The lesson from the influencer marketing scandals of the past year is that using people who are influencers merely because of their follower count is a losing proposition. But that doesn’t mean influencer marketing is not valuable. The key is to seek out relationships with influencers who have truly earned their influence. You should be looking for people who have real respect, trust and authority in your industry, or in an area that at least relates to your industry. The pitch here is a genuine exchange of value, where you bring something to the table for the influencer (other than just a hefty check), and they contribute their sincere endorsement and amplification to their audience.

1. Self-Interest These are your bread and butter subject lines—you should be using them most frequently. They are usually direct and speak to a specific benefit your audience will gain by opening the email.

2. Curiosity If self-interest subject lines work because they communicate a direct benefit of opening the email, curiosity-based ones succeed for the exact opposite reason. They pique the interest of subscribers without giving away too much information, leading to higher opens. 

3. Offer Do you like free stuff? Do you like to buy things? So does your email list.

4. Urgency/Scarcity This is the most powerful type of subject line you have at your disposal. Subject lines that communicate urgency and scarcity tell readers they must act now. 

5. Humanity Don’t forget to remind your list about the person or people behind your products.

you can provide the influencer with some pointers. Would you prefer they include keywords in the title of their product review blog to boost your SEO? How many hashtags do you want them to use, and are fans likelier to adopt shorter ones over longer ones? Should they use emojis? (The answer is almost always yes.) Which CTA performs better, “Save 15% off now with my promo code” or “Use my promo code now”?

Speaking of promo codes, what learnings can you apply from sales you’ve run in the past? Does a percentage or dollar off amount drive more conversions? Does what works for sales on your own website work just as well in the context of an influencer promotion?

Perhaps influencers’ fans are more excited about getting a free sample or trial instead of a discount. In this scenario, try testing free sample promotions with some influencers against discount offers with other influencers. Just be sure to choose influencers with similar audiences, industries, and/or locations to keep the other variables as similar as possible.

A/B test the heck out of your influencer landing pages. Try different CTA button placements and colors, test removing the navigation, and see how personalizing the page for the influencer’s audience affects conversions.

Not all your influencer marketing content is published by the influencer. Sometimes, as with the landing pages, you are using the influencers in your own content. A/B test the items under your branded control, too.

if you feature an influencer in an email newsletter, is it best to call that out in the subject line, via the sender name, through a hero image at the top, or some combination of the above? Should you target different subscriber lists for different featured influencers

Organic and promoted tweets: 71 – 100 characters Whether you’re running an ad or not, data from Buddy Media shows that tweets containing less than 100 characters receive, on average, 17 percent higher engagement than longer tweets. This is, in part, because shorter tweets are easier to read and comprehend. Short tweets also give retweeters enough room to add their own message.

Organic Instagram posts: 138 to 150 characters

Sponsored Instagram posts: 125 characters or less

Instagram hashtags: 5 to 9 per post at less than 24 characters each

According to research by TrackMaven, posts with nine hashtags receive the most engagement:

YouTube videos: 3 minutes

YouTube titles: 70 characters

Create multiple versions of your campaign that are identical in every way but the subject line, and we'll send them to randomly selected parts of your list. We'll automatically send the campaign with the best open rate to the remainder of your list, and you'll learn a little about what kind of subject line appeals to your subscribers. Create an A/B Testing Campaign

It also looks like LinkedIn will also be pushing a lot more Group activity into your notifications tab, while alongside this, it’s sunsetting the e-mail blast. That might not be such a bad thing: while it did help admins get information out (especially when Groups updates were essentially hidden from the average LinkedIn user), Pattnaik admitted that the email feature “can be abused” by those simply looking to promote themselves.

Actions A suite of action buttons are now featured prominently near the top of Pages. These buttons enable people to take actions like book an appointment for a haircut, order a pizza, send a message or write a Recommendation.

More visibility for stories Since launching stories in 2017, Facebook has been experimenting with ways to make it easier for people to engage with your story and with this update, people can view your business story by tapping on the Page profile photo.

Events ticket sales 700 million people use Facebook Events each month and now businesses will be able to sell tickets directly through Facebook Pages. Facebook is also creating event-specific ads to help with promotion and marketing.

Tech is changing consumer behavior dramatically — The methods of product discovery, acquisition, and delivery have been revolutionized. Hyper-empowered consumers are less loyal, more informed, and less trusting of companies and brands than any other time in history. But many companies have not reacted to this reality.

Competing effectively now and in the future will be less dependent on the classic “Four P’s of marketing” and more aligned with an ability to be nimble and adjust, adjust, adjust. This should be the most urgent priority at every company, but it’s just not happening in most places I encounter in my journeys.