Well here we are…the unofficial End of Summer! Labor Day (in the U.S.), Back to School, and the business planning for 2018 is no longer avoidable!

There has been a lot of great information published this month, so here are the best articles I’ve read. I know you’ll find them worth the time, and packed with actionable goodies.

There are an ever growing number of social media listening tools (most also do other things, but the focus is on listening for this article) on the market. Some are free, some are “freemium” (free, but with some more functionality if you pay a bit more…), and others will cost you in a much bigger way. This article lists out 10 top tools in this category that won’t break your bank account. Be sure to assess carefully what you really need, and then add some extra headroom….you will ALWAYS end up needing them to do more than you think!

There is renewed interest in the efficacy of leveraging testimonials and reviews in our digital marketing. Most business owners I talk with are either scared to death of reviews, or choose to ignore them. I know of a few who “get it”, and use them to both market their business AND improve their products / services. This article gives you the introduction to how to think about this and some starter tips.

Many companies will not only mine the reviews, but use customer feedback surveys to find out what is going on out there. But slamming a few questions into SurveyMonkey and sending it out to your list is not a great way to get real data. Aside from needing to know how to create a valid survey, there are some myths about these kinds of surveys that you need to clear out to get to the bits that you can use.

This article focuses on the customer experience, especially in the stories about Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s unrelenting focus on the customer. It seems like an obvious focus today, but it hasn’t always been that way (and still isn’t in some corners of the business world).

It is accepted across the digital marketing spectrum that creating and delivering high quality, relevant and entertaining content is a key part of a solid strategy. Increasingly video and audio are more attractive to the audience that simply text and, in many cases, even images! This article gives you a high level overview about the “Why?” and a little “How?” for both video and audio.