In today's digitally driven world, if I can't find you as a brand online, you pretty much don't exist. 

Even if I spot your store on the street, I'll probably check out your website and your social profiles to vet you. 

That's the world we live in today and if you are not highly visible online, you won't make it far. This is why SEO (or search engine optimisation) is so important.

Especially for small business owners, SEO is not only a buzzword but also a term whose meaning is easy to understand but hard to implement. I would add PR professionals to this group as well because not many of them have expanded their expertise to SEO even though SEO today is primarily driven by relevant, quality content - and content is what PR pros do best.

At HubSpot, we preach a lot about topic clusters. But as a beginner in SEO, before you get to topic clusters, you really need to understand the basics of SEO.

Here's where a fantastic infographic from SEO Jury comes into play. (I suggest studying it yourself or giving it to your new hires too.)

16 SEO FAQs You Need to Understand [Infographic]

This is a guest post by Georgi Todorov. 

Marketers are already well-versed when it comes to working with celebrity influencers. After all, who wouldn’t want Kim Kardashian to show their product in one of her photos?

But the truth is, working with traditional influencers is often cost-prohibitive and inefficient, and it’s simply out of reach for many smaller businesses. That’s where micro-influencers come in – those slightly less famous people who still have a huge amount of influence (and followers) in their niche.

Defining micro-influencers as those with under 30,000 followers, Adweek explains that they deliver a 60% higher engagement rate and are 6.7x more cost effective. Convince & Convert, meanwhile, reminds us that micro-influencers also have more targeted audiences, which allows them to aim for relevance when it comes to the brands that they work with. In addition, influencer marketing is the fastest growing channel for customer acquisition.

And it really works. Let me show you one example:

Did you know that 53.3% of communication professionals have low visual communication skills? 

I learned this from the latest European Communication Monitor 2017 which is a yearly survey that looks at trends and challenges in the communication industry. This year, over 3,300 professionals from 50 European countries took part in the research. 

Here's a quick video of some of the key findings: 

 I went through the research slides and this fantastic summary to put together my six key themes: 

Six Key Themes in Communication for 2017 and Beyond

A while ago, I discovered a very interesting blog that represents everything in sketches. (Check it out here.)

What impressed me the most was the author's (or maybe I should say the artist's) work on leadership. 

Being such visual creatures, content as images grabs us a lot more than just simple text. I randomly found one of those sketches on Pinterest and directly went to the blog where I probably spent about an hour browsing the leadership posts and picking sketches to share with you.

These sketches are still text but the learnings are highlighted in such a way that is much more pleasurable and almost addictive to consume. 

I haven't seen sketches being used much by marketers but I'm beginning to think that they can play a role outside of the typical photography or infographics that we're all so used to. 

Let me take you on a leadership journey in sketches and you can decide for yourself if you could repurpose the idea in your marketing efforts. 

Did you know that China and Vietnam hold the world's largest prisons for journalists and bloggers?

I came across The 2017 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders and found the study fascinating. It shows you how different countries and regions are in terms of how the media functions by measuring the level of pluralism, media independence, and respect for the safety and freedom of journalists. I think when you live somewhere you just assume that things are the same in every other country which is clearly not the case. 

If you work in a global organisation, you need to be aware of cultural differences because they determine how to communicate and make decisions. And when you work in PR or communications for global clients and run global campaigns, then understanding how the media works in the countries around the world is crucial. 

The study doesn't have a particularly positive view of the world, explaining how attacks on the media have become commonplace and strongmen are on the rise where we have reached the age of post-truth, propaganda, and suppression of freedoms – especially in democracies. Some facts are frankly shocking.

Let's take a look.