Ahmad Kareh

Creating an image online is hard work. It requires forethought into what message you want to convey, as well as the writing and technical skills to create the image you're imagining. The rewards, though, are worth it: A brand offers a chance to display your skills, draw in public interest and establish a strong marketing engine. So how can you get started?

Social media provides a powerful tool for outreach: Companies can share stories, talk about events or offers, or discuss services or solutions with interested customers or potential clients. But not every small business has set aside the time and money to establish an online strategy or presence.

Rumors have been spreading about your company. Perhaps a product has flaws that should have been found before they were shipped, some of the people working for the company are facing ugly rumors or accusations, or your company simply made an error in judgment. Regardless, the brand's reputation has taken a hit and has the potential to spiral into a long-term issue, given enough time.

Blogging can provide a serious boost to companies or groups wanting to garner meaningful traffic. According to HubSpot, companies that published at least 16 posts a month received 3.5 times the traffic of blogs that published four or fewer posts a month. When done well, blogs offer a chance to show expertise, provide another path to get people interested in a service or product, and can help increase SEO by drawing in visitors.

According to a Barkley and FutureCast survey, members of Gen Z have very different expectations for interacting with or embracing brands than millennials. Gen Z — teens between 15 and 19 — have grown up in a fully connected world, one that lets them interact with advertising, potentially before a very wide audience. As a result, an ill-timed post or false note could deal a serious blow to an ad campaign.

It's a question that's been asked many times: If all of your friends jumped off of a bridge would you?

From major corporations to small businesses, jumping on a new trend without consideration for the integrated marketing communications (IMC) strategy is a common occurrence. Each time this happens, I have a very difficult time not quoting my parents.

The best methods to perform search engine optimization, important for keeping a business easily accessible to the right searches, are constantly changing. This leaves companies trying to discover and adapt to the new rules almost as quickly as the search engines change them.

Live video is quickly gaining popularity, both among users and brands. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, recently said the company has a "video-first" strategy and that users last year watched 8 billion videos a day. As live video is still developing, however, there are a lot of questions on how to best use it when marketing or generating awareness.

As artificial intelligence continues to develop, it becomes easier to turn large quantities of seemingly unrelated data into trends and analyses that can help a business grow. But how do you best use this resource for marketing? Should you use chat bots to direct consumers to a solution or product, or use AI predictions to filter ads to specific consumers? And what about customer engagement and satisfaction?

In a world that's heavily polluted with information, it's easy for business owners to get overwhelmed with social media expectations. We all know that social media is necessary for business success, but do we know why? In a study from Simply Measured, 60% of social marketers report measuring ROI as a top challenge. How, then, do we convince our CFOs to continue to invest in these channels?