• Light-duty autonomous vehicles get the green light in California
• It’s Coming: Is Your Brand Prepared for an Economic Downturn?
• Apple, Google, and Amazon are teaming up to develop an open-source smart home standard
• Spotify prototypes Tastebuds to revive social music discovery

topic: content planning

Friends, social media content planning is one of the more tedious aspects of our job. Real talk, I used to pledge never to use a content calendar. I wanted whimsey and spontaneity in my content. Is that so bad?

Then the reality of marketing hit me in the head like an anvil falling from the sky. Now, it’s a pet peeve of mine when I hear others saying they don’t content plan.

Luckily, Hubspot just published a useful piece on the tools and templates that help you plan your social media content right.

First, here’s why you need to start if you aren’t content planning yet.

1. It frees up your time by planning weeks or months ahead. And avoids the constant scramble for things to post.
2. Customize content for each platform instead of spamming everyone with the same info everywhere. WUPHF didn’t become a thing for a reason.
3. Track performance. Need we say more here?
4. Improve efficiency. Hubspot notes, “72% of B2B marketers attribute the success (which has increased annually) of their content to the development of a formal content strategy.”

Okay now to the good stuff. Here are the tools you can use to easily plan your content.

• Trello. It’s super effective for team collab.
• Microsoft Excel. It can be customized to your team’s priorities.
• Evernote. This note-taking app features hourly up to yearly logs, which make tracking published content a breeze.
• Google Drive. (Calendar, Sheets, or Docs) Use the Calendar to keep tabs editorial and social content. Sheets to schedule, track performance, and assign tasks. While, Docs can help you collab on copy.

BTW Hubspot gives specific examples on how to set up a calendar on each tool, and calendar templates to get you started. Smash the button to get more.

Perfect is Boring by Tyra

topic: visual keyword research

Today’s tool is called Answer the Public. After playing around with it for a bit, we gotta say, this tool is pretty dang cool. It’s biggest advantage is the visual element.

All you do is enter a keyword and out pops a plethora of content ideas. Keyword research tools like this one is a big help when creating relevant content. And we all know how powerful relevant content can be.

A local startup from our hometown, Niche, just launched its “Home for the Holidays” video. It will give you all the warm and fuzzies, so have your kleenex ready.

This video highlights something we often overlook: home is not a place; it’s a feeling, the people, and the memories we discover along the way.

 Why did the marketer get off the trampoline?

He was worried about his bounce rate.