What can marketers learn from Olympians? Plenty. Here's an illustrated look at seven major tips we can learn from Olympians. more

The Girl Scouts of the USA, Best Friends Animal Society, Stand Up to Cancer, American Red Cross, and Goodwill are among the top nonprofit brands within their respective categories, according to the Harris Poll Non-Profit EquiTrend brand-equity tracking study of the health of some 87 nonprofits. more

Brand extensions can be a great way for a core brand to develop its overall brand equity and reach new customers. We can learn valuable lessons from those who have done it right, and those who haven't. more

Is your brand's message getting lost in today's data deluge? Learn how to maintain a consistent brand voice, and how to ensure your messaging cuts through the data noise. more

Aer being laid off in February 2011, I had to devise a strategy to differentiate myself in a job market crowded with talented and creative individuals. more

How much can your company benefit from a timely rebranding? A business rebrand can make your business look good, and, more important, make your bottom line look good, too. Here are four reasons to rebrand your business. more

As in dating, telling your company's story requires a little planning, talking, and listening. You can unearth the good stories about your company by asking yourself the right questions. more

Small businesses can learn lots from design firm Method's socially appealing philosophy. Case in point: Method's Interaction Design Director Ben Fullerton recently wrote an eloquent article for Fast Company about turning website design pixels into a brand experience for users. Here are our favorite bits of advice from the article: Embody what you ... more

Building to its IPO, Facebook unrolled improvements that let marketers optimize ads for multiple actions (not just Likes). In a post at Mashable, Victoria Ransom shares four tips for enhancing performance with those action-driven optimization capabilities. Now more than ever, she notes, "the challenge to create organic-feeling and genuine ads ... more

Do you like the name of your business or brand? Enough to get a tattoo of it? Maybe you need our guide to brainstorming a new name for your brand and crafting the right tagline. more

Inspired by the MarketingProfs University classes of Ginny Redish and Erika Napoletano, I doodled up a slide show of their key tips for online writing and blog-building. more

The Social Media Examiner has distilled five ways businesses have hit the ground running on Facebook Timeline. You can use these examples to help make your Facebook Timeline richer for storytelling and more actionable for sales. Here are five tips based on the success stories of these heavy-hitters and Timeline movers-and-shakers: Note ... more

Brands are getting more active with Google+, and consumers are getting more comfortable with the 10-month-old social networking site, according to a new study by Simply Measured. Among the brands listed on the Interbrand Top 100, the number of circles across all Google+ pages is up 138% from three months ... more

Social media content posted by brands appears to influence consumers' buying decisions nearly as much as content posted by friends, according to a survey from Market Force Information. more

Media appearances are essential if you want to build your personal brand and emerge as a recognized industry expert. Learn 10 tips for mastering media appearances, and five key guidelines to follow during an interview. more

In this digital age, businesses must provide outstanding service, offer intrinsic value to customers—and stand out from the crowd on myriad online platforms. Find out how. more

"Blogs increase your credibility, boost your traffic, and put a personality behind your brand," writes Lindsay Atkinson at the Renegade Search blog. "But how should [a blog] be executed? Should it be hosted on your website or on a completely different domain?" The short answer is: It depends. To help you ... more

We have updated you on some of the major changes to Facebook’s Brand Timeline pages. Now that you feel more familiar with the medium, it’s time for your Community Manager to step in and do her due diligence. (Don’t have one of those yet? Here are tips for hiring one!) Social ... more

More than one-half (53%) of advertising and marketing executives say they expect companies to increase investments in Facebook marketing in 2012, according to a survey from The Creative Group. more

People want great offers. That's the primary reason they opt in for permission-based communications from brands, whether in the form of "liking" a brand on Facebook or subscribing to an email list, according to a new survey from Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey. more

Smart Marketers Tour kicked off last night at Seattle Art Underneath the twinkling lights of an installation piece by Cai Guo-Qiang, smart marketers from around the United States gathered to swap stories, share marketing smarts, and get an inside look at what it takes to record Marketing Smarts Putting together such ... more

MarketingProfs is kicking off its Smart Marketers Tour 2012 on March 28 in Seattle. And we're inviting you to join us there for our very-first free in-person event. more

In the push to optimize your Web presence for local search, it's important to avoid techniques that tamper with your anchor identity—the name, address, and phone number contained in your business listing. "Think of your anchor identity as your digital storefront or the glue that holds your online reputation together and ... more

How far would you go to create the sort of shareable content that goes viral? Would you—for instance—risk your reputation with a video that's almost certain to invite accusations of fakery? In a post at ReelSEO, Jeremy Scott discusses a video that attracted plenty of hits—and skepticism. Did a GForm case ... more

Buoyed by renewed confidence in the US economy and higher expectations for new business, CMOs say they plan to boost marketing spending over the next 12 months, with B2B products and B2B services marketers leading the way, according to the CMO Survey. more