Digital Summit (a.k.a. #dsum13) was so much fun this year. We met a ton of awesome folks in Atlanta, saw lots of Instagrams and tweets from people loving their Emma swag (thank you!) and generally had an awesome time. That wasn't the only fun to be had this week, though. Just take a look back at some of the best social posts...

Best practices

You've got 20-30 characters to get the mobile open
Follow these words of wisdom to make sure your blog shows up in search
Grow your Twitter audience with these 6 tips

Emma news

Every Emma template is now responsive and mobile-optimized! 
Digital Summit was so fun. Head to our Facebook page to see for yourself.

Fun finds

Some predictions about the future of email marketing
Brands are remaking priceless works of art
"The Great Catsby" – Why didn't I think of this?

Our most popular tweet of the week

And lastly, a favorite find from our own Twitter feed

It's hard to not love a cartoon about world domination. 

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Keep up with us in real time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma Email).

Being concise is already a great parameter to have in place if you’re a known rambler (like moi), but you could be missing out on business if your subject line runs on or doesn’t grab attention. Smart phones don’t have preview panes, so it’s important to use what you’ve got: a clearly identified from name that builds trust and a short subject line that does its job of getting the email opened. Put the most important information first, and be aware of truncation – A subject line like Free gas at your Mapco station for one lucky winner could display as Free gas at your Mapco station.

From my own inbox:

You had me at "happy hour" with 35 characters total.

The entire subject line of 27 characters displays on my iPhone. This also lets me know that the email makes sense for smart phone use.

This one reads Up to 74% off artisan-inspired furniture, high-style home designs, distressed decor, The Farmhouse Kitchen & more – Hello, run-on: 113 characters. Luckily, the from name for this biweekly email is consistent, so I know it isn’t spammy, but it still doesn’t grab my attention. Delete.

Next step: a split test to find which of your clear, concise subject lines is best-liked.

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Learn more about mobile email trends and get expert advice at myemma.com/mobile.

Did you know? Emails that aren't optimized for mobile may actually drive 30 percent of your readers to opt out.

How do you make sure your emails look great on screens of all sizes, automatically, and engage your readers instead of driving them away?

With Emma's responsive templates, of course! We've optimized every template in our gallery of free readymade designs (which work alongside our new drag & drop editor), so all you have to do is add your content and send.

What is responsive design? 

Put most simply, responsive design is web or email content designed to respond differently based on where (i.e. the type of device) it is being viewed. Emma uses media queries to determine which device is receiving the email and serves the appropriate template version accordingly. 

When rendering on your desktop, the templates will range about 650-700 pixels in width.  This remains true for most tablets, including iPads, as an iPad's screen dimensions are 768×1024 (landscape). For phones, we're building for the industry standard median width of 480 pixels. So whether your reader opens your email on their desktop, tablet or smart phone, they're sure to see a beautiful email campaign that fits their screen just right.

And you don't have to do anything extra for that to happen. Pretty great, huh?

What are the benefits of responsive design?

Let's take responsive design a step further. We don't just resize the templates. You'll notice that on the smaller devices your email has:

• Larger font sizes for easy reading
• Sidebars and horizontal content stacked in a single column
• A streamlined design that lets your content shine

Besides not driving three out of every ten of your subscribers to opt out, responsive emails have also been shown to increase click-through rates by 10%. And now that you have so many gorgeous mobile-optimized templates to choose from, there's no reason not to log in and send one now. Go ahead, and tell us what you think!

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Want to learn more about what went into making all of our templates responsive? Check out this interview with a couple of our product developers.

Digital Summit is this upcoming Tuesday, and we're getting ready by packing up tons of Emma goodies to bring to the masses. If you want your own little piece of Emma swag, but won't be able to meet us in Atlanta, just leave a comment here. We'd be happy to oblige!

Now that you've just added to your wardrobe, go ahead and add to your knowledge base with a look at what went down in social this past week:

Best practices

You, yes you, can use these 5 tips to boost your business on Pinterest
Social sharing can improve your email response. Go ahead and try it.
Learning about why folks unsubscribe may help you keep them from doing so
 

Emma news

Digital Summit is next week, and we'll be there speaking on mobile email design!
We're hiring in Nashville and Portland 
 

Fun finds

NPR reporters do seem to have pretty great names
A fun set of psychology behind tweeting styles
21 awesome social media facts, figures and statistics for 2013

Our most popular tweet of the week

And lastly, a favorite find from our own Twitter feed

Google Glass seems to be a hot topic in the blogosphere these days. I LOL'd at this fun little video. It's worth a watch.

