuk makkelijker om een rit aan te bieden of te zoeken.
Lees Meer over: Accenture Innovation Awards Concept van de Week – Toogethr: de meerijd-app.