Having immersed myself in Twitter for a few days now, I’m finally beginnng to distinguish between the good, the bad and the downright ugly when it comes to using Twitter for business.  If you’d rather not learn the hard way (as I did) here are 50 great tips from social media strategist Chris Brogan...

Since the release of Alchemy Worx’ subject line study in June, there’s been a lot of buzz in the email industry about subject line length. I won’t go into the details of the different discussions, because at the end of it all… there’s no real answer as to how long or short your subject line should be! The only real answer is… to keep testing.

Almost all of the major email programs have “Images Off” as the default setting. So when designing your emails, be sure to keep that in mind. Your email should look decent (and more importantly, your message should still get through!) even when images are blocked.

Holidays are great opportunities to get your brand and product offers out there, but it might be good to note that any marketer worth his/her salt already knows this… and probably takes full advantage. This means lots of competition — and a heck of a crowd in consumers’ mailboxes. Here are a few tips to set your holiday marketing campaigns apart.

Marketing Sherpa recently released a new chart showing that transactional emails (shipping notices, receipts and confirmations, etc) are opened far more regularly than newsletters and other email communications. If you aren’t using your transactional emails to upsell or cross-sell, you may be missing out on an excellent opportunity.

Return Path recently conducted a new "Subscriber Experiences"study, subscribing to and studying email programs of 61 top-brand companies from the US. The findings were surprising, to say the least.

Successful email marketing doesn't have to be expensive or stressful.  There are a LOT of do-it-yourself Email Service Providers you can make use of for an extremely reasonable price (about $15 a month) - all of which are easy to use, and can guarantee great delivery rates and list management capabilities.

Here's a rundown on 3 of my favorites so far:  Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and MailChimp.

Ok, so maybe you're not a Spam Artist after all, but it's possible your emails fall under a new (slightly less repulsive, but still not quite desirable) category - BACN.

Just discovered that you've been spamming? Here's a list of 5 things you can do - right this minute - to get started on the road to improving your email situation. 

Surprisingly, even legitimate marketers from reputable companies can be guilty of sending SPAM (unsolicited commercial email). I should know - because I receive lots of it!!!

Are YOU a Spammer? Take this quick test to find out....