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Keep up with us in real time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma Email).

If you've ever wondered how email opens are tracked, I'm going to let you in on a little email marketing trade secret:

Email opens can be tracked two ways. The most common is by downloading images in the inbox. Emma embeds an invisible image in every email that, when downloaded, pings our server and counts the email as being "opened."

If you aren't using images or they aren't displaying, but a link is clicked, Emma also counts that as an open, because the email has to be open in order for someone to click on it.

This means the process of counting opens is far from perfect. Some (probably small) portion of your recipients won't download images and won't get counted in your tally of email opens.

And there's a flip side to that: Sometimes images download automatically, like in a preview pane, and the open gets counted even if your recipient didn't really engage with your email. 

This is where Apple's iOS software gives every email marketer a boost. According to Litmus, three out of the top five email clients where mail is being opened are Apple products. Apple's iPhone takes the number one spot, with iPad and Apple Mail right behind it. Outlook and Android round out the list.

What makes this great news is that Apple iOS doesn't block email images by default the way Outlook, Android or some others clients do. So not only do your emails look great immediately upon open, but as the Apple empire grows (iPhone gained 21 million users in the past 12 months), you're likely to see a steady uptick in your email opens.

Email opens may not be a telling engagement metric, but even brief glances at your content are brand impressions, and they count for something. And understanding the iOS landscape makes you a smarter marketer.

Keep an eye out for more tips and advice about mobile engagement soon, but for now, tell us: Do you have a strategy for grabbing attention on mobile devices? We'd love to hear about it!

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Not an Emma customer? Open a free 30-day trial today! 

It's Kentucky Derby time, folks. Grab your fanciest hat, whip up your best mint julep and place your bets on any of these best practices from around the web this week. You're sure to come out a blue ribbon winner. 

Best practices

Looking to grow your list? Try these 5 tips
Keep your email habits up to date with these top trends
Email marketing second only to organic SEO for ROI

Emma news

Great news, customers! Your images are now stored in the cloud
Is your non-profit looking for email tips? Cynthia has you covered
Come work with us! We're hiring developers, designers and more

Fun finds

Nike is taking Instagram to a whole new level with its customized shoes
Find out if color really matters in marketing
Job growth is booming in Metro Nashville, the city Emma proudly calls home

Our most popular tweet of the week

And lastly, a favorite find from our own Twitter feed

We too will be at the upcoming Digital Summit, and we can't wait! Any other folks going? Give us a shout. We'd love to connect.

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Keep up with us in real time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma Email).

We made the move earlier this week in an effort to scale our ever-growing customer base and to allow for faster image downloads in the inbox.

With CloudFront CDN, the images that you use in your emails are copied to servers throughout the world so that they're retrieved "locally" and can render in your recipients' inboxes as fast as possible.

So what does this mean for you?

In making the move to the cloud, we made every effort not to interrupt our customers' existing workflow, but just in case, we pulled together a few bits of need-to-know information that just might help you:

If you use Emma's campaign editor – either the classic editor or our new drag & drop editor – the process of uploading image files to your image library or directly to your mailing is the same.

That said, this is a significant change to the Emma system, so now more than ever we recommend sending a test mailing to yourself or to a small test group to ensure your images download as expected. We've heard a few reports of images rendering just fine on web clients but not on desktop clients or mobile devices.

While we're looking into those specific cases and poised to make quick fixes to any problems that arise, the best way to avoid any image problems is to test thoroughly – check to see how your email looks in different environments before the big send-off. It's worth the extra few minutes. 

If you use your own HTML code to build your email campaigns, make sure you're hosting your own images.

We've always recommended that Upload Your Own HTML users host their own images and reference them in the code by the full image path URL, but we know that some customers are accustomed to uploading campaign images to their Emma library, copying the URL for the file path and using it in their own HTML code. While that has worked just fine in the past, it won't moving forward.

