Social media is a rapidly evolving world.  As marketers, we continue to be challenged by new social channels and changing consumer preferences.  Below are six social media trends to be aware of in 2016.  

Marketing automation tools can free up your staff from time-consuming, manual processes, so they can spend that time nurturing quality leads instead.  If you are curious about who has what to offer in marketing automation,CIO has a good article that may help.

Based on the reviews of users from the IT Central Station Community, a comparison is drawn between Act-On, HubSpot, and Marketo.  In no particular order, beginning with Act-On, the valuable features users listed were analytics & reporting, social integration, CRM integration, and the ability to segment visitors based on behavior and lead score.  

Next was HubSpot, which users cited email automation, workflow automation, a social tracking module, and lead nurturing workflows as valuable features.  Last but not least was Marketo, who users listed email drip campaigns, and automated customer outreach from sign-up to upgrade as valuable.  If you're thinking about marketing automation solutions, this comparison will help you start to understand what the marketing automation landscape looks like, who are the software industry leaders and what features you need.

If you are trying to understand what is a good fit for your organization, consider talking to one of our digital marketing experts to provide some starting points and guidance:

Every brand that is on Facebook is there for one reason, to get more business.  This Toolkit will give you a playbook on how to attract new visitors, convert them into leads, and nurture those leads into customers using Facebook.  If you missed this helpful guide, or might simply like to review it again, this Tookit is still available On-Demand.

Creating a successful banner ad can be tricky.  Here is an infographic that lists 8 key elements of a great banner ad, along with 4 tips on what not to do.

Data-driven marketing is a method of extracting inferences and trends in populations.  Using data in order to better understand the customer and what they want creates opportunities that increase marketing effectiveness.  In this way, a more personalized customer experience can be achieved.  ZoomInfo and Ascend2 have released a new report, "Data-Driven Marketing Benchmarks For Success".  In this report, through the use of charts and commentary, we learn why data lives at the heart of the customer lifecycle as well as ways to improve data curation and management.

Our Toolkit of the Month series aims to provide association professionals with methodologies, tools & templates developed by hardcore marketers at Demand Metric.