Readership engagement is the crucial metric for any great blog, and to be improved, it must be measured. In a recent survey, all top executives agreed that data-driven marketing, known as engagement marketing, is becoming a leading force in marketing. Without engagement, you can't expect a relationship with your readers, and in the modern era of marketing, without a relationship, those readers are unlikely to do what you ask or buy what you're selling. But it's not always your blog that's at fault, but rather your strategy. 

You have a great product but struggling to convert your prospects into leads? Chances are your landing pages are not set up properly. There are many components to the success of this deceptively simple-looking webpage, but the three fundamental blunders that can ruin your efforts occur before you even set it up.

I can still vividly remember reciting the Navy’s Leadership Principles by memory while my squad leader was inches from my face during freshmen orientation for the Navy ROTC program at the University of Washington. Though I can no longer recite them from memory, the Navy's 11 Leadership Principles have stuck with me, giving me guidance well into my life as an entrepreneur:

“Were you lying when you said you cared about your employees?” In a powerful talk to the crowd at SXSW, Dan Price of Gravity Payments spoke in detail about whether or not money defines success. Price made headlines recently when he cut his million-dollar paycheck and set a $70,000 minimum wage at Gravity Payments. His speech helped bring clarity to the age-old question “Does Money Define Success,” and it offered up some tips on how entrepreneurs can apply his methods.

With the simultaneous drop in the cost of starting up a company and the explosion of online funding platforms, it may seem that you could just tweet out your startup’s URL and have millions of people send enough money to finance you all the way to profitability.

"Silicon Valley's Reality: The party is over" – CNBC

So, you just put together a great new article, polished the last few pixels on your infographic, or spliced together the perfect viral video - now what? Panelists P Kim Bui, Ashley Codian, Justin Ellis, and Versha Sharma spoke to a packed room at SXSW about the ways in which their companies create and distribute content on social media.

Reporting from my local Kenya, I've always been interested in film and performing arts - all as a way of making incredible content and telling profound stories that really resonate with my viewers. What better way, then, to learn about film than alongside the brightest folks in the industry? There might be one better: having everything that could go wrong, go wrong. The firsthand experience of working under pressure, with all the blocks tumbling but the need to keep the house standing, left me with important lessons about Kenya's growing business of media. Here's what I've learned from working in the trenches, and learning from mentors like Dorothy Ghettuba in Startup Grind Nairobi.

By 2020, 60% of the UK workforce will be working independently. And in the next twelve months, nearly 70 percent of organizations are expected to hire more contingent workers, according to a recent study.

What comes to your mind when someone mentions Google? If you're powering through your inbox, it would be GMail. Or might you think of YouTube? Or could you think of content?

SXSW's economic impact on the local Austin economy is staggering: the organization, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, last reported that the direct and indirect impact of the conference in 2014 was estimated to be $317.2 million.

Since founding Cervin Ventures an investor, Preetish Nijhawan has taken all the lessons learned from his wins and failures as co-founder of Akamai and Ivita Corporation to mentor the best founders in the world. His sweet spot is with early stage B2B software companies raising $1MM to $2MM, and in January, he brought these hard-earned insights to the Startup Grind Fremont audience.