When T.S. Eliot penned “The Waste Land” in 1922, he was working in the foreign transactions department at Lloyd's bank. And while Eliot is well-known as the writer of that famous line decrying April, what is less known is that he was good at his day job. Perhaps “April is the cruellest month” is a figure of speech written by a young banker who understood the anxieties of fiscal year end?

With that musing in mind, and knowing that things are busy at this time of year, here is round up of articles you might have missed: 

5 Tips for Working with Graphic Designers

Jessie Ford's article on how to best work with a graphic designer is a great checklist for marketers and anyone hiring or working with designers. My favourite point is to avoid instructions like “make it pop” or “surprise me.”

5 Blog Redesign Mistakes That Kill SEO

Last year I wrote this post for WordStream: A Steady Stream of Search Marketing Smarts and several clients have recently asked SEO questions related to blog re-designs or website re-designs in general. So, I point you in the direction of this article.

7 Lessons from the World's Most Captivating Presenters

Usually these types of articles are written just to get links and shares on social media, but this one is actually quite a good round-up of presentation tactics. No. 1 is to start with paper not powerpoint in order to figure out the story you are trying to tell first before getting into the technology and being distracted formatting bullet points.

2013 Technorati Digital Influence Report (PDF)

Two key findings in this year's report are that Social Scoring is losing traction (as in brands are less concerned with follower numbers when seeking influencers) and blogs are still the way to reach influencers and their communities (i.e., blogger outreach vs. a brand's own social media page is a greater influencer of purchase decisions).

1-Minute Marketing Tip on Creating Facebook Targeted Ad Campaigns

In case you missed this tip from Mar 5, here's the summary: Facebook ads offer great opportunities to highly target specific audience groups. But that means your audience is could be seeing your same ad over and over again. This tip offers a suggestion for how to keep people's interest and increase engagement.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.