Recent Blog Posts

A Historical Evolution of Social Media Marketing: Platforms, Content, and Influencers

Social media has transformed how people connect, share, and stay informed. From the early days of Six Degrees and Friendster to today’s dominant platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, each shift has reshaped our digital lives. This timeline highlights the biggest platform launches, viral growth milestones, major acquisitions, and shutdowns that tell the story of social media’s rapid evolution. It is a resource for creators, marketers, and curious minds to reflect on where we have been and where the future may lead. 2025 March – TikTok announces photo-sharing app “TikTok Notes,” aiming to rival Instagram. January – Meta launches ad-free

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Instagram Analytics: Reels vs. Posts Performance Over Time

I’ll admit it. I was late to the Instagram party. I didn’t even start my @MarketingWithDave account until March 2025. Since then, I’ve posted every Tuesday and Thursday, sticking to a consistent rhythm. I focused only on regular posts until the end of May, when my wife (a legit micro-influencer who actually knows what she’s doing) said, “You need to be doing Reels.” She was right. Even with just a sliver of data, it’s clear: Reels are outperforming regular posts, and quickly. In March and April, I didn’t post a single Reel. But in May, after switching gears, my Reels

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What’s Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI)

Did you know LinkedIn provides a free Social Selling Index (SSI) to help you measure your effectiveness on the platform? Updated daily, your SSI score evaluates how well you’re leveraging LinkedIn across four key areas: Your SSI score ranges from 0 to 100, and a score of 70 or higher is considered strong. In fact, LinkedIn reports that top social sellers tend to score above 75, significantly outperforming those with lower scores in terms of sales success and engagement. Additionally, your SSI dashboard allows you to compare your score to others in your industry and network, providing useful benchmarks. Here’s

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What I Learned Posting on LinkedIn Every Day for a Month

I set a simple goal to post on LinkedIn every business day in January—no expectations, just trying to share valuable digital marketing insights with every post. Now that January’s wrapped up, here’s how it went: Key Metrics: Insight #1: Topics and Hashtags Matter Most While I didn’t expect hockey stick growth for any metric, I did expect impressions to gradually increase over time, but the data told a different story. Impressions fluctuated based on the popularity of individual posts rather than building momentum. The hashtags used and post relevance seemed to be the real game-changers. Insight #2: Don’t Forget the

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LinkedIn 2024 Posts

Here are the posts I made during 2024 on my LinkedIn profile that I thought were worth noting for those interested. Is email marketing worth the investment? Martech conference session called “Beyond genAI: There’s more than one kind of artificial intelligence” ObservePoint EDGE 2024 Still looking for a job and utilizing customer data Poll: Do you believe that 70-80% of open positions are NOT publicly posted? The word “hate” and two-factor authentication

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Pinterest…are you listening

As of this writing, it looks like males are only accounting for 15% of users. I don’t think there is another primary social media platform that is so heavily slanted to one gender. Perhaps I am more prone than most to use Pinterest since I have three girls and try to keep up on their world. Wait…it’s time to BeReal. Sorry, where was I? Along with Disney princesses, Taylor Swift, and now Shein, I have my digital pulse on the female teenager. Every social media platform is gamified in some way to motivate you to get more of something. Reminds

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