It’s just Google’s world and we’re all living in it. And now that’s a mobile-first world, Google’s rewriting the rules of the internet. Again. Google recently announced that it will prioritize mobile-first indexes over desktop indexes. If you are wondering what that means, then here’s a translation in plain English: Google will use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, even when you are searching from a desktop.

Thought leadership is important, particularly for agencies or consultants looking to attract clients. Before you roll your eyes: we’re not advocating for tossing “Thought Leader” in your LinkedIn bio and expecting business to just roll in. However, we are saying that the habits of thought leaders—sharing ideas via blogging, speaking publicly, recording podcasts, distributing newsletters, etc.—are most definitely ways that you can increase the authority, competitive advantage, and visibility of your company.

Unlike “synergy” and “hacking,” thought leadership is a buzzword worth unpacking. Let us explain.

We live in the Age of Information overload. With so much coming at us, it’s difficult to keep up with our reading lists. Because of this overbearing trend, it's especially important for agency principals to understand how the way people interact with brands is changing. Snapchat’s in today, but what about tomorrow? To help stay up to speed, here’s our list of 14 best advertising publications that every agency principal should be reading.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is all about designing a custom marketing plan for every account you are going after. If you are a company going after six-figure or more contracts, account-based marketing provides a framework for doing so. Before you dive into the tactics of ABM, however, there are important preliminary strategic conversations you need to have with your team.

To make life easier for you and your co-workers, here’s a simple checklist of things you need to decide on before you begin with account-based marketing.

Every B2B brand, new or old, knows they need to market themselves. It’s just a matter of how. The marketing of the past emphasized sales-y ad spots on television, radio and print; cold calls; direct mail; billboards—your standard outbound marketing. The marketing of today is a different beast. Inbound marketing has proven to be very successful at attracting leads and prospects to your business by drawing them inwards. To do that, here is a list of five B2B inbound marketing techniques your company can utilize.

How much money does your business make thanks to your content marketing program? No idea? You're not alone.

Tying content marketing efforts to profit is a complicated task—and it's not getting any simpler. Customer journeys are increasingly non-linear: our leads hit many different marketing touch points, often out of "order," producing multiple sets of metrics to analyze. As a result, the amount of data at our fingertips becomes overwhelming, even distracting.

As CB/I Digital COO Mike Le recent pointed out, it’s easy to get tied up in the vanity metrics of each channel and lose sight of actual conversions. We've all been there (as we'll get into shortly). To avoid data distraction, we'd like to resurface an oldie but goodie practice: look at the big picture.

The way we see it, there's one simple equation for understanding true ROI: the total amount of money invested in your content marketing versus the total value of the generated leads. Let's go back to math class for a second and build out this equation.

Email. The great connector and distractor. There are seemingly no standards for how we email one another, despite it being one of the internet's oldest protocols. (If you've ever gotten an email with the entire message in the subject line, you know what I mean. No subject line at all is better, IMO.) Checking our inboxes has become a mildly suspenseful and blatantly addictive part of our lives.

When I first set up my BlueWing address, I relished having a fresh inbox. I had some space to think about how email enables and disables my day-to-day productivity—and I came to two conclusions.

First of all, improving my ability to resist checking email every 10 minutes is crucial, so I can stay focused on more thoughtful work. Secondly, I've accepted that I'm going to have my inbox tab open all day, so I might as well make the time I spend there as efficient and meaningful as possible. In attempting to optimize my relationship with email, I researched the most useful Gmail plugins on the market, many of which I use in my own inbox. Take a look below.

Savvy marketers embrace platforms that claim attention, not just hype. Snapchat has long been in the upper echelons of hype-generators, from its days as the naughty network for short-lived sexts to its infamous rejection of $3 billion dollars from Facebook. But ever since declining that buyout, Snapchat has matched its bad-boy buzz with savvy product tweaks, clever brand promotion, and innovative ad formats. Users and advertisers have followed in droves.

Still, myths abound about Snapchat, its user base, its best practices, and its utility for marketers. This is understandable. More than any other social app, Snapchat was built for digital natives; it takes time to master the platform’s nuances, and its leadership hasn’t shown themselves eager to sacrifice user experience for the sake of raking in money (though the winds of change have begun to blow).

We will not argue today that all brands belong on Snapchat. However! We do believe that all brands should at least consider it. To understand why, let’s rebuke some of the more resilient untruths about Snapchat.