Top 10 Tech Stories, Linking Sales and Marketing, Negotiating Freelance Rates

The Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Top 10 Technology News in 2012

AdWeek highlights 10 of the biggest stories in technology this past year.

The list includes Facebook when it rolled out Timeline, along with the survey that found women trust Pinterest more than Facebook. Spotify gained notoriety among consumers online, and style-conscious retailers struck gold on Pinterest.

Combining Sales and Marketing Efforts

Content Marketing Institute’s Carla Johnson writes about the link between sales and content marketing. Marketers need to think like sales people and understand that content can fail when it doesn’t hit the target with consumers.

“It’s not the format. It’s not the volume,” she says. “It’s the ability to recognize what content’s truly relevant for a sales team and then understand how to generate it.”

Sales people need to be more like marketers and understand their audiences. There should be open communication in companies between sales and marketing teams to make sure that the both sides are contributing to further profits.

Negotiating Freelance Writing Rates

Business2Community’s Nancy Perkins writes about how freelance bloggers can negotiate what they get paid.

She says writers need to figure out what they want to make and have a target range for income. Editors need to also see what writers are worth in terms of labor and financial value.

Writers should aim high and then negotiate from there, and always have a win-win mindset: “Negotiation is about building relationships. It’s not about manipulating people or gaining the upper hand at the expense of others. Keep negotiating until both sides are satisfied.”

Simplifying a Business’ Website

ClickZ’s Sarah Negugogor writes about what it takes to make a website simple and well-functioning.

“Studies have shown that when consumers are presented with too many choices in products, they tend to freeze and choose nothing,” she says. “A similar thing can happen when presented with too many choices on a website. If a user can’t quickly pick out which area they ought to focus on and which link to follow, they may abandon the site altogether.”

To avoid a bloated website, she suggests figuring out its purpose, picking out the absolutely essential content, and trying to understand what users want out of it.

Content Should Answer “Why?”

Post Crescent reports on how content marketers should be answering the question “why?” in all of their campaigns.

They need to provide consumers with value and answer “why” they should be downloading the companies’ materials and tuning into their content. And, customers should be able to relate to content no matter what their demographic.

The Facebook Benchmarks of 2012

According to Mashable, in 2012, Facebook had its biggest year in terms of accomplishments and notable news.

On Oct. 4, the website boasted more than one billion active users around the wold, and in the spring, it purchased Instagram for $730 million in stock and cash. The IPO was introduced for Facebook in May for $42 but has since dropped to $25. During the election week, it provided voters with polling locations.

Newspapers For Sale in 2013

Paid Content reports that in 2013, the LA Times and Chicago Tribune will be up for sale. News expert Ken Doctor says that regulators may be relaxing cross-ownership laws as more newspapers go up for sale.

“Today, though, most of the reporting power, much of the brand power, and the political power still resides in big companies and their leadership,” he says. “We may well get our strongest display of that early in 2013: In Washington, the FCC cross-ownership debate may move to center stage in January.”