Since making this move to the cloud, the URLs for images hosted in your Emma image library are no longer accessible in your account, so it's important to explore options for hosting them locally on your own server or on a service like Dropbox or Amazon. And of course, test every email campaign before sending to your full audience. 

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Find more resources for using your own HTML code in our resource center. 

We celebrated some fun staffer moments on Instagram this week: Christine got cookies for Administrative Professionals' Day, Katie got a Twitter shoutout from a cool customer, Clint donned boxing gloves for an impromptu photo shoot, and Gus the dog accompanied Kyle to the office, where he was promptly put to work on support emails.

So what notable moments happened in the world of social this week? Here's our roundup: 

Best practices

85% of B@Bs aren't using autoresponders?! 
10 great social media tips for local businesses
Is your email subject line creative... or deceptive?

Emma news

Who's got cute glasses and integrates with SurveyMonkey?
Three cheers for Christine on Administrative Professionals' Day (and every day)
Breaking: We still love pizza

Fun finds

5 technology sounds that you may or may not miss
Have you played our Brainiac Memory Match game yet?
Hackers: Uncle Sam beckons

Our most popular tweet of the week

And lastly, a favorite find from our own Twitter feed

Not only is this a superb animated gif, but I love the takeaway about when to send (or not send) your emails. 

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Keep up with us in real time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma Email).

Have you noticed all the buzz around hashtags recently?

You're used to seeing 'em on Twitter, G+ and Instagram. They pop up on the screen when you're watching your favorite TV show (read: Shark Tank) or the commericals that air in between contestants' business pitches to the sharks. (We're still talking about Shark Tank, right?)

Vine, the latest arrival on the social media scene, now uses hashtags more prominently on its Explore page to help surface popular topics, and news broke last month that hashtags on Facebook are immiment. 

Take a look at your own social feeds. Some people – and brands – embrace hashtags, while others avoid them altogether. Whether you love them or hate them, it seems like hashtags are here to stay. And to help you make the most of them, I've outlined a few considerations for your hashtag use. 

Social tips for becoming a hashtag pro

• Don't go on a hashtag-spree, at least not on Twitter. The recommended hashtag allowance is two per tweet. 
• Search social sites to discover which relevant tags are the most popular before choosing what to use in your tweet. Content curators may be searching for popular tags, and you want your content to surface.
• Create a unique tag for special events or campaigns. Pick one that's logical and not super-long (you don't want to impede RTs), and make it public so folks at home can play along. When we launched our Brainiac Guide to Images in Email, we tagged some posts with #Brainiac. It's a great way for all of our Brainiac content to surface in one search.
• Treat different channels, you know, differently. While Twitter says to limit the number of hashtags per post to two, Instagram recommends covering all of your bases. You're allotted up to 30 tags per photo.
• Never punctuate hashtags or include spaces – you'll break the tag and look like a social amateur. If you're looking to make the tag more legible, capitalizing the first letter of each word may help. #LikeThis

Are you a #hashtag #convert, or are you hoping they'll go the way of Tamagotchi pets? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Keep up with Emma's social posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma email).

Emma is headquartered in the Nashville district known as SoBro (that's South of Broadway if you're mashup-averse). It's a growing hub for technology companies and startups, and we get together with our neighbors from time to time for drinks, snacks, socializing and general merriment. What other social happenings went down this week? Here's a roundup from our Twitter and Facebook feeds: 

Best practices

Don't forget these 5 simple tips for getting images in email right
13 ways to be Google-friendly
3 common – but totally avoidable – social media marketing mistakes

Emma news

Emma now integrates with SurveyMonkey!
Who's the top email service provider? (It's us, and we're flattered.)
Pssst...Some of our best email tips ever are packed into this NAMA blog post

Fun finds

A Venn diagram of the Nashville tech community
Meet the worst startup ever
6 cross-platform hashtag marketing campaigns

Our most popular tweet of the week

And lastly, a favorite find from our own Twitter feed

This post was so compelling, I downloaded the app right away. Crowdsourcing city images makes weather fun. Do you have the app? Tell me what you think!

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Keep up with us in real time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine (we're Emma Email).