30 Articles Marketers Must Read Before the End of 2013

Creating content only one head of the two-headed beast that has to be tamed with content marketing. The other guy is curating content that your customers, prospects, readers, subscribers want to read has to be wrangled in some fashion as well.

As the end of 2013 approaches, we’re all preparing for the start of 2014. So in preparation, we’ve created this huge list of articles to read before you ring in a new marketing year. We’ve broken it down by the general topic and gave you a few BONEuses at the bottom…

30 Articles Marketers Must Read Before the End of 2013

Real-Time Marketing

1. Real-Time Marketing Gone Wild by Andrew Frank from Gartner

2. #SocialShakeUp Recap: The Reality of Real-Time Marketing by Martin Jones

3. The Real-Time Marketing Drumbeat Gets Louder, as Agencies, Brands Sign On by eMarketer

4. Real-Time Marketing Smarts: Companies Killing It with Off-the-Cuff Content by Miranda Miller from TopRank

5. How Brands Can Turn Real-Time Marketing Moments Into Something More Lasting by Riley Gibson from Fast Co.Create

SEO and Traffic

6. Using Analytics Data to Improve Your Traffic Generation by Jason Acidre from Kaiser the Sage

7. The Most Actionable SEO Tips Ever by Steve from Web Gnomes

8. SEO & Social Media Alignment by Warren Lee from Search Engine Land

9. 6 Major Google Changes Reveal the Future of SEO by Eric Enge from Search Engine Watch

10. Are You Still Playing Russian Roulette with Google? by Demian Farnworth from CopyBlogger

Social

11. Revealing A24’s Mystery Social Media Genius and All Her Secrets by Joe Lazauskas from Contently

12. Find Which Social Media Links Perform Best in Google Analytics with UTM Parameters by Kristi Hines from KISSmetrics

13. 5 Unique Social Media and Blogging Tips that Helped Us Reach $1 Million in Revenue by Leo Widrich from Michael Hyatt’s Blog

14. Brands Expected to Respond Within an Hour on Twitter by Jessica Lee from Search Engine Watch

15. The Surprising History of Twitter’s Hashtag and 4 Ways to Get the Most Out of Them by Belle Beth Cooper from Buffer

Content Marketing

16. 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, Trends by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute

17. Email 101: Opens, Clicks, Conversions by Des Traynor from Intercom

18. 11 Content Marketing Lessons Learned from 20 of the Top 100 Blogs by Neil Patel from QuickSprout

19. Growth Hack: Warm-Up Your Leads Before You Email Them by Lincoln Murphy from Sixteen Ventures

20. Email List Growth: Marketers Rank Their Most Popular — and Effective — Tactics by MarketingCharts

Customer Centric and Growth

21. Customer Service, The Next Generation: 8 Megatrends Evolving Customer Service by Tricia Morris from Parature

22. How to Handle 8 Challenging Customer Service Scenarios by Help Scout

23. Lessons in Customer Service from the World’s Most Beloved Companies by Help Scout

24. In The Early Days, You Won’t Have Enough Customers. But Your Mini-Brand Will Come to Your Rescue by Jason Lemkin from Saastr

25. How to Grow: 21 Tactics to Acquire Customers by Andrew Dumont from Moz

Advertising

26. The First Ever Banner Ad (& How it Performs Today) by Dan Barker

27. 5 Things You Must Do Before Jumping Into Paid Advertising by Garrett Moon from KISSmetrics

28. A Look at Ads on Instagram by Instagram

29. Success in Native Advertising Hinges on Preserving Best Practices by Pam Horan from Adweek

30. How Marketers Are Using Paid Social Media New Research by Patricia Redsicker from Social Media Examiner

TrackMaven Bonuses:

31. Passion Marketing: 4 Ways to Keep Your Soul in a Data-Driven World by Allen Gannett

32. Social Ads: 7 Winning Strategies for LinkedIn Sponsored Updates by Sabel Harris

33. Design Tips for Non-Designers: Visual Hierarchy by Laura McGuigan

34. 4 Disadvantages of Just Using Social Listening in Your Brand Strategy by Trevor Mills

35. 3 of the Most Useful Tools to Generate Demand with Integrity by Tripp Brockway

Ready for 2014? Let us know what you think about these articles or if you have more to add. Give me a holler @sabelharris or Maven at @TrackMaven.