One year ago, just after Christmas and before New Year I remember the relief for the holidays and the big anxiety for the vacations after an exhausting year. 4 months later, I had the chance to join Wings4U. After 6 years working for the same company, it wasn't an easy decision for me, that’s for sure. As if that wasn’t out of my comfort zone enough, I would be working remotely! What did that even mean? Come on! I didn’t believe there could be a company without any offices - was this a joke?

Remote working arrangements are becoming more common and the question of productivity is perhaps discussed more frequently than ever. Does a flexible and independent work structure boost or harm worker productivity? Research shows that remote workers are happier, feel more valued and ‘91% of them say they get more work done’ this way. However, this doesn’t mean that remote workers don’t face any productivity hurdles. Feeling isolated, tendency to work from your bed or the many distractions one can face in their home environment, to name a few.

The end of the year is always a good time for various summaries. And that's what we did! We looked behind and chose most viewed posts about inbound marketing published on our blog in 2016. Here we go! 

If you were following #INBOUND16 on Twitter, you might think it was, as Ali Wong described it, “a rave for nerds”. No one would blame you. The Inbound 2016 conference in Boston had all the big names - Serena Williams, Reshma Saujani, Alec Baldwin, Trevor Noah, Ali Wong, Anna Kendrick and more. That was just the rave part. Obviously, the nerd part was a whole other brain party altogether.

Why this role, and why Wings4U?

I used to be in constant search of more challenging and remote types of work because I love to travel, have so many personal plans and want a location-independent career. When I learned about Wings4U and their high profile clients, I was excited and curious as to what they do and how they manage global marketing programs and a worldwide team of experts. My first weeks were awesome - I immediately felt part of the team. You can see how passionate everyone is about their craft and how they nurture the #workanywhere culture. With my role as production manager for the APAC region, I just can’t wait to be part of all the milestones, success and fun here.

In HubSpot’s survey, 73% of companies listed inbound as a primary approach to marketing, but is inbound really the best choice for every company? Wings4U has developed the STASIS check as a quick way to determine if inbound marketing is right for your business by considering six critical factors.

Is there a saying such as 'Creating the video is only half of the work, the other half is publishing and promoting it?’ If not, we’ve just said it, because the channels you decide to post on and how you distribute your video is just as important as producing a great piece of content. There is so much content in the digital space nowadays; the struggle is no longer to publish the next good one, but is rather in making it heard and putting it in front of your target audience.

Content marketing strategies have evolved rapidly over the past years, and there is no question that we have stepped into the era of video as of 2016. Video is the most recent superstar among digital marketers and is expected to dominate this field in the near future according to industry experts and studies. While Syndacast expects 74% of all Internet traffic in 2017 to be from video, Cisco adds to this with a forecast that it will increase to 80% by 2019.

Marketers are well aware of the power of telling stories; however, it may seem tricky when it comes to creating videos for B2B brands. There is often a misguided perception that B2B products or services are not as entertaining or attractive as those of B2C; yet, there is often more to tell your audience for the former. 

Back in March I made what was going be the biggest decision of my year when I took a position at Wings4U, a company with remote working at its core. Before that, I was working at an advertising agency, doing crazy hours and never seeing daylight. I was having an existential crisis roughly every two months! “What am I doing with my life?” I asked myself, “is this worth all the time I’m spending here?” I wondered when something cool and adventurous would happen. I didn’t know what life had in store.